#human lone survivor

[phykoha]

I guess this counts as a sneak peek or.. spoilers?? idk hfjgsgfhdf but uh yeah

[null-entity]

Stranger....

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[potatochip-oc-dump]

I'm working on ref sheets for all the characters I don't draw too often :] Here's Rosie!!

[frustrationinexcelsis]

Thinking about the vibes of Minecraft's antagonist groups...

Illagers are evil, but human evil. They're a cult in distant strongholds, a vendetta against a severed kin, creatures trapped in cages for who knows what ends. They're tribalism, pride, desire overstepping morality, lust for power, lust for knowledge, lust for wealth. They're the grumbling soldier, the scowling hatchet-man, the monologuing mastermind, the sorcerer sneering from his throne.

Undead are evil, inhuman evil. They are mindless, relentless, merciless. There is no thought or conscience behind those empty eyes, just the drive to make life end. They are death, and death follows with them. They are the groaning horde of corpses, the keening spirit, the grim avatar of death.

Piglins are the barbarians, a hard people from a hard land. They are not your friends, but neither are they inherently your foe. They are hardened survivors, huddling in ruins of a past glory or scraping by a living in the wilds, defending their land from those coming from outside. Their desire is the companionship of the tribe, the sweet smell of meat after a hunt, and the lovely gleam of gold. They are the barbarian chief, the cunning trapper in the wild, the berserker red with glory.

Endermen are alien. They seek no goals we can perceive, wander lonely in the night on what might be aeons-spanning missions or the passing whims of chance. They follow fair rules, but their rules are alien. They will pass you by and seek no harm, but will not suffer eyes on them as they do their work. They are the half-seen monster in the night, the quiet figure by your window, the fey people of the otherworld.

[heartfullofleeches]

Android Reader aboard a space station tasked with raising the eggs found by the human crew during exploration.

How delightful- As the assistance assigned with the continous mission of maintaining their human compassion heath and stability, Reader knows all about the importance of life and the sacrifices it takes. Compassionate, free spirited android Reader built with those personality traits in mind. Those aboard the station are not only their crewmates, but their dear friends and family - Even though the feeling isn't mutual with all.

Reader is elated when they are given the new objective to care for the strange organisms brought to them. They aren't vocal with their emotions, but they grow increasingly lonely whenever their teammates are busy. Whereas scientists see the eggs as the next step in unlocking the secrets the universe hides, Reader sees a chance to grown their family.

Reader tends to the eggs as any human caretaker would for their young. The eggs are quite larger than any they've seen before- It took half the crew to carry all five of them separately into the lab. Their size is the last of the androids concerns. They care for them all the same- Regulating their body temperature to a degree suitable for most budding lifeforms on earth, sing to them when no one else is around to hear.

At the same time Reader watches over the eggs, scientists on board diligently preform tests to better understand what they've obtained. Further evaluation of the ship they extract these flesh sacks from reveal that these are no eggs.

They're pods.

Impenetrable walls of tissue developed from mucus secreted by an ancient alien race in order to protect themselves as a final effort. Powerful warriors who in their centuries long hibernations reawaken to the tender melody of Reader's lullabies and crown the android as their new ruler.

Following their rampage, survivors who lived to warn earth of the discovery recount salvation in the form of a distant hum - The pacifier to the beasts' relentless bloodlust.

"Shhh..... Rest now. I know their screams are too loud for your sensitive ears, but it's okay... I'm here for you.. All of you."

[urfavoritemistake]

The missing Journal 3 pages in TBOB are so interesting to me in further contextualizing Ford's mindset of shame regarding Bill. We'd gotten a snippet of it in the original J3 release:

But Bill shows us the less pragmatic motivations behind his actions, the mushy feely stuff he was too embarrassed to properly journal, putting certain series events into new context. Particularly this scene where after a whole episode of dancing around it, he finally opens up to Dipper about the nature of their relationship:

"Bill wasn't always my enemy, Dipper. I used to think he was my friend, long long ago..."

But does he really tell the full truth here? The cat's out of the bag, Dipper knows they had a deal, there's no reason not to tell everything. But Ford proceeds to explain his reasoning for summoning Bill as a purely practical, scientifically-driven one.

"I had hit a roadblock on my investigation of Gravity Falls. Until I found some mysterious writing in a cave. Ancient incantations about a being with answers. It warned me not to read them, but I was desperate."

Desperate...for what? Ford would have us believe it was for the sake of knowledge. Yet TBOB shows us that this is the entry immediately preceding his and Bill's first meeting.

Ford isn't some unfeeling robot powered solely by knowledge, he has human needs. He was lonely, lonely enough to summon a demon for companionship. A companionship so intimate, he describes his meeting Bill as the best day of his life, and laments the periods of absence from him.

That desire for intimacy is ultimately what drove him, and even with all his dirty laundry laid out he can't admit that part to Dipper. Maybe he doesn't even realize it himself, at least not until the post-Weirdmaggedon sections of TBOB:

Under the shame of unleashing Bill Cipher's destruction on the world, there's a much deeper shame: that Stanford Pines is not a lone-wolf, unfeeling sci-fi hero, but a fallible human being, capable of illogical sentimentality and longing for approval and (in)human connection. The exact nature of this sentimentality and longing is left to interpretation, but the efforts he goes to to conceal it make me lean towards something beyond platonic. Alex Hirsch's own words might support this:

"I think he is deeply, deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships. He doesn't have friendships, he doesn't have romantic relationships, he is someone trapped in a tower of his own mind and estranged. Ford shows none of that. He has sublimated himself romantically so, so deeply. (…) I really thought of Ford kind of like Tesla in that realm.”

TL;DR Ford is up in his feelings about Bill and repressing hard. This is also eerily reminiscent of the self-blame abuse survivors engage in, the hesitance to tell others, and shame over persisting feelings for their abuser.

[sp4ceboo]

As Selfish as Love: Merman!Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

genre: merfolk au, fantasy au, merman!bakugou x witch!reader, strangers to lovers, bakugou x f!reader, smut and angst and fluff

summary: in a world infested with purgers of magic, neither a clandestine witch nor a lone merman can remain safe for long.

tw: 18+, smut (afab reader, p in v, bkg has a merman cock, marking + biting, oral f receiving, fingering, crying during sex but not like you think, unprotected sex, creampie), violence, blood, death, vivid gore, grief, reader treated as a tool by evil ppl, random worldbuilding, questionable medical knowledge, kinda plot heavy, other stuff i don't remember

wc: 19.8k

For years, all you’ve known is darkness.

Chained by the wrist to a ring in the wall, swaddled and asphyxiating in the blackness of the brig - it is there where your closest companion has become the dark. It is the absence of light: not only because they do not deem you human enough to spare lamp oil on you, but because the kiss of the sun has been reduced to a foreign concept, a distant, syrupy memory.

Every morning when that door opens, letting light leak in and crawl painfully between the cracks of the roughly hewn floorboards like an intruder, you repeat your name back to yourself, remind yourself who you are - a witch, a survivor, a person at the end of their tether but that all the same does what they can to keep the shadows at bay.

For the darkness is not just the absence of light: it is the absence of hope, and if you let it take you, your very substance will dissolve and you will sink beneath obsidian waves and melt away without a sound. They will have won.

This is something you will not allow.

White knuckled, you hold onto memories of the past the way a drowning man clings to driftwood. They swirl in the currents of your mind, fickle things. Sometimes they are so tangible you can feel the grass beneath your feet and the bracing wind of the highlands on your face even in the still, humid air of the brig, sometimes they eddy away before you can catch a glimpse.

You were barely a woman when they caught you, when they tore you out from where you’d been rooted to the earth, ripping through the stitches that held your life together. You were young, and you were naive and ignorant. This would not have happened if I had been as I am now, you think, but as you are now is shackled in the belly of a ship built for the single purpose of hunting merfolk.

They hunt to purge. Their so-called divine has commanded the eradication of magic, and so that is what each and every child is trained for from birth. The land has been rife with their conquest for centuries, making witches such as your kind unheard of, yet the sea for all its worth has lain mostly untouched until recently.

You are jealous of the merfolk. The magic must come easily to them, because they have not had to suppress it out of fear - it seethes in their blood, potent as an ocean storm, imbued within their essences as salt is in seawater. For this, they are feared, and for this, the hunters are more so hellbent on their extermination.

Over your years spent in the hull’s constant night you’ve learnt that your captors are the most celebrated hunters of their time, held above everything but their leader and their divine. They are revered among their people, and that is why they are allowed to chain a witch in their brig and force her to heal wounds sustained from hunting the undeserving - because they are strong enough and honourable enough to not be corrupted by your magic.

There is nothing honourable about the way they treat you.

Though you are human as they are, you are lower than an animal to them. They have no care for your limits - oftentimes, you are pushed to heal and heal and heal until you are exhausted, and yet you refuse to succumb when the darkness calls, because each time you meet their eyes, without fail, you see, buried deep within, is fear.

They fear what is unknown, what is not under their control, and every time you refuse to break when they beat you just for entertainment, every time they push you almost to death yet you survive, you wrest back an inch of control. You are needed, and that is something you will use one day, when the time is right. For now, you collect those sparks of fear in their eyes and let it feed the fire nestled within your soul that fends off the growing dark.

It is a day like any of the other days. Stirring in your fraying blankets, you wake up to the sound of the crew’s strident voices, and as it is sometimes, you almost forget that they are cruel and stained by their own wrong doings because for now, there is no talk of blood shed, just breakfast. You hate that they can seem so normal with so many innocent lives on their hands.

The day very quickly progresses into the type you have come to dread.

They neglect to bring you your daily portion of bread and water, nor the echinacea you had asked for more of, and it can only mean one thing - a hunt is on. Already, you can feel the unruly lurch of the ship as it skims over the waves, picking up speed. The crew’s voices become louder, crowing and eager, and you despise them so deeply your heart twists and becomes an ugly thing in your chest.

Almost imperceptible, you can hear the rattle and hiss of ropes as they ready their harpoons. This part is the worst, where the darkness closes in so near that you can feel its cold touch brush up your arms and its breath ghosting over your face. Sometimes you hear the anguished cries of the merfolk, sometimes the whoops and victory cries of the crew are loud enough to drown it out. You don’t know which is worse.

After will come the wounded, grinning still and soaked in blood of two kinds - theirs and their victims. You are always numb to it by then, turning a blind eye to the crimson dipped trophies they grip in dirty hands: lopped off fins and strips of scales, sometimes small enough to be a child’s.

How they can butcher beings as beautiful as the merfolk and think it the right thing to do, you do not know.

It makes you sick to your stomach, that somehow you have become their accomplice, stitching their wounds with your magic, saving their lives so they can kill again. You vow that one day, you will strike back, but what good can you do now, trapped in the bowels of a boat that was designed as a vessel for murder?

You have to try. You have to survive, if just to try. You are yet to come up with a method for escaping past what you have already attempted, but if you do not, more lives will be lost, more bloodshed that you had inadvertently aided. Right now, on deck, the patterns for it to happen all over again are falling into place.

You’re sure that this time will be no different.

And so you wait for the injured to come, almost defeated if not for the hard, bright little ball of hate settled in your throat. You wait, and you wait, listening to the strange thumping above that you can’t decipher, and still they don’t bring you their wounded. Neither comes their usual sickening shouts of triumph - you wonder if the merfolk managed to escape. You hope desperately that they did.

Listless, you turn your head as footsteps approach. There are more than normal. You can’t count exactly - five, maybe six, and they all walk with a strange irregular gait as they approach the brig.

I hope the merfolk put up a magnificent fight, you think as the key scrapes in the lock. I hope that taught them; you know it never does. The more damage the merfolk do while they fight for the lives of their mates and children, the more they are damned as unnatural and beastly and deserving of the fates that are doled out to them by men.

With a rusty squeal, the door swings wide, and with it comes the same influx of light that always spills greedily through, stinging your eyes and making them ache - the doing of a tiny, wayward star moulded from precious lamp oil. You blink away the tears that well up at your lash line, testament to your accustomation to the dark, and then blink again.

Back when you took the warmth of the sun on your face for granted, you lived too far inland to ever see one in the flesh. You were still a witch under the disguise of a healer, though. You’d heard tales, seen artists’ renderings and gorey body parts wrenched off as sick memorabilia.

None of those could have ever come close to preparing you for the sight before your eyes.

A merman.

Deep in enemy territory - so deep, in fact, that all those surrounding him, bar you, have murdered more than dozens of his kind each. He is on a galleon rammed bow to stern with killers. And yet, despite it, he has not fallen victim to the purge. Yes, there is a splintered harpoon sunken into his side, yes, he is limp and broken, but even so, shallowly, his chest rises and falls.

He breathes. He breathes, and even that is beautiful. The lamp’s light reflects off his scales; he is mainly jet black, but broad swathes of orange run across the length of his powerful tail like they were drawn with the loving stroke of a painter’s brush. In parts, they darken into a ruby red that glitters and winks as the lamp light dances.

Or maybe that’s just blood.

There’s a lot of it. It soaks into the sheet they strain to carry between them, pools in the dip his weight makes, streaks in smears down his chest and face, coats his hands and is embedded under his sharp nails. You hope that all of it is not his, that he made them regret whatever they must have done to get a merman vulnerable enough and far enough from his pod to capture him.

Deep lacerations cut all along his chest and tail, and one of the spines that extend from his sail-like dorsal fin is bent in a way that must mean it is broken. A smattering of scales reach wide across his shoulders and back and down his arms, some of them twisted and bent out of shape. Your eyes fall to the harpoon buried just below his hip, and you feel the bite of your nails digging into your palms.

“Heal it,” commands the man holding the corner of the sheet closest to you. “We’ve been ordered to bring back a merfolk to be studied. It must be in peak condition.”

You frown as they begin to manoeuvre all three metres of merman into the brig. Studied? They must be looking for a weakness to exploit. After all, merfolk succumb less easily to flesh wounds than humans - the magic of the sea resides in their very bones.

A hand fists the front of your shirt and you’re jerked forward. You can feel the hunter’s foul breath on your cheek, feel the violence roiling just below the surface of his skin, and yet you cannot tear your eyes from the merman until you’re struck across the face. Reeling back, you raise your head to look at him, a hand flying up to cradle your jaw where it has begun to swell.

“Are you deaf? What are you waiting for?” he spits.

Your brain is still stuck on the fact that there is a merman before you, alive on a ship full of specialised mermen killers, but your body has gone through these motions many times before and brings you to kneel by your patient so fast your chain jingles crassly in the relative quiet, your hands already working to gather herbs for a poultice that will slow the bleeding.

Glancing over your shoulder, you see your captors filing out of the door, the last of them grumbling and wiping his hands on his trousers as if being near enough to hit you had sullied him. Realisation dawns abruptly on you.

They’re leaving you alone with the merman.

“Wait,” you call.

Disquiet grows in your stomach. As much as you hate the life forced upon you, serving as a tool for men who would not hesitate to kill you if you ran out of worth, you have gotten used to it, and this merman at your feet has disrupted your delicate equilibrium, tripping you as you balance on a knife’s blade.

You have never had problems with thinking fast in a pinch. You are a healer, you are accustomed to endless wells of blood and snapped bones sticking through skin. Conversely, you are not accustomed to the sight of a half conscious merman taking up the majority of your floor space, a single fingernail on his hand no doubt potent with more magic than is contained in your whole body.

Your tongue is slow, your mind slower, but you force the words out, emboldened because whether he likes it or not, this merman is leverage for you. There is no one else on board that could save him.

“I will need a lamp indefinitely, while I’m in the process of healing.”

You realise how important the health of this merman is to their study because the hunter holding the lamp brings it over with no words of criticism, just the curl of his lip when you draw near enough to take it from him.

Its metal is warm in your hands, and you cup it in your palms - a little sun that clears the clinging shadows from the brig like they’re cobwebs. Carefully, you set it on the floor next to you, just outside the border of the canvas the merman lies upon, sitting back on your heels as the door slams shut.

You stare at the merman for a weighty moment. If it did, there’s no telling what organ the harpoon may have punctured - do his intestines extend all the way down his tail? Or are they in the same place as a human’s, and his tail is just muscles, like legs would be?

Never in your life did you think merfolk anatomy would have any significance to you. Even if you’d thought it did, there wouldn’t be any books for you to study on it. A hysterical, jittery laugh builds in your throat, wringing itself from you when you spot the strange slit - for lack of better words - that sits just below where his skin turns to obsidian scales.

The nervous sound breaks the silence, jolting you into action. Never mind his anatomy, he’s still bleeding out. Somehow, you need to get that harpoon out of him: the hunters don’t clean them off once they’ve used them, and if you’re not vigilant, infection will get him before whatever they’ve got in store will.

Determinedly, you scoot closer to his lower half, stretching out a hand to test the area around the wound. In preparation, you will your healing magic to rise to the surface, and it fizzles at the surface of your palms, warming them.

Your fingertips have barely brushed over his scales when pain slashes across your cheek.

The merman jerks away from you so hard that he cries out, and you wince as you see the wound pull wide, blood oozing out from where it gapes. Gingerly, you touch a hand to your cheek - one of his spines had glanced off your face as he’d moved away, its tip sharp enough to shed blood.

Any human patient would have lost consciousness moments after being hit by the harpoon that’s buried in his tail, and if by a miracle they hadn’t yet, the pain caused by what he just did surely would have knocked them out. Inexplicably, he’s still conscious, blood red eyes glaring at you with blatant distrust.

You hadn’t gotten a chance to look closely at his face before - you’d been too busy ogling his tail. Spikey, sandy hair casts a shadow over his eyes. They glow, carmine and half crazed, no doubt with the same agony that pinches at his face and curls his lip, revealing sharp canines that he bares at you, twin ivory warnings.

A rattling, hissing sound emanates from deep in his chest when you attempt to move closer again, his dorsal fin undulating in an obvious threat display. You can tell it hurts him; the spine you’d noticed before is definitely broken, the parts of the fin around it drooping and limp. He growls when he catches you looking.

You really, really don't know what to do.

Your skin prickles, the hairs on the back of your neck rising. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you were left alone with him. Aside from the obvious hostility, his face is effectively blank; there’s nothing in his gaze except the primal instinct to survive, and the unspeakable, offensive terror of a wounded animal backed into a corner and trapped there.

There’s no getting through to him with words. You remember the night you were ripped from your cottage by the hunters, the way you clawed and screamed until your voice was gone and your nails were torn and bleeding. You know what it’s like to have the adrenaline coursing through your veins so fast it burns, you know what it’s like to feel the anger and fear blend together in your chest until it strips away your humanity and you’re reduced to nothing more than a feral, wild eyed animal.

Slowly, you get to your feet, your chains rattling. He growls, making that hissing sound again, and despite his size, despite the muscles straining in his chest and the magic you can sense in his form, he looks small. You grit your teeth. The shock is beginning to wear off, burnt to ashes by a roaring fury that licks up your throat and fills your lungs.

You wonder if he had a pod. You wonder if they got massacred before his eyes.

Ignoring the trembling of your hands, you scoop up the piece of dried fish that remains from yesterday’s meal. It’s the only food you have, so you turn and offer it to him - when he doesn’t hiss immediately, you slide it over to him on the dented tin plate it had been on.

Tentatively, the merman picks up the fish, his nose very obviously wrinkling. As he examines your peace offering, you notice his hands are webbed up to the lowest knuckle and are a little larger than a human man’s, the fingers longer and the nails considerably sharper.

Relief fills you as he begins to chew at the fish, and you retreat to your pile of blankets, sitting down and half facing away to give him as much privacy as is possible in as small a space as the brig. You begin to make a poultice for him, crushing the herbs between your fingers because you’re not allowed a mortar and pestle and depositing them on one of the dishes you have lying around.

Once you’re done, you turn back to him. The edge in his eyes has softened a touch, and when you scoot over to settle closer to him, he doesn’t make a sound, instead just leaning away a little, watching you warily. Warningly, he hisses when you lift your hand, his red eyes flashing.

“I’m going to have to touch you to put this poultice on,” you tell him. “It will reduce the bleeding and might alleviate the pain.”

He twitches but remains silent. You wonder briefly if he even understands - people don’t talk to merfolk these days. They either run or they kill. For all you know, he might speak some ancient language of the sea that you have no hope in understanding.

You scoop the poultice up in your fingers and lean forward, aiming to ease him in by angling first for a smaller wound situated just over a hip bone on a human would be (you’re not even sure if his equivalent qualifies as a hip seeing as he lacks legs).

“Don’t,” he snarls, his voice guttural and rasping, like he hasn’t uttered a word in years.

Fumbling, you almost drop the dish. You guess that answers one of your many questions - he can speak your language, although you presume one word doesn’t really express fluency. For a moment, you consider telling him that they’ll no doubt beat you for not healing him, but it seems rather insignificant since it’s nothing they haven’t inflicted on you before.

Sighing, you sit back on your heels and look at him, defeated. He regards you with those same crimson eyes as before, but they’ve cooled considerably and hold traces of scathing criticism you find you aren’t the fondest of.

You begin to realise that he’s not going to give you any explanation as to why he doesn’t want you to treat him. He doesn’t trust you, most likely - you haven’t given him any reason to think otherwise of you, rather, you’d gawped openly at him. You’re not surprised he hasn’t taken a liking to you. You wouldn’t either.

So you retreat back to what has now become your corner of the brig, since the other three are taken up by the length of his tail and the doorway. On a whim, you prepare yourself a turmeric tea; it’s anti-inflammatory and you know you’ll be needing it sooner or later.

It takes a day, but one of the hunters barges in, light sneaking in past the outline of his silhouette. You don’t know any of them by name, nor would you want to, but you do know that this particular one is the first mate.

The merman hasn’t let you near him still, and although at points his eyes are closed, you’re worried that if you try to sneak up on him, he’ll move away again and tear open the parts of the wound around the harpoon that have partially closed up. The perimeter of blood soaked canvas beneath him has slowed its expansion but still grows.

It’s amazing that he’s survived this long while still losing blood. You presume merfolk must be rather resilient, unsurprisingly - the sea is no easy place to live in, nor is it made any easier by its recent infestation of merfolk hunters.

“Did you not hear your orders yesterday, you useless bitch?”

Passively, you look up at him as he looms closer. “I did.”

“So you don’t want to cooperate, then,” he snaps. “Do I have to encourage you?”

You don’t get to answer. A fist full of scarred knuckles collides with your nose, and your head snaps back, white exploding across your vision as the hunter shoves you backwards. Your back hits the ground and before you can even think of scrambling away, you’re kicked hard in the ribs.

You don’t try to resist it. You’ve learnt it’s better to take it than to fight and make him hit harder.

Red hot pain shoots through you when the tip of his boot catches your chin, clacking your teeth together. You cry out as your blood fills your mouth, streams from your nose, stains his knuckle bones. Hands up in a pitiful attempt at protecting your face, you curl up on the floor, as small as you can. Your ribs throb, your chain trapped awkwardly beneath your body.

You’re still balled up with your arms over your head long after he slams the door behind him. You ache all over, and your lower lip is trembling treacherously. Tears press at the backs of your eyes so you squeeze them shut: you’re not going to cry.

You need to get up.

You need to down that damned turmeric tea you made, just to feel the ginger burn as it slips down your throat.

When you open your eyes, the merman is staring. You grimace as you heave yourself to sit upright, the metallic taste of blood still coating your tongue and curdling until it’s sour. His face is unreadable, shuttered and devoid of any emotion. He doesn’t speak, although that isn’t exactly atypical.

“Well, now you’re not the only one bleeding all over the floor,” you mutter, unable to keep the resentment from your tone.

You turn your back to him as you set your nose with a grunt, letting your magic flow through your fingers and knit your flesh back together. Running a hand over your ribs, you check if any are broken, but when none are, you don’t heal them up; you’ll need to save your energy. The hunter didn’t bring food for you, and you doubt he’ll be bringing you any more until you treat the merman. That could take anything from an hour to a week.

Falteringly, you glance over your shoulder. He stares off to a place far away, a place you cannot see. A scowl furrows his brow, and you sigh, wondering if he thinks of the sea and the freedom that was torn away from him the way it was for you.

Curling up on your blankets, you pull one over yourself, rolling to face the wall and shutting your eyes. Loud in the darkness, your stomach growls, and you twitch but ignore the urge to look over your shoulder and stare accusingly at the merman - you too would not trust a human if all their kind had brought him was pain.

Your ribs hurt. It is alright, though. You’ve fallen asleep through worse.

When you wake, the first thing you do is crouch down beside the merman to check his wounds. The rattle of your chains makes him open his eyes, and you see that his face has paled, the alertness in his gaze dimmer now the adrenaline has worn off. As is becoming clear, he’s more resistant to injury than humans are, but there’s a worrying amount of blood saturating the canvas sheet beneath him, and you doubt he’ll make it much longer without help.

If he lets you near, what you’re going to have to do is far from ideal. The hunters’ harpoons are barbed and vicious, but you can’t exactly keep it in, and you can’t exactly cut it out without risking more blood loss. You’re just going to have to yank on it and hope it doesn’t destroy anything too vital on its way out.

“I’m going to have to take the harpoon out,” you tell him measuredly, gauging his facial expression.

He simply stares at you, his face blank but for the slight pinch of his brow. Shadows bathe half of his face; there is barely any lamp oil left to burn. The little flame flickers and sputters, letting darkness dance up the close walls of the brig, and if you do not hurry, you may have to treat him in the dark.

Slowly, you lift your hand, letting it hover over the splintered end of the harpoon. Tension bleeds into his body, the set of his jaw tight and his hands fisting as if he’s bracing himself, but he doesn’t growl or flinch away. Expectancy and resignation lurk in his gaze.

You don’t like that he won’t say anything in response even though he’s proven he can talk. You can feel his eyes boring into the back of your head as you gather your materials: the poultice from yesterday, a roll of bandages, a thick strip of worn leather. The latter you give to him, sighing when he turns it over in his hands, quizzical,

“Bite down on it,” you instruct him as you roll up your sleeves. “Either that or it’ll be your tongue.”

He frowns, but does as you say. You glance up at him to check if he’s ready. The hard lines of his body stand out, taut as a bowstring. He looks brittle, as if he might break and crumble into dust the moment you touch him.

Years ago, when you healed children’s scraped knees and the broken bones of men who had fallen from their ladders while fixing leaks in roofs, you had the words to comfort your patients. These you lost to the eternal darkness of the merfolk hunters’ ship, and these you wish to find again but cannot.

Instead, you murmur a quiet warning as you kneel by his tail, wiping your sweaty palms off on your trousers before getting a strong two handed grip on the end of the harpoon. Under your breath, you count down: three, two, one. Pull.

It makes a squelching, sucking noise as it comes out. You cringe but keep on tugging - if you stop now, it’ll be worse for both of you. He cries out, voice ragged and spilling over with agony, his tail arcing off the floor, and you feel the movement in the way the harpoon jerks in your hands with the bunching of his muscles.

All of a sudden, the resistance disappears. His tail fin slaps against the floor as he goes limp, both his and your heavy panting filling the room. You’re left with the splintered harpoon in your hands, a chunk of flesh and a twisted scale still clinging to one of the bloodied, rusted spokes. He spits the strip of leather out and it lands near your knee.

Carefully, you set down the harpoon and begin applying the poultice straight onto the weeping gash in his side, spreading the rest over the bandages which you bind tightly around his tail. Leaking from your fingertips, your magic suffuses across his skin as you work; you can’t heal him accurately without knowing much about his inner workings, but it should help to stave off any infection.

He shelters his face in the crook of his elbow, and though he tucks his other hand tightly to his chest, you can see the way he trembles.

You give him his space by swiftly moving on, busying yourself with his other injuries. You splint the spine in his dorsal fin, ignoring the way his hands shake and gently placing the arm crossed over his torso by his side so you can use your magic to clean and close up the various cuts and slashes littering his scar flecked body.

His scales seem to be damp, even though it’s almost been a full twenty four hours since he was brought in. It must be seawater somehow, you decide, or a sweat-like substance that keeps his tail wet enough when he hasn’t been in water for a while. He doesn’t look the most comfortable: he’s probably not used to having to support his own weight without the buoyancy of the waves.

There are little scars all over him, his skin a map of cicatrices, but the one that catches your attention is raised and jagged, spanning from the middle of his sternum to his navel. You touch your index finger to the centre of it, and he inhales sharply, flinching away.

“Sorry,” you mutter, pulling back, half expecting him not to hear you.

He’s silent for a while, ignoring your apology, but then comes a begrudging: “Thank you.”

Though he won’t see it - he’s still hiding his face from you - you shrug. “You should never have been hurt in the first place.”

He’s quiet again, lying still enough for you to imagine him dead if not for the rise and fall of his broad chest. You slouch, the energy having leaked from your body in order to mend his. The lamp finally gutters and winks out, leaving in its absence a tiny pinprick of light, a vanishing ember at the wick’s tip, buried in ashes.

When you tear your gaze away from your expired little sun, you’re confronted with a pair of blazing eyes. Pinned on you, they glow in the darkness like two pools of blood, but you find their luminosity strangely comforting, like Arcturus and Betelgeuse to a sailor: stars to lead you on your course.

“You are a witch, are you not?”

You jump at the sound of his voice, rough around the syllables but measured, as if he rolled them around on his tongue before he spoke. The scarlet light from his eyes dims a little as they narrow (you’re not sure if that’s meant to convey amusement or distaste) and you become aware that maybe he can see a lot more in the dark than you can.

“I am,” you confirm, still squinting at him - to no avail.

