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saintobio · 1 month

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓. (final part to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑.)

in the painful memory of what once was, sylus learns that love can't be bound where it was never meant to stay.

♱ pairings. sylus, fem!reader

♱ genre. angst, smut, boss/assistant, 18+

♱ tags. sylus's pov, reader is not l&ds!mc, sylus might be ooc, main story spoilers, razor's dance spoilers, nightplumes spoilers, lots of timeskip, fast-paced, unrequited love, profanity, petnames (kitten, sweetie), espionage, jealousy, brief smut, mentions of pregnancy/impregnation kink, mentions of accidents, suicide attempt, injuries, blood, usage of guns, usage of knife, killings, death, my own theories incorporated into the lore, sylus groveling bcos yall want him to

♱ notes. 9.5k wc. l&ds!mc is referred to here as 'diana'. THIS IS A REPOST of the original post i accidentally deleted. i already posted this several hours ago, so if you’re seeing this new one again, blame my dumbass 🤧 oh well life is life.

Sylus had a part of him that wished things could be different.

Ever since he turned away and left you that night at the alleyway, he didn’t really realize the chain of events his decision would set into motion. He simply underestimated how strongly your threats were backed by the grudge you had on him for bringing the hunter girl from Linkon into his base.

After all, you were just an assistant of his. And her, she was everything to him. It wasn’t just about the Aether Core, too—their bond stretched back into his distant past, into another planet where two of them ruled before the inhabitants of Philos came to ruin everything. Him and Diana had a connection he couldn’t sever no matter how much you had come to mean to him. And he spent years, centuries even, just to search for her.

So, how could a mere assistant he had known for less than a decade have such entitlement to her role in his life?

Eventually, days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. With your prolonged absence from the Onychinus base, Sylus’s business transactions and illicit deals had become increasingly unruly. He had grown too dependent on you as his right-hand woman, relying on your meticulous management to ensure all his illegal activities ran smoothly. Yet now, without your oversight, things were falling apart.

And while he was contemplating how to fill the void your absence had created, the office door slammed open. A subordinate soon rushed in, breathless and wide-eyed. “Boss, she’s betrayed us!” Luke exclaimed. “She’s gone to the Hunter’s Association. We got word that she was a high-ranking intelligence agent there!”

“A.K.A a spy!” yelled the other twin, Kieran, who looked equally hurt at your betrayal. “She fooled all of us. And here, we treated her like family.”

That was how Sylus learned that you had left the N109 Zone, seeking refuge in Linkon City, and had exposed critical intel on Onychinus. At the time, rage naturally exploded within him. Didn’t he take good care of you while you were here? He had given you everything, trusted you, and you had thrown it all away. Four years of falling into his trap. Four years of being his partner in crime, his right-hand woman, his lover. People even saw you as the modern day Bonnie & Clyde. Sylus couldn’t understand the root of your betrayal, couldn’t imagine how letting you slip away from his grasp would cost him so much in return.

When you vowed to do everything in your power to kill Diana, was this just a part of your grand scheme? What other machinations were you orchestrating in your pursuit of revenge?

“She’s a wild animal on loose.” Sylus looked up at the twins, maintaining a calm yet ruthless mien as he sat on the couch. He might be idly tossing a coin like he didn’t care, but inside his brain was chaos ensuing. “Where’s she now? Any news?”

It was Luke who shrugged in response. “She hasn’t been seen anywhere, boss-man.”

“We suspect the Association is hiding her,” Kieran added.

The hunter girl, Diana—the very girl you were jealous of, was sitting next to Sylus throughout the conversation. Their hands were connected by a strong energy linkage that was seemingly ignited by the Aether Cores in their bodies. They couldn’t separate themselves even if they wanted to. And God forbid you would have lost your mind tenfold had you seen their situation right now.

“That g-girl,” gasped the hunter girl, eyes wide in bewilderment at what she was hearing. “Sylus, your assistant. She did all that? She was a spy from the Hunter’s Association?”

Luke tilted her head at the girl, his beaked mask mocking her. “Oh, miss hunter! Haven’t you heard about the HIS? You should know them better than us.”

“Well.. what is the HIS?”

“Hunter Intelligence Services.” Sylus was the one who answered, releasing a deep sigh while rubbing his temples. “They’re top secret. Regular hunters wouldn’t have known about them, because they only deal with people like me.”

Diana looked between him and the twins, rubbing her wrist before moving closer to the boss of Onychinus. Her close proximity allowed him to smell her familiar sweet scent. “Is she… after me? But I don’t understand. If she’s part of the Hunter’s Association too, then shouldn’t we be colleagues?”

Kieran cleared his throat. “Ever since you came—”

“Place a bounty on her head,” Sylus interrupted the twins, and also ignored the question of the girl next to him. She didn’t need to learn the history behind you and him, or why you chose to target her. “Make sure to bring Y/N back to me. Alive.”

“Roger that, boss!”

It was his last desperate attempt to draw you back to him. Now that you had the Hunter’s Association protecting you, Sylus knew that locating you wouldn’t be as simple. Otherwise, he would have easily captured Diana long ago. He convinced himself that the bounty was to punish you, but deep down, he knew it was because he couldn’t bear to lose you to his enemies completely.

It took you a year to return to the N109 Zone.

Did you forget he had eyes and ears everywhere? He was the boss of that infamous No-Hunt Zone. Even if you leaked intel about his residences and the Onychinus base to the Hunter’s Association, Sylus still had a few tricks up his sleeve. He had hideouts in places that even you weren’t aware of, and the residents of the N109 Zone were loyal to him. Too loyal that they wouldn’t give any information to anyone no matter the consequences.

And how foolish were you to forget about Mephisto’s existence?

“Caw! Caw!”

The mechanical crow’s eyes glowed with the same red hue as Sylus’s as it landed on his arm, projecting visions of you entering the underground fight club disguised in an Onychinus uniform. It was almost farcical that you thought you could infiltrate a place Sylus frequented unnoticed.

But then, the vision shifted to you speeding on a motorcycle with a truck in hot pursuit. Sylus quickly recognized the truck’s decals—it was the hitman he often employed for dealing with his enemies, now terrorizing you in a high-speed chase. Without hesitation, Sylus grabbed his leather jacket and mounted his own bike, racing to your location in sixth gear.

He arrived just a minute too late. And what was meant to be a dramatic reunion turned into a scene of you lying unconscious and injured on the road, while the hitman grinned nearby with an expression of triumph. If it hadn’t been for your helmet, Sylus would have been met with the gruesome sight of your shattered skull.

“Mr. Sylus!” the hitman exclaimed, jumping out of his truck with arms outstretched in petty victory. “Can I get the $500,000,000 in cash?”

As Sylus’s gaze fell on your unconscious, injured body sprawled on the ground, a surge of anguish overwhelmed him in ways he couldn’t understand. But it was quickly replaced by seething rage—rage that made him summon his black-red mist, enveloping the hitman in its dark tendrils.

“I said not to harm her,” Sylus growled, his red eye glowing ominously against the desolate highway backdrop. “You failed your task.”

“P-Please, Mr. Sylus! I thought you—”

Without another word, Sylus scooped you up in his arms while his mist dealt with the hitman behind him. The hitman’s desperate cries were soon drowned out by the expanding tendrils, which tightened around him until he was engulfed. Then, in a violent burst, the mist exploded, reducing the hitman and everything around him to dust.

Sylus brought you to his underground hideout immediately after. And an unfamiliar—or perhaps strange—pang tugged at his heart as he gently laid you in bed, his gaze lingering on the road rash you obtained from the crash. The injuries were severe, with patches of skin nearly stripped away in the most brutal fashion he could think of. He could only imagine the burning pain you had to endure as soon as you skidded along the gravel, and Sylus felt his own frustrations knocking at the door knowing that he didn’t have the power to extend his fast-healing abilities to you.

“Tch. My kitten’s reckless as always, riding without the proper gear,” Sylus grumbled, looking at your unconscious body. “You’ve never been one to follow the rules, have you?”

To make up for his inability to save you on time, he applied a potent medicinal ointment all over your body and placed you in an anesthetized state while you healed. His mist enveloped you like a protective shroud the entire time you laid in bed unconscious. Every single day, Sylus tended to your wounds, changing your clothes and bandages, and applying the ointments over your bare body. He even took special care to ensure the twins did not enter your room without his permission.

Despite the care he showed, a persistent question echoed in his mind: Why am I doing this for you? You were his enemy, a traitor, and a woman who had betrayed him. It didn’t make sense.

That afternoon, feeling suffocated from this internal conflict, Sylus decided to leave you in the care of Luke and Kieran while he went to Linkon. He knew he needed space to grapple with the feelings that were driving him to care for you in the first place.

He needed to see the real woman he should be caring for.

Because you had not only exposed intel on Sylus and Onychinus to the Hunter’s Association, you also asked for them to isolate Diana so she would have no way to see or contact him. Who knew that mere feelings of jealousy would spark you to do such trivial things?

Frankly, you were insane. You were dark and twisted like him.

But in a way, it only underscored how similarly deranged the two of you were. Perhaps, in your madness, there was a strange compatibility—one that Sylus found unsettlingly fitting. The suggestion of you two being more a suitable pair than he and Diana gave him an unease that he couldn’t simply shake away.

It should be her. Her. Just her and her alone. He dedicated his whole life into finding her, yet you came into his life to ruin the foundations he had built to meet the person he was supposedly destined for. He had repeated it over and over in his mind like a broken record—the voices in his head telling him to let you go, to hurt you, to make you suffer.

However, as he stood across the pedestrian crossing, watching Diana from afar, a realization hit him like a cold gust of wind. There she was, oblivious to his presence on the other side, but the spark that once ignited in his heart whenever he saw her was gone. Now, his pulse remained steady and his heart stayed still.

With a wary glance around, mindful of any watchful eyes, he decided to pick up his phone and ring hers. It was a good thing he was able to seamlessly blend into the crowd, with his practiced nonchalance making him invisible among the throng of people. After all, he was Sylus Qin, the mastermind of Onychinus—disguise was second nature to him.

“Sylus?” Her voice came through the line, tentative and filled with a mix of emotions as she scanned the faces on the other side of the crossing.

“According to the conditions set by the Hunter’s Association, we shouldn’t be meeting again.” His voice was steady, almost detached, as he kept the phone pressed to his ear. “Or if not, you will be marked as a Tenebra.”

Her eyes eventually found him amidst the walking crowd, keeping an expression on her face that showed both longing and forlornness. “Not the first time someone has been marked a Tenebra because of you,” she managed to slip in a snarky remark in her worried expression. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”

“Are you worried about me?” he nonchalantly asked, watching as she stepped off the curb when the light turned green. Each step was a step closer to him, but nothing changed the pace of his own heartbeat like it should have. Nothing stirred within him as it once did.

“You have the audacity to use a phone when you’re right in front of me,” she snapped, frustration flaring as she yanked the phone from his grasp. Without hesitation, she grabbed his arm, dragging him along with her to escape the dangers of being seen in public. They ended up in an alleyway, a place hidden from prying eyes, an irony that made Sylus chuckle under his breath. The alleyway. Why has that become such a memorable place to him? “Sylus, what’s so funny? I was so scared something happened to you! You couldn’t even call me back or text me the past few days?”

He remained expressionless as he observed her outburst. Strange. In her frantic worry, she reminded him of you, and it was a discomfiting parallel that sent chills down his spine. “I said I’d need to disappear from your life completely, so I have to tie up loose ends,” he began, each word seemingly a dagger to her heart. “We haven’t been able to resonate either way, sweetie. There’s no reason for us to keep meeting.”

“No!” she adamantly denied the thought, pulling him into an embrace. “No, you’re not allowed to disappear just like that! We need to find a way to get—”

“It’s a dangerous gamble to be caught in my world,” he said in a low voice.

But she was stubborn. “I’m already caught in it! So, please, Sylus, take me with you. Take me to the N109 Zone or wherever you’re hiding. I want to be where you are.” And in spite, she uttered words that made Sylus think twice about his perception of you. “It’s her fault that this is all happening. She’s a traitor to you and to the Association. Her loyalty isn’t with anyone but herself, Sylus. She’s the one who needs to disappear!”

Back at his hideout, Sylus was careful to ensure that Diana remained oblivious to your presence in another room. He was already grappling with how to manage the situation—torn between the woman he loved and the woman he had wronged who, ironically, were both now under the same roof. The thought of you two crossing paths was a nightmare he didn’t want to deal with, so he gave strict orders to the twins, notorious for their loose lips and loud mouths, to keep Diana far from you.

Because when Sylus returned to your room, he knew you were awake. The dark classical music playing from the vinyl record had likely stirred you from unconsciousness. It had been nearly a week since the crash, but thanks to his meticulous care, your wounds had mostly healed, leaving only faint scars behind.

“You can’t hide from me forever.” Sylus hovered over you to whisper into your ear, summoning his protective black-red mist to slowly release you. “Wake up, kitten. We have unfinished business.”

When you finally opened your eyes after what felt like an eternity, Sylus told himself it was natural to feel relieved, that it was only right for his heart to soften at the sight of you returning to consciousness. But as you awoke, the voices in his head—the damned, relentless voices—grew louder, mocking him, provoking him, and luring him into darker thoughts. His right eye began to glow like a flickering candle, and when he saw the fear on your face, the words that followed weren’t his own. They were driven by the unforgiving side of him he couldn’t control, a side that thrived on your terror. The beast that couldn’t be tamed.

She’s a traitor.

Punish her.

Hurt her.

Devour her.

While in a heated, dramatic exchange with you, Sylus was spewing words he didn’t mean. He was doing actions without regard. He was mocking your pain. Your jealousy. Your heartbreak. The drive to hurt you was strong in his head, but he fought desperately against it. The demon inside him that tried to consume his every thought. He tried to battle his own self just to protect you.

“I betrayed you because of her!”

His laughter died down, but the amusement in his eyes only deepened, replaced by the wicked smile on his face that enjoyed seeing you suffer. “It’s always been about her, hasn’t it? You see me with her, and you can’t stand it. It eats at you, makes you act out.”

You tried to move away, but Sylus pressed his foot firmly on your wrist. She betrayed you, Sylus. Punish her.

“I’ve seen your struggle,” he continued, his voice soft but laced with corrupt satisfaction. “The way you watched me with her, the way it gnaws at you. It’s almost poetic, really.”

It wasn’t until you reached for the gun on his nightstand, pointing it at yourself, that Sylus snapped out of his dark trance. The horror in his eyes was a stark contrast to the sorrowful shine in yours as you stood there, sobbing in front of him. Each word you spoke was tailed with the pain of a heart shattered by everything he had done and said.

“...All I wanted was your love,” you choked out with tears cascading down your face, “I j-just wanted you to love me. I turned my back on the H.A. for you. I left all my friends and family for you.” Your breathing was still for a moment, but your heart had already been blown into smithereens. “All I had was you. I loved you. I devoted all my body and soul into loving you, Sylus. Why c-can’t I have even a little bit in return?”

Even as his gaze softened and a flicker of regret passed across his face, you had already made your decision when your finger tightened on the trigger. The recoil jolted your wrist, but before the bullet could find its mark, Sylus’s hand shot out and expertly deflected your aim. Instead of ending your life, the bullet shattered a window, ricocheting off the glass and disappearing into the night.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Sylus roared, his voice a thunderous mix of fury and disbelief.

You were barely responding to him as he cupped your cheeks and forced your lachrymose eyes to lock into his crimson ones. It was as though you had already resigned yourself to reality, that ending your own life would have been a better option than being with the man you hopelessly loved.

“Y/N,” Sylus tried to shake you awake, desperate for you to look into his eyes. “Y/N! Enough. Let’s end this game.”

“...I was never playing one with you.”

Sylus was overwhelmed by a profound, indescribable pain that pierced his chest. It was a pain that mirrored yours but was infinitely more intense. “I warned you many times before to never fall in love with me,” he said in a low, softened voice, “It’s for the best, and it’s what will keep you safe. Why don’t you listen?” He longed to pull you into his arms, but the crushing reality was that he only now realized how deeply he cared for you. It was devastating that his awakening had come at the cost of your near-suicide, forced by a love he was unable to return.

Was it truly too late for him to come to terms with his feelings for you? Was it too late to accept that he had fallen in love with you rather than the woman he believed he was meant to be with?

His answer came in the form of a gut-wrenching realization. It manifested in the frantic voice of Diana—the woman he believed he loved, piercing through the haze of his thoughts by yelling, “Sylus, step back!”

“No!” he shouted, his black-red mist swirling to intercept the bullet.

But his efforts came too late. The bullet had already been set in motion, and it tore through the side of your head.

It penetrated your skull with a cruel precision, not just once but twice. And the warmth of your blood seeped through his fingers as he caught your head before you fell onto the floor.

Sylus’s mind raced with the enormity of what had just happened. His face grew ashen as he looked at your bloodied head and lifeless eyes, a wave of acid welling up his chest until he couldn’t breath. But the reason for his suffocation was because of his own guilt and grief. It was at the force of a sledgehammer when he was hit with the admission that he had always been in love with you. All along, despite your tangled mess, it was you who had captured his heart in this world.

His chest tightened, his breaths coming in ragged, broken bursts, while he held you close in his arms. And your last three words, your very last words of “I… love… you…” as you stared despairingly at him was icing on this bitter cake.

No… no!

He couldn’t fucking accept it. He was losing his mind, he was going insane. He was plunging into madness. Utter hysteria. “Y/N, please,” he begged, his voice breaking as your eyes, once full of life and light, were now glazed over with the sheen of death. “Don’t leave. No, I can’t let this happen!” For the first time in a long time, he once again felt hot tears leaving his eyes. It was an emotion so rare it only ever showed toward the people he deeply cared about. “I love you too,” he struggled to say. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said back there.”

Sylus held you close, disregarding the blood staining his clothes while he was consumed by agony and regret. He had driven you to this, pushed you away, and then drawn you back into his orbit only to lose you forever.

Though he may have conquered your heart, in doing so, he had only destroyed the both of you. The memory of your love and the warmth of your touch would haunt him for the rest of his days. And as he held your lifeless body, he knew that he would never be whole again.

But it shouldn’t be too late. No, it shouldn’t! He didn’t know if it was the hysteria or adrenaline kicking into him, but he had thought of an idea—no matter how immoral—that would return you back to him. He just couldn’t weigh which strong emotion he had to deal with first; should he grab the gun and shoot Diana out of anger? Or should he ignore her presence entirely and just focus on you?

Sylus chose to proceed with the latter as he carried you through the corridors of the base, his steps heavy with guilt and his shirt drenched in blood as you remained unconscious in his arms. The hunter girl had followed him in his spiritless steps, her eyes wide with confusion over his anguish.

“Sylus, why are you doing this?!” she demanded, grabbing his arm to halt his progress. “She would’ve killed you. That girl’s a traitor!”

Although he stopped in his tracks, he couldn’t really return her gaze. His eyes could only look at your lifeless ones. “That girl you shot in the head,” he spoke low and in despair, “is my woman.”

Diana was horrified. “But… but you never said—” Before she could finish, the twins intervened, holding her back from pursuing Sylus further. “What about me?”

He had already turned away. “I’ll fulfill my promise to protect you from afar, but this is where our paths part. Do not come near me again.”

Sylus stood over your unconscious body, his eyes bloodshot and tears-streaked, while his heart pounded with a mix of grief and desperation. He had summoned Philip and the finest surgeons he knew to his hideout, where you lay in a medical bed, exposed and vulnerable, as if you were a subject in a desperate experiment.

Philip arrived with a grim expression, his eyes scanning the scene with both skepticism and professional detachment. Sylus could barely contain his desperation as he demanded, “Do everything you can to save her. Even if it means infusing a high-grade protocore in her brain.” After all, he had plenty of that. Sylus had all the resources, protocores of the highest grade, each with their own purpose and capabilities.

Yet Philip hesitated, his face contorting with concern. “Mr. Sylus, you know I can’t do this. She’s gone. The best thing to do is accept—”

That was when Sylus’s composure cracked. He kicked the nearby chair out of rage, tears streaming down his face as he begged, “You’ve done it before. Do it again! Please, I need her to live!”

The sight of Sylus, usually so imposing and dominant, breaking down in front of him was shocking. Philip felt a pang of sympathy toward the Onychinus boss who was willing to do everything for a woman who was already dead. His hands trembled as he spoke, “I-I can try. But I’m warning you, Mr. Sylus… even if she survives this, there’s zero chance her memories will be the same. They may even become altered, and it will be out of our control.”

Sylus’s gaze never left you. “I don’t mind. Just do it.”