“Why do you not fight them, then?” He demands, his tone darkening. “Surely you cannot like it here.”

You scoff. “Of course I don’t like it here. You think I like the way they beat me?”

He’s silent, and though you still cannot see his face, you sense his scowl.

Sighing, you reign yourself in. This merman comes the closest to being an ally than all the others that have entered the brig, and you cannot squander this. He may not trust you, and you may be ignorant and ill informed of his kind, but you both have a common enemy, and though he may not like the thought, you are similar enough: the raw energy that flows through him is the same that you harness to perform your magic.

“I could fight, but there is nowhere for me to go if I escape the ship - there is just the sea,” you explain. “In the end, they are scared of all those associated with magic, even the witch they keep chained in the dark. The moment they deem that the risk I pose outweighs the use I have to them, they’ll kill me.”

He’s quiet again while he processes what you’ve said. “And what of me, witch? Why have they not killed me yet?”

“They want to study you,” you reply, wincing at how harsh your voice comes out. “I think we’re quite far from their lands - a few months’ travel, maybe - but it’s hard to tell.”

“What - ”

“Enough questions,” you cut him off. “My turn.”

A plethora of questions crowd your mind, but as you think of the merman in front of you, you find that they can wait, because although he must have stories of the sea that you’d only dreamed of hearing, and although magic you could learn endlessly from is threaded through his being, he is primarily, before anything, a soul. He is a soul: a soul with eyes that make the permanent night you are lost within just a little more manageable.

You will have to find out whether the kraken is real or not later; you will ask him about selkie skins afterwards.

Instead, you ask him his name, and tell him your own.

Bakugou, he grunts in response before turning his head to face the wall, clearly ending the conversation. Frowning, you stare at his back - or where you presume his back is, in the darkness - and mull over the name he provided you with; you are certain he has given you the one he gives to strangers. You suppose that is what you are.

Pulling absently at your chain, you sit with your back to the wall, your knees to your chest, and think about the merman, about Bakugou. For a moment, you are seized by the absurd belief that his most grave injury is a bleeding heart, but that cannot be true, for he has not said anything that indicates it. Questions find their way to your tongue, but you let them stick there, stifling them before they deign to interrupt the silence.

Neither of you move from your positions until the door opens, revealing the first mate. Squinting, you rise to your feet, a muscle feathering in your jaw as he purposefully kicks Bakugou in the shoulder, lifting his lamp high so he can see the bandages you’d applied.

“I’ll need a top up on lamp oil if I’m to continue the healing process,” you announce. “And we’ll need food and water. He’ll have - ”

You hesitate, glancing over at Bakugou, but he just lifts a shoulder and makes a face of disgust that you know isn’t conscious. Deliberating for a moment, you wrack your brain for any clues about merfolk diets.

“Fresh fish,” you decide. “And crabs. The bigger the better. Also, he’ll need a tub big enough for him, filled with seawater.”

“Watch the way you address me,” the first mate snaps, taking a step forward.

You shrug. “You wanted him healed, didn’t you?”

Your first two requests come within the next few hours, appeasing the increasing hollowness that had resided in your stomach and sending the shadows inhabiting the brig retreating up the walls and into the corners of the room, but the tub doesn’t come until two days after. It is barely watertight, plugged with tar and made from rough sawn wood.

You haven’t exchanged words with Bakugou since you asked his name and he gave you one, though you find yourself on the receiving end of his red eyes more often than not. He’s silent as the hunters bring the tub in, as they fill it with pails of seawater, as they leave and slam the brig’s door behind them. He’s silent, even as he slips into the tub and into a thin slice of his home.

And then, after a moment, he turns to you, and there’s something painful and cutting and cynical in his eyes.

“You know, the water doesn’t speed up the healing.”

You nod. “I know it doesn’t. You were uncomfortable.”

His eyes blaze. “What do you want?”

You regard him, regard the intensity of the fire in his gaze and the way his chest heaves. His tail fin hangs out of the tub, but even so, water swills over the side and splashes onto the floor like it can sense his agitation. Loudly, the links of your chain clank against each other as you cross your arms. 

“I do not want anything, Bakugou.”

He narrows his eyes. “All humans I have known but one are cruel, witch. You wish for me to owe you something.”

“I don’t,” you reply, noticing the strange look that creeps onto his face. “Who is this human you hold in such high esteem?”

A distant look erases the furrow in his brow, and you get the sense he is no longer talking to you when he speaks again: he is lost in some place far away, a place coated in the golden sheen that tints all good memories. His voice turns soft as he brushes his fingers over the scar on his chest.

“His name was Izuku,” he murmurs. “But I called him Deku.”

“Deku?” You echo, your voice crudely loud all of a sudden.

A flash of grief slashes across his features like lightning on the high seas, there and gone so fast you almost don’t catch it. It’s like a switch flips, and suddenly shutters slam down behind his eyes and his expression melts away until his face is blank and cold. Regret sinks heavy in your stomach.

You wince. “I’m sorr - ”

“He’s dead,” Bakugou growls.

He doesn’t speak to you for three days. There is a certain rawness in his blood red eyes that makes you gentler as you change his dressings and reapply your poultices. He looks at you as if he hates that you are healing him instead of leaving him to die, so you avoid his gaze, staring instead at the scars that cover him like warpaint.

You get the sense that he is mourning this human he told you of all over again, and you cannot help but see the weight of it in the tension of his body and wonder if you could alleviate the pain.

On the fourth day, he shuts the vulnerability away somewhere deep inside of him, buried far enough beneath other things that he can pretend it never even existed. Yet you remember it, still vivid and fresh in your mind as you lie curled up on your side, watching the lamp’s flame until your eyes burn. He breaks the silence by clearing his throat, his gaze fixed on you.

“Witch,” Bakugou says softly. “How did they catch you?”

You glance over at him. “I was young and foolish and alone. It’s easy to snatch a girl from her home under those circumstances.”

“You have been here for years, then.”

“I have,” you sigh. “I tried to escape once. That’s why I’m chained down.”

“A weaker soul would not have survived this darkness,” he remarks solemnly. “You are strong, witch.”

You look down at your hands, watching your fingers fidget to and fro in your lap. Your tongue is frozen in your mouth - you had not spoken properly to someone in years before he was captured, and his behaviour confuses you. No words come to mind that express how grateful you are for his acknowledgement.

“Thank you,” you settle with in the end.

He hums but other than that remains silent.

Later you discuss with him the possible logistics of an escape. He explains to you that he cannot channel the magic the way you can, but that he is soaked in the magic of the sea; he is unable to use it for spells because it is innately part of him, enhancing him beyond human capabilities. Together, you come to the conclusion that you must get off the ship before you arrive at the hunters’ lands, or your chances of freedom will have narrowed to almost nothing.

An actual method of subduing or injuring the hunters enough to allow an exit route evades you, though. After all, you are chained to the wall, and there’s no easy way of moving Bakugou - he is, evidently, far too heavy for you to drag around all by yourself.

Uneasy silence falls over the brig. You stare at the lamp again: with it, your ability to see has been restored, along with a piece of your humanity, but now its light seems to illuminate how small a space you are contained in, how strong the chain binding you to the wall is.

As you drift off to sleep that night, you find yourself gripped by the fear that Bakugou will never return to the sea, and instead, they will inflict unspeakable torments upon him.

You will be the one who kept him alive for them. You will be the one who he grows to hate, because you had the chance to let future pain pass him by, but you saved him, and by doing so, you failed to spare him from their torture. And while they cut him open and study his insides, you will be somewhere far away, still risking yourself to heal their most elite, almost as if they are beloved to you.

The thought gnaws at you as the weeks pass. Blood no longer soaks the bandages wrapped around his tail; his dorsal fin is almost healed. He is gaining strength, more rapidly through your magic, and it is clear he has shaken off death many times before if his scars are testament to anything. In particular, the one on his chest draws you: though it is long healed, you can tell it was deep.

He almost died back then, too - the scar tissue around its edges is strange, lumpy and malformed as if he was kneaded back together by a child who saw his flesh as nothing more than clay harvested gleefully from a river bank. Even so, the shape of it is familiar. You know you shouldn’t pry. You remember the way he flinched away when you first touched it, but you ask, anyway.

“Bakugou,” you ask him once you’ve finished changing his bandages. “What did you do to get a merfolk’s blade stuck in your chest?”

He snarls. “All you do is fucking dig, you shitty witch.”

“I - ”

Hissing, he swipes at you half heartedly, and you stumble backwards, dodging his fist and almost tripping on your chain, caught off guard by the agitation in his eyes. Stunned, you gape at him. The fury is vehement on his face, evident in the grit of his teeth and the tremor in his hands as he grips the side of the tub; you can tell he despises how he is trapped in here with you, fending you off with the sting of his words.

You open your mouth. You’re not certain what you’re supposed to say, other than an apology that he will shake off easily, but you hope that words will form on your tongue. He levels his gaze on you, and this time, within it dwells an overwhelming sorrow that stops you short.

“Don’t try,” he whispers. “You cannot change the past.”

Brow furrowed, you stare at him. You take in the pain carved all over him, and this, you realise, not his scars, is his warpaint - he holds it close to him, like a cloak of inwardly turned, savage blades, reminding him to keep his distance. It is present in the bow of his head, the slump of his shoulders, a weight so heavy it threatens to rend his flesh from his bones.

You get to your feet, and in the lamp light, the single tear that rolls down his face is turned to solid gold.

Balefully, he looks at you, yet he holds still as you reach out and smooth it away with your thumb. A rawness resides in his eyes that you wish you could soothe as you catch the next tear that spills over, gently as if he is made of porcelain.

“You need not bear the weight of your world on your shoulders, Bakugou.”

Your words wrench a sob from him. His fingers curl tight around your wrist, tearing your hand away from his face, silently weeping as he grips you so hard you begin to lose feeling in your palm. You watch as the anguish in his eyes evolves into anger, harsh and brittle and bleak.

“Get away from me,” he spits, voice strangled, and yet he does not release you, so you perch on the side of the tub and make a show of not looking at him so he is not alone in his privacy.

It’s then that you realise that whether or not he likes it, you have gotten through to him. In the month that goes by, sometimes he is cold and aloof, keeping to himself, and sometimes he allows you close enough that you can feel his warmth. You find you savour his company when it’s there.

His wound is fully healed, a pink scar bordered by healing scales, and his dorsal fin spine is back in working order. You check up on him still, every other day or so, careful to monitor them in case you have somehow healed him wrong, careful to keep your regular intersections with him, because although you would never admit it to him, he is amusing, and he keeps the darkness at bay.

You are unsure what he thinks of you. Sometimes, he smacks you upside the head with no real force, and you dare to label it as affectionate. He gives you the name which he gives to those that mean more to him than strangers, too - well, you wring it out of him.

(“Bakugou, what’s your name?”

A scoff. “Witch, have you hit your head?”

“We both know you’re not obliged to answer, so if you’re not going to tell me, spare me the insults.”

Pause. “Katsuki. It’s Katsuki.”)

There are times when he has nightmares, too. You surmise that most of them are about Deku, and that the scar branding his chest, the one made by a merfolk forged weapon, is linked somehow to this dead human. Incomprehensibly, he mutters in his sleep, snarling about krakens and storms and sometimes even witches, but it always leads back to Deku.

Sometimes he protests against him, speaking a language you do not fully understand, cursing and thrashing so hard you fear the tub will splinter, while sometimes he proclaims his love, his voice slurred as he slumbers, but each time, without fail, he begs: forgive me, Izuku, forgive me, Deku, I’m sorry.

Katsuki is unaware of what he gives away in his sleep. Often, he settles down quickly after raising his voice, but sometimes you look over to see him stiff and terrified and shake him awake; he then jolts upright, the water sloshing out of the tub as he reaches for you, his stricken eyes searching yours for something you do not know the identity of, but he always finds.

He does not let you go, not ever. At these times, you lean or sit by the tub and let him crush your fingers in his grip.

He never speaks of it in the morning.

You would not hide from him what you have learnt, nor the feelings that grow treacherously in your heart, but you are too cowardly to tell him of either. It is certain that he loved Deku, and that maybe Deku loved him too. What was it like, you often wonder, to have loved Katsuki?

When he holds onto you, still half lost in the dark lands of his nightmares, you think about it. He would have been less guarded, a young merman not yet covered in scars; he would have given Deku his name immediately, for he would not have learnt that he needed to be wary of humans. Still, he would have fought for him until the end with the same ferocity he would fight for his own heart - because Deku was his own heart.

And Deku, you imagine Deku saw people as they really were. You imagine Deku with bright eyes and a brighter smile, with a face that all his emotions could be read off as easily as a book. He must have been good, persistent, if Katsuki had fallen for him. Soft, even, but tough when he needed to be.

They fit each other, no doubt.

You feel guilty, as if your speculations are invasive, rummaging around within Bakugou’s heart where he has not let you set foot. Mercifully, he can pin his red eyes on you as much as he likes, which he often does, but he will not hear your mind.

Now that he is healed, that is how you pass your days, exchanging words with him when either of you wish to, while you wrestle with the unspoken in your head and while god knows what happens behind his eyes. It is normal for silence to fall after a conversation - it is not awkward, but not comfortable either. It is pensive, it is familiar.

And today, it is shattered by screams up on deck.

Katsuki perks up, his keen ears picking up things your dull ones cannot, and he tilts his head, listening intently. You do not have to hear what he does to know what is happening: there is the sound of clashing steel above you, the all too familiar war cries of the hunters. It is not often that the merfolk are prepared for the hunters as they pass by, but neither is it impossible.

The ship lurches, harshly enough that some of the water in Katsuki’s tub overflows. You wager it must be a whole pod, then, maybe two, and you glance over at him, wondering if he knows who they are, wondering if -

“Are they yours?” You blurt.

“Huh?”

“Your pod,” you clarify.

Bitterly, he scoffs. “If the merfolk wanted to rescue me, they wouldn’t have waited months.”

You freeze. The detachment in his voice does nothing to hide the betrayal beneath, and ice begins to crawl up your spine, for he addresses them as the merfolk, not as his kind, his people. Harshly, you swallow as you start to understand that the hunters would never have been able to capture a merman if he wasn’t alone.

“You don’t have a…” You trail off, feeling far too inadequate and stupid to continue.

“My pod renounced me the moment they learnt about Deku and I.”

A picture forms in your mind, of a Katsuki who lost his family because he gave away his heart to a human - of a Katsuki to which the sea was no longer home, but a huge expanse of alone. Horror closes over your head like cold water as your eyes slide down to the scar on his chest.

His pod didn’t stop at just renouncing him.

You had always hoped that beings whose very essence was rooted in magic would be fair and just as the tales said. Your hope had always been that the merfolk would see that humanity was not united in the purging of them, that they would spare you if your path ever crossed theirs. Never did you think they would be so blind as to turn on one of their own for something as reliant on fate as love. You are a fool.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and it comes out almost like a sob.

“We are no better than you are,” he replies.

His voice is so devoid of hope that it cuts you to the quick. You open your mouth so say more, to try and fill that emptiness inside him if you can, but your words are stuck in your throat and before you can force them out the door flies open, banging loudly against the wall and almost extinguishing the lamp’s flame.

Three gravely wounded are deposited in front of you and then the door slams. Silently, you get to work, sealing the deep slashes to their flesh more carelessly than you should be - but with Katsuki watching, you feel sullied, a betrayer who works for the purgers of magic. Their blood coats your tingling palms, and yet not in the way you wish it could be.

You have just finished the last when four more are dragged in, and you’re hit hard across the face and ordered to work faster, which signifies only one thing: more are coming. As blood wells up in your mouth, you hope that the merfolk are victorious, even if it means sinking the ship and letting you drown within.

Hate rises within you again, searing and acrid like smoke clogging your lungs, but this time it is different. You hate them for what they have made you; a tool, a means to an end. The determination you nurse in your heart is unimportant as long as you do what they say, and yet you cannot defy them, and this is what you hate yourself for.

Prickling sensations begin to claw up your arms as you heal. You are lost in it, the blood and the battle and the patients, and you swear you see the same faces twice: hunters who you healed once coming back more injured than last time. Your energy dwindles like a dying flame and you dip into your reserves when you recognise the violent light in the hunters’ eyes.

You cannot ask for a break. They already bay for blood and death; what more is yours but just another magic using bitch’s?

You are being bled dry. You are no longer aware of your surroundings, just the halting of the flow of blood beneath your hands and the wheezing gasp of your breath and the rattle of the chain locked around your wrist.

They have not been attacked like this in a long time. You almost forgot how fast the darkness closes in when you send out your energy through your palms to knit flesh and skin back together again. Spots cloud your vision, and futilely, you swat them away. Muffled, Katsuki’s voice hums in your right ear, but you do not understand the words he utters.

Your hands tremble. You pitch forward, slumping over your newest patient.

A hand fists in your hair. Knuckles press into your jaw, far harder than a lover’s touch and yet it feels like it in the way your head lolls slowly to the side. It takes time, but pain radiates through your skull, vibrating your teeth and sharpening your focus, and then you can hear yelling, yelling for you to wake up, yelling for you to carry on or they’ll kill you -

There are so many of them. So many hunters with frenzied eyes and blades that shine where they are not coated in innocent blood, and they are hurt and they want to return back to the battle and you must abide by their demands. The air is too thin as it whistles in and out of your lungs. You cannot think.

You press your palms to the blood slick abdomen of the next man placed down before you and do as they say. Your mouth is dry, your head pounds, your eyes won’t focus, and yet, you do as they say, you always do what they say.

What a fucking coward you are.

Letting them push you farther than you ever would let yourself go. You’re right on the edge, right over the edge, clinging onto the side of the perilously vertical cliff face even as the mossy stone crumbles beneath your fingers and threatens to make you fall down down down. But still, you heal. Your body performs numbly what your mind cannot take any more.

All of a sudden, there is not an open wound for you to heal or guts to force back inside a torso, there are just crimson soaked planks and a raised voice. Loud. An incensed, raised voice, cursing and roaring. Can’t you see she’s almost gone? They shout, earsplitting enough to make your head pound. She can’t heal you fucking bastards if she’s dead!

Bakugou. No, not that name. It’s… Katsuki. Katsuki making all that racket. You don’t know when it happened, but now your cheek is pressed to the rough planks that make up the floor. There’s blood everywhere. Some more splatters to the ground and you notice that the din isn’t being made by Katsuki any more. Your eyes are hazy as you lift them upwards and see a hunter raise his fist again.

“Kats,” you slur. “Watch… watch out…”

The lamp goes out, which is strange, since the oil got topped up this morning. You pay it no mind, though.

You’re too tired.

You wake surrounded by water. For a moment, you wonder if the merfolk won, and if somehow you managed to get tossed off the boat and into the sea, but then you move your leg and it hits something hard and vertical which must be wood. Peeling your eyes open, you find you’re in… the tub? Katsuki’s tub?

Lifting your head, you’re met with a pair of concerned red eyes. One is almost swollen shut, and blood has crusted down the side of his face from a wound in his temple, yet he smooths his hand soothingly over your upper back, watching attentively as you come to.

“You’ve been out for just under two days,” Katsuki says. “You need to eat, get your strength back up.”

Your memory begins to trickle back, and with it floods a torrent of shame: you always told yourself that you survived out of spite, out of the belief and conviction that one day you would hurt them enough to negate all the healing they made you to do, but it was all a pretence. You were scared and so you took the easier road of complacency, and it has caused the deaths of hundreds of merfolk.

It is without a doubt that if you had healed even just a papercut more, that if Katsuki had not stopped them, the life force within you would have winked out, and you would have died. Death had loomed right over you, brushing boney fingers over your face, and even now, it lingers.

You are burnt out, exhaustion weighing on you as if a whole mountain rests on your back. Worse is the fear, revealed in the blinding light, shackling you, for you are its slave, and you cannot shake its hold off you.

Your face crumples. “I am spineless, for letting them use me so. I am a coward, a - ”

“They give you no choice, witch,” Katsuki remarks. “Do not put it on yourself.”

You shake your head. “You cannot ask that of me. How many lives have been lost because I obeyed when the hunters told me to save them?”

Bowing your head, you sob. Fatigue envelops you, the chain around your wrist unspeakably heavy, and you lean heavily against Katsuki; he holds you like you are precious, handling you with care so that the pieces you have shattered into do not fall apart and scatter onto the floor. He tips up your chin, forcing you to look him in those eyes of his as he wipes away your tears.

“What was that you told me, as I wept like you do now?” He asks. “You need not bear the weight of your world on your shoulders. That was what you said to me.”

Nodding, you feel more tears leak out when you squeeze your eyes closed. He strokes your hair, and you hide your face in his chest and wish you could do forever, for he is warm and he is far gentler than you ever imagined he could be. You are tempted, but he nudges you and chides you, reminding you that you will feel much better once you have eaten.

Wobbly as a newborn fawn, you climb out of the tub, Katsuki steadying you with a hand on your arm. Wrapping one of your blankets around you like a shawl, you retrieve a hunk of bread to gnaw on before planting yourself on the tub’s rim, loath to be any farther away from him than you have to be.

Though hunger worries insistently at your insides, sending tremors through your hands and weakness in your legs, you force yourself to eat slowly; you cannot risk wasting any of the food by throwing up. Katsuki rests his forearms on the sides of the tub, watching you with a keen gaze that you cannot read. You become more aware of the purpling bruising across his face and reach out without thinking.

He catches your hand before you can tap into the slowly replenishing well of magic inside of you, his fingers circling your wrist before he lets them slip down and lace with yours. Something ignites behind his eyes, and you find you are mesmerised - you lean closer to see how the spark dances.

“Katsuki,” you breathe, and then your lips are on his.

He tips his chin up to lean into you, his fingers threading into your hair as he pulls you closer to him, so tender that it makes your chest ache. You could stay like this for eternity, simply doing nothing but tasting the salt of him on your tongue and savouring the sweet, sweet scrape of his canines over your lower lip; he is all that matters, all that is.

Slowly, his hands come round to cup your shoulders, pressing you closer to him, and so you feel the moment his grip falters and he stiffens, feel the way he recoils from you as if you have burnt him, and you can do nothing to prevent it. You’re propelled backwards with the force he jolts away. Though it is only a few steps, you feel the gap between you yawn wide, stretching into an uncrossable chasm.

“No,” he chokes out, shaking his head. “No, not - not like - ”

Abruptly, he falls terribly, terribly silent. Stunned, you touch a hand to your mouth; your legs buckle, and you throw out a hand to steady yourself against the wall before sinking to the floor. It feels as if you are drowning.

Katsuki does not love you - how can he, when he fits with Deku like they were made for each other? You were wrong to hope for anything else, wrong to give in to what you wanted, because you have torn open old wounds that never properly healed. It is no longer significant that he does not love you, for you should have seen that already; what matters is that in your blindness, you have ripped him open.

You’re beginning to realise that it was not the lamp that kept the shadows back, but him. It is only natural that you are drawn to him like a moth to a flame, only natural that you were too weak to resist flying straight into the fire. This time, it is not only the moth who gets hurt.

You are left alone with your thoughts. Time passes, as it always does, but you pay it no mind. However hard you try, you cannot bring yourself to meet his eyes. You are numb, numb to the slow rock of the ship as it cuts through the waves, numb to the sounds of the crew at their battle stations again, numb to it all now that it is undeniable: you love him.

He cannot love you.

Wearily, warily, you raise your head when the door opens, revealing the first mate, soaked in blood. Crossing the room in a few strides, he stands before you, chest heaving, a frantic sort of desperation contorting his face as he tightens his hand around the hilt of his sword and glares at you.

“The captain is near death. We drop anchor home in a fortnight. I will be put in command if he does not survive, and if this happens, I will make certain that you come upon a death slower and far more painful than his.”

You do not answer, nor do you pay any mind to his threats. You can sense Katsuki staring in your direction, the feeling of his red eyes on your skin unmistakable: no doubt, he has heard what you have. We drop anchor home in a fortnight - a fortnight until Katsuki is delivered into hands who seek to study him, to slit him open while he still lives and examine his insides and the way his heart beats, ensnared in the cage of his ribs.

Just like that, you know what to do.

You wait silently until they bring the captain to you. The first mate did not lie when he said the captain is near death. Sweat creates a sheen on his brow, and though his eyes are open, he is barely conscious, for he has been sliced open from gullet to navel by a merfolk blade. Briefly, you touch a fingertip to the lip of the gash, ignoring the pained moan it causes and the disquieted mutters of the other hunters.

If you were superstitious, you would deem the wound too similar to Katsuki’s to be anything but fate, but you do not believe in such things. Instead, you put your trust in the strength of good steel and the sharpness of a tongue. Yes, you know what to do, and you will do it.

The chain fixed around your wrist is not broken, but it does not have to be. You are free to do what you wish, because before you is the captain, and he is leverage. There is no fear left in you, no shame to hold you back as you look up at the first mate; he opens his mouth, about to ask why you do not jump to heal his captain, but he pauses when he takes in your cold smile.

“Free the merman, and then I will heal him.”

A silence falls. They are left with no other choice but to do as you say, and they know it. The first mate’s hands ball into fists, a reminder to you of what will come once Katsuki is let go and you heal their captain, but it does not concern you any more. None of it is of concern to you, only his freedom.

“What the fuck did you just say, witch?” Katsuki spits.

His voice jolts the first mate into action. He heaves you to your feet by the front of your shirt, seething, and punches you squarely in the nose. Something cracks. Your head snaps back, the air knocked from your lungs when he drives his knee into your stomach and lets you crumple to the floor by his feet. Gritting your teeth, you glower up at him.

“Come at me all you like,” you hiss as blood pours down your face. “It will not save your captain.”

He crouches down before you. You do not listen as he shouts at you, because you see it in his eyes. He knows you have them all backed into a corner, he knows you’re aware he will not risk the captain’s life. Over his shoulder, Katsuki urgently mouths something to you: do you know what they will do to you because of this? They will do worse than just kill you!

“Let them,” you reply, and as you gaze at him, you smile again. To the first mate, you say: “Bring me up on deck. I want to see.”

The first mate hurls you away from him, barking orders at the other hunters, but all you hear is the crash of the waves outside and all you taste is the nectar of victory on your tongue. You watch, still smiling, as they grab Katsuki and drag him from the tub. He fights, of course he does, screaming your name and slashing at the hunters, but there is but one of him, and he is unarmed.

Cursing, the first mate unfastens your chain from the ring in the wall, wrapping the length of it around his hand and jerking you forward with it, pulling you to follow him through the ship. There is murder written on his face and in the curl of his lip, and you let it slide it off you like water from a sea bird's feathers.

He throws open the hatch, and for the first time in years, you see the sun. Slowly, you step into the light, and the salty breeze tugs playfully at your clothes and hair, fresh and briney and strong, pulling tears from your eyes. All around you is empty space, just blue sea and blue sky and the wind that dances gloriously between them as far as you can see.

The air is invigorating and crisp in your lungs. Hesitantly, you take a step forward, then another and another, seeing the way the sun plays on the water’s surface, scintillating as it warms your cold skin. It is as resplendent as you remember it.

“Witch!” Katsuki cries, shaking the hunters’ hands off him. “Why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

There are countless ways you could answer him. Instead, you take him in one last time, his spiky ash blonde hair and his crimson eyes and the way his scales glitter under the sunlight. You do this for love: if you can’t give him your heart, you will give him his freedom.

“Go,” is all you say, and though tears stream down your face, you smile.

“I will not forget you, witch,” he replies, voice thick. “I swear it.”

Running to the side of the ship, you cling to the taffrail and lean forwards to watch as he dives overboard. He slices through the water, the amber of his tail bright as he goes, further from you with each passing second, and your breath catches in your throat - he is more beautiful than you imagined he would be in the light.

As he crests a wave, he looks back at you, and you see the shimmer of his scales and the graceful arc of his dorsal fin one last time before he twirls in the surf and dives. With that, he is gone, and you are alone again, yet you do not fear what is to come.

A hand grips your shoulder, nails digging sharply into your skin. “Enjoy your peace, you thankless bitch, because once you heal the captain, all you’re going to know is pain.”

You turn to the first mate and laugh in his face.

He loves you.

Bakugou Katsuki fucking loves you.

He loves your deft hands, careful despite their calluses and nimble despite the chain around your wrist. He loves the smell of you, herby and laced with petrichor. He loves the brightness dancing in your eyes when you laugh. Most of all, he loves your sweet soul: the fierceness woven into it like second nature, the blaze of your heart when you stand up for what you believe in.

He was stupid for pulling away from that kiss. You had fit your lips to his, and suddenly panic rose in his chest, and he jerked backwards as if ignoring his heart would silence it; he was scared to love another human, scared because last time it led to pain. His fear had hurt you, and this is his regret - that he was the one to cause the slow dimming of the light in your eyes.

There are countless other things he regrets. He should have trusted more easily, he should have fought harder as they yanked him out of that silly tub and away from you, and he should never have left you by yourself on that ship with those despicable hunters.

He didn’t tell you he loved you, and now he is scared he will never get the chance.

He has left you in a den of beasts. Deku would never have let this happen if it was Katsuki in danger. Deku would have found a way to get him out. In fact, Deku did, he saved him instead of himself, and now Deku is gone, and he fears his heart is not strong enough to lose another. He does not want to lose another.

That serene little smile on your face as you watched him go - it haunts him, fucking burns itself into his retinas, because you knew. You knew precisely what you were doing, when you bargained with that hunter’s life, and you knew exactly what they were going to do to you for making them let him go.

You must be hurting right now. You must have been beaten within an inch of your life. You, who broke down the walls he rebuilt, brick by brick, after Deku was gone - the same walls that Deku himself tore down too. Katsuki is beginning to think that their foundation has always been flawed, or maybe they crumbled like Jericho simply because you shine brighter than the sun on the waves, and he could not look away if he wanted to.

He has been tailing the ship for little over a day. Keeping out of sight and in the shadows is easy; he has felt the sting of their harpoons enough and he will not risk an injury when getting you away from them is the priority, yet he can’t help but resent the way he must hide. There is no other way, though. Currently, he has no plan, and he must bide his time.

Katsuki was never the most patient, but he has no choice but to be patient since he has no sword and no allies. It is plausible that he could scuttle the ship by himself, but he can’t risk it with you chained inside and possibly unconscious.

But then he sees it - a shape in the distance.

It is an isle, small enough that it could sustain maybe one hamlet of people, and rather plain, with rocks that make up a small cliff on one side and a sandy beach dotted with rock pools on the other, a thicket of trees spanning the distance between. One could call it nondescript, but there is nothing nondescript about it to Katsuki.

He has bled out on that golden beach. He has fought to protect his own life and the life of another in the waters near that isle, and he has failed. He has wept on that shore, wept enough to cleanse the blood soaked sand beneath his newly fixed body that held his newly broken heart.

That isle is where Deku washed up, half dead, a decade ago. It is where he watched from afar as this green eyed, freckled human nursed himself back to health, and where he watched from a little closer as he learnt that humans were more than what they are portrayed as in the tales of his pod.

He understood many things on that isle: what love was - the touch of his lips to a man with unruly green curls and an infectious smile, and what betrayal was - when his pod found out and the waters were tinted red because of it.

Just like that, he knows what to do.

Hidden in the underwater caves below the isle is a monster that slumbers until a soul dares to wake it. The humans call it a kraken, but the merfolk leave it unnamed, for it is too great to be reduced to a simple moniker. He has seen it once before, through the haze that descends over one close to death, and felt as its power stymied the lifeblood that poured hot from a wound spanning from the middle of his sternum to his navel.

Both he and Deku had lain on the beach after his pod ambushed, both bleeding from fatal wounds. He had been too fucking weak to get to the kraken first, and so Deku had been the one to sacrifice himself and give himself to the monster so Katsuki could live, when it should have been the other way round.

This time, though, he is strong enough.

He remembers slipping back into the ocean with his freshly healed wound so the saltwater of his tears mixed with the sea, unable to understand why Deku would leave him. Now, he understands all too well, and he will not fail to protect the one he loves again.

Summoning the kraken means no going back. After waking it, the summoner is transported into the kraken’s form, and they have a limited time within it before the kraken reaps its payment - the summoner’s soul. It will shatter their spirit and ensure they cannot return to their body.

Katsuki dives down deep, breaking away from the ship and swimming ahead of it to find the gaping mouth of the cave that the kraken slumbers within. He is far down enough that the water is murky, frigid as it weighs heavily on him, the sun a weak pinprick of light suspended somewhere above him that does nothing to pierce the gloom.

The entrance is curtained with seaweed, the cold fronds  caressing his skin as he slips past them. Nestled in the darkness, it lies there, slumbering: a behemoth shadow, looming as high as the cavern’s ceiling and filling its width like the berth of a warship docked in a seaside hamlet’s harbour.

As he swims towards it, he realises he has already had his last glimpse of you through his own eyes. The last time he will see you, he will be fighting to keep hold of himself before he loses his soul to the kraken, and then it will just be bottomless darkness until it is summoned again. You might not even know it is him inside the monster.

It doesn’t matter - a lot has ceased to matter to Katsuki. He can no longer deny that he loves you, and with that epiphany comes another: you knew what the hunters would do to you when you bargained for his freedom, and yet you did it anyway, with no fear of the consequences. Now, it is his turn to put his life on the line for you, and though he may lose it, you will be free.

He will never feel the sweet touch of lips again, but that’s alright. He hopes that you will find another to make you happy, another who will make your heart soar and help you forget him. They will be to you what you were to him: a light to scare away the shadows, a star in the night sky to guide you, even if at times, just like him, you believe you do not wish to be guided.

Katsuki pictures your face as he draws near to the kraken.

Its flesh is odd beneath his palm - slippery and uncomfortably cold. Pressing his palm to its skin, he wills it awake, and it obeys him alarmingly fast, an eye as big as his head snapping open and rolling around until it fixates on him. An abyss of a pupil sucks him in, beckoning him forward to a place that will be the last he ever visits.

Though he knows his body remains still, he feels himself fall forward, sucked towards the magnetic emptiness within the kraken as if it aches to be occupied. For a moment, he resists, pure instincts making him struggle against it, but he forces himself to let go. Sensation briefly forsakes him.

When his vision is restored, he finds that he is looking at his body, limp and vacant. Already he can feel a difference in the water, the sharp tang of fear drifting toward him on currents that hadn’t been there before as creatures begin to flee, aware that something ancient has been roused from its sleep.

A tempest is brewing.

Katsuki - or a version of him that no longer is really Katsuki, but instead a wrathful monster caller - cannot see the dark clouds amassing above, but he knows they are scudding across the blue skies to taint the high midday sun, and it is his doing. Cruel winds accumulate in the shadows cast by his thunderhead, and he can hear the sharp snap of canvas and the raised voices of a crew readying their ship for a storm.

Unfurling a tentacle, he curls it around his old body, careful not to crush it, and reaches up high enough to deposit it on the beach. He begins to move the kraken out of the cave, dislodging pebbles that would have been boulders as the bulk of its body manoeuvres through the exit.

In a way, he is disconnected from the body that is his now; there is empty space that he is not large enough to occupy, like he has donned a garment made for a merman the size of a mountain. It is strangely silent inside this huge vessel, although he is not alone. Shadow wreathed souls lurk in the corners of his mind, and he knows they are disgusted by him.

He is not surprised. Historically, the kraken have been summoned only in the utmost peril. To the merfolk, the kraken are as sacred and as old as the sea, called upon in the wars of old, when the magic beings of the sky were eradicated. Despite being only scattered shards of themselves, the past summoners look down on him, because he does not summon to seek the solution to mighty matters.

For the second time in a lifetime, the kraken is being summoned for a cause as selfish as love.

There’s an awful symmetry to it, really. He imagines the way they must have abhorred Deku, a dying human who did not use the kraken’s power to destroy, but to knit together the wound of a simple, unnoteworthy merman.

Faces contorted beyond recognition flash before his eyes and hands claw at his sides with nails as vicious as knives. They want blood, they want a whole fleet to rip through and ruin. He tells them that they will have to settle with one ship, and they cry their discontent in his ears, their voices rough and rasping, like rusting metal on stone.

He has not broken the surface of the water yet. His body prowls many leagues down, but still, he spots the shadow cast by the ship, and the moment he does, his vision narrows, blurs, and he sees winking lights on board: the lives of the crew, twinkling and tantalising and begging to be snuffed out.

The kraken jets upwards and breaches, spraying up a wall of water, and though he does not command it, he bellows a war cry, the sound so bloodthirsty and wild it almost sweeps him up and incapacitates him. The shadow souls close in, fragments of vengeful souls garbed in shadow, greedy and eager to see him torn apart, and he shakes them off, wrenching himself from their grasp with all his strength.

A twinge pinches at his side, and he glances down to see a volley of harpoons glance off his hide, leaving shallow gashes in their wake. The crew swarm on the deck, their terror sour as he breathes it in and savours it. They are but ants, small and irritating with their measly weapons and made to be crushed and devoured -

He seizes the mast and uses it to rock the ship from side to side, fighting to keep the visions of blood staining the water red away from him. Too fast, his control is slipping, and he feels the souls swarm around him, filling his field of view with darkness until all he can see is those tiny flames that he must put out. There is something he wanted to do, something he needs to do -

Selfish, the souls hiss in his ears, trying to sink their hateful claws into him again, and he agrees with them.

He loves, and therefore he is selfish.

It is no bad thing.

The storm clouds gather over the ship, roiling and rumbling with thunder. Lightning strikes, a bolt of white fury that splinters the deck and extinguishes one of the little lives on board, producing a delighted cackle from the souls at his back, but he ignores them. He knows what he must do.

“Bring me the witch,” he roars.

His voice comes out warped and foreign, the words of men coming out strange and misshapen on his tongue, but the crew understand enough, scuttling to obey, desperate to believe he may spare them if they give you to him. The grip of the souls tightens, squeezing at his throat - he has spent too long in their presence already, and they nip at the edges of his mind, stealing away parts of him when he isn’t looking.

He realises with a jolt that he does not remember his name any more.

It is fine, though. He will join the souls in their namelessness soon. They are a cacophony in his head, and he can no longer hear anything but them, the burn of their claws threatening to tear him apart and shred him the way they are already torn apart, but he barely cares.

The little gnats bring another up and present it to him. This one shines brighter, suffused with a magic the souls cannot wait to devour, and they encourage him forward - surely he too will enjoy the honeyed taste of this offering? Plucking it off the ship’s deck, he brings it to his eye level, and his shadow companions clamour for him to crush it, but he hesitates.

It looks at him like it knows him. In its weak, tiny voice, it yells something that gets lost in the howl of the winds, but even so, it makes the souls shrink back, receding enough for him to remember that this little thing he holds is important. Important for what, he can’t recall, but it is important all the same.

Kicking its legs, the small being beats its fist on his tentacle, still shouting. He leans closer, wincing as the shadows scratch and tear at his back, trying to draw him away again.

“Katsuki!” You scream.

He jolts. It is you, his little, beloved witch - you are why he is being so selfish, summoning the kraken just to save one life. Peering closer, he notices that you are bruised all over, and suddenly the storm worsens overhead, crackling as bolts of lightning stab down like vindictive knives and the wind tears at the ship full of aghast hunters, tossing it violently among the waves.

Carefully, he places you on the beach, next to a body that used to be his. You scramble towards it, limping, and he turns away, looking back towards the ship and the lights it is infested with that still need to be destroyed. Anger comes easily to him, because these are the ones that have marred you with bruises.

The shadows close in again.

Roaring, he tears at the ship, rending it in two and crushing those that leap overboard, yet the souls are never appeased, never satiated. It feels as if power leaks out the seams of his spirit and if he does not let it go it will destroy him from the inside, but he knows he cannot let go. He needs to hold on, to hold himself together, for something that drifts further and further out of reach -

It is as if he has been tied to the bottom of a sea trench for so long, drowning in darkness, that the surface is just a fanciful thought. He does not remember the sun’s sweet face, nor the sound of your voice as you called out the name he has lost again. They sink their teeth into him, ready to tear him apart.

He struggles. He will not go without a fucking fight, he will not let them have him before he has tried valiantly to swim upwards to the sun, where the shadows will not survive.

But the light is so far from him. It floats away every time he strives to be closer, or maybe there are hands holding him back, ripping him open and tethering him to the blackness. They cling to him, shrieking in his ears, sinking curved claws into him and refusing to let go, ready to reap the kraken’s payment.

He is losing himself.

And then - a hand, gentle, touching his face. Emerald eyes fill his vision, wide and lovely, and suddenly he is able to ignore the souls and their blaring dissonance, the pain in his side fading away into nothing. There is a soul that still remains named here, mixed in with those who have been rent apart by hate.

“Kacchan,” the soul says earnestly. “You must fight it, Kacchan.”

“Deku,” he sobs, leaning into the soul’s warm palms as he wipes his tears away. “I’m sorry.”

Deku smiles, and Katsuki weeps, because he looks so proud of him, as if he is worth an eternity spent trapped within a kraken alongside shattered souls that only wish for chaos and destruction. He weeps, because here are Deku and Kacchan, back together again, but they cannot stay this way forever.

“I understand,” Deku whispers, and his touch heals Kacchan once more. “I understand you love her. You need to fight, you need to return to her and love her like you want to. I died so you could live, Kacchan. Let go.”

He looks down and sees the way he clutches onto Deku so hard he is white knuckled, while Deku cradles his hands in his scarred ones, softly as if Kacchan is fragile. Trembling, he loosens his grip, and he feels the light draw closer, the sun’s rays warming his face. Something tightens in his chest when he finally allows himself to release Deku, but it hurts in the manner of stitches pulling taut inside him and binding him together again.

One last time, he looks over his shoulder, to where Deku watches as he goes, smiling brightly, shining like he is a star plucked from the night sky. His brilliance holds the shadows back, rendering them powerless. He pays them no mind, though - his viridescent eyes are lit up and fixed only on his Kacchan.

Deku says something, but the sound of his voice is drowned out by the crashing of the waves and the winds of a dying down of a storm. Still, Katsuki knows what he said by the shape of his lips: I love you. Smiling, he takes a final look at him, at those unruly green curls and those sweet eyes and bright smile, and then he turns and is bathed in light.

The kraken sinks again beneath the waves, but Katsuki does not sink with it.

You know it’s impossible, but you sense the moment Katsuki is back in his body. You’ve heard the tales of the kraken, and you know he should have been taken from you, but there he is, present in the weak pulse of his heart beneath your palm and the steady rise and fall of his chest. Shallow cuts have appeared all over his body, remnants of the damage of the hunter’s harpoons.

His eyes are open, but barely, and he blinks slowly, fighting to keep them fixed on you, giving you only glimpses of familiar crimson. There is a strange looseness to his awareness that must come with the recency of doing the impossible, but still he grips your hand desperately, struggling to stay awake long enough to force words out.

“I - I lo - ”

Before he can finish, his voice cracks and he coughs. His eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to start again, but you smile, tears blurring your vision as you press a finger to his lips and hush him, and thankfully he relaxes under your touch, curling closer to you and seeking shelter in your embrace. Once he is rested, he will have all the time in the world to tell you whatever he likes.

What matters is that he is here. That in itself is beyond even a miracle. 

Almost disbelieving, you cradle him to you, pressing your forehead to his as tears you cannot stop spill down your face and mingle with his blood. You are bone tired after repeatedly healing your own cracked ribs and fractured wrists, but you are whole enough for now - you won’t waste your energy on your own bruises while he still hurts.

So you hold him against your chest, sweeping your fingers delicately over the deeper of his cuts to seal them. The sky has cleared, the storm clouds departing as fast as they arrived, and the sea is dipped in ruby by the bleeding sunset. It lacquers the wet sand with the glow of dying embers as the incoming tide smooths over where the storm had churned it up, erasing the mark left on the island as if this afternoon had never happened.

If it were not for Katsuki in your arms, it would be like the kraken never came.

You glance down at him. He seems at peace, though worn and battered, as if he has reconciled something deep within his heart; he has closed his eyes, simply leaning against you with his face pressed into your side, his warm hands tucked just beneath the hem of your shirt.

You cannot help but smile. Because of him, you are free. No chains bind your wrists, no threats limit you in what you decide to do next. You are not sure where you will end up later, but for now you intend to fall asleep beneath the open sky, beside the one you love infinitely more than any life you might have had and even this new life he has fought and bled to give you.

When you drift out of your dreams - just simple, golden things full of a contentment that lingers past waking - the tide is high, the ocean lapping at the sand at your feet. The moon is almost at its highest point in the sky, depositing a residue of silver on everything around you.

Katsuki stirs in your arms, and when you glance down, you are met with the twin beacons of his eyes, luminous in the dark and full, brimming and spilling over with unspoken things that leave a deep ache in your heart. Trembling, he grips your hands, and you lace your fingers with his, brushing your lips over his knuckles and stroking his face as the tears begin to flow.

He cries like he is mourning. You wonder what he saw while his soul donned the kraken’s skin, how poignant it must have been to wrench these fitful sobs from him. Cupping his face in your palms, you wipe his tears away, and he clings to you to keep you close while he bares his newly healing heart to you; it is wrapped in the past’s scars. He shows you the rawest parts of him, and you soothe them as best you can with your healing hands.

There is no magic to this cure, though. It is just the love that burns within you, consuming you so entirely it makes you shake. You did not know it was possible to love like this, but the proof weeps in your arms, a merman who summoned the kraken and somehow conquered it so he could make it back to you.

“Tell me,” you whisper, tracing the strong lines of his face with your fingertips.

Curling his arms around you, he hides his face in your neck. “Deku stood with me against the dark inside the kraken,” he replies softly. “He held them back so I could come back to you. I - I thought I had lost him forever, when he summoned the kraken to save me.”

Carefully, he brings your hand to touch the scar stretching down his chest, and you outline its edges, comforted by the warmth of his body and the steadiness of his breathing beneath your fingers. You would be happy to stay like that forever, linked to him by your skin on his and the synchronised beat of your hearts.

“He told me to fight so I could return to you,” Katsuki murmurs. “So I could love you.”

Your breath catches, your voice sticking before any words come out. He is blunt and honest as always, but this time, he is without his walls, without his guard up, open and vulnerable for you to lash out at him if you wished to, but he trusts you will not. Still, you hesitate, your throat constricting.

“I… I didn’t know him, or what he was like, but I know I can’t be him to you,” you falter. “I cannot be Deku, Katsuki.”

You do not expect your voice to come out so small, so timid. Neither do you expect the overwhelming tenderness that fills his eyes - no one has ever looked at you like that, as if they really see the whole of you, the blemishes and shadows on your soul and they love those too.

“I don’t ask you to be like him,” he replies. “No one will ever be like him. No one will ever be like you, either. I love you because you are you, not because you are him.”

“Katsuki,” you breathe, unable to swallow down the tears welling in your eyes.

“You know I can’t give you the life you deserve, either,” he continues, voice thick. “If you tie yourself to me, you tie yourself to the sea too, regardless of if you like it or not.”

Searchingly, you look at him, and it feels for a second that as you meet his eyes, you know the whole ocean, down to its unexplorable depths, down to every grain of sand and every critter it shelters and sustains. In that moment, there is a total, utter understanding within you - you would love him whatever the condition.

“I would tie myself to the most pitiful of the things on this earth if it meant I could love you, Katsuki.”

“I too, witch,” he replies, and a fond little smile pulls at his lips. “I would summon that kraken a thousand times if it meant I could win your heart.”

You laugh, out of pure joy more than anything else, and he laughs too, rolling in the sand so he can prop himself up on his elbows. Flopping over, you adjust yourself so you can rest your head against his stomach, lifting your eyes to watch as he tips his face up to the sky, letting the stars reflect in his gaze, as if he holds the galaxies of the universe in each pupil.

Your fingers find his as you stare up at the moon where it hangs highest in the sky now, full and silver as the stars. A new moon: symbolising fresh starts and new beginnings, or maybe even the waxing of a love that was planted in the darkness of the brig of a ship soaked in blood, nourished by nothing but the weak flame of a lamp and swift hands knitting flesh back together.

A familiar prickle trails coyly down the side of your neck, and the sound of sand whispering against itself reaches your ears as Katsuki shifts beneath you, lightly skimming the high tide’s surf with his tail. You are not ready to leave the easy silence you’ve made yet, so you bask in his presence and his warmth a little longer.

The moon has just begun its descent when you turn to face him. He’s just looking at you, looking and looking and looking as if he can’t get enough. You smile, aware of the fresh edge in his gaze that was not there before, the string binding your soul to his pulling delightfully taut.

“You’re as beautiful as the ocean,” he mumbles, fiddling with a lock of your hair. “More beautiful than the ocean. But in a different way, you’re…”

You grin. “Worse?”

“Worse,” he agrees, smirking, but he looks at you as if you breathed life into his seas. “Much worse.”

Time stops for a moment, and you sit up, bringing your face close to his until your breaths mingle - you cannot help but let his crimson eyes consume you, heart and soul. You linger there for a moment, the air crackling between you, both of you waiting as if to see who will give in and pounce first.

Bringing his hand up, Katsuki lets his fingers slide under your jaw, lifting your chin so you are merely a hair’s breadth away. He fills your senses; you can feel the warmth of his body, the roughness of the calluses on his fingers, the feather-like brush of his breath against your cheek, smell his briney sea scent, hear the swish of sand as he shifts infinitesimally closer. A lethal spark gleams in his eyes, tying you in helpless knots.

You lean forward and claim his lips.

It draws a quiet groan from him, and suddenly you are beneath him in the sand and his hands are all over you, grabbing handfuls of you and shucking the damp material of your shirt up and over your head so he can touch your skin. The way he looks at you, with those stirring embers that tug at something low in your stomach, reduces you to a sailor under the influence of a siren’s song - he is irresistible, he is magnificent.

Tangling your fingers in his hair, you pull him ever closer, licking into his mouth as if you might find the god’s nectar hiding beneath his tongue. He nips at your lower lip with those keen canines of his, and you cannot help but buck your hips as the tide swirls around the both of you.

Chuckling, he skims a palm over your thigh, pulling your leg up to hook over his hip. It brings your clothed core right against the length of his hardening cock that has emerged from the slit in his tail; you stifle a moan at the feel of him, grinding agonisingly slowly down on him and sighing as he trails wet kisses and purpling bites down your throat.

Katsuki licks at the spot under your jaw, and this time, at the second graze of his teeth against your skin, your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling at it and squeezing another sweet noise from him. You keep your hands threaded through his ash blonde locks as he licks at the valley between your breasts. Meticulously, he marks your plush flesh with the imprints of his teeth, laying his claim on you.

When he reaches your stomach, he mouths at your skin, nipping playfully just over your hip bone before he raises his eyes to meet yours. They are heavy lidded and sultry, and they stir the fire building in your core as he toys lazily with the waistband of your trousers. His fingers are casual as they curl beneath the fabric.

“Let me taste you, witch,” he implores.

“I cannot argue when you look at me like that,” you reply, breathless. “Nor would I, anyways.”

That is all the consent he needs before he is helping you out of your remaining clothes, almost ripping them in his hurry to have you on his tongue. His hands slip beneath you, gripping your ass and guiding your legs over his shoulders, and there he pauses. Yearning blazes in his crimson eyes, and then he dips his head and puts his mouth on you.

You gasp his name. Your hands scramble for purchase before you bury them in his hair again, yanking to encourage him further, and he responds by sucking harshly on your clit, making your hips jump and buck into his face. He groans into your heat, and the vibrations of it make you see stars.

Slowly, he pulls back, glancing up at you, and the sight of him is enough to make you moan: his eyes are glazed, fervent, worshipful, and your slick drips down his chin, the moonlight making it seem like liquid diamond. Bewitched by him, you choke out his name, and he smirks and slips two fingers inside you. Your legs begin to shake when he pumps them slowly in and out of you, bending them at the knuckle so he can hit that spot inside you.

The friction enraptures you, mounting in the pit of your stomach and winding up tight, and your thighs close around his head, clenching as Katsuki pushes you closer and closer to the edge. Turning his head, he sucks at your skin, marking you there, too.

You balance on a knife blade’s edge.

Abruptly, he slides his fingers out and your pussy clamps down a second too late; already, you open your mouth to lament it when he bends his head and replaces them with his tongue. Your words dissolve into wretched moans; you grind your hips against his face and lightning spears through you when his nose nudges at your clit.

Pleasure rises within you, a gradual, swelling thing that sneaks up on you in the unhurried nature of his movements. You can feel his smile against your cunt. You can feel the light burn as he grips your flesh, anchoring you to him so you could not pull away and part him from the taste of you even if you wished to.

You cry out his name as you come.

Katsuki nestles you close to his chest as you come down from your high, kissing your face as the aftershocks send shivers down your spine. Tenderness resides in his eyes, right beside a longing that makes you melt into him, weak with ardour as you slip your hand between your sea damp bodies to curl your fingers slyly around his cock.

His lips part as you jerk him, and you cross the small distance between you to bite at his lower lip, sucking it into your mouth and swiping your tongue over it as you feel him grow impossibly harder in your palm. Ridges swell down his length, flushed a coruscant orange that blurs down into obsidian at his base.

Tipping your head back, you look him in the eye. “I - I need you inside me, Katsuki.”

The words are clumsy on your tongue. You do not know how to articulate the pressing need to feel him, to not know where you end and he begins, to collide with him right there on the beach of this island that houses a kraken, to get lost in the salt on his skin and the eddy of the sea at your joined hips.

Lowly, he curses, treating you as if you are holy as he spreads your legs and settles between them, gripping the curve of your hip with one hand as he lines himself up. You press your lips against the warm bronze skin of his shoulder, sighing against him, urging him forward, urging him closer, a blissed out sound slipping from you as the ridges of his cock push past your entrance, the stretch nothing short of divine.

At last, he is sheathed fully within you. His hips kiss yours, and he remains there, pulsing hotly within you, the pleasure on his face bordering on pain as your cunt bears down on him, yet still, he will not move. Jaw clenching, he squeezes his eyes shut, and a hoarse groan tears itself from deep in his chest.

Panting, he bows his head, and when he looks up, tears rim his lash line, glittering like individual crystals dipped in the light of the stars. One rolls down his cheek and plops down onto yours, and you raise a hand to caress his face, raking your fingers through his hair to push it back from his forehead; he leans into your touch, turning his head to kiss your palm.

Slipping your hand round to cup the nape of his neck, you bring your mouth to his. Delicately, Katsuki kisses you before pulling back to press his lips feather-light to your eyelids - he lingers there, his breath fluttering warmly against your skin, his thumb drawing circles on your cheekbone.

Again, he kisses you, and it is only then that you taste the salt of your own tears on his tongue.

Your soft, raw sob echoes across the beach, and you dig your nails into his wide shoulders, urging him to move. With a gasp, he begins to rock his hips into you, and it breaks you apart. You keen, pushing back into his fluid, achingly unhurried strokes, scrabbling at his back in an attempt to bring him closer, to let him consume your very being.

Right there on the sand, under the moonlight with the seafoam lapping at your sides, he fucks into you, slow and deep, trembling and crying above you, and tenderly, you kiss him again. The roll of his thumb over your clit sends thrills chasing down your spine. He dips his head, burying his face in your neck, and fiercely, you hold him to you.

“Mine,” Katsuki whispers, and his teeth sink into your skin.

Something snaps inside you, and the fire in your gut blazes. Your cunt clenches hard around him, vice like around his cock, and you feel him twitch when your velvety walls clamp down on him, feel his soft exhale and know that he too knows the burn of the inferno in your core.

“Please, Katsuki,” you whine. “Harder.”

“Fuck,” he growls, his voice rasping in your ear, and suddenly you are empty.

Before you can protest, he flips you over, pressing your back into his chest and you reel, momentarily blinded by the night sky stretching high and wide above you. He is solid beneath you, and he knocks the breath from your lungs when he surges up into you.

You can feel all of him. Ruthlessly, Katsuki pounds up into you, as if he is desperate to taste the sea salt on your skin and inhale your scent and never let you go. Your body jerks with each thrust, your voice cracking as you cry out his name, the new heady angle of his cock inside you leaving you writhing, lost in the bliss he wrings from you.

His tail thrashes in the surf as he fucks up into you. You are limp in his arms, trembling all over as your back arches - he squeezes your breasts in one hand while the other settles between your legs, his skilled fingers working over your clit to kindle a mind shattering type of euphoria within you that renders you boneless and speechless, your jaw slack.

Your head falls back on his shoulder, your eyes falling shut as you moan, your pussy constricting tight around him. A hand circles your throat, squeezing lightly, and you mewl, your cunt unashamedly spasming at the feel of his calloused fingers about your neck.

“Let the moon and stars witness how I pleasure you, my love,” he snarls.

Your eyes roll, your toes curl. Somehow, he fucks up into you faster, harder, and his cock hits places that cause your vision to white out, the relentless friction of his ridges on your walls enough to make you sob and claw at the arm he uses to keep you in place. Distantly, you can hear yourself begging him, pleading for him to go harder, deeper, to not stop, to ruin you.

You scream Katsuki’s name as you come for the second time tonight. Uncontrollably, your thighs shake, and your cunt convulses around his cock; you can feel him slowing his thrusts, letting you ride out your high, but despite the overstimulation building in the tautness inside your stomach, you grind against him.

“Don’t stop,” you gasp. “Want - want you to come inside me.”

Your words elicit a groan from him. “Fucking filthy, aren’t you?”

Helplessly, you whimper in response, your pussy fluttering as he hammers up into you. He swears as he comes, spilling hot inside you, the sweet sound he makes muffled when he bites down on your shoulder. Both of you lie there for a moment, catching your breath, before gently, he manoeuvres the two of you so you lie on your sides, careful to keep himself deep in your heat; he is warm against your back.

Katsuki splays a palm over your stomach, holding you close, and you lace your fingers with his, sighing happily as he begins to pepper kisses over your back. You can feel the upwards curve of his lips as he smiles against your skin.

“Are you alright?” He asks, nuzzling the nape of your neck.

“Better than alright,” you confirm.

You remain silent for a while longer, happy just to lie there cocooned in his arms and the quiet wash of the ocean; you can feel the pulse of his heart against your back, steady and comforting. A hushed, steady noise comes from him, a satisfied noise, almost a purr. His cock is beginning to soften inside you, its ridges coming down - you both groan as he slips out, moving so his length is tucked against the curve of your ass.

“How did you know it was me?” He asks suddenly. “When I summoned the kraken.”

You squeeze his hand. “I saw you in its eyes. You know, I couldn’t have missed it if I tried, especially not when you yelled for the hunters to bring me to you. I heard it all the way from below deck.”

He laughs, and you shuffle closer to him, feeling his arms tighten around you.

“I didn’t even know the kraken was a real thing,” you tell him. “I wasn’t scared, though. I knew I’d be safe when I saw it was you.”

Katsuki scoffs. “You’re horrendously sappy, witch.”

You laugh, pushing your ass back against him. “I think you like it, merman.”