Weeks later, Sylus found himself in a secluded alleyway, meeting with a deepspace hunter who was also an enemy of his from another planet. Of course, the atmosphere was tense as both men stood in front of each other, eye-to-eye, carrying a defensive stance from one another.

They were never friends. But that day, they weren’t enemies either.

“How’s she?” Xavier broke the silence first.

Sylus answered with a low voice. “She hasn’t woken up, but she’s stable.”

“Why’d you ask to meet?”

“I want you to look after her,” the Onychinus leader began, his voice steady but carrying an undertone of desperation, “Speak to the Association about taking Y/N back and forgiving her for her betrayal. In return, I’ll step away from Diana’s life. She’s all yours. I just want Y/N to return to her normal life.”

Xavier’s expression was serious. “You’re forgetting you still have a bounty on your head.”

“And you’re forgetting you and your backtrackers destroyed the planet where I was living,” he replied in equal disdain, but only enough to trap Xavier into a wall of guilt and obligation.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Lumiere—or, in his current form, the deepspace hunter, Xavier. “The HIS will be easy to convince. But what if she wakes up and wants to go back to the N109 Zone?”

Sylus felt a tug of deep sadness pulling at his heart. “She won’t. Her memories of me are gone for good.”

If this was his karma for hurting you, then it was definitely the worst kind.

Sylus maintained a distant watch over you after you returned to Linkon, observing from afar as you rejoined your life with the support of the Hunter’s Association and former colleagues. Each day, he sent Mephisto to monitor your whereabouts, carefully tracking your interactions and daily activities. The mechanical crow often returned with glimpses of your life, which Sylus scrutinized with intense focus as if he were watching a movie. Each glimpse offered him a sense of relief, happiness even, at knowing how easy you were settling back into your old life.

You had been officially dismissed from the Hunter’s Association due to a medical condition that rendered you unfit for duty, but they continued to cover your pension and provided free lodging—likely thanks to Xavier’s persuasive influence over the Association. The official story was that you had been sent on a dangerous mission where a Wanderer had placed you in a life-threatening predicament. The narrative praised your honor and dedication to the end. There was no mention of Sylus, Onychinus, or the N109 Zone. No hint of the life you had once led or the truth behind your memory erasure.

Yet, in a bitter twist of irony, perhaps the story you were told may not actually be farther from the truth.

After all, Sylus was the dangerous monster that sent you to that life-and-death situation.

But at least now, you were well cared for. So much so that Sylus fought to contain his jealousy whenever Mephisto’s eyes relayed visions of you sharing lunch with a physician named Dr. Zayne. He struggled to mask his irritation as he saw the man drape an arm around your shoulders while guiding you out of the hospital or wrapping a scarf around your neck to keep you warm. He would often even drive you home and send you gifts that were masked as tokens of “recovery.”

Bullshit.

Sylus clenched his fist, his thoughts of jealousy consuming him. My girl, he thought in despair, my beautiful girl is cherished by other men, while he remained imprisoned in the desolate shadows of the N109 Zone, longing for you.

Eventually, Sylus felt an overwhelming urge to see you in person. After discovering that you had taken a job at a café in Bloomshore District, he convinced himself that observing you from a distance wouldn’t cause harm. He just wanted to be near you, to ensure your safety, and to protect you from any potential threats.

As he sat on a nearby bench, Luke joined him with a comment. “Boss, you said we needed to disappear from her life.”

Kieran, taking a seat on Sylus’s other side, added, “Do you think she’d recognize us if we walked into that café? If she doesn’t, I’ll give her a hard time with my orders ‘til she remembers us!”

“Ha ha! Let’s do that!”

“Boss, let’s go!”

“Leave her be.” Sylus took a deep breath, adjusting his sunglasses and setting aside his newspaper—part of his disguise—as he watched you through the café window. He noticed the subtle traces of familiarity in your actions, but the connections that once bound you were now distant memories. “...I’m just here to make sure no one’s bothering her.”

The truth was, he wrestled with his emotions each time he visited the café you were working at. He wanted to approach you, to speak to you, but he hesitated each time because of the fear of rejection and the pain of seeing you not remember him holding him back. There were so many what-ifs in his head that it drove him insane to think about.

Because if anything, what if you were already seeing someone else? What if you were already in a relationship with that scumbag doctor from the Akso Hospital?

It was petty jealousy that drove Sylus into stepping into the café. And the first time your eyes met since you resurrected, his heart initially froze, then raced uncontrollably. His heart swelled with hope as you looked up at him, but it was quickly replaced by the lack of recognition in your eyes the moment you spoke from the counter.

“Hi. What can I get you?” you asked, treating him no differently than any other customer.

Sylus was caught off-guard, but he knew he had to play the part. “I, uh, I’ll get an Americano. Large.”

“Alright, sir. And your name, please?” you asked, following your routine without any real interest in the man before you.

But in a way, this was a relief for Sylus. It confirmed that the protocore embedded in your head was functioning as intended, and that any dark memories from the past had been completely erased, even if it meant he was no longer part of your life.

“Skye,” he said with a soft smile. “That’s my name.”

There wasn’t a single day Sylus missed visiting the café.

At first, he worried that his constant presence might seem odd, or that you might think of him as a stalker. But as the days passed, seeing you became an essential part of his routine. A day without catching a glimpse of you felt incomplete, almost maddening. Seeing you was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of.

Initially, you found his regular visits a bit strange, but gradually, the small interactions between you two evolved. Sylus began to appear at the café just when you needed him most—whether it was fixing a broken coffee machine, addressing rude customers, or simply offering a helping hand. These acts of kindness somehow transformed your view of him. What started as a customer-service relationship slowly became more personable, and in recent days, you often greeted him warmly and smiled whenever he walked in. If only you knew how badly it warmed his heart that he got to do things for you without making him feel like he was intruding in your life.

And to be honest, Sylus even felt like he might be—as Luke termed it—foolishly ”crushing” on you.

“Who knew our boss-man could be a hopeless romantic~?”

There was a time when he visited the café, only to find out from your manager that you called in sick from work. Sylus knew where you lived, but going to your place uninvited was a different story. He had to put some boundaries no matter how worried he was for you. But that was when Mephisto became useful; the mechanical crow would simply fly off to your place and observe you from outside. Then, an idea to drop a box of medicines and chocolates at your balcony was something he had thought of at the last minute.

Back in the N109 Zone, Sylus anxiously looked at his crow. “Are you sure she didn’t see you?”

“Caw! Caw!”

“Did she eat the chocolates?” he asked, exhaling a deep breath he didn’t think he was holding.

“Caw! Caw! Caaaw!” Mephisto responded, fluttering its wings as if to reassure him.

And then, that day happened.

The day Sylus finally gathered the courage to ask you out, fate had other plans. And what began as a simple gesture to offer you a ride home during a stormy night quickly escalated into something far more intense.

Because one moment, he was offering you a ride. The next, he found himself in your bed, having the most passionate sex he had ever had with someone. He wasn’t even sure if he could call it that, because it felt more like he was making love to you, even if to you, he was probably just an attractive guy you unexpectedly hooked up with.

So, he had to make himself known. He had to hear his real name leaving your lips. “Sylus,” he breathed into your ear, hands tracing your curves, “Call me Sylus, kitten.”

That night, he was an insatiable man who could only be satisfied by his woman.

When he was buried far too deep inside you, he enjoyed the sight of ecstasy on your face and lavished at the sounds of your titillating moans with his every thrust. Not only did he miss the feeling of your walls tightening around his shaft, he also remembered how badly you used to want him to cum inside you.

And so, he did just that. At his climax, he released hot spurts of seed into your womb, fulfilling a wish from the past that he used to deprive you of.

But as the night progressed and the heat of the moment faded, the conversation shifted to a more profound and emotional terrain. Sylus wrestled with the urge to reveal the truth about his true identity—every painful detail and the secrets he kept from you. Yet, he knew that doing so would only complicate matters further and risk causing you more pain. The idea of hurting you again, after such a meaningful connection, was unbearable to him, especially now that you were still fragile as glass, ready to shatter at any moment.

“Why do I get the feeling that I was the one who experienced a one-sided love before?”

“No, you were loved. You were very loved. There was no one else,” he pressed, forcing you to believe the narrative with his rueful eyes staring back at you. “I was the one who wasn’t worthy of you… But I’d like to try and win your heart again this time. If you allow it.”

“Sylus… I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for not recognizing you before. I just… I lost a chunk of my memories, and I don’t know if it’s been altered or what, but…” He caressed your back as you took a deep breath. “I’ll try to remember, okay?”

“Please don’t.” He shook his head, crestfallen as he thought of the past that was rightfully erased. “And there’s no need for apologies, sweetie. There wasn’t anything you did wrong.”

Your relationship with Sylus remained unclear since that night. And it seemed as though the roles had reversed—now he was the one left wondering where he stood in your life. Because on the surface, it did seem like you were willing to work on building a relationship with him again, but every encounter you two had were always physical rather than emotional.

Sylus found himself at your apartment frequently, three or more times a week, engaging in intense, passionate encounters. He had lost track of how many times you two could do it in a single night, exploring every possible position, in every corner of your home. He had tried his hardest to make you feel like he was the only man who was more familiar with every inch of your body than anyone else. Yet, despite the physical closeness, he sensed that the emotional barriers between you remained intact.

No matter how deeply intertwined your bodies became, the walls around your heart remained firmly in place, and Sylus knew that there was a part of you he still couldn’t reach.

That, and the fact that he was still seeing you interact a little too closely with that doctor from Akso.

It somehow didn’t surprise you when Sylus’s car showed up outside the hospital to pick you up, and you got on with a guarded look.

“How’s it for my kitten today?” Sylus asked as he secured your seatbelt, his lips brushing against yours in a quick peck. “You didn’t mention you’d be at the hospital.”

You shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “Oh, I just... didn’t think I needed to inform you of my whereabouts.”

Dammit. He knew you weren’t officially together, but it hurt more than he cared to admit. And it didn’t help that Sylus’s pride couldn’t naturally take it, so he probed more. “That doctor. He’s not your neurologist, is he? It seems a little inappropriate for him to always be around you like that.”

“Well, I’ve known Zayne for a long time,” you merely replied, eyes focused on the view outside rather than the driver of the car. “I’d also appreciate it if you'd be less territorial over me, Sylus. I know you said we have a history together, but I don’t remember a thing, so… I hope you won’t rush me.”