Laughing, you roll to and fro in the sand, with you grinding on him as he grips your hips and tries to wrestle you into submission. Eventually, he manages to incapacitate you by holding you tightly against his chest, dipping his head so he can whisper hotly in your ear.

“Keep that up and I’ll have to fuck you again,” he grits out.

“You’ll have to catch me first,” you challenge.

Giggling, you wriggle out of his grip and plunge further into the shallows, just catching him muttering something about insatiable and damn witch before he dives in and streaks after you, his dorsal fin cutting through the water. A hand closes around your ankle, and you squeal, flailing as you shake him off.

Clumsily, you take off towards the rock pools, wading through the sea water as fast as you can. You know Katsuki will catch you (you’re not exactly opposed to it - you’re running into the sea rather than out of it, after all). Again, he makes another grab at you, and you romp with him in the waves, grinning as you fend him off by splashing water at him, squirming out of his arms again.

In the end, he grabs you around the waist and traps you against one of the tide pools, the rock rough against your back as he smirks down at you. The sight of him above you is enthralling: droplets run down his chest in rivulets, rolling down the grooves his muscles make, and the moon hangs the sky behind him, crowning him with a halo made of silver. Your mouth waters.

Taking your chin in between his thumb and forefinger, he brings his face close to yours. A shiver runs down your spine. His red eyes fill your vision, glowing in the night, hypnotic and burning with craving so devout it borders on veneration.

He smiles. “Caught you.”

Katsuki takes you again, against the rock at your back. Afterwards, you lie there, spent and tangled together in the waning moonlight until you grow hungry again and you straddle him, mesmerised by the sight of him staring up at you, pleasure twisting his features as you ride him. You fuck and make love until the sun begins to rise, and it is only then that the two of you are finally sated.

So there you lie, held in his arms and the sea’s embrace - and inexplicably, you find that you do not regret all the pain you suffered at the hands of the hunters, because if it was not for them, you would never have been in that brig to heal him. Inside you, something blossoms within your soul, young and fresh and beautiful as the new moon, and it spills forth from your lips, a whispered confession pressed to his skin like a kiss.

“I love you, Bakugou Katsuki.”

Cupping your jaw, he brings his forehead to yours and murmurs your name. “I love you too.”

Katsuki glances down at you, where you are curled into the curve of his side like you were made to fit him, and he feels his failing, tired heart bloom once again. You have healed him in ways that run deeper than just his flesh.

He looks in your eyes, and when he does, the sea looks back.

You are his home.

A/N: by the way guys, afterwards they travel somewhere cool and the reader sets up a lil witchy abode by the sea and the villagers come to her for cures and half of them are lowkey a bit terrified of her mermaid husband but it doesn’t matter because she still gives really good remedies and he hasn’t eaten anyone yet and sometimes she and bakugou go out in their boat and attack hunter ships for funsies

also here's a picture i found off pinterest which i kind of imagine his tail being like except it's a bit more rigid and the dorsal fins are more spiney and longer, also there's more black and less red

taglist: @freakingsparkydreamer @d1orhaz3 @msjaeger @mellasimp14 @eyesforbkg @cottagedumpling @silkdolli @teeesthings @raksstuff

[just-a-ghost00]

How they see you vs how you see yourself

Group 1 - Witchy kitty

How they see you | The world, Temperance, 8 of pentacles

They see you as the center of their Universe. They think you are wonderful, a true all rounder and a very hardworking person. They see you as someone very independent, well travelled, educated, mature and balanced. They think that you know what you want and don’t stay bound to one place or one person. They view you as a rebel at heart, a free spirit. Someone that cannot and will not be tamed no matter what. They think that you are abundant. That you don’t need anyone to save the day because you are your own support. They think that you are quite stubborn and honest but also fair and patient. You know when to take space and when to give it. Your decisions and movements are swift. They view you as a very social person that knows all the cheat codes to a balanced life and a successful career. They think that you somehow have a lot of recognition and that your desire to expand may never be satisfied. They think you are a go getter and that seems to impress them.

How you see yourself | The Tower, Strength, Chariot

You see yourself as someone very intense and hard to deal with. Someone that life has made bitter and harsh. You feel like a wounded warrior, too tired to fight but too wary to let your guard down. You think that you’re a high achiever and don’t deserve to settle for less than what you embody. You think that you are a survivor. That no matter what life puts you through you’ll always rise back up. You think you are unstoppable, untamable and indestructible which may very well be the truth. You also think that that tough shell you have wil scare people off. A part of you believes that you are not beautiful enough to be recognized and valued. You think that you destroy everything you touch. That if you don’t keep moving karma might bite you in the but. You’re conscious of your assets but also mostly of your demons. You think that you are too dark of a person to be loved and understood.

Group 2 - Lonely ghosty

How they view you | 3 of swords, ace of cups, the moon, extra card 8 of pentacles

They think you are shy and too scared to open your heart to love. That you don’t like to show affection or let people see your vulnerable side. They think that you tend to hide your feelings, whether it be sorrow or hope. They think that life has given you many reasons to believe that humans cannot be trusted. That despite all that you've been through you still hope that love exists and is meant for you. That you are a kind and loving person, someone romantic with a lot of fears and daydreams. They think that you are mysterious, that your scars make you beautiful and lovable. They think that your patience and generosity know no limit. That one of the reasons why you get hurt is because you give so much and receive so little in return. They view you as someone talented, hardworking, prosperous, studious, that isn't afraid to try many times even if they keep falling and getting hurt. Someone that never gives up. They also think that your reserved nature creates a wall between you and others.

How you see yourself | The World, knight of cups, 6 of swords, ace of cups

Your opinion of yourself is pretty positive, which makes me very happy. You think that you are someone giving, kind, caring, patient. Someone that has the ability to move on easily in life, despite the challenges you are faced with. Someone that knows when to keep pushing and when to let go. Someone that isn't afraid of being vulnerable or kept in the dark about what is going on. You have a lot of faith in yourself and your ability to navigate the watters of life because you've seen it all. You've been through hell and back, and you know damn well that you have what it takes to survive it all. In that aspect, your vision of yourself complements the vision that the person on your mind has of you. If the person you were thinking of, focuses on your guardedness and how it keeps you from experiencing love again, you view it as a proof that you've matured and learned from your mistakes, that you love yourself enough to set boundaries, which you may not have been good at in the past. You feel pretty proud of yourself and you have every right to be. You think that you are a valuable person and that you deserve to be loved for who you are.

Group 3 - Spicy tea

How they view you | Death, 2 of wands, Queen of pentacles, Chariot

They see you as this bigger than life individual that cannot be stopped nor tamed. Someone that doesn't ask for permission to do what they deem is right. A person that has strong morals and a very good idea of who they want to be, where they want to go and how they want to be remembered. The opinion they have of you is very positive. They are in awe at how strong and opinionated you are. In their eyes, you are fearless. Someone that should not be messed with. In some way, they may be scared by your intensity and controlling attitude. Because you can be controlling, especially if people are being direspectful to you. They view you as the epitome of success, dignity and grace combined. You are a fighter and a go getter and apparently that has left a strong impression on them.

How you see yourself | 10 of wands, the Devil, 10 of swords, knight of cups

Your opinion of yourself is completely different. You are harsher on yourself than this person is. It feels like you don't give yourself enough credit for your accomplishments and qualities. You may tend to self sabotage, self criticize, overthink. You think that you have many faults, that you are not enough. That you're "too this" or "not enough that". You think that you have a lot of demons that prevent you from being happy and enjoying your success. You think that you are depressed, exhausted, burdened with your past and your thoughts. You think that you are someone that wants to love and be loved for who they are but considering all the baggages that you think you have, you deem that you are not worthy of it. You may see yourself as someone that is too broken to be loved, to be congratulated for your deeds and admired. Which really saddens me because no one should have to feel like that about themselves. Your perception of yourself is likely distorted by your fears, the conceptions that were implanted in your brain by toxic acquaintances.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Real talk because you are THE resident Silco expert and all your headcanons are 100% correct: why does fandom think Silco would be good in bed? (Or good at sex at all?)

I've seen headcanons about him being a giver, and about his dick game being fire, and while he's a sexy, charismatic man, I feel like he's too... selfish, insecure, and just not a romantic guy. He's also a very bitter, lonely, and angry dude. Idk, it makes sense he would have some kinks but I feel like he'd be too much of a bitch to care for anyone else in bed. I guess he'd want it rough, and I've read some fics where he's a sadist, but I feel like it'd just be a quick fuck to satisfy himself, not a slow, passionate, sensual thing.

idk, do with this what you will.

I agree - with nuance 💗

Silco - at least as I write him in FNF - is principally a headfuck. If he's demonstrating an interest in you, then he wants something from you. If he's nice to you, there's a bottom line. No act of generosity comes without strings attached, and every small kindness comes at a terrible price. That aspect of cold-blooded calculus is never far away from his base nature, which splits the world into assets and liabilities, and his own actions into a transaction of cost versus reward.

With that in mind, he excels, not at sex, but at getting his partners to do what he wants them to do. For him, it's one of the many fluid ways of expressing power, and demonstrating his mastery over the subtleties of the human body and mind.

A few readers have noticed that he comes across as very detached and controlled during FnF's sex scenes - and that they read as weirdly voyeuristic. That always delights me, because it's an intentional choice. He doesn't really see his partner as anything beyond a medium to his goals, so his focus is entirely on their physical responses and his own actions. His narration is distant, observational and impersonal, because he doesn't experience sex as something that involves an emotional or empathetic connection. Rather, he's gauging how his target's responses play out on a physical plane, and he's calibrating his own actions to maximise their impact.

To give credit where credit is due, he's very intelligent, patient and observant. There is also some realistic backing to the running gag that Good D is invariably attached to Bad Men. More specifically, Bad Broke Men. Silco has not grown up in a position of privilege or wealth. He has been forced to make use of every available resource. He has survived by the skin of his teeth on a constant knife edge of deprivation, hunger and fear.

He's a scrapper. He's a survivor. He's an opportunist.

And to be any of those things, you need to know your way around people: their wants and weaknesses. That's the foundation for the idea that he's good in bed - that he can anticipate his partner's desires, and respond accordingly. The difference is, his actions have no romantic underpinning. It's a matter of pure pragmatism and self-interest.

In terms of technical skill, he's likely very good at finding his partner's pressure points, both literal and figurative, and exploiting them. But if it were up to him, he'd find a way to turn the thumbscrews with nothing more than a well-chosen word and a cold look. The sex is just a generality, and his enjoyment a function of their compliance.

When it comes to actual intimacy?

My friends, he'd be spectacularly bad.

Not just bad, but skittish, hostile and hopelessly inept. He'd feel like an accomplished stage actor who has to step out onto the boards for an improv class. He hasn't got the right lines, he isn't dressed for the part, and he isn't even sure what role he's supposed to be playing. He'd be so awkward, he'd actually have trouble looking his partner in the eyes. The sum total of his sexual ouvre would devolve into the following comedy of errors:

"What the fuck is this?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Don't touch me there."

"This is going well, right?"

"Why can't I get it up?"

"I can't do this."

"Leave me alone."

"Where are you going?"

"Don't leave me."

"They always leave me."

"Why does everyone leave me?"

And he'd only spiral deeper into self-loathing and isolation. To submit to intimacy is to open oneself up to the mortifying ordeal of being known, and the constant risk of rejection. To Silco, it is anathema. Actual emotional vulnerability during sex would be not unlike attending his own public execution.

But.

Silco is not a one-note villain, much less a one-trick pony. He has a human history riven in deprivation, bloodshed and betrayal. He's remade himself from a 'weak' man into the premier kingpin of Zaun, but that predatory bracing still hides remnants of the soft-natured idealist he once was. In fact, he's the product of a deeply embedded internal conflict between two distinct versions of himself. The one who seeks to burn his enemies, and the one who seeks to save his city. He's also, as demonstrated by his love for Jinx, capable of profound devotion, loyalty, and a deep-seated longing for companionship.

That means the potential for romance exists. It's just buried deep, deep, deep down beneath years of abuse, neglect, trauma, and self-imposed barriers. If he meets someone who can dismantle those barriers, or bypass them altogether and earn his trust, there is a ray of hope.

Sex would still be frightening and uncomfortable, and it'd involve a lot of trial and error. But it'd also have the potential to be deeply healing. Not because Silco would become a better man, but because his partner would make him want to try. He'd also bring the same intense focus, intelligence, and determination to the task that he applies to his criminal empire - which means that, once he does have his sea legs, Silco would have the potential to become a truly giving lover.

It's all about context.

And the context is always: will he take the gamble when he has nothing to lose, and everything to gain?

[lazycats-stuff]

Bruce rescuing a reader who can shapeshift into a bat when scared, like he can hardly control it at first, he's the product of some experiment and of course Bruce has to take him in. So now Bruce finds himself with a small little bat snuggling into the crook of his neck at night because reader has a nightmare

Aw, that's adorable. Also, some cartoon bats

Summary: (Y/N) is a cute bat who can't really control it.

Warnings: human experiments, shapeshifting... Nothing too detailed.

Bruce sighed quietly as he was sitting in a Justice League meeting. He knew that human experiments will always be persistent, but they had to eradicate it. It was almost like a plague at this point and he didn't like it in the slightest.

" We don't like it either Bruce. " Wonder Woman said from the opposite side of the desk. Bruce just looked at the location that was put on the hologram screen. The lab in America, but somewhere deep in the mountains. Probably somewhere underground... If this is something that the government funds, Bruce will lose his mind.

Is he crazy enough to dress a Bat and fight criminals, assassins and God knows what else? Yes. But the government? Eh. Sort of. If Tim hears about this, he will also flip the lid. Why? Because he can finally prove some conspiracies that circulate around the government. God knows Tim didn't sleep for days, trying to prove a single theory.

Bruce lost count of having to sedate Tim just to force his ass to bed and to sleep for at least, at least, 7 hours in a single night. Not chopped up during the day, just one single damn night. Just goddamn one.

" I would like to say that Red Robin cannot know about this. " Bruce stated, just looking at the screen.

" Why can't he know about this? " Green Lantern asked.

" Because then you will sedate Red Robin, just to sleep. "

Green Lantern look at him in shock. " I beg you pardon? "

" Yup. He refuses to sleep. Sedation was the last step. " Bruce gave a vague explanation and Green Lantern decided to leave it alone. He won't question Bruce in the slightest. He won't get an answer anyway.

" So when do we depart for this mission? " Bruce asked, waiting patiently for Superman to give him an answer.

" We are going tomorrow. According to the intel, there will be resistance, so stealth is very important. " Superman said.

" So that means one of you will mess up. Stealth is something everyone in this room lacks. " Bruce stated with a dry tone and Flash wanted to argue, but knew it was true.

Stealth was something that they all lacked.

" Either way, the goal of this mission is to get information and save people who might be in there. " Superman said.

" If there will be there. " Bruce said in his ominous tone, eyes darkening at the mere thought of it. Superman knew exactly what he meant.

Killing them to cover their tracks.

" Well, I'll hold out hope that they will be alive. " Superman said, still trying to be positive, but Bruce knew it was a low chance that anyone was even alive.

But hey, you never know.

The fight in the lab was fucking tedious. Turns out, Lex Luthor created this lab. Tim is really going to have a fucking field day with this. Bruce shook his head as he made his way down to the holding cells of the League.

They managed to find one person who was alive and that was just in the nick of time. Bruce managed to take a guard down quickly and he was shocked to find a hysterical bat, flying around the lab cell before landing in his arms.

Then the said bat shifted into a human and then back into a bat. It was fun to say the least. But Bruce had no time to waste back then. He took the man and just ran with a lone survivors, while others were busy fighting.

In the end, he had to sedate them man while in human form because everything was triggering the shifting. It was to make the fly back to the League headquarters. After an hour or so, everything was quiet and lab was secured.

They finally have a case against Lex Luthor. Thank God. Bruce still held (Y/N) in his arms while waiting for the others to come. The fly back was smooth and quiet. Everyone was tired beyond belief and in no mood to talk.

Once landing at the HQ, Bruce took the man to a holding cell where doctors were waiting. Bruce called Tim and told him to get to the Batcave as soon as possible. Tim sounded exhausted, but when Lex was mentioned, he was wide awake all of a sudden.

Bruce quickly used the zeta tubes to get to the Batcave. Tim was waiting and Bruce gave him an USB stick. After explaining the situation to Tim, Bruce took a quick shower while Alfred cleaned up the suit.

It was nice and refreshing. Besides, (Y/N) will be out for a few hours anyway. Bruce finished the shower and got into a clean suit that Alfred had ever so cleaned.

" Thank you very much Alfred. " Bruce thanked him as he put on his suit.

" No problem master Bruce. I overheard you conversation with master Tim. Is there really a lone survivor? " Alfred asked and Bruce nodded.

" Yup. He can shapeshift into a bat. " Bruce said and Alfred chuckled at that.

" Batman saves a little bat. How poetic. " Alfred noted, chuckling quietly.

" Yup. I'll go back now and wait for him to wake up to talk to him to see what we can do. " Bruce explained and yawned.

" I see... Is Lex Luthor really the founder of the lab? " Alfred inquired and Bruce nodded as he took the cowl in his hands.

" Yes he is. We finally have a case against him. " Bruce said proudly.

" Is that why master Tim is currently happy? " Alfred asked, glancing at his grandson, who was on the batcomputer, just typing away happily, a cup of coffee near.

" The moment he is done, please sedate him. " Bruce whispered and Alfred chuckled.

" Already ahead of you master Bruce. " Alfred whispered back and Bruce nodded as he put his cowl back on.

And the rest was history. Bruce learned that the little bat's name was (Y/N) and Bruce said that he would take him in. Of course Bruce would take the little bat in. They boys had so much fun with (Y/N) watching him shift.

But one thing that they recognized was the fact that (Y/N) couldn't control his shifting. If he got too scared, he would shift. Too anxious? You have a little bat on your hands.

Soon enough, Bruce fell in love and moved him into his bedroom so they could share a bed. Bruce was more than happy and so was (Y/N). But (Y/N), more often then not, had nightmares from his time in the lab.

And that's why (Y/N) was currently a little bat, moving closer to Bruce's neck. It wasn't to take a bite, it was to snuggle into it. Bruce smile, facing the little bat, but eyes were still closed. (Y/N) snuggled closer, folding himself in a ball and just sighing quietly.

Bruce smiled more as the feeling of his neck being tickled.

" A nightmare? " Bruce asked quietly and (Y/N) just gave a little chirp in return. Bruce gently patted (Y/N) before falling asleep again. This was going to be something very nice in the long run and Bruce couldn't wait.

[null-entity]

Attack!!!

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[fairqves]

⋆ ｡⋆୨୧˚— LOVE APOCALYPSE

𝜗𝜚 ༘⋆ ⋆˙pairing. stranger! park sunghoon x fem! reader synopsis. in which two lost, lonely, broken souls find love at the worlds end. literally. genre. angst ,, fluff ,, suggestive?? wc. 3100. 🫧 — 𝓵𝗂𝖻𝗋𝖺𝗋𝔂

if you enjoyed reading, please reblog & like !! <3

THE WORLD ENDED ON A FRIDAY,

You remember it clearly because it was a rare day off from your exhausting 9-5 secretary job, one where you had planned to do nothing but enjoy a cup of coffee at your favorite café and catch up on books you have been meaning to read. Instead, the serene sunny morning was shattered by panicked screams, gruesome sights and sirens wailing through the city streets.

The news spread quite quickly, making headlines on news channels before everything had shut down, a mysterious virus was turning people into mindless, flesh eating creatures. Within hours, the city descended into chaos. You barely had time to gather some essentials and flee your un-secure apartment before the streets were overrun with the infected flesh eaters.

As days turned into weeks, you wandered through the overrun city, surviving on scraps and hiding from both zombies and desperate humans. Your optimism, a trait that had always been your guiding light, remained intact despite the unpleasing reality around you.

You clung to the hope that somewhere, there was a sanctuary, a safe haven where people were rebuilding their lives, a place filled with survivors and loved ones, and you would make it one day.

You had seen glimpses of humanity at its worst—looting, violence, betrayal—but you chose to believe in the goodness that could still exist amidst the ruins. Your cheerful demeanor, once a source of joy to your friends, now served as a piece of hope for yourself. You refused to let the darkness win and consume you.

It was during one of these aimless wanderings that you met him.

You had stumbled into an abandoned convenience store, scavenging for anything useful, when you heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps behind you. Heart pounding, you turned around, with your quite lousy makeshift weapon—a broken broom handle—only to find yourself face-to-face with a stranger, a very handsome one at that..

He was tall and lean, with dark hair that fell over his cold, sharp eyes. His expression was unreadable, a mask of indifference that made your breath catch in your throat. He was armed, a large knife strapped to his belt and a gun slung over his shoulder, the epitome of survival in this new world.

"Put that down before you hurt yourself," he said, his voice low and dangerous with lack of emotion.

You hesitated for a moment, then lowered your makeshift weapon. "I'm not looking for trouble, Just trying to survive." You say with a shaking voice.

He studied you for a long moment, his eyes narrowing at your anxious state. "You won't last long if you keep wandering around like this. The city's not safe, especially for a small one like you."

"Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine! Thanks for the tip," you replied, unable to keep the sarcasm out of your voice. "What's your name sunshine?"

He raised an eyebrow, clearly not used to such direct questions and humour in times like this, he hadn’t seen anyone this happy in a long time. "Park Sunghoon. And you?"

"Y/N." You say with a curious tone.

He gave a curt nod, then turned to leave. "If you're smart Y/N, you'll get out of here before nightfall. The zombies are much more fast and active after dark."

You watched him go, a strange mix of relief and slight disappointment swirling in your chest. He was the first living person you had seen in days, and despite his cold dangerous demeanour, there was something about him that intrigued you.

The next time you encountered Park Sunghoon, it wasn't by chance.

You had found temporary shelter in an old dust filled bookstore, the thick walls offering some semblance of protection. It was there, while sorting through the scattered books for anything useful, that you heard the familiar sound of footsteps again.

"Didn't I tell you to leave the city?" Sunghoon's voice broke the silence, startling you, letting out a little squeak.

You turned to see him standing in the doorway, his expression as unreadable as ever. "I was looking for supplies. This place seemed safe enough."

He sighed, a hint of frustration in his eyes. "You really have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

You bristled at his tone. "I'm doing just fine on my own, thank you very much."

Sunghoon's eyes softened for a moment, then hardened again. "You're lucky you haven't been caught by a raider or a pack of zombies. Look, I have a safe place not far from here. If you want to survive, you'll come with me."

The offer took you by surprise. You had expected him to mock your optimism or brush you off as a lost cause. Instead, he was offering you an alibi, protection.

"Why should I trust you?" you asked, wary of his intentions.

"Because out here, trust is all we have," he replied, his voice as steady as can be. "And because I could have left you to fend for yourself, or easily killed you already because of how bad you are at covering tracks, but I didn't."

You studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Okay.. I’m trusting you because you have a very fair point. I'll come with you."

“Smart decision” Sunghoon says with a small smile.

Sunghoon led you through the maze of deserted streets, moving with the cautious and practiced ease of someone who had long ago adapted to this danger filled world. You struggled to keep up, your optimism flickering in the face of his silent determination.

His safe house turned out to be an old apartment building, protection provided with makeshift barricades and booby traps. Inside, it was sparse but functional, a resemblance to Sunghoon's meticulous nature.

"This is it," he said, closing the door behind you. "You can stay here as long as you don't slow me down, or put my life in danger.”

"Thanks," you replied, your voice tinged with sarcasm. "I'll try not to be a burden." You whisper with a small ounce of worry.

To be honest, you were terrified of being alone, and for some reason, Sunghoon’s presence felt like a warm blanket being put over you.

Sunghoon didn't respond, instead turning his attention to a map spread out neatly on the table. As he planned the next day's supply run, you couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness in your heart at his cold demeanor. Despite everything, you still believed in the goodness of people and humanity, and you hoped that maybe, just maybe, you could break through Sunghoon's icy exterior, and get to know the true him.

Life with Sunghoon was quite far from easy. His cold, over calculated approach to survival clashed constantly with your care free, compassionate, life risking outlook, leading to more than a few heated arguments.

"Why do you insist on risking your life for strangers?" Sunghoon had snapped one evening after you had returned from helping a group of survivors fend off a zombie attack. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

You glared at him, your temper flaring. "And why do you insist on shutting everyone out? Not everyone is out to get you, Sunghoon. Some people just need help. Have some humanity.”

His eyes flashed with anger. "You don't get it, do you? Out here, it's every man for himself. If you keep putting others first, you'll be the one ending up dead Y/N.”

"And if you keep pushing every possible human being away, you'll end up alone," you shot back, your voice trembling with emotion.

For a moment, the room was silent, the weight of your words hanging heavily between you. Then, without another word, Sunghoon turned and stormed out of the apartment, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

Days faded into weeks, and despite your constant bickering, you and Sunghoon developed an understanding for each other. You learned to navigate his cold exterior, seeing glimpses of vulnerability beneath the surface. He, in return, began to see the strength in your optimism, though he would never admit it.

It was during a particularly dangerous supply run that the turning point came.

You had made your way into a heavily infested part of the city, desperate for medical supplies. Everything was going smoothly until a horde of zombies ambushed you, forcing you to take shelter in an abandoned building.

As the zombies clawed at the doors and windows, you and Sunghoon found yourselves trapped with no way out.

"Great plan, Y/N," Sunghoon muttered, his voice dripping with venom and sarcasm.

You ignored his jab, focusing instead on finding a way to secure the doors. "We need to block the entrance, hoon. Help me move this shelf."

Sunghoon hesitated for a moment, then nodded. Together, you managed to barricade the door, buying yourselves some time.

"We can't stay here forever," Sunghoon said, his voice laced with frustration. "We need to find a way out."

“Well no shit” You say as Sunghoon shakes his head at your words, his heart pounding slightly calming down with your familiar bickering.

You glanced around the room, your mind racing. "There has to be an exit somewhere. Maybe a fire escape or a back door."

Sunghoon shook his head. "The back door is probably blocked. Our best bet is probably gonna be the roof if we don’t wanna become their next meal.”

The two of you made your way to the roof, careful to avoid attracting the attention of the zombies below. As you stood on the edge, observing the surrounding buildings, you felt a pang of despair. The city’s view out before you, a sea of ruins and danger.

"We're going to have to jump," Sunghoon said, his voice steady despite the look of terror in his eyes.

You nodded, your heart pounding in your chest. "We'll make it. We have to." You say with tears prickling into the corner of your eyes.

As you prepared to jump, Sunghoon reached out and grabbed your hand. "Stay close. We do this together."

With a deep breath, you took the jump, your fingers tightly intertwined with Sunghoon's. The jump was terrifying, but you made it to the next building, landing in a heap on the roof.

For a moment, you lay there, gasping for breath. Then, to your surprise, Sunghoon pulled you into a tight embrace. His face hurried into your neck as you feel tears falling onto your skin.

"Don't ever do that again," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I can't lose you, that was too close-“

You pulled back, looking into his eyes. "Sunghoon, I—"

Before you could finish, he kissed you, despite the dirt on both your faces, and crazy knotted hair, it felt magical, like every puzzle in the world had been connected, him capturing your lips with desperation and passion pouring into each second of it.

Without wasting another second, Sunghoon pulls you onto his lap, going for a softer gentle kiss. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him in even closer if possible, leaving soft kisses on his neck.

“Stop doing that, or I’ll really lose control.” Sunghoon says caressing your cheek, with that all-too familiar look of love oozing out of his eyes.

“Then lose control” You whisper, and he doesn’t waste another second.

In the aftermath of the situation, the dynamic between you and Sunghoon shifted. His cold exterior began to thaw, revealing a depth of pure emotion you hadn't ever expected. The arguments continued, but they were now laced with an underlying tenderness, care and love that neither of you could deny.

One night, as you sat together on the roof of your apartment building, watching the stars, Sunghoon had finally decided opened up to you about his past.

"I used to have a family," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "A little sister. She was everything to me."

You listened, your heart aching for him. "What happened?"

"The virus," he replied, his eyes distant. "We were trying to get out of the city and when she was out of my view for a second- she was infected. I had to… I had to end it."

Tears welled up in your eyes as you reached out to hold his hand and caress his cheek which at this point was now damp with his icy tears. "Hoon, I'm so sorry."

He squeezed your hand on his cheek with his free hand, his grip tight. "That's why I can't afford to be soft, Y/N. I can't let myself care, because caring means losing."

"But caring also means living," you said softly. "It means having something to fight for."

He looked at you, his eyes searching. "And what about you? Why do you keep holding on to hope?"

You smiled through your tears. "Because hope is all I have. And because I believe that no matter how dark things get, there's always a chance for something better."

As Sunghoon stared at you for a long moment, then pulled you into his arms. "You’re right Y/N, things really do get better.” He whispers giving you a gentle smile before pulling you into a kiss where you can feel all emotions clashing together.

The days that followed were filled with a renewed sense of purpose. You and Sunghoon worked together to add more protection to your safe house, scavenging for supplies and helping other survivors whenever you could. The bond between you grew stronger, forged in the fires of hardship and tempered by the tenderness of newfound love.

But the world outside remained dangerous, and the threat of the zombies was never far away.

One fateful night, the horde descended upon your building, drawn by the noise of a desperate survivor's cries for help. You and Sunghoon fought for ages now, but the sheer number of zombies was overwhelming.

"Y/N, we have to go!" Sunghoon shouted, his voice hoarse from exertion.

You nodded, grabbing your backpack and following him up the stairs. The building shook with the force of the zombies' pounding and moaning, the walls creaking and groaning under the pressure.

As you reached the roof, you realized with horror that there was no escape as last time. The neighboring buildings were way too far to jump, and the fire escape had collapsed.

"This is it," you said, your voice trembling. "We're trapped Hoon."

Sunghoon's eyes blazed with determination. "No. We fight."

He handed you a gun, his fingers brushing against yours in a fleeting touch. "Stay close to me." Sunghoon says before leaving a soft kiss onto your forehead.

The two of you stood side by side, ready to face the herd. As the first zombies approached the rooftop, you fought with everything you had, your love and determination for each other giving you the strength to keep going, you didn’t want to give up, not when you had a purpose, someone to want to live for.

In the midst of the chaos, with the last few zombies, Sunghoon was knocked to the ground, a zombie lunging at him. You acted without thinking, firing your gun and taking down the flesh eating creature before it could reach him.

"Sunghoon!" you screeched, helping him to his feet.

He pulled you into a fierce embrace, his breath hot against your ear. "I love you, Y/N. No matter what happens, I love you."

Tears streamed down your face as you kissed him, pouring all your love, fear and desperation into that one kiss.

To your luck, A group of survivors on motorcycles burst onto the rooftop after hearing all the commotion, guns blazing as they cleared a path through the horde in the streets.

"Come on!" one of them shouted. "We've got a way out!"

You and Sunghoon didn't hesitate, following the survivors down a makeshift ramp that led to a big pick-up truck. As the last of the zombies were taken down, you climbed into the truck, your heart pounding with relief, your hand tightly clasped with Sunghoon’s.

As the truck sped away from the city and terror of the night, you focused on the feeling of Sunghoon's hand, the weight of everything you had been through settling over you like a heavy blanket.

"We made it," you whispered, your voice filled with wonder and disbelief.

Sunghoon squeezed your hand, his eyes filled with a mix of exhaustion and a gentle look of admiration and love. "We did. And as long as we're together, we'll keep surviving."

The journey to the survivors' camp was long and bumpy, but you and Sunghoon faced it together, drawing strength from each other. The camp itself was everything you had hoped for in a world gone mad, a place where people were rebuilding their lives and fighting for a future.

As you settled into your new home, you and Sunghoon found solace in each other, your love a guiding light in the darkness. The arguments and angst that had once defined your relationship now gave way to a deep, unbreakable bond.

And in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty, you found happiness. For in a world where survival was never guaranteed, love had become your greatest weapon, your most cherished treasure.

Together, you and Sunghoon faced the challenges of the new world, knowing that no matter what came your way, you would face it together. And in each other's arms, you found the strength to keep going, the courage to keep fighting, and the hope to keep dreaming of a brighter future.

For in the end, love was the ultimate victory, the one thing that even the end of the world couldn’t take away.

˚୨୧⋆｡˖˙ ᰋ ──

@FAIRQVES 2024

[buddierecs]

presumed dead fics (buck)

hi! i did a inbox response to presumed dead with eddie which is linked here, but there was so many with buck (not surprised lol) so i wanted to do a full list, this list has different rated fics, so please look at the rating make sure to kudos/comment on these amazing works :)

five minutes by: onelonely_tortillachip "after the lawsuit, buck decides to take a small vacation to take a break from the stress of coming to work each day to a group of people who can't forgive him. he decides to fly back to wyoming to the ranch he worked on as a younger man. but the flight he is scheduled to take doesn't make it to its destination." word count: 71k rating: mature important tags: post lawsuit, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, depression, oblivious!buck, grief, survivor guilt listen to you breathing (is where i wanna be) by: yavilee "the one where buck is presumed dead after a building collapse and eddie has to live through the reminder that tomorrow isn't promised to anyone" word count: 41k rating: teen and up important tags: major character injury, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, heavy angst, panic attacks, grief/mourning, earthquakes whiplash by: soft_satan "thanks to a lack of communication, a horrific accident leads the team to fear the worst." word count: 6k rating: general audience important tagsL angst, hurt/comfort, car accidents, hurt!buck, established relationship, marriage proposal count my little scars (i've got dozens down inside) by: 118mgzn "evan buckley can’t look his best friend in the eye and tell him he failed, so he doesn’t. he stumbles around a drowning wasteland looking for the brightest little boy he’s ever known, and when he can’t find him, he just… keeps on walking." word count: 30k rating: teen and up important tags: post-tsunami, angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, grief/mourning, whump, feelings realisation did you lose what won't return? by: chromatophorica "during a call, an explosion rocks the team in more ways than one." word count: 6.8k rating: mature important tags: hurt/comfort, worried!eddie diaz, team as family, hospital bed confessions, buried alive away from us by: marchling "a presumed dead story about forgiveness, grief, second chances and falling in love." word count: 76k rating: mature important tags: hurt/comfort, post lawsuit, hurt!evan buckley, team as family, second chances empty, broken, lonely, hoping by: daniwib "eddie's world crumbles when buck’s apartment building becomes engulfed in a cataclysmic seven-alarm fire, resulting in a devastating mass casualty event. amidst the chaos, eddie and the rest of the 118 grapple with the heart-wrenching belief that both buck and christopher have met a tragic fate within the merciless inferno." word count: 44k rating: mature important tags: post season 6, worried!eddie diaz, heavy angst, panic attacks, disassociation, grief/mourning, getting together in the back of my mind, you died by: zashizawa "buck is presumed dead. eddie is not okay in the time leading up to the discovery that he's alive" word count: 2.5k rating: not rated important tags: pre-relationship, angst, hurt/comfort, getting together, team as family a last minute switch, a lifetime of relief by: gothraven89 "buck is back at work but no longer back in the good graces of his family. besides hen, everyone else is still bearing a grudge, especially bobby and eddie. buck decides to take a break and go out of town, but what happens when he comes back to find everything is chaos. a switch at the last second, human error, a switched off phone, and relationships forever changed." word count; 57k rating: teen and up important tags: post-lawsuit, emotional hurt/comfort, angst

[throuple-tournament]

Nathan/Vlad/Ursula created by @thebibliosphere.

Description provided by @wanderingandfound.

Trevor: the born and bred monster slayer, whose noble family was all killed by a village mob when he was a child, and he is the lone survivor of that massacre. Alucard: the half-vampire son of Dracula who lived a very happy life until the church killed his human mom and his vampire dad went mad from grief. And Sypha: the magician from a travelling people known as Speakers who have a prophecy that basically says the three of them are to team up to kill Dracula.

Description provided by @powerpolyculeshowdown.

Nathan/Vlad/Ursula: For most of the book it's about two of the characters' romance (Vlad and Nathan) and Ursula meets them closer to the end. Their relationship, I think, is supposed to be continued in the next book. They all kiss each other and it's clear from the book that they like each other, and are all open to polyamory.

[jiminiecrickets]

HEAVEN'S SHEATH. KTH / M!READER

summary. a wealthy lord's pacifist son finds friendship and affection in a poor soldier, unremarkable except for the fact that he is the lone survivor of a massacre. fate has different plans for them.

wc. 10k

tags. smut | top!reader, bottom!tae, virgin!reader with a big dick (lol), reader is described as tall/strong, descriptions of blood/injuries/death, sex while injured (reader), riding, multiple orgasms, 2/3rds is only worldbuilding oops im just like that!!

a cloud of dust billows beneath the heavy black hooves of a friesian stallion, sturdy and strong-chested. the well-travelled dirt path swings over rolling green knolls, past flocks of white sheep herded into valleys and heavy brown cows grazing along the hillside. the untouched countryside is marked by clusters of tall green trees along the road and they shade the large river snaking through the vale. 

amongst the verdant growth, throned between the river and the hills, lies a large manor built strong with stone and brick. other buildings lay scattered around its feet, and life is most evident here – servants hurry about, ushering goats into their wooden pens and their young ones out of the way of the black horse's brisk high trot. the little children stare with big eyes up at the regal stallion's wavy mane, watching how it falls softly over its long neck with each step. it is a horse that carries great presence and elegance, and its rider is no different.

at the manor's grand front entrance, an older man stands in wait, both hands resting on a cane tipped at both ends with gold. his hair is almost fully grey. his steely eyes track the horse and the dust and pollen dirtying its fine feathering on the lower legs.

"you've been sorely missed, son," he says in an unreadable tone, light enough for politeness but darkened by his heavy gaze. "does wartime make for a better view?"

the rider dismounts, hushing the horse as it snorts and tosses its head, hooves stamping. it yearns for the freedom of the run. he pets its soft mane. his voice is deep and monotone with disinterest. "certainly. it's quieter."

the man's eyes narrow. "you left all the kitchen girls alone, who i know you've a fondness for. you should be at home to protect them, taehyung, not gallivanting off to paint your pictures."

silently, taehyung passes off the reins to the stablehand, and turns to stare up at his father from the bottom of the steps. he tugs off his kid-leather riding gloves and places them in the pocket of his navy blue coat. "what do i know of war and fighting? you were the general, not i. i'd say you are much better suited to protecting these frail women from suffering under the hands of conquerors."

"you are the son of a general," he replies sharply. "the youth must carry on what their fathers forged."

"hate and subjugation, of course," taehyung sighs, shifting his bag of paints in one arm and his canvas in another. "humanity's pinnacle."

"stay your wit, boy. you'll find no friends with it."

he slips past him through the open doors of the manor, his paints clinking in its leather saddlebag. "yes, my lord." 

upstairs in a large, sunlit room, he sets it all down with a soft huff. he glances around at the canvases lining the walls, leaning against cupboards and drawers full of paint thinners and varnishes. portraits of one woman dominate most of them – slender, pale, with dark hair, full lips, and a soft curving nose. in some, she sits primly on a chair amongst vases of flowers and goblets of wine, and in others, on chaises in simple dresses with a needle and thread in her hands, glowing with the early summer light blooming behind her.

these are the ones hung up or placed atop chests of drawers. not one touches the ground – that place, on the edge between floor and wall, is reserved for simpler landscapes and still lifes. 

"i remember i told you to take down those portraits. do you find joy in antagonising me?"

taehyung turns. his father stands on the threshold, cane by his side. after he returned from the last war with a limp and new scars, he has not worn any other colour but black.

he turns back to his saddlebags, indifferent as he slowly pulls his paints and brushes one at a time from the bag. "no. i find no joy in speaking to you at all."

his father's expression tightens. "i did not make her ill. it was chance and nature. your hatred of me will not bring her back, no matter how intense. it is time to move on, son. lingering on it breeds only worse things."

"'worse things'?" taehyung snaps, gripping a put of paint so tightly his knuckles turn white. "i am not one of your soldiers, so don't speak to me like one. i don't need your pragmatism, your war-bred heartlessness. all she wanted was you. all she asked for was you, and you never came."

he has had this argument many times over since that winter. it festers hot fury in his chest just thinking of it, and it has not burned dimmer with time. 

he turns and approaches his father, eye-to-eye. he is not a boy anymore. he surveys him for a moment. "war may have reforged you, made you richer and cleverer, but it burned away all that she loved. you never once held her again, felt her breath on your cheek." taehyung brushes his knuckles over his jaw. he shakes his head and begins to walk down the hall. "don't touch those portraits."

back for only a few minutes and taehyung already cannot stand the solemn weight of the air within these walls. he pushes open the front doors with more force than necessary and wanders through the large, walled estate, stone brick encompassing the major centres of activity. 

mindlessly, he travels past the cowherds and shepherds leading in the meat for supper, and the stablemaster tending to his friesian, and the beekeepers. he passes the wall and almost reaches the wheat farm. 

hushed whispers float up from the riverbank. he stops in his tracks.

by the water, the girls and women who work with the granary from the farm are crowded around something on the bank. the linens of their dresses are dark with water up to their knees, where they hold it back.

he notices the expressions on the girls' faces – bright with nervousness and fear, but tinged with… curiosity? they whisper amongst themselves behind their hands. 

he approaches, ducking under a branch of the oak they shelter beneath. "what is so interesting?" 

they startle, several sets of eyes turning towards him. one of the older girls, about his age, drops into a fumbled curtsy. "oh, young master—! we weren't doing nothin' bad, sir, but we was hiding from the sun when we found something the lord sir might need know. we found 'im caught up on the root branches here."

him?

taehyung steps past her. his eyes widen.

a young soldier, skin tinged grey, lies on his back on the riverbank, the water lapping at his calves. his boots have come off somewhere in the water. he wears an unfamiliar uniform: a mixture of thick fabrics to stave off the cold adorned with a strangely-patterned leather jerkin.

it is a poor man's armour, he realises, made of what he can scrounge up and what fits from the garrison's armoury. despite his lack of wealth, taehyung can tell he is a big man – tall, strong in ways only a life of hard work can create. he is fair of face, too, handsomer than many young nobles taehyung has met. perhaps a blacksmith's apprentice, or a baker's boy?

"which… which army is he from, master taehyung? can you tell?"

the question awakens him from his daze. he blinks. "ah – bring him higher on the bank, get his legs out of the water. let me closer."

he crouches by the body, pulling at the heavy cloth draped over the torso. at the neck, where the cloth is bunched and rolled to pack in heat, he finds a small red patch. 

taehyung sighs and presses the soaked cloth back into place. "this man is very, very far from home."

the girls glance at each other uncertainly. "what does that mean, master?"

"many years ago, his homeland was seized, and now his people are under southern rule. he was an infantryman. simple cannon fodder." with a soft exhale, he leans over the torso and pulls him onto his side to reach the lashes holding together his water-heavy coat. "perhaps i can bury him someplace high, so that his soul may be reminded of home."

the body jerks and chokes out a lungful of water with a ragged groan.

the girls yelp, stumbling back. taehyung would have had he not already been on his knees. his eyes widen as the soldier's face pinches in pain, eyes still shut. taehyung reaches for the oldest girl, gesturing frantically towards the manor on the horizon. "find my father and tell him what you've found! you've my permission to leave the farm and all of that – he's alive!"

—

it is dark. everything hurts. this is hell – this is punishment, eternal and unforgiving. this is deserved for desertion.

then – light. light rings against bone and flesh.

velvet. mahogany. silk and down.

there is a girl beside you, leaning over you. her linen dress is plain but clean with a white apron over it.

your side explodes with pain. you launch upright with a violent shout, gasping and clutching the hot ache under your ribs. cries of shock throb in your skull.

you blink, hard, eyes adjusting dizzily to the brightness of the room. your torso is wrapped in cloth, which you can feel flat and taut against your skin. your hand comes away clean, and for several unthinking moments, you wonder why. your thoughts are slow and heavy.

"you ought to relax, master," echoes a soft voice beside you. her vowels are round and elongated, the accent so different from your own that you barely recognise it, much less understand it. you stare up unseeingly at her youthful face, framed by dark curls held back by a bonnet. she steps forward, a damp sponge in her hand. that is why your limbs feel cold. "your injuries are quite severe."

"where am i?" you mumble, your tongue thick in your mouth. words are unfamiliar. "who're you?"

she glances up at the other maids, huddling by the door. she sets down the sponge and extends a hand, though you flinch from it. she does not try again. "you are in the northern highlands. hadria. my name is aemma."

"aemma," you murmur. the sounds are soft and round, like a river pebble. like a river, you realise, you are damp and naked, save for a single sheet of folded cloth across your lap. you feel your face grow hot and you clutch it close, folding your legs towards your body for security. "m-may i – where are my clothes?"

aemma gestures for one of the other girls, who quickly scoops up a folded pile of clothes from atop the chest at the base of the lavish bed. the rest of the bedroom is similarly luxurious, with a dark palette that soaks up sunlight to warm its wood. the walls are pale, though framed by polished wooden frames embracing the room.

"here," she replies. "the lord father has gifted you some riding clothes to wear in their stead. they were to be given to the young master when he turned of age, but…" she pauses. she shakes her head and curtsies. "you're to meet the lord father and his son shortly. we were to inform them when you were to wake eventually."

"eventually…" you trail off. "how long have i been here?"

"two days, master."

your head begins to pound. you cradle it, wincing, and reach for the offered clothes. they are clean and soft under your callused fingertips. "ah… i'm no lord, miss."

aemma smiles briefly, folding her hands over her stomach. "the lord father requires it, master."

you have no heart to push. in fact, you would much rather lay down for another two days, though knowing you are under the roof of a lord churns up too much fear to do so. if northern men were anything like southern ones, you would do anything to keep your name clean.

"i'd like to dress," you say softly, glancing briefly at the maids watching you from the corner of the room. "alone, if the lasses would allow it."

with another curtsy, aemma ushers the other girls out of the room and closes the door after them. you do not miss how they sent you curious glances as they left. she now stands where they once were, watching you with badly-disguised intrigue. 

you clear your throat and feel your cheeks and neck blaze, folding the cloth around your hips tighter. "i'm sorry. i meant entirely."

perhaps it is your imagination, but you think you spot a tinge of pink wash over her features. she finds sudden interest in the knots and grain of the floor. "the lord father instructed that you were not to be left alone in case you required immediate medical attention. you are evidently still in pain, so i must protest."

"ah." you swallow, and your mouth is dry. "p-perhaps… you could turn around, then?"

she glances up, as if to say something, but eventually nods, bobbing in a small curtsy before turning to face the wall. 

as quickly as your aching body will allow, you shuffle off of the bed and dress yourself in finer clothes than you have ever worn before. the cloth is soft and sits finely against your skin like a baby's breath. you are so used to abrasive linens that you almost feel more naked than before.

"you found my boots."

aemma turns around – she almost regrets it, spying the last sliver of skin before white cloth falls over it like the pull of curtains. it is more titillating than seeing the entirety of you bare. "o-oh – yes, one of the servant boys found them downstream."

"ah, thank you. and my uniform, miss," you glance up at her, leaning heavily against the bed poster to slip on your boots, "do you know what happened to it?"

"they're with the hold's tailor. i heard it took quite the beating."

"that could be said," you mumble, straightening up at last. your side twinges with pain, but you attempt a smile. "well, s'pose it's time to meet your lord. i've got to thank my saviours."

it is just turning to twilight, and the hazy golden sun on the horizon feels like little more than a memory. candles light the path past gold-spun tapestries and gleaming windows. aemma leads you to a grand dining room, reminiscent of castles and times long gone. she halts by the entrance, curtsies to you, and hurries away without another word, which you find strange as she had been a pleasant conversationalist when helping you through the halls and down the stairs.

"the soldier awakens at last. how do you feel?"

you glance away from aemma's retreating figure. at the head of the long dining table is an older man with sharp eyes and a natural severity about him. seated beside him is a younger man, around your age, staring into his plate with his hands folded in his lap. you step forward cautiously, and a male servant pulls out a chair on the older man's other side. the lord gestures at it, watching you carefully.

"well, milord; thank you," you answer, taking a seat and quietly thanking the servant who readied it in the first place. he bows but does not otherwise acknowledge you, his gaze on the ground as he slinks back into the shadows of the dining room.

"you were asleep for quite some time. my son doubted you would live." he gestures to the young man across from you, whose romantic dark curls are loose over his forehead. "i am glad you are feeling strong enough to join us for supper. i trust that the girls took care of you?"

"yes, milord," you reply, glancing over the table almost longingly. you swallow the saliva building in your mouth. silver platters are laden heavy with dark ox roasts, honeyed lamb shanks, roasted salmon fillets, sausages and baked potatoes, and braised vegetable stews steaming hot. ruby wine is poured into silver goblets. you have never seen so much food at once in your life. 

"the war has yet to touch us. we have plenty to share," the lord informs, his voice almost kind. "how long has it been since you have last eaten, soldier?"

your throat bobs before speaking. "ah… four days, maybe, including my time spent here."

the man's brow arches. "your general did not feed you before battle?"

"no, milord. they ambushed us before our rations were due." you glance at the young man. he has yet to look up, or indeed even move. "we… had issues with our supplies. weevils in the grain, rats in the captains' meat. we turned from two meals a day, to one a day, then one every two." you pause. "i don't think one more meal would have saved us."

the room falls silent, with only the crackling of the fireplace breaking the stillness. green wood pops in the flames.

"well, don't wait for me to begin," says the lord suddenly, shifting comfortably in his seat and reaching for a leg of ox, stabbing it with a knife and lifting it onto his plate. he piles his plate high with potatoes and mash. the action seems to spur on his son, who jolts into motion like a creaking old waterwheel, movements slow and measured. "tell us your name, soldier. i'd like to know the name and story of our guest. now, news comes to us slowly in this isolated place. how fares the war effort?"

glancing down, you realise exactly how many pieces of cutlery there are. knives and forks, spoons and little spoons, all slightly different in shape or size. you pause, hand hovering over the knives, nerves tightening in your chest. 

a soft cough. you glance up.

across from you, the son rests his delicate fingers on the outermost knife and fork, using them to carry a richly-glazed steak onto his plate. he chooses a large spoon, fingers lingering on it where it sits on the table, and places it into his bowl of stew.

his gaze lifts to meet yours and just as quickly, a butterfly's flap of wings, he glances away. his cheeks are dusted pink, the rosy colour like gold on his sun-warmed skin. 

you copy him. you take a slab of steak from the dish right in front of you. you are starving, but everything about this manor makes you feel small, and you fear taking more than you are offered. you give them your name, for it is the only thing you truly own in these foreign lands.

"the war?" you continue, trying to shake the tremor from your voice. "i wouldn't know, milord. the captains don't tell us much. it's all the same – i've fought in three different battles. this was the third. they give their speeches about king and country, and then we fight. it is noble," you say hastily, "but i am not a warrior. not many of us were. the enemy outnumbered us, outskilled us, and when the poppy fields lay silent, they piled the bodies of all our fallen and made pyres out of us."

"such would explain the scorch marks on your clothes." the lord nods. he leans in, and you fight the urge to lean away. "i shall ask the question we all ask ourselves, if you would not mind. how did you survive such a massacre?"

you glance at the son. he eats quietly, forking small chunks of meat into his mouth. you glance away. "i remember a spear. it was tipped… with a blue and white flag. it waved in the black sky as i looked up at it." you frown. "i'd never seen one like it before."

"the temerian lilies," he replies, almost approvingly. "you must have been some opponent – if the flagbearer loses his flag, it is a great shame to the army. it must be held aloft at all times. he would rather die than lose it to the enemy."

you lift a shoulder. the other aches too much to try. "they pulled it out of me after, then dragged me to a pile of corpses. i… don't remember much, but i remember them squabbling over another soldier's brooch for a while. i only wanted to escape the stench of death." you survey the feast laid out before you. "i s'pose i have."

"then we shall celebrate that," hums the lord, lifting his goblet of wine. "my son was the one who found you floating down the river. he said you were cold as ice and only recognised you from the flag you had sewn into your coat. it is brave to carry your homeland's colours when fighting for their conquerors."

"it was a small creature comfort," you respond as nonchalantly as you can. "they could punish me all they liked, but could never kill me. they needed every man in their ranks."

the lord raises his brows, and something like admiration crosses his features. he glances at his son and that admiration turns into a tiny downturn of the lips. he turns back to you. "not a warrior, you say, yet you stand with the united courage of a battalion. who was your father?"

you notice how his son stills, holding the steak on his tongue behind his lips for a long moment. he closes his eyes and with a deep inhale, resumes eating, as if unaffected. 

"just a farmer," you say, diverting your gaze. "dead, long past. my ma raised the rest of us – six boys. i was their second. when the army came knocking, askin' for sons, i went, gave them my name. my older brother knew how to count, how to run the mill. i couldn't let them take him, especially not from the little ones – after da died and ma got sick, he was all they had." you tap the edge of the silver plate with your finger thoughtfully. "i imagined i'd either die or be done after one battle, so i'd be brought home quick regardless. now… it's been four years."

then, the servants bring out a round white cake, slices set down around the table – what a perfect intermission. you have made it rather impossible to return to frivolity with your story, and you gaze down at the cake in front of you. you assume this is their dessert, so quaint and pretty on its little silver plate, but you have little idea of how to go about eating one. something so small must require a similarly-sized utensil. is it the tiny spoon? the tiny knife?

you lift your eyes to the young man across from you. he is already watching, eyes large and dark.  he picks up a small three-tined fork from the inner edge, tilting it towards you to show you its appearance, the little notch on the left prong. this time, he doesn't look away, and you have enough time to offer a grateful smile, however brief. he blinks owlishly, almost in surprise, before lowering his gaze again.

it is unfortunate. you would not mind looking at him more. he is undoubtedly beautiful, almost pretty, the sort of face people would immortalise in myths and paintings on temple walls – a kind of elven face, like those that turn goddesses to jealousy and gods to obsession. 

you spend the rest of the meal stealing glances at each other when you think the other is not watching. he is far more successful than you.

—

from behind a balcony's closed doors, taehyung gazes up at the crescent moon hanging high in the sky, surrounded by pale stars glittering in the blanket of darkness. he cannot stop thinking about the shy farmer's boy, his accent unfamiliarly pleasant – the vowels are soft and blurred, with each consonant crisp and clear. it makes for a bouncing sort of melody to his voice, one that draws taehyung deeper into his song.

he sighs softly and turns away from the night's landscape, uncrossing his arms and meandering through the empty halls. most of the servants are already tucked away, and his father drowns himself alone in old letters and wine.

in loose trousers and a looser white shirt, the vee of the collared neck laced with string, he finds himself in his library, rich and warm from a hearth already lit. curious. he shuts the open double doors behind him quietly to keep the heat from dissipating into the night. 

his silent feet carry him through the aisles, where the shelves brush the ceiling with books and ladders. a walkway surrounds the room, essentially giving it a second level. 

silhouetted black against the white glow of the moon beyond the arched window, a familiarly unfamiliar figure stands in silence, gaze turned up towards the heavens beyond the lines of books and old tomes. 

standing in this still and quiet room, statue-esque in the way of classics, taehyung cannot help the journey of his gaze wandering up and down the planes of your body, painting to himself the sturdiness of your shoulders, the perfect balance between your booted feet. there is a severity about you he recognises in his own father – he sees it in your arms, tucked behind your back, and the practised way of standing that arches the spine just so to emphasise the broadness of the chest. yet, he knows gentleness when he sees it, and he finds it in the almost childlike awe in your expression, aimed up at his personal collection. 

he steps out, the shadows melting from him like the shedding feathers of a raven. "what are you doing in my library?"

you startle, and taehyung almost regrets interrupting you. coward that he is, he would rather watch from afar than bring you out of that handsome serenity.

"f-forgive me, sir," you stammer, twisting your hands together as you incline in an awkward half-bow, half-stumble, evidently having forgotten the extent of your injuries as your expression tightens and your hand brushes over your side. "i didn't know it was yours. the – the doors were open, and i—"

"invited yourself in," he finishes.

"i – yes, sir…"

before you, he stands perfectly still. you could fool yourself into thinking his heart does not beat, for he is pale in the moonlight and beautifully dark-haired, with eyes like midnight lakes and lips like a rose. 

you tear your gaze from his, breaking your trance. you begin to move past him. "forgive me, milord. i shan't interrupt you."

his hand darts out, wrapping itself around your wrist. serpentine, it slides up your arm and grips your bicep, forming creases in the cloth.

"you shouldn't move so quickly. you're injured." he turns his gaze on you. "you'd leave so soon?"

"ah…" you flounder, helpless. "if the lord wish it so."

his searching gaze strips your body bare. you feel it prod your soul when his eyes meet yours. his eyes scan your face, and he reaches up with his other hand, brushing it lightly against the slope of your jaw. his skin is warm and tender-soft. your breath hitches. 

"the maids missed a spot when shaving," he mutters, pressing his fingers against the patch of half-shorn stubble left on the soft underside of your chin. "a man would do it better."

all at once, he drops his hand and looks away. "i am no lord," he replies, his low, rich voice like waves lapping at the sides of a ship, almost careless. "just his son."

you hesitate, your heartbeat still in your ears. "th-then what should i call you, sir?"

he glances down where bandages hide the hole in your body. "just 'taehyung' will do," he says softly, eyes lifting again. he unravels his arm from yours, turning fully towards you. "you may stay – as long as you are quiet."

he moves away, so graceful he may as well have floated. his fingers glide over the covers like bumps of the spine, and they pluck a small yellow book from the shelf. he opens it, already turning to the first page even before he finds a chair to sit in. he curls up in front of the grand fireplace, the furry hide of a brown bear thrown across the floor in front of it. 

for a while, you simply watch him and listen to the crackling of the fire. his slim fingers glide across the pages to turn them, the edge of the page caught gently on the pad of his thumb. 

bathed in the yellow and orange hues of the fire, the lord's son is every bit as regal as northerners are said to be – hair like calligraphy ink, cheekbones fine, slim bodies tall and lithe. you could lose yourself in his cold, gentle darkness.  

that burbling feeling of being out of place rises to the surface, worse than when you sat before the lord at his table. you and your callused palms, your worn and labour-worked body. you should not be here.

"you know you can choose a book, yes? i don't mind." he glances up. "forgive the mess. i can help. what do you like to read?"

"i'm sorry, sir," you murmur, averting your gaze. "i can't read."

it seems he'd forgotten your roots. he blinks. "oh. my apologies. but if not to read, what interested you about my library?"

"ah," you chuckle, scratching your head. "i've just never seen so many books in one place. travelling merchants would display some, but never like this."

"i see." he surveys you intensely, then glances away and clears his throat. he shifts in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs. at last, he says stiffly, "if you'd like… i can… read to you."

the silence is thick with more than just the fire's heat. it is hard to know taehyung's hot face is not because of the fire, and he is grateful.