The Sylus you knew back then would have been enraged. Who were you to order him around? Who were you to tell him what he should and shouldn’t do over someone he rightfully owned? But he was a changed man now, and it was all because of you. You were the beauty that tamed him into a powerless beast.

“I understand,” Sylus replied, swallowing his pride as his hands tightened around the steering wheel, focusing on the road ahead. “I apologize.”

He heard you sigh beside him, and a part of him wondered if it was out of sympathy. But before he could dwell on it, you spoke up, your tone more serious. “I was at the hospital today because I had a pregnancy scare.”

Sylus hit the brakes at the red light a bit too abruptly, his heart racing in excitement. “Are you?”

“No, thank God,” you breathed out in relief. “But... can you please stop doing it inside? I really don’t like it. It’s not smart for me to get pregnant by a man I barely know.”

His chest tightened in a way he couldn’t describe. The old you nearly begged him for a baby so he could be yours forever, but he was aware that this version of you right now was not the same. It never would be, and that was the price he had to pay for love.

“I won’t do it again.” Once again, swallowing his pride. “I’m sorry.”

You still invited him to sleep at your apartment that night, and your reason being to work on the memories of him you had lost. Time and time again did Sylus tell you it was better you didn’t remember them, but he could also understand your dilemma when you told him that you always felt like a piece of you was missing ever since that “accident”.

“And this ugly scar on my temple,” you pointed it out, settling into your side of the bed. “What kind of Wanderer did I fight for me to get a traumatic brain injury?”

Sylus placed a tender kiss on your scar. “Perhaps it was a heartless monster more terrifying than a Wanderer.”

Like me.

“Oh, well.” You pulled the sheets over your body, suggesting you two would have no action tonight. “Good night, Sylus.”

“...Sleep tight, kitten.”

You didn’t need to worry, though, because he wouldn’t have touched you even if you had explicitly asked him to. After hearing your words that afternoon—about not wanting to get pregnant by him and asking him to stop being so territorial—Sylus felt the need to pull back and be more cautious in his actions toward you. Your words had cut deep, but he understood you were only protecting yourself from a man who was, essentially, still a stranger to you.

And despite the sting, he had promised himself that he would be patient for the only woman he cared about.

However, that same night was a different story.

No, it was actually way past midnight when Sylus woke up from an agonizing scream that pierced the silence of the night, chilling him to the bone. Instinctively, his hand reached out to the side of the bed where you should have been, but the sheets were cold and empty. And then panic gripped him, forcing him to leap out of bed, his mind racing with a single horrifying thought: the protocore.

He darted outside of your bedroom and deeper into your apartment space, his eyes scanning every shadow, every corner. The image of you, eyes wild and frenzied, ravaged by the effects of the protocore, haunted him.

What if it’s happening now? What if I lose her for good?

The horrifying thought of the protocore making you berserk like a wild Wanderer was always there.

His heart nearly stopped when he saw you on the kitchen floor, curled up, your body wracked with sobs. Relief washed over him to have found you, but it was fleeting, replaced by a deeper, more insidious fear. He tried to approach you cautiously, his voice soft as he placed his hands on your shoulders, “Sweetie, are you okay?”

You flinched at his touch, and when you turned to face him, the sight made his blood run cold. Your eyes, usually so warm, were now wide and filled with tears—tears of terror, of anger. And in your trembling hand, you held a knife, its blade gleaming in the low light as you pointed it directly at his throat.

“Don’t come any closer!” you cried, your voice breaking at every word. Sylus froze, his breath catching in his throat as your sudden hostility surprised him. The knife’s tip hovered dangerously close to his skin, but it wasn’t the threat of violence that shook him—it was the raw, unfiltered pain in your eyes.

“Kitten, let’s talk about it calmly.” His voice was laced with cautiousness.

“Stop calling me that!” You swallowed hard, your grip on the knife tightening. “You! I had a nightmare... about you. But it felt real, like a memory. You were torturing me at your base, laughing... and then, you shot me in the head.”

Sylus’s heart dropped into his stomach at hearing your altered memory. He felt his soul tear apart at the edges as he stared into your tear-streaked face. “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real, kitten.”

But you weren’t listening. “But is it also not real? That you…” You uttered each word with a threatening voice, “are the boss of Onychinus?”

The question hit him like a physical blow. He opened his mouth to answer, but the words were stuck in his throat and refused to form. He was trapped. The situation felt like a dead end—he could deny that your dream was a real memory, but admitting he was the leader of Onychinus would only validate that lie.

His silence alone was an answer to you. And your expression crumbled into one of betrayal at that. “You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me this whole time. How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”

The anger in your voice enforced the stillness of Sylus’s breath. He knew he had no saving grace from this situation, but still, he took a step closer, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Y/N, I never wanted to hurt you—”

“Get out!” you screamed, the knife shaking in your hand. The sight of you so broken, so shattered, tore him apart. “Get the hell out of my sight! I don’t wanna see you ever again, you monster!”

But Sylus couldn’t leave—not like this, not when you were hurting because of him. So in his desperation, he lunged forward, grabbed your wrist, and forced the knife into his own chest. The sharp pain radiated through him as he plunged the blade in and stabbed himself repeatedly, his face twisted in agony, but not from the physical pain. This was nothing compared to the torment of knowing he was the source of your suffering. Again.

“Even if I can’t die,” he choked out, his voice ragged as he tried to absorb the stinging ache in his chest, “I’ll take all of this pain away from you.”

His own blood soaked his fingers, staining your hands as he released his grip on the knife. It fell on the floor as he stepped back, his heart aching more than his wounds ever could, but those wounds easily healed. The pain of losing you again, on the other hand, would never heal.

He looked at you one last time, seeing his monstrous reflection from your frightened eyes, before turning away. Sylus walked out of the apartment with heavy steps, feeling his soul crushed from your antagonism. He knew he had lost you—perhaps forever—and the realization was more than he could bear.

A haze of cigarette smoke and the clink of glasses filled the air of the bar. Sylus sat alone at the counter, his new glass of whiskey untouched as he stared blankly into the amber liquid. The sting of alcohol was nothing compared to the numbness that had settled in his heart after that agonizing night with you. Every swallow of the hard liquor was a desperate attempt to drown out the torment of recent events, but the pain lingered, and it was damn persistent and unforgiving.

As he poured himself another drink, the muffled sounds of conversation around him blended into a dull roar. That was until a familiar voice cut through the haze—someone he wished he hadn’t come across.

“Sylus?”

He looked up, squinting against the dim light, to see Diana standing before him. He hadn’t seen him for the past year or so. And surely, her presence was unexpected, but he felt a sudden tinge of irritation at the sight of her. While her, she looked both apprehensive and determined, as if she had just made a hard decision to confront him.

“H-How have you been?” she asked the question as a conversation starter, but Sylus could see the faint hint of unease in her eyes.

He then straightened up, and his posture became stiff and defensive. “I told you it’s not wise for us to cross paths,” he said curtly, his voice slurred from the alcohol but still holding a note of finality. He didn’t want to engage, not with her, not tonight.

On the one hand, Diana’s eyes flickered with an emotion he couldn’t quite place—regret, perhaps. “I… I wanted to say sorry for what happened with Y/N. I didn’t realize how much she meant to you. Xavier… told me everything. About you and her.”

The apology was genuine, but the mention of your name was a fresh wound, and he felt the anger and sadness surge again, bubbling beneath his carefully maintained exterior. He wanted to lash out, to blame her for everything, but he swallowed the words, knowing it wouldn’t change a thing. In the end, this was all his doing and he couldn’t point fingers over the mess that he alone had created.

Sylus tried to stand up, the room spinning slightly as he steadied himself. “I’m leaving.”

But Diana stepped closer, her hand reaching out as if to stop him. He simply brushed past her, his movements unsteady but undeniably distancing from her. The desire to remain composed was slipping away, replaced by the harsh reality he faced every day since you were taken from him.

He made his way to the exit, pushing through the bar’s heavy door with a forceful shove. Sylus’s next move was to lean against the wall outside as the cool winter breeze blew on his face.

“Boss.” Kieran’s voice held a note of concern as he and his twin steadied Sylus by wrapping his arms around their shoulders. “We’ll take you home.”

Luke glanced at his brother with a sad glint in his eyes before leading Sylus toward the car. “Maybe it’s time to let her go, boss.”

February nights were the coldest. And it was supposedly the day for lovers, too.

Unlike the couples that littered the riverside, Sylus stood alone, his breath forming small clouds in the frigid air. His dark coat offered little protection against the biting wind, but he stayed committed, his gaze fixed on the empty expanse before him. Four hours had passed since he had sent you the message, and each minute he stood there waiting for you felt like an eternity. The biting cold gnawed at him, but he was determined to wait even if he’d end up getting frostbite. It was the least he could do.

The frozen river’s surface glistened with a thousand points of light as the moon cast its silver glow over the landscape. And for the next thirty minutes that passed, he was still alone.

She won’t be coming, said the voice in his head. Give up.

As he prepared to leave, the ache of disappointment settled in his chest, and his heart skipped a beat as he recognized you, standing cautiously across him, your eyes wide and filled with both curiosity and trepidation. The sight of you, despite waiting in the cold for hours, instantly warmed his freezing body.

“Thank you for coming.” He took a deep breath, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “I won’t keep you long.”

You maintained your distance, wary of his next move. “Why did you want to meet?”

With a slow, deliberate motion, he began to peel the scarf from around your neck, and he felt a prick in his heart seeing you flinch. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He waited until you allowed him to proceed, his fingers brushing against your skin in a touch that was both gentle and reverent. You looked at him with confusion, the chilly air fought by the warmth of your breath. Sylus was just carefully replacing the scarf with the necklace he had given you long ago, the red Beryl crystal catching the light and sending soft, radiant glimmers into the night.

Do you even recognize it?

“I’m just returning a gift, kitten.”

As he fastened the clasp behind your neck, he pressed a tender kiss to the nape of your neck, his lips lingering for a moment before he straightened. That small gesture of his was actually carried by the depth of his affection and regret. And, if you may, it was his silent apology for all that he did to you.

“Sylus…”

His red eyes shimmered, intensified by the bloodshot whites. Sylus stared at your face with a mixture of love and ruefulness clouding his expression. He was looking at you like you were the most precious thing in the world. And he struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill, with his voice breaking as he feathered the snowflakes that rested on your hair. “Take care of yourself. Always lock your doors at night and stay warm.” He took the scarf Zayne gave you, and pulled out a new one from his coat. It was a silly scarf with kitten prints all over it, that he soon carefully wrapped around your face and neck. “Wear that whenever you can.”

Your own eyes were large and rimmed with tears as though you were also hurting inside. “Why are you saying this?” you asked, keeping the weakness inside. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.”

Sylus’s gaze was suddenly directed back to the river, but it was only because he had to avoid looking at your eyes or he would lose it. “The Association managed to track me here in Linkon and they’re still after me. I just managed to escape, but I can’t stay here,” he explained calmly, “I only came back to this city because of you… But now, I have to disappear, so don’t worry about having me around. I won’t bother you anymore.”

Your eyes widened in shock, and the tears that had been pooling your eyes finally spilled over. “Are you crazy?” you cried, seemingly unable to comprehend the words he was spewing. “You’re leaving me?”

Sylus’s heart broke at the sight of your tears, but he had to restrain any weakness by giving in. Instead, he reached out, and his hand trembled as he wiped a tear from your cheek. “I love you, Y/N.” He wanted to be the first one to say it this time. “Even if you regain all your memories of me—good or bad—I want you to know that I regret every pain I caused you. Even if you hate me, I’ll still love you. Today, tomorrow, and in our next lives.”

Sylus took one last, lingering look at you, his eyes filled with a sorrowful haze that nearly blinded his vision. He turned slowly, walking away from the river’s edge, with each step causing distance from the love he was leaving behind.

And you, you stood there, the necklace around your neck feeling heavy as you watched him disappear into the night. A surge of emotion overwhelmed you, and without thinking, you sprinted towards him. You took quick, long strides just to reach him, pulling him into a tight embrace, and crashing your lips against his in a bittersweet kiss.

Both of you cried as the kiss deepened, and you were encasing each other’s lips in a tight lock. The intensity of your emotions poured out in this poignant, intimate moment. And frankly, Sylus had never been this emotional. No one had ever seen this fragile side of him that he had always kept hidden. After all, what dominant, cruel boss of Onychinus would spill tears over a woman?

But they wouldn’t understand it. They never would.

When you finally pulled away, your eyes were red and swollen from tears. “Be careful,” you sniffled, barely unable to catch the breath you needed for the next. “Keep in touch if you can. And when I’m ready, I’ll find you.”

Sylus’s eyes were also filled with tears, but he managed a forlorn smile as he nodded. He reached out to brush a strand of hair from your face, his touch gentle despite the heaviness of the moment. “I’ll wait,” he promised softly, his voice breaking slightly. “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”

“Until we meet again.”

As he stepped back, the distance between you seemed impossibly vast, but the promise in your eyes and the love in his heart made the separation bearable, if only just. And when Sylus turned away, his heart was heavy but full of the hope that one day, you would find each other again. That one day, this distant love would become a cherished memory that you would look back on as you grow old and wrinkled, yet insurmountably happy and content with the life you had lived. With or without him.

PREVIOUS PART

#love and deepspace x reader #love & deepspace x reader #lads x reader #lads x you #sylus x reader #sylus x you #sylus x yn #lds x reader #l&ds x reader #l&ds x you #sylus angst #sylus fanfic #l&ds sylus

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always-just-red · 2 months

Note

hihihi! sylus girlie here. as a college student i often never take breaks whenever im working and often stay up late finishing up assignments. then i stress out but never tell anyone and suffer in silence:’) i was wondering if you could do something similar with sylus x mc where mc often forgets to take breaks at the hunters association and is always the first the volunteer for missions so she could improve.

but then it’s starting to take a toll on her and is so so stressed, but feels bad about venting to someone or saying no to new missions.

maybe one day she’s doing a simple task like cooking herself dinner (or something) but accidentally burns herself and she just ends up breaking down and decides to call sylus and he immediately goes to her. :’)

feel free to decline or change anything! i just like the thought of someone comforting u when ur overworked and stressed bc i wish someone would do that to me lol.

Fast-tracked this one for you, anon! I'm really sorry you're having a tough time right now, and I hope this brings you a bit of comfort- remember, Sylus would want you to take care of yourself! Good luck with all your studies, and feel free to send in another request if ever you need it! 🥰

Technical Difficulties

Sylus x Reader 🩸

Summary: You're not very good at asking for help when you're struggling. Thankfully? You don't always need to.

Genre: fluff + comfort ft. a very domestic Sylus!

Warnings/Additional tags: stressed reader (has a lil bit of a breakdown!), some swearing, uses of 'kitten' and 'sweetie', Sylus is so soft here he should come with a health warning tbh

| Word count: 2.4k | Masterlist |

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Love and Deepspace. All work is my own, so please don't repost or plagiarise!

In the event of a wanderer incursion where evacuation of citizens is obstructed or otherwise not viable, association protocol 32.3-A dictates that you should first… That you should first… What?

Your pen is poised above the blank space where your answer should be. 32.3-A is a general procedure: something to do moving people to the nearest shelter. Or, wait— are you supposed to try to contact support, first?

You drop your pen with a huff and flop face-down onto the mock exam. It’s too much. Too much information, too much responsibility. Open textbooks are spread over your desk and around your head like an unholy halo— stacks of them, filled with codes and procedures. They’re supposed to be helpful, but they’re not; they’re drowning you.

Your phone pings and you glance up. Text from Tara:

Hi! Hate to be a bother, but did you finish glancing over that practice question for me? xx

Shit. You’d completely forgotten. You straighten, reaching for your laptop so you can load up your latest emails. You’ve got time to look over it; the exam isn’t for another two days. Breathe, ok? You have time.

Seven unread emails. What? You scan over them frantically. Two from the Captain: accepting additional mission requests you’d applied for. Were those both this week? One from Nero: you hadn’t sent in that finished report. Three from your colleagues, all scrambling for help with the exam. One from Tara:

Thanks for saying you’d look over this for me! You’re the best at this stuff!

Ok, so: Tara’s practice question. Nero’s report. Your own practice questions. Then… dinner? Maybe that should come first. You’d skipped lunch— had one slice of toast for breakfast. But you don’t wanna cook; cooking takes time, and you’ve got none. None.

Your phone is ringing, snapping you back to reality, and you peek over at it. Sylus?

“Hi,” you greet as you put him on speaker. On your laptop, you’re opening up Tara’s attachment.

“Are you free tomorrow?”

Always straight to the point. “Uh… yeah?” you frown as you read through your friend’s work. “Why? What d’you need?”

Sylus sighs through the phone. “That was a test, sweetie. You failed.”

“Yeah, well…” you murmur, highlighting a sentence with your cursor. “Add it to the list.”

The man doesn’t find that funny. The phone is quiet— too quiet. “Are you alright?” he asks, just as your gaze wanders to check if the call has disconnected.

“Mmhmm.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Sylus.”

You stare down at your phone. He’s waiting for more, but you won’t give it to him. You’re one word away from slipping, and you can’t let the dam crumble, especially in front of him. He’s smiling from the phone call background: a photo he insisted would ‘ruin’ his image when you took it last week.

“I need to go, ok?” Your eyes are shining.

“Ok,” he says softly.

There’s a bleep as the call cuts out, and the photo is gone. Waiting beneath it is another text from Tara, and one from Xavier: Nero told me to txt U bout a report??

You swallow the ache in your throat and slump down on your desk again.

…

You wake up with a start, your head ringing. The tangerine sky outside your window’s turned dark— your laptop, too— and light spills from your desk lamp, yellow on white pages. There’s more, and you turn, tracing it back to where it leaks through the crack of your almost closed bedroom door.

You hadn’t left any lights on in your flat. You hadn’t switched on your lamp, either.

Tiredness is dulling your thoughts and your senses, but you know you feel uneasy. There’s something in the air: smoky, but not unpleasant. You can hear something as well. No— two things. A faint, almost imperceptible hiss, and a more obvious humming.

Hunter instincts kick in. You roll open a drawer of your desk, snatching up one of your standard-issue pistols and removing its safety with a click. You stalk up to the door, your trained footsteps near silent. You take a deep breath, clearing your head. One. Two.

Three! You shoulder the door open, leaping through with your gun trained forwards.

At the other end of your sights, Sylus turns, an eyebrow raised. Your kitchen stove seethes behind him, and he gives you a once over as he sluggishly raises both hands. “You flatter me, kitten,” he smirks in surrender, looking between your weapon and his: a spatula.

You lower your gun, your heart still racing. “I could have killed you, Sylus!”

“That’s the spirit.” His hands drop, too.

“How did you even get in here?”

He’s turned back to the stove, and he’s using the spatula to push something around a frying pan. “Hmm…” he muses, then blink— he’s gone. He’s at your fridge a second later, materialising from thin air. “I wonder,” he finishes as he reaches around for something.

Show off. “You know how I feel about you telepor…” No. “Phas…” No. “Magic…king…?” By now he’s watching you over his shoulder. “You know— that thing you do.” You’re twinkling your fingers. “What do you even call that?”

“Magicking, yeah.”

You huff in response and he laughs, walking back over to where he’s cooking two steaks and preparing a salad. You’re still coming to terms with the fact he’s even here, looking... quite frankly ridiculous, because he’s wearing your apron. It’s too small for him. Baby pink. Frilly, too.

“You know how I feel about you magicking into my home,” you mutter distractedly, because actually? He’s kinda pulling it off. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows, tight on his arms. “Use the door like a regular person, you psychopath.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” He sounds smug. Ugh, he must feel your eyes on him; he must know. You think he’s toying with the idea of calling you out, but he doesn’t, and when he does speak, the smugness is gone. “Mephisto saw you were sleeping. I didn’t wish to disturb you. You sounded… tired. On the phone.”

Guilt twinges in your chest as you draw up beside him. “Is that why you’re here? Playing housewife?” You pick at a frill on the apron.

“Poke fun all you want,” he sneers. “This shirt costs more than your entire wardrobe.”

“Snob.”

“Ha.” You have to retract your hand as he threatens it with the spatula. “Watch yourself, sweetie. I’ll remember that the next time you ask to ‘borrow’ my card.”

You laugh gently. Now that’s a threat. You’re about to tell him so when you hear a ping from the other room, and your heart sinks. Just a single sound, and you’re back to where you were an hour ago, at your desk with the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Sylus hums in acknowledgment as you excuse yourself and hurry back to your workspace, snatching up your phone. You missed three calls while you sleeping: all from Xavier. He’s been texting you, too.

Nero’s yelling at me

Wants to talk to U

Can U pick up? Pls?