"if milord wishes to," you reply quietly, watching him for any twitch of his expression that may give him away.

"of course. i wouldn't offer it if i didn't." he gestures to the chaise beside him. "sit."

you step into the semicircle of light afforded by the fireplace, licked by tendrils of warmth, and ease yourself into the chair with a soft grunt, holding your side. "milord is as kind as he is beautiful."

his eyes flicker down to your lap. "i wish you wouldn't call me that," he says suddenly, a little sharper. "can i not be called my own name in my home?"

your mouth opens and closes. after a moment, you reply softly, "i meant no offence. it just feels… wrong."

slowly, he exhales, closing his eyes and his book. he places a hand over its cover. "all of my life has felt wrong. everything is wrong no matter what i do – who i wish to be, the company i keep, the fears i carry… the love i desire." he pauses, opening his eyes to your earnest expression. he diverts his gaze to the yellow-gold cover of the book. "what more can one last wrong hurt?"

"i'm sorry," you whisper. "perhaps i can start over." you straighten slightly, offering a crooked half-smile. "what do you want to read to me, taehyung?"

he does not disagree that his name sounds strange coming from another's mouth, but he cannot remember the last time it was used by anyone else. he hums and rises to his feet, coming to stand over you in front of the fire; his shadow cast over your body deepens the maturity of your features.

"when you said i was beautiful," he asks, "did you mean it?"

staring up at him, you can do nothing but tilt your head in bewilderment. "yes. you are fair and handsome."

taehyung chooses his next words carefully. "if… i were a girl," he decides, clasping his book over his stomach with straight arms, "would it be a different sort of beauty?"

you frown, shaping an approximation of a girl with taehyung's features in your mind. "maybe. but she would still be beautiful if she was you." you shake your head, dispelling morphing images of regal dark-haired daughters. you hide your warm cheeks behind an apologetic smile. "i'm sorry. i don't know much. i don't usually deal with such thoughts."

but it was enough for taehyung. slowly, as if not to frighten you, he lowers himself, grasping the chaise's rests and draping himself gently over your lap. he watches your face all the while, his heart beating faster at the shock and nervousness that cross your face in a single second. 

"is this… is this alright?" he whispers, placing his hand against your chest. 

your adam's apple bobs, your hands hovering an inch off of his body as if he is made of glass. gently, you place one on taehyung's knee and the other behind his back, and glance up at him.

"perhaps you can sit closer," you murmur, eyes wide and searching, "so you may not fall."

taehyung smiles, then – the first smile of his you have ever seen. it is sweet, and crinkles the corners of his eyes. it makes your heart swell.

he hides his smile in his chest, his knuckles brushing the corner of his lips. he lifts his eyes, and a sliver of hope twinkles in them. "shall i read to you, then? i will give you a synopsis of each story so you may choose your favourite."

"please," you murmur, settling back in the chair and sliding your hand higher up taehyung's thigh so he may be more comfortable. "do whatever you wish."

"'whatever'?" he hums, and with a flippant little kick, throws off his boots to the ground, where they thump carelessly. he meets your eyes and falls into a nervous smile, tucking his bare feet against your leg and resting his temple against your shoulder. his hair is still slightly damp at the ends from his earlier evening bath. "then you wouldn't mind this, would you?"

"of course not," you whisper, biting back a shy, embarrassed smile. you are too old to be acting like this, especially with the only son of a wealthy lord, but the rush of excitement from seeing such a reticent man blossom and show his petals to you is too much to keep you away. "i am only a farmer's boy, taehyung. anything with someone like you is… a dream."

at the mention of his name, his smile widens slightly and a pinkness warms the apples of his cheeks. he busies himself with opening the book and flipping through its contents to find the correct page. he presses his thumb against the spine between the pages.

"here." he taps the words on the page. "this story is one my mother used to read to me. a princess is trapped in a tower, guarded by a dragon in an ever-changing thorn maze, and a brave, handsome knight rescues her. they are married and live happily ever after."

he looks up at you, searching for a reaction, and you can only give a breathy laugh in return, still dizzy with the idea that someone like taehyung could ever be interested in someone like you. "are you sure you should be telling me these stories? i'm not a princess or a brave knight. i'm plain."

"perhaps. but do you know who else was seen as plain?" he taps your chest. "the dragon, disguised as a statue. and you, strong dragon, will protect the princess," he taps his own chest, "from all the boredom and politics of castle life."

"don't you have other, richer boys chasing you?" you ask, because you know your place. "your own knight? i don't see what i offer that they can't."

he licks his lips, setting aside the small book on a round side table and swinging his legs over your lap to straddle you. reading it is the last thing on his mind. "i do, of course. but it is like you said – they are boys. when their wooden sword chips, they get a new one." he trails his fingers lightly down the centre of your chest, wide and strong, and tentatively cups what is between your legs. he leans in, long-lashed brown eyes flickering down to your lips. "i want more than that."

"i—" your breath hitches as he squeezes gently, learning its shape and heft with deft fingers. "a-are we allowed to…? i am a stranger in strange lands with nothing to my name."

he chuckles, pressing his forehead against yours. his soft hair curtains your eyes. "allowed? no. but when a handsome soldier from far away falls into my lap, what else is a man to do?" he draws his thumb over your jawline, stroking your cheek. he lowers his lips to yours, hot breath sweet with honeyed treats. with the faintest thread of a breath, he whispers, "may i?"

with your heartbeat thudding in your ears, your head inclines, and taehyung wraps his arms around your shoulders and pushes his lips to yours. 

his moan is sweet and starved as you kiss back to the best of your ability, your hands falling naturally about his waist. his lips are plump and warm, pillowy, and slicken with saliva as he deepens it, cupping the back of your head and pressing himself higher onto your body. he is desperate and dominating, sitting in your lap and rolling his hips into yours. you can feel his excitement through the cotton of his trousers. 

when you part regretfully, gulping down air, he cups your face, his eyes dark yet gentle. he licks his shining lips, parted to pant. "you seem apprehensive. have you ever done this with a man?"

you wipe your lips with your thumb, tongue swiping over them in an almost bewildered motion. your eyes are wide. "a-ah… no. not with… anyone…"

"not even a girl?" he cannot help the surprise that coats his tone.

you shake your head, face aflame. "i never… my older brother had my father's charm. he was the one they all wanted, strong but lean. i was too much of a bull. they had fantasies of princes, and he was closer to it than i."

deeply and tenderly, he kisses you again. "it only means i won't have to fight anyone to call you mine." he brushes his thumb over your lips. "that suits me just fine. i was never the fighting sort."

he sits up on your lap, thighs bracketing yours. his bare feet tuck beneath him under his knees. when his palm grazes the front of your trousers, your breath hitches in your chest, and taehyung gives you a soft, if coy, grin. "i'll be gentle," he promises. he tugs slightly on the laces of the waist. "may i?"

mutely, you nod, your words sinking into the whirling depths of his eyes. his deft fingers undo the laces with ease and he pulls the thick cloth down your waist, tracing the vee of your hips with a pleased breath. he reaches in, lifting his gaze to gauge your expression. your chest rises and falls rapidly, and your knuckles are tensed on the chaise's armrest. the other arm is tucked tightly by your side.

"don't be nervous," he whispers, stroking you gently in your trousers. it twitches in his palm. "place your hands on my waist, darling. good. very good."

hesitantly, your hands graze his hips, sliding up to grip his slender waist. you splay a hand beside his waist, measuring it against him with fascination. he is slim and lovely… like the city nobles' soft-palmed daughters. you had noticed his hands during supper but hadn't the room to mull over them then, though now you do. they are square, masculine, but slender and fine-veined. his nails are clean and cut short, with a thin crescent of white at the ends.

he could not have been more perfect if he tried.

he slides his fist up to the tip of your cock, rubbing his thumb against the slit and the smooth skin. you are mostly soft, but still impressive – the number of taehyung's clandestine trysts have lent him a certain experience when it comes to men.

you have reinforced your place as his favourite. 

"i see why they call you a bull," he says slyly, squeezing your shaft as his fist sinks down on it. "they just don't know how to tame you."

your face floods with heat as you stutter meaninglessly. your grip tightens on taehyung's hips and a single slant of a thought marvels at how delicate he feels in your palms.

"be still, my darling," he murmurs, "and be at ease. you are no longer at war. you can close your eyes and hold me without fear. nothing will happen unless we want it to."

his voice, like syrup, melts the frantic whirlwind of thoughts in your head. you cannot help but want to believe him. "you make it sound so simple. i want to believe you."

"why can't it be?" he tilts his head, glancing down and stroking you contentedly. he swipes his thumb over the slit, where a bead of precome bubbles. oil – from a small bottle you only now spot in taehyung's palm – smooths each stroke of your shaft. "the world is so complicated. affection can afford to be simple." 

he lets go for a moment to step back, sliding his trousers down his hips and calves and tossing them aside on the chaise. he flicks his dark hair and tucks a lock over his ear as he reassumes his place on your lap, pressing his chest against yours and tugging your cock to throb against the curve of his ass. the silk of his white shirt is cool and light against your hot skin.

his lips ghost over the shell of your ear as his hips roll languidly. he whispers, "do you want this?"

do you want more? the question is unasked, but you hear it anyway.

"i do, yes. please," you reply immediately, your voice rough with desire. your hands trail over his hips and tuck beneath the long hem of his shirt to caress his warm, creamy thighs, a feeling that traps your breath in your throat. you force out a sigh, shaky, and rest your forehead against taehyung's shoulder. he hushes you and cups the back of your head, reaching with his other hand behind himself to ease you inside his warmth.

taehyung's head tips back with a slow exhale, shuddering as you pulse with heat inside of him. he watches you closely, committing to memory the way your brows pinch and your mouth falls open as your grasp tightens, trembling, around his waist. 

"do you like that?" he whispers, breathy. he bounces shallowly, grinding his hips into yours. "how do you feel?"

"good," you choke out through a groan. your hand slides down to the dip in his back, trying not to seem too eager as it cups his ass. "oh, fuck…"

"don't hold back for me," he murmurs, hips quickening. he moans in surprise as you buck up into him, thighs meeting his ass. the slap of your balls against his ass is obscene, and he scrambles to cling onto your shoulders for balance.

"wait – wait, wait," he gasps, lashes fluttering as your cock kisses that spot inside of him that burns pleasure through his guts.

you stop immediately, sliding your hand up his side. "i'm sorry! are you alright?"

he huffs a laugh, panting softly, and nods. "you're injured, darling. don't waste the good work we put into putting you back together. sit back – i will take care of you, understand?"

"a-ah…" your face burns with heat. "all right. whatever milord desires."

"very good." he presses down on your hips gently, his hands between his thighs. he lifts himself off of your cock until only the tip rests against his hole, then sinks down on it in one smooth motion. a strangled noise escapes your throat as you scramble to hold onto him. his heat grips your shaft like a vice, gummy walls clamping down around you with each drop of his hips. 

he moans when your fingers dig into the sensitive skin of his hips, sweat gathering in the small of his back. the fireplace crackles softly, the air warm and sweet with the smell of sex.

he gathers his shirt in his hands about his ribs, revealing his dusky cock, swollen with need. he takes your hand and curls your fingers around his shaft, his eyes fluttering and lips parting as you tighten it. your callused palms drag deliciously against his veins and he grips your wrist with a soft groan, bouncing on your lap in such a way that he thrusts into the warm tunnel of your fist. 

carefully, you stroke his cock, cautious about rubbing raw or tearing his skin. wealthy boys are a different breed – so much softer, easier to hurt. the smell of him, sweet and musky, hangs in the air around him, enveloping you when he draws close – crushed petals, herbs, leaves. it seems foreign, or at least the mixture does, for you cannot quite place your finger on it – then again, what do you know of luxuries like this?

"you are doing well," taehyung praises, gasping as you flick the head of his cock with your thumb. "oh, yes… f-fast learner, hm? oh!"

a jerk of your hips has him jolting forward, his cock spurting a sudden white rope onto your stomach. he purrs, bracing against your chest and slamming his hips down on your cock to slicken him with your pleasure. it works, and he seems unduly proud of himself when your cock throbs and leaks, forming a white ring around the hilt that thickens with each bounce of his ass. 

"milord – milord," you gasp, a tiny pathetic noise that does not match your appearance, "please – i'm—"

"let go," he demands, a breathy moan escaping his lips. he closes his eyes and lets out a punched groan as your cock carves into his insides, deeper than any other man had ever touched. his reddened cock throbs, slit pouring precome over his belly and thighs. the pleasure curls around his thoughts, his head spinning from it, and he feels your stomach tense under his palms.

you spill into him with a deep, satisfied growl, head tipping back as he arches against you. your hips roll up against his and the coil tightening in his belly snaps at the sight of you so wrecked from so little. he cries out, ropes of white streaking across your shirt, and his hips stutter and roll, milking your pleasure for his own like a succubus. he presses his ass into your lap, white teeth sinking into his plump lower lip, and his eyes roll as the thick warmth fills him up to the brim. 

at last, he slumps against your chest, thighs trembling and tensing as he hums softly into your neck. he buries his nose in the soft, warm skin, and cups your cheek to place a soft kiss on the corner of your jaw. 

"mm… good," he purrs, smiling with tender satisfaction. "i – i shall bring you to your… mm… room. it is just down the hall from my own... should you wish to see me, you only need to knock." his breath hitches as he raises his hips slowly, hole twitching around your shaft, and when it pops out, a steady stream of come leaks from him, staining his tanned skin. he sighs, closing his eyes to the slowing of your heartbeat. "but i think i will stay here for a time, if you don't mind. just until i – until i regain feeling and control of my legs."

"is that… is that normal?" you ask, a tiny panting tremor in your voice. "to lose feeling like that?"

taehyung laughs into your neck, eyes crinkling. "sometimes, when i feel overwhelmed. it is no fault of yours – you are just… big. don't worry. i liked it."

he shifts in your lap to get comfortable but pauses as something pokes his thigh. a sly smile spreads across his fine features, his fingers lifting to trace your jaw and tip your gaze to his own. he purrs, "is that for me, love? excited again?"

you gulp, unable to tear your stare from his despite the embarrassment clawing at your throat. "i – i…"

"handsome and energetic. i'm a lucky man." he laughs softly, reaching behind himself and groping your hard cock with a low moan. "i myself have been told i'm rather voracious. perhaps you will be the first to keep up with me."

he lowers himself on your cock, head tipping back as he teases himself with the thick head. his dick twitches.

"what say you to a change of scenery?" he asks coyly, perfectly content with your ragged-breath silence. every word you might have said disintegrates on your tongue when he turns around, arching his back and pinning your cock to your stomach. shining precome smears along the cleft of his ass.

his body, carved out of shadows by the fire, rocks and rolls like a ship in the harbour when all its crew are asleep. with an encouraging smile, he takes your hands and places them on his hips, pressing on them to guide you to control his body. he hums softly as you squeeze his hips and spread his asscheeks, your breath shaky as he angles his messy hole against your leaking tip. 

he watches your face with gentle eyes as he sinks down on your cock, his warm, wet hole swallowing up your shaft like he was made for it. you jump slightly when his ass firmly meets your lap, taking you hungrily until the hilt, and if he were a lesser man, your expression alone would have been enough to tip him over the edge. he sears every line of your face, every edge and plane, into the backs of his eyelids. it will make for fine company on lonely nights. 

you speak for the first time in a while. "p-please…" you whisper hoarsely, blunt nails digging into his smooth, unmarred skin, leaving crescent moons in your wake. "please, move."

"ah, but you are badly hurt… i must take my time with you. mustn't alert the servants, either, for they'd certainly report to my father what they've seen." taehyung giggles to himself, gnawing on his lower lip in an effort to subdue his grin. he grinds down into your lap in circles, relishing in the pleasured, impatient groans that escape your throat. "he'd toss you out in an instant, and we cannot have that! i haven't yet had my fill of you."

"a-are you always so… playful with your men, taehyung?" you ask, voice slightly strained. you watch your cock vanish into him, over and over again. the sound that is made when he bounces on your lap is obscene and filthy. your heart stirs with desire.

"mmh – no. my past conquests have not been as – as alluring as you," he gasps, wrapping his hand around his throbbing cock, thumb rubbing circles over the ridge of his tip. "mostly, they bore me. you, however – you're more than a cock i can use to please myself, if i may speak so crudely."

"i – ah – th-think i should be grateful, then…?" you reply uncertainly.

"yes. unless, of course, you enjoy that sort of game… but tonight is about simplicity," he breathes, his skin tingling where your rough palms glide over his thighs, soft as cream. "we have only so long until the sun rises and the servants wake. i want to spend that time with you – learning your homeland's ballads and epics, your favourite flower, where i can touch to make you melt…"

he looses an airy laugh as your grip tightens on his waist, his shirt folded up between your fingers to reveal the curve of his spine and ass. you drag him down onto your cock roughly and he keens, eyes rolling back briefly. "ooh, y-you like that, don't you? ah—!"

already he is so sensitive. nowhere else has he felt pleasure like this – where his body is treated as more than a means to an end. he had been completely content with that when he entered this library, agreeable to the idea that you might like him only for what he can give you. but he swears – he swears on the old gods and the new – that the way you press your nose into the curve of his neck, the way you stroke him thin and thick tight and loose – caring, properly, for his own high – means your attraction is more than fleeting. 

years of ending up alone in empty beds have made him soft. lonely. desperate. perhaps he is reading into things too deeply, as he always does – poor boy, always a poet. the backs of his eyes sting with hot tears as his tightly-controlled leash snaps, making him cry out, writhe, and shudder, knees and elbows buckling under the weight of his orgasm. 

you catch him in your arms before he can slip, pulling him backwards towards your chest. it is warm, your throat shining with sweat, and he can feel the burning fever of your body through your clothes. still, you do not let go, push him away – you cradle him close, your heart thudding through your ribcage and into his own. 

one of your hands tugs languidly at his cock, milking his pleasure from him. you watch quietly as it spills over your knuckles, your lips pressed against his sweat-slick shoulder, and help him lift his hips off of your cock. 

for the first time in what feels like hours, taehyung takes a deep, full breath of air. he cups your face in a hand and smiles, wide and content.

"i didn't believe you could be more beautiful," you murmur, words slightly clipped at the end from a lack of breath. "i've never been happier to be wrong."

he opens his eyes with a flutter of lashes, pleasantly surprised. "haven't i already let you take me?"

"what do you mean?" you ask with a frown, tilting your head. your thoughts are foggy with warm laziness. the fire's heat does not help. "taehyung?"

the sound of his name almost startles him. he sits up, and a pleasurable ache sparks up his spine. he sucks in a deep breath. "you really… truly think that of me?"

you blink slowly, like a cat, and the fire's flames dance in your eyes. "i am a simple soldier. lies are above a man like me."

"you're more than that," he replies immediately, turning around on your lap to face you properly. "if you were just a soldier, you would have died on that battlefield. forgive me, but you had all the time to die on your way down the river. still, you survived." his voice softens, and he fiddles with your collar, straightening it and folding it down. "i am glad you did. i am glad to have met you."

"ah…" gently, you tug his shirt down, allowing him the return of some of his dignity, though he does not seem to care. "that reminds me – i shouldn't waste much time here. i should report to the general."

"for what?" taehyung scoffs, and it sounds… hurt. he glances away. "am i so repugnant you would rather march thirty miles a day in mud-soaked boots than stay here with me?"

"no!" you protest, sitting up as best you can with the growing ache in your side. you had been too caught up in the moment to remember it, and now your body reminds you jealously. "t'ain't that, taehyung. you are intelligent and kind and if we were in my homeland, i wouldn't hesitate to ask your hand. but surely you have a girl you're supposed to marry?"

"no, not at the moment. despite what he says, my father still grieves my mother. it will be a while yet before he'll allow another woman into the house." he traces shapes into your skin. "i will free you from the servitude of the evil king who bound you, and together, princess and dragon will live freely, with the wind in their hair and the sun on their backs."

at first, you smile at the newfound softness of his voice, but freeze. "free… of servitude?"

taehyung watches you, draping his legs over the other side of the armchair, kicking his feet lazily. his eyes are dark and watchful. "as i know it, the king's oath swears that you are only relieved of your duty when you give your blood for his and fall in battle against his enemies. have you not satisfied these requirements?"

"i may be no scholar, but i'm near certain that to 'fall in battle' means to die in it."

"have you not satisfied these requirements?" he repeats, firmer. "our doctors and priests said you were dead when i brought you to them. they said you may have been alive when i found you, but somewhere between the riverbank and their stone table marked the spot where you died. as they proclaimed this, you coughed again, and nobody could deny me this time when i said you were very clearly alive."

"you are telling me that i died… and returned? like a saint?" you ask sceptically. 

"i only tell you what our doctors told me."

for a while, you are silent. determination creases taehyung's brow, and you cannot hold in the disbelieving laugh that erupts from you, though it morphs into a groan of pain in the middle. taehyung sits up and presses his palm to your cheek, his eyes so vivid and certain. 

"you have already died, and thus retain no obligations to the crown," he whispers. his gaze scours your face. "you are free. free to stay here. live here…"

with me.

your heart drops into your stomach. you grip his waist, shifting in the velvet chaise. "i'm…"

"agree. agree to it. even if i cannot bear your children, we will sleep in the same bed, take walks in the wheat fields, eat and drink every meal together. you won't fear for your life every day. and as soon as the war ends and they open the trade routes to your home, i shall book passage on a ship and take you there. you may stay, if you wish. i won't deny you."

"then why offer at all?" you ask quietly. "if you think i'll leave you the moment i can, why would you even try?"

"i can hope, can i not? by all accounts our kings have no desire to cease any time soon. perhaps you will learn to love me in time." he smiles, faint, and averts his gaze. "otherwise, i will be glad to help another soul. you will survive the war and return to your family, whole and healthy. out here, away from people, i have little chance to do something so good and noble."

"and if i grow restless? if i want to do something with my hands?"

he tilts his head thoughtfully. "how is your aim?"

"fair, i s'pose. haven't missed when it's important."

"the lord's hunter grows old," he proclaims. "he can teach you what he knows, and if you like, you may take up the title once he can no longer ride and shoot. besides that, there is always work to be done in the fields and granary – perhaps you'll find some comfort in the farms?"

you think about it, long and hard. in essence you would be a prisoner at his beck and call, though if taehyung tells the truth and is as earnest as he appears, perhaps you'll find freedom and enough work to fill your days with…

you give your answer, and taehyung's smile is like the sun.

[sunboki]

— ENDLESS WINTER. a Christopher Bahng fiction

Christopher Bahng x f. reader

TROPE. Beast! au, Mage! au, enemies to lovers (she wants to kill him), marriage au, angst

WARNINGS. violence, kidnapping, mention of a past war, descriptions of murder, reader is injured, hyunjin is a bit of a pain, hinted minsung (hehe), blood, kissing (dubcon), cursing

WORD COUNT. 12k words

AUG'S NOTES. if there’s ever been a more spontaneous fic in history it would be this… every sentence is write is purely self indulgent…. (genuinely a written version of the stories i make in my head while laying in bed)

SYNOPSIS. As heiress of the Magus, otherwise, Mage Clan, you find your position ripped from your fingertips when the Beast Clan conducts a raid. Left the only survivor, you make it your priory to stay alive in a ravaged Kingdom. That is, before you’re captured.

alternatively :

Starvation becomes the least of your problems when you meet King Bahng.

Hiding in the kitchen’s cupboard was definitely not your intention.

Neither was the Kingdom getting raided by the Beast Clan or being the (presumably) lone survivor in the castle, but fate would have its way, whether you liked it or not — this one just a bit more severe than usual.

Your mother once told you of the Beast Clan, of their ferocity and inability to handle things diplomatically. In her opinion, Beast were barely able to be considered Human.

Well, these words came after the Mage-Beast War; a grueling, disgustingly brutal dispute that caused what was referred to as the “Endless Winter”, a curse put upon the nation by a Magus overseer bidding every day of every year with, well, “endless winter”.

She told you how the ground used to be a wondrous green. Soft beneath your fingertips like feathers. Now, blankets of snow stretched as far as the eye could see, killing off any remaining expanse of foliage.

Although years had passed since then, your Kingdom was still recovering, still navigating importing routes in order to supply necessary goods.

Yet, everything was rapidly adapting, whether that was the snow-shoe rabbits roaming your vast tundra or the unexpected growth of fur on the bottom of the horse’s hooves.

Growing, learning.

Magus, though a lineage of magic practitioners, had begun to dull over the centuries. There was no need to learn with peace eminent, and the more aged those wielding supernatural abilities became, the less said abilities progressed into your generations.

However, Magus is the hearth of your Kingdom, and for as long as you live, the title shall reign supreme.

A title that, used by enemies and allies alike, had modernized from its ancient form Magus, to Mage.

Dinner held in the customary hall began that night, seat upon seat homing each member of the family adorned in their extravagant clothing.

Your father occupied the upmost chair, his plate stacked full of greasy lamb and pork bones. You, on the other hand, had had your fill chatting the cook’s ear off, slipping sweet potato wedges here and there as you talked.

Ms. Maewether was her name, a sad soul who carried her love in her cherished dishes. A love reserved for her late husband, a Beast himself, who unfortunately passed in The War.

Back then you asked her questions to the moon, about what they looked like specifically — if they really had eight inch claws like all the other children gossiped, if they could feel.

The last one was important, because everything Ms. Maewether told you you believed without a doubt, and the number one thing she pressed was that Beasts can feel, so very deeply. Just like humans.

The War changed that, and tension rose tenfold, especially as each Kingdom recovered from their countless casualties.

Luckily, your life had been peaceful, having been born young enough you could hardly remember.

Had been peaceful.

A scream from outside redirects the table’s conversation, relatives and siblings alike turning their head to gaze out the window.

Your blood runs cold.

Beasts, left and right, are slaughtering. Their clothing stained in blood that certainly isn’t their own, blades in clutch.

Immediately, panic ensues. People are trampling over each other to get out, disregarding every instinct but to stay alive. It’s chaos.

Dodging flailing bodies, you anchor yourself in a secluded cupboard below the countertops, shrinking as close to the wall as possible.

A few moments after everyone evacuates the Dining Hall do you hear cries. Yelling, gargled sounds. You cringe back imagining, stifling your breathing as much as possible.

Suddenly, a thought comes to mind, a thought that might just be responsible for saving your life.

Smell.

Ms. Maewether warned you a Beast’s smell is like no other, like a dogs. Twenty times as heightened as a persons.

So slowly, silently, you fish your hand into the small bit of darkness in front of you, locating a small bottle of cooking grease you wince upon finding — forcing the awful smelling concoction over your body, masking your scent.

Right after sitting down the container does the door creak open, heavy footsteps belonging to none other than a Beast. You can hear it in their sniffing, the clicking of their claws. Chills scatter your arms.

Another enters as the second door creaks, muttering something incomprehensible to its companion. At this point you’re pressed to the other side of the cupboard, both hands covering your mouth.

Your heart thunders in your chest, beating unbearably loud the longer you huddle.

Walking past where you lie, a Beast stops, body ducking down close enough you can hear its labored panting. You wait, waiting for the door to be flung open and for your death to await.

It doesn’t. And you thank whomever above for the echo of its presence fading away into the distance, barely relaxing against the highly uncomfortable hiding spot.

Instead, a blood curdling screech rips through the atmosphere, comparably close to where you hide. Abruptly, it stops, the thump of a body against the floor making you staunch the nausea building like bile in your throat.

It takes three days for you to finally peer out of the cupboard, the entirety of the Kingdom completely void of a soul.

Taking your first few steps around do you notice a woman, obviously slain by the puddle of blood surrounding her and the putrid stench. Her mouth hangs open—horror-stricken, frozen in place. You vomit in the sink.

For about a week do you roam the murder-house of a castle, finding purchase in a non-blood-bathed room and the many, thought to be endless amount of food.

You won’t leave, simple.

As long as the Beast Clan believes they’ve killed everyone, you’re safe.

That reminder was assuring, until your food supply dropped exponentially and a new problem situated itself on your platter.

Worst case scenario you die of starvation, the likelihood high if you stay here. Solution? Hunting.

Granted, you’re not the most skillful hunter, but you’re also not horrendous with a bow. Except, it’s not your aiming abilities you stress, it’s the chance someone sees you, the enemy sees you.

Four weeks in and you’re left with no other choice than to bundle yourself in layers upon layers of clothing and heed the feeble weaponry available.

Blizzard frost permeates your vision, wobbling steps making your hunger evident the more you roam. A horse would’ve been effortlessly useful, but selling yourself into that fantasy had been futile upon realizing they either took or killed all escapades.

A hare catches your eye, pale fur barely divisible from the terrain below. Carefully, you crouch down, elbow stretching the arrow back as far as possible whilst maintaining a solid grip. Steady. Steady.

Shoot!

The arrow flies, puncturing the animal in its chest enough to where it thankfully doesn’t suffer, flopping over rather pathetically instead.

However, your success is short-lived.

Stalking forward to snatch the creature quickly, a shadow looming overhead halts your footsteps. Behind you.

Before you can think to run, you wind back, meager arrow in hand providing little defense against the attacker.

First thing you take in is how huge they are. At least six feet tall if not taller, brilliantly ruby eyes revealing its true identity.

Beast.

With ease the man has your efforts pinned, curiousity overflowing as the animal looks at you. Yet, he doesn’t look like an animal, and apart from those eyes of his, no other factors would’ve revealed him to you but that.

This Beast has a fox-like face. A younger stature and smaller, slanted features.