It’s one report, for gods’ sake. You feel your chest tightening again. You just needed to proofread it, but it’s probably fine, right? You wake your laptop out of standby; you’ll just send it as it is. “I’ll just be a minute, Sy,” you call out. “Need to finish one thing.”

He mumbles something in response, and you imagine it’s for the best you can’t hear it. Your keyboard clacks as you tap out a quick email to Nero, then you surf your files for the report he so desperately wanted. It should be… here. You attach it. Hit send.

Nothing happens.

Huh. You hit send again. Then again— still nothing. You groan, trying to back out of the email. None of your keys are working. Your cursor is stuck. “Oh, come on,” you release on an impatient breath. Switch it off, switch it on again? You hit the off button. The screen goes black.

With a sigh of relief, you wait a moment before switching it on again. The screen stays black.

“No, no, no, no,” you plead quietly, but it doesn’t cooperate. Your phone rings and you snap, hitting more buttons: Answer. Speaker. “What?” you hiss.

“Whoa. Hi…?” Xavier’s voice is cautious. “I don’t know if you saw my texts, but Nero—”

“The report, Xavier! I know! I know!” You try holding down your laptop’s power button. “I’m trying to send it, but my shitty computer won’t—”

“No way!” Tara’s voice comes in on the other line; did they both get the night shift? “Hey you! Did you get a chance to—”

“No, ok?!” you practically cry out. “No! Can you two just back off? Please!”

“Oh, sorry, I…” Tara sounds upset, then distracted. “Wait, Xavier wants to speak to you.”

“Are you ok?” he asks after a second.

Ok? You just want everything to stop. “I’m fine. Shit, tell Tara I’m sorry. I am sorry, Xavier, I just… I just need my laptop to…”

Work. Work! Nothing’s working. Half of your files are on there. How much of it is backed-up? Panic is setting in, gripping your body like ice. Your throat hurts and your mouth is dry, the dam is breaking and you can’t stop it. Tears prick at your eyes as you blink at the blank, hopeless screen. Your reflection stares back at you.

You let out a sob, expelling days of frustration and exhaustion. Everywhere you look there’s something you need to do, something you need to learn, something you need to finish. You can’t. You clasp a hand over your mouth, muffling your own cries.

Xavier is speaking— saying something over the phone— but you can’t hear him.

The light changes, and there’s a figure above you, lifting the phone from the desk. “They’ll call you back,” the shadow says. Sylus.

“Wait, who is this?” Xavier.

“That’s Skye!” Tara.

Your friends’ distant voices cut out as Sylus ends the call. He sets the phone down again, nudging your laptop out of view, then lowers himself until all you can see is him: his red eyes, softer than you’ve ever seen them. “Come on, sweetie,” he coaxes, guiding your hands over his shoulders.

You understand what he’s asking of you. His arms wrap around you and you hold him tighter, letting him lift you out of your chair. He feels warm, his skin ever so slightly flushed from where he’s been standing over the stove, and he pulls your legs around his waist, letting him carry you with ease.

With your face buried in his shoulder, you can’t tell where he’s taking you, and you don’t care. His shirt is going damp against your cheeks. You want to stop crying, but you can’t with the taste of your tears on your lips. You feel weak. You feel pathetic.

Something solid is behind you, and Sylus is setting you slowly down on the kitchen counter. He’s away from you for a moment— moving the frying pan off of the heat and turning a dial on the stove— but then he’s back, standing between your legs, standing close. You’re looking down until his hand is under your chin, lifting it with the delicate touch one employs when inspecting a flower that might break.

He shushes you without a hint of impatience. “Look at me,” he directs quietly, and when you do, he unrolls his shirtsleeves— drawing the cuffs over his hands so he can use them to wipe your eyes. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

You do— you tell him everything. The hunter’s exam. The textbooks. The extra patrols you’ve been signing up for. The work you’ve been doing for your friends. The stupid report. The even more stupid computer.

Sylus listens collectedly, nodding his head and issuing the odd hum of understanding. He listens to all of it, and when you’re done, he pushes your hair back from your face with a sympathetic sigh. “Oh, sweetie.” A tendril is tucked behind your ear. “You should have said something.”

“I know.” Your gaze is still shy of his. “But how can I? I need to do this— be this— for everyone.”

His hands are on your cheeks again, drawing back your focus. “You’re just one person,” he says. “You— just you— and that’s all you need to be. You’re stubborn, and strong, but you’re not invincible. Even Linkon’s shiniest hunter is allowed to have limits. Everyone does.”

“Even you?” you snivel, setting him up for a quip.

Nothing. He smiles. Shrugs. “Even me.”

It’s hard to believe when he’s staring back at you, oh so solid, oh so perfect. Always a picture of strength: of fiery determination or calculated coolness. Everything in extremes; nothing by halves. Except… his hair is slightly dishevelled from where he’s been working away in the heat. There’s a damp patch on his shirt. He’s wearing your pink apron, and there’s mascara on his sleeves.

Then there’s the way he’s looking at you.

It shifts when you finally look back. He drops his hands from your face and pulls back a little. “You do a lot for your friends,” he continues with confidence, but he’s rubbing his neck, “and they care about you. You should afford them the chance to return the favour. It’s only fair.”

“You’re right.”

“…Good.”

Perhaps it’s the fact you’ve vaguely composed yourself— or the way you’re watching him like you’re seeing something new— but he straightens self-consciously, rolling his shirtsleeves back up as his eyes go sharp: assuming their usual severity.

“You’re too soft, kitten,” he scolds, reaching out to tousle your hair until you’re glaring daggers from behind a curtain of it. “How many times do I have to tell you? You put yourself first. Always. No-one else matters.”

There’s quiet for all of a second. He can’t help correcting: “Well, except me, of course.” The apron’s crooked, and he flattens it with a brush of his hands. “Any time spent with me qualifies as self-care. You really should know that by now, sweetie.”

Your mouth curls, but you haven’t quite got it in you to laugh— not yet. Stretching his neck with two sideways tips of his head, Sylus returns to his post at the oven, where the meal he’s cooking has almost certainly gone cold. You watch as the stove flickers back to life. The man is humming again, and though the food might yet be salvaged, whatever melody he’s attempting is long-past recognition, let alone saving.

You chuckle to yourself.

And you can’t see it, but Sylus is smiling, too.

#🖋rach is actually writing #sylus x reader #sylus #love and deepspace #lads sylus #lnds sylus #l&ds sylus #qin che #sylus x mc #sylus x you #lads x reader #lads #lnds #l&ds

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mingis-orangejuice · 2 months

Text

How do the OG love interests react to you with Sylus?

*a/n: Hi guys this is my first headcanon so please be nice :) In this none of them are officially dating MC but it's pretty obvious that they all have feelings for her. Also, it takes place at a work event for MC and I know technically in the main story there's no way Sylus would be allowed into a hunter’s association event, but I couldn't think of any other type of event where they would all happen to be at the same time. Either way, this is just for fun so it doesn't really need to make sense.

Genres/Warnings: fem!reader, nothing to really worry about, this is just some good old-fashioned fluff/crack. Some jealousy tho

An award ceremony was coming up at Unicorns to award the best hunters at the company, You were surprised when Captain Jenna told you that you’d been nominated for a few categories like most wanderers eliminated in a single mission and even Hunter of the Year, but since you were a rookie hunter you didn't think you’d win any of them, still, it was nice to be included, especially since you were one of the only rookies to be nominated.

That evening you got a call from Sylus congratulating you on your nominations.

“How did you even know I’d been nominated” you asked.

“Mephisto informed me,” he said with a small chuckle

“Oh so you have him monitoring me at work now?” you questioned, slightly annoyed.

“He was simply in Linkon doing some business for me, is it my fault that he happened to pass by your office on the way back to the base?” Sylus sarcastically asked, you could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

“Anyways, I wanted to ask you, have you decided on what you’re going to wear to the award ceremony yet?

“Yeah, why?” you were suspicious of his sudden interest in your fashion choices.

“Good, come over to the base I want to see it,” he said flatly

“Why?” you were even more suspicious of his motives now.

“Well, we’ll need to match if I'm going to be on the arm of the Hunter of the Year right?” *click*

Sylus didn’t even wait for you to reply and just hung up, almost like he knew you’d come over anyway so he didn’t need confirmation. He was right. Somehow he had not-so-subtly invited himself to your award show as your plus-one.

As you walk into the banquet hall, arms linked, you see a familiar face in the crowd…

Zayne:

-Zayne would be a little bothered but would hide it by asking Sylus a million questions. about how he knows you, when he met you and how long have you and him been friends.

-He would make sure to emphasize the word ��Friends” to know for sure if you two were dating

-his logic is if you and Sylus are dating, one of you would correct him, but if you are indeed just friends you wouldn’t say anything.

-to his relief, you didn't correct him

-Sylus would sense the fact that Zayne probably has some type of close relationship with you too so he’d pull you a little closer by your waist as he proceeds to ask Zayne his own series of questions about how he knows you.

-Zayne would be satisfied after the conversation and excuse himself to go find his seat.

-even tho he was relieved that you weren’t dating Sylus he’d still glance over at you every few minutes because he couldn’t put his finger on it but he has a hunch that Sylus might be bad news and he wants to make sure you’re safe.

-Sylus would keep his hand on your waist the whole night because even tho you didn’t notice Zayne’s glances Sylus sure did.

-Overall while Zayne wouldn’t like the fact that you came to the ceremony with another man (especially since you didn’t even think to invite him) he’d respect your choices and leave you be (mostly)

Rafayel:

-He’d be the most openly bothered by it.

-the second he sees you walk in he runs up to you, ready to playfully scold you for not inviting him and that he had to find out about the event from Thomas, so he thought he’d invite himself. He told the person at the door that he was your plus one (he also slipped them a $100 bill)

-as he ran up to you his smile faded as he saw your arm linked with another man that wasn’t him

-oh so this is why you didn’t invite him

- He would greet you with a long hug hoping to make Sylus Jealous

-he would instantly turn on his best customer service voice when greeting Sylus to try and hide how hurt he is that you invited some random guy instead of him

- but that would quickly fade once Sylus starts answering his long list of questions he just has to ask to make sure this random not important guy that you invited instead of him was worthy of being your plus one.