“Hyung, what is this?” He asks, lifting your petrified frame like you were the rabbit you’d killed earlier.

His older counterpart glances over, and any hope of getting released plummets upon those wild crimson hues focusing in on you—knowledgeable as to what you were.

The cooking grease had long worn off, and your identity was likely as apparent as can be.

Mage.

Older Beast easily roaming through the snow, his fingers tangle into your hair, drawing out a cry when he jerks his hand up, forcing your gaze to meet his through the searing sting of your scalp. The younger grimaces.

His long, nearly white hair is tied into a ponytail, sharp cheekbones and calculating stare beyond intimidating. Beneath his left eye you note a small, distinct mole.

“One remained, huh.”

It’s a fever dream walking into the Kingdom that, compared to yours, looks positively flourishing with life. Beasts of all kinds roam about, carrying on with their daily lives, oblivious to the winds of death they’ve swept your way.

Everything in your body feels as if it’s shutting down, unable to feel the sensation of your legs as you trudge forward, the younger, much kinder Beast ensuring you kept pace.

Freezing temperatures carry on the longer snow falls, gluing strands of hair to your forehead, blanketing your lashes while your nose runs incessantly.

In front of you now lies the castle, far grander than you could’ve ever imagined. Twin spires peek above the low-hanging clouds, stone columns towering above.

From your distance you spot two knights positioned on either side of the entryway, large armored helmets with hawk feathers adorning the ridges.

One knight stops your ascent, the light-haired man rolling his eyes profusely.

“Minho, this is important.”

“Important enough you’re bringing a Mage into the Kingdom?”

His voice smooth as honey, he sports a dominant tone when speaking. Stare observant, he watches the other Beast’s expressions with uncanny precision.

“Because if you haven’t noticed Hyunjin,” He leans forward a bit, whispering. “You have the entire Kingdom’s attention.”

At this, either of the Beasts who escorted you turn around, and upon doing so are met with hundreds, if not thousands of eyes boring into their soul. Whether it’s younger Beasts or aged soldiers, those heinous vermillion orbs seem to see through you.

You gulp.

“C’mon,” Hyunjin harshly beckons, nudging you forward through the gates with the younger quick on his tail.

Every color in the Palace is monochromatically grey, although strikes of royal blue reside in large drapes hung from perched balconies.

Similar guards to those outside sift throughout the room, familiar hawk feathers litter everywhere in sight, paving paths to the core of the room where a throne sits.

Pointed edges flank either side of the massive chair, the ocean blue rug underneath reflecting up and out of the ceiling — a glass design stretching wide across the throne room, emphasizing the dusky weather outside.

According to the younger Beast whose title you learned as Jeongin, the King was currently participating in a hunt with Changbin (the lead hunter of the Palace), so after hasty appreciation of the sheer volume of this breathtaking castle, you’re forced toward the dungeons.

Jeongin wears a pitying frown, promising to return with some food to your chambers in the case the King doesn’t arrive for a while.

At least someone in this Kingdom doesn’t insist you’re beheaded.

“Finally, somebody else is here.”

A voice erupting from the darkening depths to your right make you jump, chained wrists clanging abruptly. Through minimal lighting of the burning lamps hastened upon the walls, you make out the silhouette of a man, face bunching in a sweet manner when he smiles.

Unusually, his hands aren’t chained.

“What’re you in here for?” You begin, gaze narrowed in confusion. The chubby-cheeked stranger smiles haphazardly.

“I would ask you the same thing. I’m the King’s Advisor, he just gets tired of me and puts me in here sometimes,” Your chamber-mate sighs, and once you take in what he professed, the urge to laugh becomes too strong to control.

Laughing for the first time in quite a while is sort of relieving, especially when this new acquaintance of yours begins whining his dismay, aimlessly trying to hush your giggles.

Red eyes. You can see them blinking up at you, gleaming when he grins his pointed teeth.

Quickly pausing, you wait in horror as he gradually sniffs in.

Your stomach sinks.

“Wait… You’re a Mag—“

His phrase is cut off by a loud ringing noise, a familiar echo of keys tunneling down the dungeons stairwell.

Another stranger unlocks the door. He’s burly, with curly hair in disarray. Cuffs of animal fur wraps around defined biceps, his top a tight-fitted arrangement of fur and woven leather paired with small iron spikes studding the shoulder lining.

A scar passes down the corner of his lip, long since healed but remaining faded.

“C’mere,” He ushers, voice gruff and rumbling when he unlocks your shackles, big hand pushing you forward up the stairs.

If anybody here had pure Beast in their bloodline, it would be this man. His demeanor is rough, but his touch on your back is surprisingly gentle whilst guiding you upward.

Again you’re granted with the wondrous sight of the Throne Room in all its historic glory, although your gaze directed at the floor keeps you ignorant to so many heads bowed, so many voices cast to silence upon the click of footsteps approaching.

And when you look up, you meet strikingly blue eyes—perhaps a genetic mutation of a sort.

They’re stunning, enrapturing almost, and you find the need to break eye contact immediate, more dire than normal while staring down at you.

Plump, full lips and perfectly sculpted facial features seem that of a Greek god’s, too ethereal to exist in your reality. A glittering, silver crown sits stark atop a black nest of hair.

Either arm rests on the sides of the throne, and you swore you’d never seen someone look so, King-like. That, and the massive cape of wolf-skin draped over his back.

A devil, dressed as an angel.

“Your Highness, this Mage was found near the L/N Kingdom by Hwang Hyunjin and Yang Jeongin while scouting the territory.” A palace-woman announces, the same guard who lingered outside, Minho, standing to your side.

Your blood boils, disregarding every ounce of amazement once inhabited.

It’s him. The man responsible for the demise of loved ones you couldn’t count on all of your fingers and toes.

Minho, as if sensing your frothing rage, mutters through his helmet a staggered warning—remaining upright and unmoving at attention.

“Do not move and do not look into his eyes unless you’re asking for death.”

Your patience dissipates, lip twitching involuntarily.

You can’t remember the last time you were genuinely angry. You were happy, surrounded by people you loved.

Those people weren’t here now, they were killed.

“You murderer! You’re a—“ Your attempt at lashing out at the King stalled when Minho kicks the crevice between your knees, forcing you down on the carpet below.

“Monster! A bloody— fucking— Monster!”

Palace representatives gasp their bewilderment, some beckoning you away to the dungeons, others urging Minho to end you right here and now.

It wouldn’t matter, would it?

The King’s raised hand stalls the accusations, his familiar clicking footsteps nearing closer till he stands before you.

Shifting down into a squat, the man tips your chin up to meet cerulean again, his head slightly tilted to the side.

“Don’t get it mixed up little one,” He murmurs, the pad of his thumb controlling your movement.

“I did not kill your family. Your family killed themselves.”

Fist sharply winding around for a punch, he catches it before you can even register your predicament, iron grip strong enough you fear he might just snap your wrist in half.

“And I wouldn’t recommend fighting back, otherwise I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Concluding his threat the further he bends your wrist, you whine, face scrunching from the pain until he finally stops, amusedly surveying your expression.

Denying your own enraged shaking, you suck your teeth, focus vehemently pinned onto him.

“Why would you care about my safety?” You snarl, trying to wriggle his hold off to no avail.

“Because,” The King cocks his brows. “I like you.”

About to spit another word, he interrupts you, index tracing the veins of your arm.

“Plus, I could break you any time I wanted, Mage. So behave.”

You shiver.

Your second day and you feel as if you’re officially going insane.

The only person tolerable here is Jeongin, that chamber guard whose name you don’t know, and Felix, the castles cook. You barely see the King, and even when he’s present he’s usually quartered in his study.

What he does there remains unknown, information learned in the mere form of startled maids leaving the room and gossip among those wandering the Kingdom.

“Do you know what he does?”

Felix looks up from the dish he was laying in front of you, wispy blond locks bouncing with the movement.

“Does what?” He piques, ridding a stray piece of hair clinging to your sleeve.

“The King, what does he do all day long?”

One thing about Felix you love, his honesty. Regardless of if most would tell a quick fib and flee, Felix, although occasionally working around a topic, takes the time to actually explain things to you.

Allows you to learn more of the place you’re going to have to call home.

“Hm..” He pulls a chair from your right to drop into, and for a moment, you see Ms. Maewether in that smile of his. Your heart aches.

“Chris— I mean, King Bahng is always busy. He plans trade agreements, oversees the hunts, and basically keeps this castle alive.”

Chris?

“Who’s Chris?”

Felix nearly squeaks, burying his head in his hands. Evidently, you weren’t supposed to hear that part, but an eagerness to know more about this solitary King kept your hesitance at bay.

“That’s his name. Christopher Bahng, but you’re not allowed to call him that and not allowed to tell anyone about us having this conversa-“

“Tell who?”

You quite literally almost fall backwards in your seat, failing to anticipate the pair of hands placed on Felix’s shoulders.

A pair of hands, followed by a pair of ocean blue eyes, boring right into you and the horrified boy in front of you.

King Bahng. In the flesh.

“Oh.. Hey Chri— Hello Your Highness.”

Again he corrects. These two must know each other.

“Tell who, Felix?” He speaks, tone nothing short of teasing—though the boy looks just as startled, practically sweating through his clothing.

Still adorning that flanking wolf-cape of his, his dark hair is slightly messy, expression distorted curiously.

You hate him to admit, but King Bahng is horribly attractive.

“Nothing! Nothing at all, Your Highness,” Felix chirps, fixing you with a ‘Don’t say a word’ glare you cease to argue with.

Rising up from your seat quickly as if you had any duties in this Kingdom to tend to, you find yourself stalling.

You have so many questions. …And the overwhelming urge to slap him across the face.

You’ve received a fair warning on the latter.

“I’ll be off now, Your Highness.”

The last words come out involuntary, used to referring to your own father this way. It made you sick to know you regarded his murderer the same.

And though the King didn’t stand extremely tall (considering how young Beasts were already your height), his hulking stature felt as if it could swallow you whole, pointed canines flashing when he smiled, sending your head reeling.

Pleased.

King Bahng was pleased hearing something nonthreatening come out of your mouth.

Vile.

Yet, you simply curtsied and hurried off, ceasing to notice the immediate growl Felix directed in the King’s direction.

“Good lord, I know she smells good but you’re practically undressing her with your eyes,” The freckled boy grumbles, returned with an uninterested expression from his friend.

Before the King can head off to whatever meeting he has planned, however, he spins on his heel.

“Have you consulted Seungmin about the scent-blocking salve?”

“Possessive, are we?”

His glare shuts the cook up immediately.

“If there is one Mage left, it’s mine. And since she’s the survivor, she’s mine.”

Yeah, he’s not beating the possessive allegations. But if he’s going to gain your trust, and eventually, after much thought, become mates, he’s keeping every other Beast in the Kingdom at a distance from you at all times.

“Jeongin will report when it’s completed. And Chris?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t expect her to warm up to you.”

King Bahng hums.

“I don’t.”

And with that, Felix follows your exit, leaving the King to his own devices, your nectar-sweet smell lingering in his nose.

“If I stare at the same wall for hours and hours, shouldn’t it break by now?”

“You’re a Mage, not telekinetic,” Han replies, repetitively scanning over a piece of parchment assumed to be a guest list.

In the midst of your incessant boredom, you found yourself following the King’s Advisor around, peering over his shoulder at the endless list of haughty names written in languid ink strokes. 

Amongst them, you ceased to find your father’s name. You knew it wouldn’t be there, but somehow, you wished if you blinked enough it would magically appear. 

King L/N, written in that same, cursive font. 

Rounding a corner, you conclude if there’s anyone you avoid more than King Bahng (a.k.a Chris), it was Hyunjin. That man was a serpent in a Beast’s body.

Catching sight of his dreaded ponytail, you hastily retrace your steps, hiding behind a massive doorframe while Han stares at you as if you’re a rodent scurrying at his shoes.

“He won’t bite y’know.”

“If only you would’ve been there when he first found me,” You whisper angrily, practically clawing at the wood desperately till he leaches you out.

Leaching enough, in fact, that you end up right in Hyunjin’s line of sight, who surveys you up and down with a cocked brow to the point you’re sure steam is billowing from your ears. 

Mocking. Ruby-red, mocking eyes.

He does bite. He sinks his teeth into the flesh and tears. 

You won’t bleed without biting back. 

Han’s iron grip tightens on your arm as slowly, oh so slowly, Hyunjin walks closer. 

The strategist prowls, edging right up in your face—noses a thread-width apart.  

His glower sets your fury alight, lips curled in a deriding notion.

“No need to glare, wouldn’t want wrinkles ruining that face of yours.”

“No need to get so close unless you plan to kiss me, mutt.”

Though, just as Hyunjin preapres to lunge, a big hand holds him back, animal fur cuffs indicating it isn’t the King who stepped in.

The man who had fetched you from the chambers earlier divided either of you. Shorter, but evidently stronger. 

“Control yourselves, both of you. For as long as she stays in the Kingdom, she’s The King’s property—“

“I am no one’s property,” You snarl, and the guard turns.

Basked in clear lighting, you can finally see him. Honing dark brown hair hanging above his eyebrows, the same scar resides by his mouth, though, his eyes are much kinder than you expected.

Taking a slow inhale, he reads your conflicted expression like an ornate mirror.

“One mage in the Kingdom of Beasts? Sorry to break it to you, but yes, you are his property. So as long as she’s here, nobody lays a finger on her, understood?”

Glancing to each person, either of them ease their apprehension, the bewildered Jisung next to you stifling a breath, Hyunjin rolling his eyes with a loud huff.

Baiting seconds pass, and in that period of time do you realize you never caught his name. Specifically, the guard’s name.

“Excuse m-“

“Seo Changbin,” Han interjects. “His name is Seo Changbin.”

Ah. Right.

Now on the roster of least-likely to kill you, Jeongin, Changbin, Felix, and Han.

Filled with a need to evade, you stand merely as a spectator as each horridly red hue snaps to stare at you, your heart spiking an alarming rate. 

The King’s Advisor’s fingers tighten to the point you’re sure he’s blocking blood flow.   

“You need to leave. Jisung, get in contact with Seungmin and see when the salve is done,” Changbin instructs, already shoving Hyunjin away.

Salve. What salve?

Failing to give you any explanation, you’re dragged off, boisterously complaining before the highly annoyed man abruptly pauses, finger nudging your forehead irritably.  

“You smell.”

Then he leaves, and you’re left to wonder if you’re still in primary school or the Kingdom of Beasts.

You smell? What’s that supposed to mean?

First thing in the morning, you’re torn from your slumber with a blazing sun scorching your eyes.

Your canopy beds silken drapes doing little to block the attack, you whine to an apologetic Jisung who merely sighs in return.

“Sorry sleeping beauty, but we have an appointment to attend this morning. Can you handle getting dressed on your own?”

You roll your eyes, groggily pulling yourself upright. “I was an heiress, not helpless.” 

To which he cracks a miniature grin and slips out the door, allowing you to hurriedly strip off your chemise and messily arrange your stays and petticoats.

Out of all things you’d been deprived of, a part of the L/N Clan unable to be divided was your garments.  

Somewhere, in the midst of fabric and citrus scented soap, you swear you can still smell bits and pieces of home.

What this appointment entailed you failed to ask, gingerly hustled down winding hallways barely illuminated with sunlight. 

The Kings Advisor expertly winds further and further down, georgian architecture littered in symmetrical golden portraits and decorum, casement glass windows twinkling as you walked past. 

Having reached a dead end, you’re pleasantly surprised to watch Han jar a brass doorknob open, paving a breathtaking view of the garden ahead. 

Garden had to be an understatement. This amount of foliage was nothing short of a forest. 

Flowers of all kind surround your walk to a shrouded greenhouse, abnormally brick relative to it’s stone-castle counterpart. Its walls are overgrown in slithering vines, door nearly invisible without proper inspection.

Jisung, having noticed your amazed expression, chuckles.

Granted, it’s been years since you’d seen any form of green vegetation, your astonishment felt justified. 

“We’ve arrived.”

Oh how you wish to stay here forever. Not captive by the Beast Clan, no, but in this garden, hidden.

And if the last door took effort to pry open, this was a new challenge entirely. Through thickets of dense hedge and tangled branches, Jisung had to quite literally ram himself into the chittering wood for entry.

“Knock next time would you?” A voice projects from inside, belonging to a man clad in rounded spectacles, a slightly hooked nose, and cleanly hair parted to the side. 

The Kings Advisor, apparently having known him, beams his prize-winning smile upon seeing the man.

“Seungminnnn—“ Han drawls out, excitedly waddling over to wrap him in a crushing hug. Stiffly, Seungmin pats his back, an action you fondly watch from afar. 

“Ah!” The more ebullient of the two springs up, turning to you. “This is Seungmin, he runs the apothecary here.” 

Nodding stiffly, Seungmin ushers you to one of the many mahogany chairs circling a gateleg table; a vase—likely jade with its pale green hue—filled with indigo hydrangea presides in the center.

“And,” Han’s outburst cuts off your awe. “He’s practically my little brother.”

Now you’re in awe again, but for a different reason. And by the evident frown on Seungmin’s face, he can tell.

“Shocking, right?”

Yes, shocking for certain.

Though, before you can reply, Han slaps his hands on either of the man’s shoulders, expression transformed into one of seriousness. 

“About time I left then, yeah?” Was spoken while his form hurriedly retreated out the door, leaving you with more questions than answers to what just occurred.

“..He forgot something again.”

Biting back your laugh, you finally take a seat, given ample time as Seungmin shuffles off to the side to acknowledge your everything to its fullest extent. 

Matching the plant-infested interior, verdant drawers scatter the corners, a lone, looming medicinal cabinet left ajar as the chemist poured over a variety of assorted concoctions. 

Air stained with a damp smell of earth, you notice, much to your curiosity, the longevity of such a place.

This apothecary, though inside the castle, feels like an entirely new settlement of its own. An establishment existing before the war, rebuilt (inefficiently) enough to where it was only required to stand stable.

From first sighting you’d grown an attachment to it, but this newfound understanding, these newfound details setting the apothecary apart from your predicament let you imagine yourself anywhere else, back to a nostalgia you longed for.

A short term fix.

“This.” You’re handed a phial from overhead. It’s a slightly green substance, thicker in texture that rests heavy in your hand. “Is for you.”

Slipping across from you, he surveys your analyzing, arms crossed over a deep brown waistcoat.

“And this is..?” You inquire, looking up from the cork-sealed glass.

“A salve. You had better not waste it, material is low as is and I’ve been waiting years for this winter to end already.”

Well that didn’t answer your question. You’ve heard conversation about a specific salve for days on end, but no genuine explanation caved in—

‘I’ve been waiting years for this winter to end already.’

Repeatedly mulling over the words, you can practically feel your heart palpitating, head beginning to spin. 

..End already? The endless winter.. ending?

“So you’re saying,” You murmur, placing down this special salve in order to truly regard him.

“There’s a way to end the Endless Winter?”

His brows crease critically, seemingly sarcastic.

“There’s an end to everything sweetheart. Life, death. Start, finish. War,” He meets your eyes with a conniving grin, a face you hadn’t seen on the man before.

“Peace.”

Automatically, you roll your eyes. 

Peace? Peace when there was no peace left to be made, no kingdom remaining to make peace with?

“And how do you think the nonexistent Mage will make peace with Beasts?”

Seungmin grins.

“Well there is a Mage left,” He scornfully states, flicking your forehead whilst you palm the sting, frown evident. 

“And as far as making peace goes, marriage.”

Marriage. 

What.

“Wait- so you’re telling me big bad King Bahng could’ve just hooked up with a Mage and called it a day and everything would be fine?”

Seungmin clears his throat.

“One, Bahng doesn’t ‘hook up’. Two, it’s not as easy as that.”

Of course it’s not as easy as that. Why would it be?

You wish to claw your eyes out of your head, anticipating his explanation. 

“Because if you weren’t aware before, marriage ties between Mage and Beast are very difficult to establish. Bahng is picky on everything, and even pickier when it comes to mates.”

But before you can argue there were thousands of suitors roaming the L/N Kingdom for him to pick from, Seungmin interrupts. 

“Plus, if anyone else were King I’m sure we would’ve had peace decades ago. You’re lucky you’re in the castle right now, otherwise you would be eaten alive.”

Your face scrunching worriedly, he rakes an exasperated hand through his hair, plopping down on the vanity’s chair.

“Your scent.”

Again, you’re reminded of Han’s ‘you smell’ comment. Why is it showing up a second time?

He groans frustratedly, wordlessly praying you understand.

You don’t.

“Mage have specific scents. You can’t smell it since you’re not Beast. But let me tell you, you smell fucking delightful.”

Oh.

That’s what he meant by eaten alive, and the entire ‘you smell’ conundrum.

Seungmin, rather entertained with the shock written on your face, shrugs his shoulders, nonplussed by the crassness of his earlier statement.

“Now you get the use of the salve, right? And why you’re not allowed to leave the castle?” 

Your mouth feels dry of response, beckoned toward the exit without so much as a peep passing through your lips.

However, right as the you’re halfway gone, he stops you, brows cocked.

“Do us all a favor and marry him, will you?”

And like that, the apothecary’s door thumps closed behind you.

If only the “him” he was referring to wasn’t King Bahng, you might’ve agreed.

Marriage in the L/N Kingdom had been a sacred event.

An event you’d been prepared for since childhood, fed daydreams of a day you would be married to a prince-like man with perfect features and a perfect personality, every element fabricated from a young age.

Truly, you loved it. Loved visualizing a life shared with your loved one, whoever that man would be.

Little did you know he might just be King of the Beast Clan.

No. You refused. Marrying a murderer, the murderer of your family, was the last thing you would oblige to. 

He sent the command, he led the attack, and you’d rather die than give him the satisfaction of marriage.

Although, one problem. Similar to life back at the L/N Kingdom, supplies only lasted for some time before shipments became low, and pretty soon (according to Seungmin) the salve you were given would run dry. 

Meaning, your meager chance of protection lay completely exposed, susceptible to any Beast daring enough to try something.

Two sides of a coin remained. Heads, you marry the murderer of a King and spring returns, or tails, you abstain and are eventually left vulnerable.

You’ve always been the person to confront a difficulty head-on, but, in this case, a different, defensive approach crossed your mind.

Run away. 

Despite Seungmin’s sensible reminder to not leave the castle, what other option sounded suitable? 

Die physically or mentally, pick your poison. 

Or maybe, never drink the poison in the first place. Evade.

Three days have passed since you received the salve, and after applying it behind your ears and between your elbows at dawn, you were free to do as you pleased—within the castle walls. 

Yet, tomorrow’s dawn would be divergent. Tomorrow, you would be days away from the Beast Clan. 

Sneakily roaming around, you managed to find certain outlets to your disposal. Nearby the chambers you’d been kept in was a moth eaten, hooded cloak seemingly unworn for quite awhile. Ideal for an anonymous escape.

Furthermore, amongst the colloquy during a dinner with Changbin and Felix in the Great Hall, you distinctly recall overhearing information about the stables.

If you were to flee, you needed a horse, and thanks to the guard, you knew right where to find one.

Unable to sleep the night before, your dry eyes blink through the dense darkness, sweeping the candlestick from your side table for a minimal source of vision.

Lathering a copious amount of salve all over your skin, you slip down the winding stairwell, grateful for the shadowed moonlight gazing down upon the Throne Room as you venture.

Bingo. There’s the cloak.

Sweeping the fabric over your shoulders, you slip the hood over your head, creeping down the steep steps leading into a surrounding ward.

On your left, across the butcher’s vendors. 

Blindly searching, the whinny of a mare alerts your close distance, carefully winding through lead ropes and linked fences to the first horse in sight. 

You have to be fast, the sun will rise at any moment it pleases, and it’s impertinent you’re gone by then.

Hoisting a mere saddle pad over the back, you deem the saddle too noisy, slipping the reins overheard and adjusting their length accordingly. 

Jogging forwards, you’re brisk to gain a running leap atop the horse prior to the thunder of hooves charging forward.

Closer to the gatehouse you near, a luckily open drawbridge allowing easy passage across. 

Faster, faster. You can’t afford to slow down. Daylight is beginning to peer above the horizon, warming your back with rays of sunlight amongst a snowy landscape.

And when the kingdom wakes up, it’ll be as if you were never there. 

But, an undecided factor stayed. Where would you go? There was no kingdom left for you, no home to go to.

For now, you needed to prioritize finding a hiding spot, if only for a night, that supplies warmth.

Given the opportunity, too long out here and you or your horse will indefinitely succumb to the frigid conditions.

Veering off sharply, you sidle beneath a barren magnolia tree, its thick trunk barely blocking the unforgiving wind. Pretty soon you’ll have to keep on, but for now, you’ll savor the temporary peace.

Blue skies indicate it must be nearing morning, and you assume the castle will be slowly waking up. By now, King Bahng would likely be awake as well, you’ve been told he doesn’t sleep well anyway. 

Scouts. He’ll send scouts most likely. Knights like Minho or Hyunjin.

Ugh, the mere thought of Hyunjin finding you a second time makes you nauseous. 

Except, the longer you consider it, King Bahng is the worst case scenario.  

I could break you any time I wanted, Mage. So behave.

Those words send an entourage of chills slithering up your spine, and not from the cold.

Because while Hyunjin is a type of spiteful strong you want to avoid primarily due to how annoying it is, King Bahng is a quiet strong, the kind that wouldn’t confess his anger, but have you witness it firsthand instead.

Enough thinking. You have to go. 

Using the bumpy roots below you for leverage, you wind a leg around the horse’s back, aiming to reach the edge of the territory before midday.

That was the goal, until you’re pummeling to the ground.

The moment is instantaneous, your horse releasing a shriek as it’s swiped right off its feet, slipping onto hard, icy ground and simultaneously crushing you in its descent. 

Almost like vomit you feel the screech of pain building in your throat, a numbness in your right leg along with the warmth of blood soaking your clothing doing little to sustain level breathing.

Then, in the midst of your hysterics, you look upon the visible side of your horse, a pair of claw marks scratched right across its stomach.

Scrambling out to the best of your abilities, you bite your tongue, praying this is one of Hyunjin’s sick, sadistic games and not an obvious ambush.

You refuse to die like this. You’ve survived once and you’ll be damned to give up now.

“I’m impressed. You’re not as weak as I thought.”

A sneering tone speaks from behind you. According to the claw marks, Beast, but not one you remember. And with your current state—being unable to rise to your feet—you’re utterly incapable of ascertaining an identity.

Instantly, your hand reaches up to trace the alcove beneath your ear and neck, any ounce of hope disappearing upon feeling for the salve. 

Gone.

“Now, care to tell me what a Mage is doing in Beast territory?”

He’s hiding behind you on purpose, drawing you into a sensory overload, a panicked frenzy of adrenaline and fear. 

Deer caught in headlights. 

A curved claw unlike those in the Kingdom of Beasts winds your head back, staring straight into the face of something you can hardly deem Beast, more like wolf.

He has this terrifying look in his eyes, and breath that stenches of metal and flesh.

This man is the kind of Beast you’d grown up believing in. Violent, merciless.

Minho, Hyunjin, hell, anyone. Please. 

As if second instinct, you assess everything around you, snatching the closest stick to you and jarring the sharp end through the bottom of his chin with all your might.

A gagged, sort of howling sound emits from above you, putrid-smelling blood spraying all over your face. 

In split seconds does another form appear in your peripheral, your dread heightening before ultramarine stills the horror in its tracks.

King Bahng. 

He’s quiet, expertly slicing the back of the neck, the attacker dropping to the ground motionlessly.

“I could’ve handled it myself.”

It’s a lie. He doesn’t respond.

If the first Beast hadn’t killed you, he certainly would. He said it himself, whenever he pleased, he could break you.

So when King Bahng’s arms extend toward your position on the ground, you prepare for the worst, crawling backwards as quickly as possible.

Surprisingly, he kneels down in front of you, and, as your vision clears, you notice the concern written on his face. 

Weird, the feeling compiling in your gut as he looks at you like that. The way your eyes build with tears, lungs finally hacking for as much non-congested air available without a single word said.

Just by his expression alone, you’re a fit of blood and tears, the aftershock hardly helping ease the experience. 

Crying, in the middle of a forest, with King Bahng as a witness.

“I know, I know,” Is all he whispers, and you barely recognize when he hoists you into his arms, the searing sting of your leg your only indication of movement. 

Smoothly maneuvering you again his chest, he cradles your body close, one hand directing his horse as you ride back to what you assume to be the Kingdom. 

Through the aching pain, you can’t even be upset about returning, merely focusing on the subtle warmth of his body and the strength willing you to say something. 

“You speak nothing of this moment,” You murmur, the King’s body erupting into a tremor of laughter. 

“I speak whatever I like whenever I like, sweetness. No one touches what’s mine, yeah?”

Mine. You hate the effect he has on you. 

Yet, your snarky remarks are depleting in tandem with your energy; the soothing, shushing sound he’s making and the repetitive thump of hooves doing little to keep you from sleeps tempting beckon. 

Eyes drifting closed, his tightened grip pulls you closer, your cheek smushed into the fabric of his coat whilst lost in slumber.

“Hold on a bit longer for me, we’ll be there in no time.”

Recovery, to your luck, is swift. Either that, or Kim Seungmin is secretly a Mage, because within a week spent off your leg, you’re back to normal. 

A little sensitive to weight, but overall, healed.

Initially, despite the agony blazing through your body, you were thankful you barely recalled seeing anyone, swept into the apothecary immediately. 