-Rafayel takes every answer as a challenge to try and one-up Sylus

-if Sylus mentioned that he took you to a fancy Italian restaurant in Linkon City last week, Rafayel would mention how he took you to a real Italian restaurant in Italy last month, (or at least how he wanted to but you were busy with work and couldn’t just drop everything and join him in Italy)

-if Sylus said he bought you the dress that you’re wearing, Rafayel would remind you of the time he bought you a cute mermaid-themed hoodie which is actually your favourite and you use it all the time, therefor it’s more important than a dress that you’ll only wear once

-while Rafayel was getting worked up trying to keep up with Sylus. Sylus kept his calm demeanour the whole conversation, he noticed that the calmer he was the more annoyed Rafayel would get and he found it amusing.

-Rafayel would constantly text you throughout the night to check on you even though you were sitting only 1 table away.

-Sylus took note of this and would purposefully do things like put his arm around your shoulder or wipe the food off your lips to get Rafayel to frantically text you making sure you’re ok, and ask if you want to switch seats and come sit next to him where you won't have a random guy constantly touching you.

-overall he will be suuuuper jealous and will make it very obvious (even though in his mind he thinks he was being subtle)

Xavier:

-I think he’d be extremely bothered but he'd be way better at hiding it than Rafayel

-like the others he’d also have a few questions for him about what his relationship with you is but he would very casually drop them into a normal conversation

-he, much like the others stared at you the whole night, but only just to make sure you were ok, definitely not because he was jealous or anything. You’re his co-worker and friend so he feels responsible if anything happens to you.

-he would try and do a background check on him during the event on his hunter's watch but nothing came up, since Sylus obviously didn’t tell Xavier who he really was.

-this made Xavier even more worried, who is MC really sitting with, how is she so calm and why would he give him fake info, just what is he trying to hide?

-he was so focused on staring at you and Sylus that he didn't even notice that he downed 3 full plates of finger foods, every time the waiters would pass by he would unconsciously grab the plates out of their hands and bitterly eat while staring, almost like he’s in a trance.

-once you guys get to the apartment building and the adrenalin wears off he’ll notice that his stomach is in so much pain from all the food he unknowingly ate while staring at you and Sylus.

-he nearly collapses in the elevator on the way to your apartments, so you decide to invite yourself over to his and take care of him

- he may be in tons of pain right now but at least he gets you all to himself

*Please do not reupload anywhere this is my original work

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love-and-deepspace-wiki · 20 days

Text

Historical Timeline of Events: Past Events

2047:

Autumn

Dr. Noah and Zayne go back to visit Skyhaven University and watch the First-Year Medical Student Oath Ceremony

Character ages:

Rafayel age: "23"

Zayne age: 25 (or 26 if past September)

Sylus age: 27

Xavier age: “36”, turns “37” in October

2046:

Zayne receives the Starcatcher Award

Zayne receives the Linde Award

Dr. Cooper becomes an attending surgeon at Akso Hospital

Character ages:

Rafayel age: "22"

Zayne age: 25

Sylus age: 26

Xavier age: “36”

2045

Spring, around New Years Day:

Arthur visits a cemetery with his granddaughter and spots Xavier there

This year, the Chronorift Catastrophe was 11 years ago

Character ages:

Rafayel: "20", turns "21" in March

Zayne: 23, turns 24 in September

Sylus: 24, turns 25 in April

Xavier: “35”, turns “36” in October

2043:

Zayne graduates from Skyhaven Medical School, obtained his MD, and started working at Akso Hospital in the Division of Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Joelle becomes Chief of Division of Cardiac Surgery

Zayne assists at the battle on Mt. Eternal, providing medical support

Dr. William (from the Evol Special Rescue Unit) dies on Mt. Eternal fighting Wanderers

Character Ages:

Rafayel: "19"

Zayne: 22

Sylus: 23

Xavier: “34”

2040:

The year Dr. Noah says Skyhaven University's cafeteria was probably renovated

Character ages:

Rafayel: "16"

Zayne: 19

Sylus: 20

Xavier: “31”

2037:

Linkon City is mostly rebuilt after the Catastrophe

Philo flower shop has opened where Sweetie's Cake Shop once stood; also serves as Jeremiah's residence

Character ages:

Rafayel: "13"

Zayne: 16

Sylus: 17

Xavier: “28”

2035:

Hunter's Association officially established on January 1st of this year

Azure Square is newly rebuilt

Zayne starts studies at Skyhaven Medical School

Character ages:

Rafayel: "11"

Zayne: 14

Sylus: 15

Xavier: “26”

2034:

UNICORNS established

The Deepspace Tunnel appeared above Linkon City

The Chronorift Catastrophe

Grandma Josephine takes protaganist in and becomes her guardian. Protaganist age is said to be "7"

Ruins of Lemuria discovered by an archeological team from the Deepspace Academy (Ms. Eleanor, Yennifer, Frederick, and Professor Sean)

Lumiere first emerges

2034:

Summer

Jeremiah starts actually living at his rented house

The Wanderer attack

Sweetie's Cake Shop is destroyed

Bella's death

Character ages:

Rafayel: "10"

Zayne: 12, turns 13 in September

Sylus: 14

Xavier: “24”, turns “25” in October

2033:

Winter:

Xavier fakes his death

Character ages:

Rafayel: "9"

Zayne: 12

Sylus: 13

Xavier: “24”

Summer:

Jeremiah: a friend of Xavier's. They're both from the Backtrackers

Bella: works at Sweetie’s Cake Shop with her father

Three days after New Years Day:

“Noah” retrieves the missing Archives file from Xavier's mailbox where he left it for him. He wants to use it for a new identity.

Xavier refers to “Noah” as his “former friend” and the end of that conversation

New Years Day:

Xavier decides it's time for him to leave the Evol Special Task Force

Character ages:

Rafayel: "8", turns "9" in March

Zayne: 11, turns 12 in September

Sylus: 12, turns 13 in April

Xavier: “23”, “24” in October

2032:

Dr. Joelle starts as a fellow at Akso Hospital

Spring:

Xavier joins the Bloomshore District Evol Special Task Force, Team 013

Xavier is said to be 23 years old

Arthur's 9th year as Captain of Team 013

Arthur's 16th year as a police officer with Evol Special Task Force

Character ages:

Rafayel: "8"

Zayne: 10, turns 11 in September

Sylus: 12

Xavier: “23”

2029:

Dr. Joelle graduates from Beiyang University

Character ages:

Rafayel: "5"

Zayne: 8

Sylus: 9

2027:

Arthur is injured on a mission. Significantly diminished his mobility

Character ages:

Rafayel: "3"

Zayne: 6

Sylus: 7

2024:

Rafayel is born on March 6th? (But he's Lemurian, so his listed age will be in quotations)

Character ages:

Zayne: 3

Sylus: 4

2023:

Arthur becomes Captain of Evol Special Task Force Team 013

Character ages:

Zayne: 2

Sylus: 3

???:

In 2033, Arthur says SD19940122 was an event that happened “decades ago”

2021:

Zayne is born in September

When Team 013 had last had a new recruit

Dr Joelle begins studies at Beiyang University

Character ages:

Sylus: 1

2020:

Sylus is born in April

2016:

Arthur begins his career as a police officer with the Evol Special Task Force

1900:

White Bear founded (a company that sells cup noodles)

Sometime prior to 1833:

Traceback II crash landed on Earth

"Jeremiah" came to Earth with Xavier/the Backtrackers

1749:

Lizio Auctions founded

#love and deepspace #lads linkon city #lads zayne #linkon city #lads #love and deepspace zayne #lads akso hospital #linkon central hospital #love and deepspace akso hospital #akso hospital #love and deepspace rafayel #love and deepspace xavier #lads xavier

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hananoami · 2 months

Text

𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅ILLUSIO MASTERLIST

As detailed in my original post I was taking Illusio requests from July 15th to August 1st 2024. Thank you to all who requested and enjoyed those precious kindled memories. I was happy to able to share those special moments with you. During that limited-time event I've done: *⁀➷ 67 total unique ILLUSIO recordings *⁀➷ 11 kindled memories of XAVIER *⁀➷ 09 kindled memories of ZAYNE *⁀➷ 08 kindled memories of RAFAYEL *⁀➷ 02 kindled memories of SYLUS A grand total of 02 hours 27 minutes 57 seconds. You can view all the memories I've recorded below.

UPDATE: All of these videos have been cross uploaded onto my youtube channel.

「 ✦ 𝑿𝑨𝑽𝑰𝑬𝑹 ✦ 」

FAINT SENSATION ✧ [steamy] ✧

FLUFFY TRAP ✧ [steamy] ✧

FRAGMENT OF TIME ✧ [academy uniform] ✧

HEARTSTRING SYMPHONY ✧ [crescent dawn] ✧ [moonlight glimpse] ✧

MIDNIGHT RAINFALL ✧ [steamy v.1 ; steamy v.2] ✧

MIDNIGHT WHISPERS ✧ [butler's rule] ✧ [gentle sunlight's path] ✧ [midnight vigilance] ✧ [steamy] ✧

PRECIOUS BONFIRE ✧ [academy uniform] ✧ [bunbun panda] ✧

ROMANTIC AFTERNOON ✧ [academy uniform] ✧ [bunbun panda] ✧

TENDER NIGHT ✧ [crescent dawn] ✧ [moonlight glimpse] ✧ [steamy] ✧

UNIQUE AFTERTASTE ✧ [academy uniform] ✧ [crescent dawn] ✧ [moonlight glimpse] ✧

21 DAYS ✧ [academy uniform] ✧ [dawn's traveler] ✧ [steamy] ✧

「 ✦ 𝒁𝑨𝒀𝑵𝑬 ✦ 」

BUSINESS TRIP ✧ [aqua tones] ✧

COZY AFTERNOON ✧ [academy uniform] ✧ [aqua tones] ✧ [bunbun panda] ✧

DRUNKEN INTIMACY ✧ [aqua tones] ✧ [cascading clouds] ✧ [obsidian clouds] ✧ [ode to glory] ✧ [schade's mercy] ✧

EXCLUSIVE TUTORIAL ✧ [aqua tones] ✧

GENTLE TWILIGHT ✧ [academy uniform] ✧

FOREVER SEALED ✧ [aqua tones] ✧ [midnight silence] ✧

SNOWFALL EMBRACE ✧ [ode to glory] ✧ [schade's mercy] ✧

SNOWFALL ENCOUNTER ✧ [ode to glory] ✧ [schade's mercy] ✧

SNOWY SERENITY ✧ [aqua tones v.1 ; aqua tones v.2] ✧ [shadowfall dawn v.1 ; shadowfall dawn v.2] ✧ [shadowfall dusk v.1 ; shadowfall dusk v.2] ✧

「 ✦ 𝑹𝑨𝑭𝑨𝒀𝑬𝑳 ✦ 」

BEFORE SUNRISE ✧ [dawn tides] ✧ [sandy dreams] ✧

BLOSSOMS ✧ [academy uniform] ✧

FIREWORKS VOW ✧ [enveloping] ✧ [heat-up] ✧

FLORAL PROMISE ✧ [enveloping] ✧

TIPSY INVITATION ✧ [enveloping] ✧ [heat-up] ✧

UNFORGETTABLE ADVENTURE ✧ [bunbun panda v.1 ; bunbun panda v.2] ✧ [enveloping v.1 ; enveloping v.2] ✧

WHISPERS ✧ [enveloping] ✧ [heat-up] ✧

YOUR FRAGRANCE ✧ [enveloping] ✧

「 ✦ 𝑺𝒀𝑳𝑼𝑺 ✦ 」

CAPTIVATING FLAVOR ✧ [tenderly entwined v.1 ; tenderly entwined v.2 ; tenderly entwined v.3] ✧

NO DEFENSE ZONE ✧ [crimson veil: torn] ✧ [tenderly entwined] ✧

Featured clips were uploaded by me, but I do not claim ownership of any the intellectual property (IP). Feel free to use them for your enjoyment. All recordings were pulled directly from the game, Love and Deepspace. © INFOLD PTE. LTD.

signal boosting: @hunters-association

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hunters-association · 1 month

Text

𐙚 for @hananoami and zayne.