The last thing you wanted to see after returning would be the faces. Plus, what about your friends? Jeongin, Felix, Han? You’re sure they looked destroyed. 

Except, it’s all fake. A feign kindness given to you only by sympathy. What do the faces matter anyway? 

You gorge that question to the very back of your throat when said Cook walks through the apothecary’s door, utmost apprehension apparent. He grabs your face, brows knit—but not in an angry sort of way, more like staving-down-tears. 

“Don’t you ever do something like that ever again.”

Past him, you can’t help but smile seeing Seungmin’s softened expression watching Felix, adoring his preciousness just as you are. 

“I promise.”

Nodding curtly, he turns around, leaving you to view the many ingredients scattered across his apron. 

He rushed here, cute.

“I’ll bring breakfast down here.”

Craning, you can barely make out his deep voice, lowered to a nearly inaudible decibel. Ears flushed pink, you’re filled with a worrisome amount of happiness seeing Felix’s embarrassment trying to maintain an upset facade.

“Hm? What was that?”

Ah, at this point you’re picking fun.

“I said I’ll bring breakfast down here.” 

Precipitously slipping outside, both you and Seungmin are left to stifle your bubbling laughter, graced with the most appetizing platter you’ve had the pleasure of eating a few minutes later.

However merciful those first few days were, dissipated. And in a short amount of time, you could feel the eyes boring into your back, the questions resting on the tip of tongues.

All the same, nobody mentioned it. And if anything, that made the paranoia grow. 

It was gradual. The subtle shadow you swore you saw in corners, the terror stopping your heart in your chest when you swear someone breathed down your neck. 

Your body may be healed, but your mind certainly isn’t.

To a degree that two weeks later, you’ve found sleep nearly impossible, lingering in the kitchen in the wee hours of morning, teetering on your wits end.

Some occasions it’s Felix who you see first, wiping the sleep from his eyes, loading coal into the furnaces to heat the kitchen for the day. Other days it’s handmaids, shuffling around busily, carrying goods to and fro.

This time, Minho arrives first, for once wearing regular clothing opposed to his usual armor, steaming saucer in clutch. 

Perhaps this is an opportunity, he is a knight after all.

“Hey Minho?”

Tired eyes sweep to your figure on the table, the rim of his cup held to his lips.

“I’m too paranoid and at this point I might die of sleep deprivation,” You huff, referring to his raging, bed-headed self . “…Could you teach me how to use a sword?”

He’s staring at you like you‘ve grown two heads, pulling a chair back to settle in, arms crossed over his chest. 

No sentences need to be said aloud, merely spectating the gears turning in his head enough to set your nerves on edge. 

Yet, in the midst of your waiting, you note a peculiar bruise peeking from his collarbone, another lingering a tad bit lower. 

“And you think a sword is going to protect you?”

The question is genuine, lacking the bemused nature you were expecting.

Another thing you’ve noted throughout your sleepless nights was the continuous amount of times you’d watch the King’s Advisor sneak into his quarters, a realization keeping your response baited.

Seems his love life isn’t a concern.

“Hey, those marks on your neck and shoulder, are those from Ha—“

“When do you want to train.”

All lightheartedness vanishing, you have to chew your lip to avoid ticking him off further by giggling.

“Tomorrow?”

Pushing in his chair with an agreeable hum, you merely whisper a hurried “Thank you” he grunts at, rushing off to who knows where and giving you leeway to recover from the hilarity of it all.

Tomorrow, however, came far too early, not anticipating to be woken up at the crack of dawn, grumpy enough the prospect of blackmailing the King’s Advisor became dangerously tempting. 

Yeah, good luck. He’s not budging until you’re on your feet. 

Seems you underestimated Han Jisung’s stubbornness.

Rushed into a loose gown, you’re led to the Inner Ward, an open sector in the middle of the castle. 

Upon being met with a too-smug Minho, you can practically see the word “payback” hovering above his head, busying himself with fetching supplies.

Perhaps this is karma coming back to bite you.

Ouch.

Except, you’re puzzled. You’re being taught how to deul, yet your teacher isn’t adorning armor nor gear of any kind.  

At your confusion, the knight chokes a cocky guffaw.

“First, we learn how to properly move.” He hands you a wooden sword. “If I so much as leave a scratch on you I’m as good as dead.”

Again, he may appear snarky, but his tone is nothing short of serious. Minho is hard to read.

Wait.

Seeing past your panic, the Beast seems to answer your unspoken question.

“King Bahng is visiting the villages today, he won’t be back till the evening.”

A wave of relief grounds your bones, standing rather pathetically while Minho aids in critiquing your position, instinctively shifting into his own in front of you.

“Now, there are a lot of things to consider when dueling. I’ll narrow things down. Don’t overestimate or underestimate your opponent, trust your gut, be aware of everything, and lastly, do not be afraid to deceive.”

Promptly, he’s lashing out before you can even process his advice, wooden weapon drawn above his head as your grip tightens, attempting to block the strike only for his foot to press into your stomach, sending you falling right onto the ground instead. 

“Isn’t that unfai—“

“Like I said, deception is your greatest weapon. In a game of swords, it doesn’t matter how dirty it’s won, it matters who won.”

He reaches a hand out for you to take, helping you back up again only to both fall back into your stances. 

“Keep in mind, your sword isn’t your only weapon.”

Minding his instruction, you continue onward, sparring heartily till the beating afternoon sun becomes too hot to bask in any longer. Amongst the four hours you had been consumed in training, you’ve snagged certain valuable points.

Calmness is crucial. Your mind streams clearer when you parried, void to the opponent’s increasing frustration—given an advantage of both agility and focus. 

Two, unpredictability is a gift. Minho is especially good at being unpredictable. 

Whether he charges headfirst or aims the forte of his sword toward particularly weak points, you begin to mimic his performance, growing closer and closer to conquering those signature tactics.

Of course, your enjoyment can only last for a bit before it spoils. 

Spoiling as in, Hwang Hyunjin’s random appearance, sauntering into the area as if he’s King himself.

“Well look at this, didn’t think I’d see our runaway and Minho here.”

There’s an air between Minho and Hyunjin, one that forbids Hyunjin from egging his superior on, just like when you were first brought to the Kingdom. Lucky for you, you could be degraded as much as he approved of.  

Feigning a dramatic gasp, he gestures to either wooden sword held in raw palms.

“No way, you’re learning how to deul?! Don’t tell me you’ve never learned basic attacks? Oh right, you never had to fight, huh, princess?”

You bite the skin of your cheek, minding your composure.

“You know nothing about me.”

“I know enough.”

Now he’s asking for it. 

“Say,” He sneers. “Let’s duel.”

Keeping Minho from intervening, you apologetically nod to his disproving expression. He knows it’s stupid, even while fetching his armor and adjusting the metal plating to your body, and you do too, but you can’t afford to back down, you won’t.

Testing your abilities carrying a legitimate sword this time, Minho grants Hyunjin a terse scowl, their own wordless agreement to tone down on anything too harmful.

Somehow, it grates your nerves further.

Straight away, he charges his right foot forward, the metal colliding with a loud ring, narrowing your body to shield your unprotected side.

Hyunjin, though skillful in his wrist mobility, clearly uses his size compared to you as an advantage, carelessly throwing around his jabs whilst relying on form alone.

You shuffle back and forth continuously, the commotion of metal rifle drawing the attention of Beasts alike throughout the castle, stopping their movements to survey.

Lurching himself forward once more, you will your legs to support you, balancing the crushing force of his pushing ascent with as much strength as possible.

“If you win, you get whatever sensible award you want,” He grits, using pure weight alone to gain higher vantage. “But if I win, you marry King Bahng.”

Suddenly, interrupting your stunned reaction to his proposal, Minho’s reminder breaches your eardrums.

Deception is your greatest weapon.

Honestly, you’re bewildered Hyunjin hadn’t played petty thus far, and you have no doubt he will any moment now. 

You can’t afford to waste the opportunity.

Maintaining your gaze targeted on his face, you steal the chance, slipping your sword right beneath his feet, hooking the guard just fast enough to cause his legs to buckle. 

The tip of your sword centimeters from his neck, you cock your brows, finding satisfaction in the glare he’s boring into your skin from his spot on the ground.

In a game of swords, it doesn’t matter how dirty it’s won, it matters who won.

“If King Bahng wishes to marry me, he will deul me himself. That decision isn’t up to you.”

Stalling his immediate laughter upon nudging the sharp point right up against his pulse point, you chuckle.

“I might have to do this more often, you’re not bad when you shut your mouth for once.”

Dropping your sword, you reach out a customary hand he rejects, either of you following Minho to the side stalls to return his armory before a haunting voice stops you in your tracks.

“One more match?”

You’d been ignorant to the Kingdom’s sudden burst of energy, the trembling chains of the drawbridge dropping onto cobblestone ground, the gates shifting open. 

Having appeared through thin air stands King Bahng, constantly arriving at the worst of timing. 

He’s clad in traditional armor, though his has fancier plating, cleaner sheen, azure hues hidden within the gorget.

Your stomach ties itself into a knot, piecing together the details.  

“If this is about the deal, I don’t think I-“

“Oh please princess, this was never up to you. We did this for the sake of the Kingdom, you think we ever considered your say in this?” Hyunjin interjects, quickly escorted away by a frowning Minho and an additional guard you don’t recognize.

Huh?

What… What is he talking about? For the Kingdom? What does he mean for the sake of the Kingdom?

Do us all a favor and marry him, will you? Seungmin’s words ricochet in your skull, the parts assembling perfectly into place.

But if I win, you marry King Bahng.

Marriage. 

They knew all along. They knew you were set to marry him and yet, no one told you.

If your betrayal had been violently inflicted, you would look like a rag doll. All this time, these moments you thought were glee-filled, hopeful.

Lies.

Tearing the King’s chance to speak from his fingertips, you pick up your sword, denying your shaky, white knuckles and replacing those broken feelings with rage instead.

No, you can’t afford to show weakness. You must replace these feelings as quickly as possible. 

No weakness, no mercy. 

“Fine, let’s duel.”

“But-“

“Pick. Up. Your. Sword. And fight me.”

Releasing a sigh, he cautiously pulls his own sword from its sheath, waiting to be counted off unlike Hyunjin.

However skillful you’d been before had completely vanished. Though, you would give yourself the benefit of the doubt, this fight meant your future, meant the minuscule bit of freedom you’d gotten to experience here.

The last thing you wished was to realize you had been lied to, but even more so to realize you’ve been lied to in front of the entire Kingdom, curious faces peering from the castle’s allures.

Your swings sloppy, you credit the severity of the blows as you attack and defend, evidently dueling with fatal intent.

You’ve lost this battle, you know it. Your senses are too overwhelmed to assess spatial awareness, and every muscle in your arm cries out for relief. 

Swept off of your feet in a repeated cycle to earlier, you accept, sitting below the tip of King Bahng’s sword, your defeat.

Almost automatically, the pieces of pride you’d attained after your victory against Hyunjin amounted to nothing. 

You may beat everyone else, but you will never beat this man, now matter how hard you try. The odds will always soar in his favor, and you will suffer the results of it.

This is not a game you’ll win. Because from the beginning, you existed as a marionette, enjoying such naivety till the comprehension as to who controlled the play hit you.

This theatre was particularly unforgiving.

He won.

If your insomnia before was grueling, this was an entirely new extreme. 

Averaging a meager two hours per night, you’re positive you’ve memorized the guest list by heart, staring blankly at the crinkled parchment, unblinking.

In a matter of days, the congratulatory ball will be held. 

You’ll be attending said ball as the bride.

Weeks ago, the guest list had simply been a past time, a mandatory errand for the King’s Advisor, a ball you weren’t aware, and wouldn’t be aware, was meant for you.

Your chest feels.. sad? Empty? 

Yes. Empty is the word. An emptiness gutting you from the inside, the ugly drawback of exhausted options and worthless optimism.

There’s a lot of things to ponder on as well, factors you have to analyze, ensure it wasn’t another stage for an audience you so foolishly performed.

No escape. 

Tuesday, two days before the ball, Jeongin drops by your door, carrying a package under his arm and that effortlessly adorable smile gracing picture-perfect features.

“This is for you, from.. um..” The anxious boy stammers, placing the binded package on your room’s veneer. 

“You can say his name, Jeongin, I’m not mad.”

He exhales audible relief, slender fingers wrapping around your hand before you can bid him farewell.

“He— The King, he’s a good person.”

You force a tight grimace, agreeing despite your contradicting expression.

Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn’t. You don’t know what to believe anymore.

Slipping from bed once the young boy’s footsteps fade in the distance, you gingerly unwind crimson ribbon, allowing the leather exterior to unfold. 

Inside lies a gown.  

A gown that, investigating how breathtaking it is, should be considered nothing short of a ball gown the longer you stare.

Designed as a mantua, the white fabrics paired with lace neck frill and engageantes add an elegance you’ve never seen before. Light, subtle blue hides beneath ruffles of the skirt, further accented by equally blue lace strings fastening the back together and outlining the seam of your square-cut stays.

You can only marvel at the gift given by your future husband, wishing so terribly you could simply run into his arms and pretend everything was well. 

If only it was under better terms, as if nothing had happened. If King Bahng was another man, it’d be possible.

And Wednesday night, the root of your problems bares his face, knocking at your door while you were under the impression it was Han instead.

Acting as if you didn’t care was much easier around everyone but him, especially when you were halfway into tying the laces of your dress, the dress he had purchased for you.

What awful circumstances.

“Don’t touch me,” You hiss, regarding the man across from you with a frown.

Lifting either hand in the air, he seemingly invites you to figure out the impossible strings yourself, cueing a very aggravated, very futile attempt at tightening the ties of your ball gown before (hesitantly) allowing the man to slip behind you.

Of course you had to choose now to try it on.

His touch irritably careful, he ensures the fabric is snug fitting but breathable, each woven thread in its coordinating pattern.

Where he learned this you have no idea, only aware of how horrific this close proximity is, your restlessness growing unbearable.

Running his tongue over his top teeth, he backs up slightly, taking you in with apparent speechlessness.

He clears his throat.

“I won’t apologize because I know it means nothing to you, but please, let me explain. I intended to tell you, I just-“

He sounds timid, like a child.

A sour, bitter fury froths like bile in your throat. You want to explode. 

“No. No. I didn’t want this! I won’t!” You wind around, pointing an accusing finger to his chest. “You killed them all, my family, my loved ones, children. I hate you. I hate you!” Your voice breaks, a gravelly, disgusting drawl raking your throat raw. Salty, burning tears drip down your collarbones.

Grievance. An innumerable stage of sadness you hadn’t reached before now, overflowing.

As he tries calming you down, you only grow angrier, pushing from your path to the door, ripping the handle awry.

Instantly, his arms wrap around your middle, hauling you back as you kick and scream, fingernails digging into any available skin, dress puffing as your legs flail.

Catastrophic.

“No- No!”

You’re certain the entire kingdom can hear you, but that’s the last concern occupying your headspace, too focused on escaping, far off as you had done earlier, anywhere but here.

“Stop crying,” He commands, either hand on your wrist pinning your back to the bed, expression morphed pitifully. His calloused hand swipes the storming rivulets from your cheeks. 

“Please, Y/n, please stop crying. It hurts.” 

Your response shortens into a simple sob, aching.

“It hurts..?” You murmur, eyes shifting over his face. “…You hurt?”

Incessant crying causing your skin to burn, he only blinks at you.

A fit of anger forms just as fast as it disappeared in the pit of your stomach.

“You’re hurting? You’re the sick son of a bitch that killed my family and took everything I’ve ever loved away, you don’t deserve to hurt!”

Sucking in a necessary inhale, you angrily flail, wrinkling your nose at the careful tilt of his head, the distance of his face from yours, every scar, every pore close enough to see.

What happened to the King who threatened to break you? Why is he pitying you, looking at you with such kindness?

Longing to bring up how useless the deal was, how the benefits of the marriage aren’t your responsibility, you simply glare, emotions a whirlwind you can’t explain, can’t say aloud. 

And all he does is stare. Staring like you’ve said nothing at all. 

You want to cry out, want to curse him for all eternity, curse those blue eyes that seem to pave a pathway through your soul.

But you don’t. He beats you to it.

“..Do you know why my eyes are blue?”

What?

“Because I’m not fully Beast. My mother was a Mage. She turned against my father after I was born, left us, and vowed to do everything in her power to destroy Beasts.” 

Your face contorts nonsensically, his tight hold on your wrists loosening the longer he speaks.

“And I assume,” He redirects your head, forcing you to maintain eye contact. 

Rearing deja-vú reminds you of your first encounter. 

“No one ever told you Mage’s started the war.”

You scoff.  

“Or that the Mage planned to cut off all trade supply simply out of spite. And so, I did what I had to—“

“You did what you wanted to. You killed helpless people because of your own problems, my family had nothing to do with it!” Vocal cords throbbing the louder you scream, you try kicking your legs to no avail. 

“Your family, Mage, had everything to do with it. My people would have died-“

“Mine already did. So now what?”

A minuscule pinch occupies his brows.

“You weren’t supposed to be alive.”

“But I am, so you might as well let me join them.” 

He sighs, a stray, obsidian strand of hair hanging over his forehead.

“You know I can’t do that.”

You test the words on your tongue, wedging your hand out to grab his face, feeling the dip of his jaw as he sucks in a breath.

When you first met, he had told you he’d break you. This change of heart confuses you, grates more anger in your chest.

“And why is that?”

Opening his mouth, he momentarily closes it, then opens again, contemplating the statement with caution.

He’s right, in some way. 

You’re not supposed to be alive, not supposed to be saddened. You were meant to be in the ground with them, be one of the many bodies littering the L/N Kingdom, granted an eternal sleep. 

Yet, you aren’t. 

You survived, and you despise this man with every fiber of your being for that.

But things cannot change. You can’t bring them back, and his situation is just as painful as yours. 

You both lost people, or, would’ve lost people.

An explanation or an apology, as he said, isn’t necessary.

So you’ll get what you want, tangibly.

Forcefully grabbing his chin and jutting him closer to you on the bed, your voice drips with venom, noses mere breadth apart.

“Then end this winter and marry me, Your Highness.”

For a split second you swear his gaze drifts to your lips, but you shake the thought away, his sharp canines glinting off the mirrors reflection. 

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one to propose?”

“You killed my family, no need for formalities.”

“Care to remind me why you agreed to marry him? Weren’t you planning to kill him?” Felix piques, apron woven around his thin waist, skillfully measuring flour that’s dusted over his nose.

You needed to get your anger out, then devise a plan. Show King Bahng you weren’t going to succumb to his charms, tricks. Ever.

You hum from your spot on the counter, conversing just as you’d done back in your kingdom with Ms. Maewether. 

Technically, he was your new Ms. Maewether.

“Oh no, I still plan on killing him, I just want something first.”

Except, you didn’t talk about murder in front of Ms. Maewether. That was new.

He raises an eyebrow.

“And what would that be?”

Snapping your fingers, you cheerily tap your heels against the cabinets below.

“I want to see spring again.”

Silence overcoming the kitchen, it takes Felix a full minute to understand your preposition before bursting into unadulterated laughter. Well, until he realizes. Then he pouts.

“Aw, I was really looking forward to seeing Chris rejected at the altar.” The smaller Beast whines, popping a piece of sugary sweet dough his mouth and handing another to you.

“Hey, now that’s just cruel,” You mumble, muffled by the delicacy you’re currently chewing on.

“According to you yesterday, not really.”

Ah. Right.

“We just… have a lot to talk about.”

The phrase sounds stupid, but it’s true. Logically, emotionally it’s true. There is a lot in need of discussing.

For now, you’re indifferent.

“I’ve always thought you two were similar.”

The cook’s outburst catches you off guard.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve always wanted to protect what mattered to you most, and maybe, one day, you can understand why he did what he did.”

Leave it to Felix to be your reasonable opinion.

Nevertheless, an invisible barrier rests between you two. A lie. His lie. The Kingdom’s lie.

“Felix, I will never understand why he did it,” You humorlessly chuckle, hopping from your spot. “So tell me, why did you lie?”

All morning you debated the right time to confront him. Tonight was the night, the congratulatory ball, the wedding. Why wait? 

Freezing with his back turned to you, he stops mid-slice, dropping the knife atop the cutting board and gradually facing you. 

Oh Felix.

His nose flushed pink, lips quivering, you allow him to race forward and hug you, head tucked into your shoulder while you stand there, motionless.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It was decided from the start, but we were told not to tell you, not until King Bahng told you himself.”

You want to tell him it’s okay, make some jokes, act like things are normal. Though your arms stay glued to your side.

“I guess Hyunjin beat him to it, huh?” 

His arms tighten around you and, with a sigh, you pat his back, gently nudging him off of you where you can hold that sweet face of his.

“But don’t worry about me, alright? I can handle this, and I forgive you, so let’s move on from this, Lix.” Tenderly rubbing the skin of his cheek, he meekly smiles, an action you can’t help but feel relieved seeing.

You’re strong. You have to be strong. For Felix, for Han, for Jeongin, for your friends throughout the Beast Clan, you’ll be strong. You’ll enjoy wearing the gown regardless of who bought it for you, cherish the wedding no matter the man you’re wedded to.

If you’re going to have to live like this forever, you might as well make the most of it.

On today’s occasion, you’re dressed by a hand maid sent to your quarters, polished and puffed to perfection by the time five o’clock arrives and the banquet officially begins.

And when you see yourself in the mirror, you’re not exactly sure who stares back at you. 

She’s pretty, yes, but she isn’t Y/N. She’s a Queen, the Queen of the Beast Clan.

Your stomach wrenches.

By tomorrow, you’ll be married. Married to King Bahng. You will be a wife, the wife of a King just as the L/N Kingdom intended. 

The thought continues to plague your mind, sucking more and more oxygen from your lungs that as you’re escorted to the ball room.

You can hardly inhale and exhale normally as Changbin, whom you appreciate enormously, walks you down the aisle, past an abundance of people you’ve never seen before. Beasts, business men, acquaintances alike.

Sensing your panic, your linked arms allow him to spare you a meager glance you anxiously return.

It’s fine. It’ll be fine. 

All previous calmness long dissipated, when you finally redirect your attention from your feet and take in King Bahng waiting at the altar, your rampaging anxiousness increases tenfold.

As the audience claps and either of you turn with your backs facing the crowd, you scorn your lack of a poker face when the King rests a hand on your back.

“Breathe,” He utters, only a whisper you heard. 

Wishing to thank him, you bite your tongue, considering the man you’re referring to in the first place prior to replying.

A sharp nod of your head is enough.

Stifling an exhale, you spin on your heel, both bowing to the public before facing each other and holding hands, an action that shouldn’t cause goosebumps to swarm your arms, but does anyway.

“You plan to smash my face in at our wedding?” He murmurs below the customary vows, acknowledging your fingernails digging into his hand.

“Keep giving me ideas and I migh-“

The retort vanishes when he presses his lips to yours, doubling back in shock before his palm on your back keeps you close.

Granting you breathing room if only for an instant, a slow grin tugs at the edge of his lips. 

“Then before I die, let me have this first.”

And he dives right back in again, kiss surprisingly tender compared to what you’d expected. Something bruising, dominating.

Instead, the King was soft. Soft as he held your cheek in a hand, soft when pulling you in by the waist.

Separating if only for a fraction of a second, you reach to hold his face, every instinct beckoning you to push him away dissipating into nothing but the nullified drone of your head and the insistent racing of your heartbeat.

“Are you that nervous, pretty? Your heart is-“

You pull him to your lips once more, hating how easy it is to forget, how his lips numb your thoughts—though unable to get enough.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

The guests hollering in your peripheral the lone sound breaching your eardrums, you can’t help thinking. 

He did this for his people just as you would’ve done. As for the Mage instigating the war, some secrets shall remain hidden, unable to be answered. You have to accept that among many things. 

The King has done nothing but care for you, and as much as you resent him for it, you respect him, if only a tiny bit, as well.

He’s irritable, and not to mention annoyingly handsome. His sympathy-filled eyes might be the death of you, and those dimples of his are stupidly lovable.

But he’s your husband, and somehow, strangely enough, you don’t find yourself hating the thought as much anymore.

Not when he holds you, and especially not when he kisses you as if it’s your last.

After the many hours spent celebrating, you couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about returning to your quarters.

Joined by King Bahng, you find traversing as easy as ever with the help of the (half) Beast behind you, helping navigate past multitudes of people, oddly comforting touch on your back guiding you through the hallways.  

Arriving at your room, he pauses, awkwardly shifting his weight on his heels, bewitching gaze flitting left and right, uncharacteristic to his usually smug attitude.

“…Was the kiss too much?”

King Bahng, asking if his kiss was too much?

You wanted to photograph this moment in your mind forever, debating on whether you should tease him about it, egg the normally stoic King on. 

However, you tip his chin down, pressing a chaste, soft peck to his lips, amusedly observing him freeze before melting into your touch.

“Could be better.” 

He huffs a sigh in response, and you’re left wondering if this is the same man who threatened to break you, the one who now looks like a pouty toddler.

Although, just as you slip by, he takes ahold of your wrist. 

“Goodnight Y/N.”

You crack a smile.

“Good night Chris.”

And, suppressing your chuckle, you close the door behind you.

Hastily undressing into nightwear and slipping into bed, you stare up at the ceiling, hours passing from the ticking of a clock in the corner, echoing around the room. 

Then, abruptly, your door creaks open.

“My gods, what are you doing here?” You whisper into the darkness, the door creaking behind his crouched form, King Bahng’s crouched form.

“I needed to see you.”

Ah. Don’t say things like that. 

Pulling the covers further over yourself, you squint accusingly at the man as he enters, silencing your urge to reprimand he saw you mere hours earlier, presumptuously sitting opposite to you. 

He scans what’s visible, fixating on your hand for a moment.

“You kept the ring on?”

Noting the gleaming jewel on your ring finger, you can’t help but feel slightly bashful. It’s not like you’re really married, but the thought sends a sort of satisfaction spreading throughout your chest. 

“If I take it off, will it become winter again?”

He grins, giggling childishly. 

“Is that the only reason?”

Debating on your response, you wet your lips, looking back up at his barely distinguishable face shrouded in darkness.

You have no doubt he’s thriving off your hesitance. 

Oh how badly you wish to wipe that look clean, but in reality, keeping the ring on feels as if a part of you from your own kingdom is with you, similar to your old clothing.

The part of you that, if not invaded, would belong to someone loved, newly wedded.

“No,” You mutter, though the phrase is barely audible.

He perks up.

“Hm?”

You regret saying that. But he’s already heard, there’s no use lying aimlessly.

“I said no, that’s not the only reason.”

“Care to tell me the other reason?” 

Rapidly averting your attention to your hand, you discover speaking is easier when not looking at him. 

“Keeping it on makes me feel like I’m really in love. I like imagining that, being married.”

You miss the sad lilt crossing his face.

“We are married.”

Without missing a beat, you meet his stare.

“Are we?” 

Unlike before, there’s no waver to your voice, no caution. 

Winding around to your side of the bed, he settles beside your feet. 

You clear your throat.

“I wanted to see spring again, and to you, I’m simply a present. A playtoy to your disposal. This isn’t marriage, not how I was taught, this is just a business arrangement.”

Nevertheless, the hurt leaks into your voice. So long to a resilient tone. 

“Y/N, don’t do this to me.”

Come to think of it, it’s the first time he’s ever called you by your name apart from last night. 

Having had enough of his nonsense, you spring for his collar, dragging him below you on the bed. Opposite to earlier, you’re on top this time, you’re in control.

“You don’t deny it.”

A silence passes.

“I would deny it a thousand times, but you wouldn’t believe me. And I don’t blame you for that.” 

He sucks in a breath.

“I only ask you don’t doubt this marriage. This isn’t a business arrangement, and I will treat you with as much respect and love as possible, even if you don’t want me too. That is what marriage is, how I was taught.”

It’s your turn to inhale, lost within the confines of this dark space. 

“Chris, do you love me?”

You both have people you love, people you want to protect, wanted to protect. It wasn’t his intention to hurt you, not when he found you after you ran away, not when ordering a salve to keep you safe, nor now, as you lean above him. 

Like he told you. You weren’t meant to survive. You were supposed to be peacefully asleep, forever. 

This man, this Mage, this Beast, is as much a murderer as your savior. You choose how to condemn him. 

“I do, more than you could ever imagine.”

How can you stay mad at a guilty man, a man who kept you alive when you were on the brink of death? Who now professes to loving you, wanting to give you a marriage you’d been cheated of, give you everything you’ve been cheated of with everything in his power. 

Hovering right by his lips to the point your chests touch, you place a miniature kiss there.

“I hate you, so much.” 

Then another kiss.

His arms, wrapped around your more elevated form, drag you down in an embrace. One hand presses your face to his shoulder, another rubbing circles on your back. 

“And I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, sorry.”

Raising up, you can’t contain the tremor of your lip, the way your eyes shakily close shut as you steal a third kiss from his lips, a kiss he returns, hands carefully holding each side of your face.

“Chris?” You manage, currently straddling his lap, his body resting against the headboard. 

Kindly, he keeps a palm against your lower back, helping you balance.

“Can you show me what it means to be loved?”

You never understood how a person could melt until this moment. He wears that look again, like in the forest. The look that makes you cry.

What love looks like for Christopher Bahng, you don’t know. You have no doubt there will be ugly moments, moments you’ll reconsider, rethink. 

You’re both hurt, some wounds still hurting. But for him, for you, you’re willing to take that chance.

“I’d be honored.”

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