#hunter’s association event #love and deepspace #zayne love and deepspace

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heartpascal · 2 years

Text

if the door wasn’t shut

▹— joel miller x platonic!f!reader

▹— summary: months of travelling with joel and ellie come crashing down on you, the fear is suffocating.

▹— a/n: i don’t like the second half of this one D: but i made you guys wait long enough so i apologise!!! been super busy so this is v rushed but i hope you enjoy nonetheless

▹— warnings: angst, loss of loved ones, tlou ep 5/6 spoilers, father figure joel, reader is really scared, not proofread

masterlist | PART TWO

howl’s song associations!

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Had you known that those days in Boston QZ would’ve been the last peaceful ones for a long time, you think you might’ve treasured them more. Held them closer, let the edges sharpen when you thought of them, rather than seeing only blurred images, the memories faded.

You wouldn’t have believed it if somebody had told you. The life you lived in Boston was flawed, at best, but it was your life. Filled with violence and bloodshed, sure, but there were things you could control. Things that Joel and Tess had always made sure you could control.

Out in the wide world, the facade of control that the two adults had always kept up crumbled to dust in your hands, lost to Infected and hunters and shelters in the strangest places.

It was a difficult shift in your reality, and you tried to hide it from Joel. He had already given you so much, hell, he and Tess had provided you with a home, even when they had no obligation to do so. You owed them more than your life.

When you had met Ellie, you immediately disliked her. She grated on you, her biting words and humorous comments doing nothing but fueling your growing dislike of her. She was childish — she acted her age, showed her fear, and it was something you just couldn’t understand. You were far too used to closing down the emotion behind your eyes, to shutting away all of your baggage in a box deep in your mind.

It had worn you down, eventually. Hating her was much harder than you expected it to be, especially when she looked at you for the understanding she knew you possessed. You even watched as Joel softened up to her, far faster than he had done with you, and you couldn’t help but follow in his example, as you always tried to do.

Hushed conversations when following Joel’s tense figure, something young passing over you, something that had seemed so… far away. You had always thought that bonds like this could only exist in the world before your own, trust Ellie to prove you wrong.

But one gained friendship didn’t quite make up for all the losses. It was Tess, to start with. Something that had singed your lungs and left you breathing the smoke, something of choked words leaving you when she had revealed the bite on her shoulder. She had looked at you, that understanding passing through her eyes, grief for a life she wouldn’t get to live. You understood the gaze far more than you wanted to, and you knew that the burns scarring your insides wouldn’t fade for a very long time.

Then, it was finding out that Bill and Frank were gone.

It seemed wrong. Something so untouchable, so guarded, how could it possibly be gone? You couldn’t understand it, couldn’t understand how the few people you valued seemed to be dropping away before your very eyes, faster than you could even reach for them.

The journey seemed pointless to you, after that.

Though you felt for Ellie, that selfishness that had always been drilled into you rushed in, drowning out the empathy towards her cause. It left you with something empty inside of your chest, and you couldn’t figure out a way to fill it. You weren’t sure you wanted to.

It only got worse.

Warm days turned colder, the nights going to something nearby freezing, and then there was the events of Kansas City. You had been so sure Joel was going to die, that you and Ellie would follow soon after, that you couldn’t move. Your legs seemed frozen to the spot, and even as you heard the struggle in the other room, it didn’t quite register.

It was only when Ellie managed to get Joel through to the room you were hidden in that you managed to snap out of your fear-induced haze. Your eyes were cloudy, and after that, it was so hard to focus.

You and Ellie had found some comfort when Sam showed up alongside his older brother, Henry. They were a breath of fresh air in the hellscape of a city, and for once, you witnessed true childhood. Saw it in the way Sam scribbled on his board, in the way he laughed at whatever Ellie had written on it. It was contagious, almost.

That was probably the happiest you had been since leaving Boston, and it all fell apart so quickly. Like the first sparks of a fire squandered by the downpour of a storm.

You can’t even remember much of it. Not the big parts, anyway. You remember the little things, like the colour of Sam’s hoodie, or the splinters you got from the floorboards as you fell backwards, scrambled away from the only semblance of childhood you’d ever had. You remember looking to Henry, something in your chest begging to be let out, but choking on it before it could escape. Your remember the sound of something splattering against the wall, and you remember Joel touching your arm after the burial.

Everything was blurring together, but one thing stood out; that overwhelming fear that threatened to sweep you away with every sound you heard, every flash of movement in darkness, every loss you witnessed.

Each day it became harder to shake away the haze to your eyes, harder to feel something other than scared, harder to close that box in your brain and leave those big feelings in there. It became so prevalent, all of it weighing you down, pressing tightly against your shoulders, and somewhere along the line you knew that Joel and Ellie had noticed.

Whether it was your withdrawn behaviour, or the gaping hole ripped into your chest, you weren’t entirely sure. But they knew. Perhaps not to the extent that you believed them to, but they knew something wasn’t quite right.

And now it was the cold threatening to take the three of you — it was freezing the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, and you really weren’t sure how much more of this you could take. It had been months since Henry and Sam, but it felt like it had been both no time at all, yet so far away. Everything still felt so raw, so fresh, despite time passing as normally as ever.

Joel had somehow managed to find winter supplies for the three of you, consisting of a coat and gloves, a hat that you let Ellie take. It was enough to keep you all alive, but it didn’t stop the chill seeping into your very bones, making it feel all the more harder to keep going.

It got to the point where you just didn’t want to. Couldn’t.

“Come on,” Joel said, your name falling from him as he patted your shoulder, all of his supplies already packed up, “Time to go.”

Getting up seemed impossible, so you didn’t. Just let your eyes glaze over and watched as Joel and Ellie grabbed their weapons, glancing outside of the cabin you’d taken refuge in. Joel looked back to you, his eyebrows furrowing as he noticed you hadn’t packed up any of your things, hadn’t even moved.

He looked at Ellie, frowning when she noticed, too. He made his way over, crouching down with aching knees, and placed a hand on your shoulder.

“Kid, we gotta get moving.” Joel said, shaking your shoulder the slightest to gather your attention. You just looked at him, shaking your head. “C’mon. We don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t wanna go anymore, Joel.” You told him, finally admitting the words that sounded so much like defeat. You hated that the world had won, but you were so tired of fighting that you just couldn’t bring yourself to do anything but lose.

Joel shook his head, eyebrows creasing, an expression close to dumbfounded crossing his face. He couldn’t understand.

“We’re closer than we’ve ever been!” Ellie said encouragingly, the biggest smile she could muster on her face. You couldn’t bring yourself to look in her direction, instead looking down to where your fingers pulled at the loose threads on your sleeping bag.

“I can’t,” You said, much closer to tears than you had even realised. “I can’t keep doing this. Joel, I wanna go home.”

His frown just deepened, uncertainty present in every feature on his face. Joel didn’t know how to handle this, and there really wasn’t that much time to do so.

“Kid…” He sighed, before sitting down properly beside you with a pained breath.

“No, Joel, I— I want to go back. I want all of this to go away. I want Tess.” You admitted, heart pounding so hard just at the mention of the woman you had lost, and it was painful. Your chest aches the more you thought about it, and there was the realisation that you were homesick. Though you weren’t sure if that’s as for Boston, or for Tess.

“There is no goin’ back, kiddo. Tess… she’s gone. Nothin’ we can do about it.” Joel said, taking a moment to steady the shake in his voice after saying her name. It was just as painful for him as it was for you.

“I’m… I’m scared.” You confessed, voice barely a whisper, but it echoed around the empty walls of the cabin. The confession almost scared Joel, he knew you preferred to keep everything locked tightly, never admitting to the fear he knew was there. “All the time,” You continued, lips trembling around the words, “And it’s all I can think about. I can’t keep doing this. Every time we meet something I just get so scared, I can’t move, can’t speak.”

“It’s okay to be scared—” Joel tried.

“No, it’s not! It’s like I’m frozen, and every time, I lose someone. I can’t watch you guys die. I can’t do it.” You cut him off, the tears falling from your eyes as you looked at Joel.

He couldn’t do much more than frown, unsure how he could fix something like this. He knew the feeling more than you could imagine, so familiar it was the clearest thing he could remember. Joel had felt this way for years, but he was an adult. He had people relying on him, he couldn’t shut down in the way he knew you wanted to.

“We’re not gonna die,” Joel said, hesitantly. It was stupid to make promises in this world, especially when danger and the unknown lurked around every corner. “We’re all goin’ to be just fine. Listen to me, kid, we’re gonna get this done, and then we’re all gonna find somewhere, no infected, and we’ll just live. But we need to get through this, first.”

You shook your head, turning away from him, and he glanced to where Ellie stood, the guilt flooded onto her face.

“You two listenin’?” Joel asked, beginning to pick up your things and shove them into your backpack. “We’re getting close now. It’s almost over. Got nothin’ to worry about.”

“He’s right,” Ellie said, quietly, passing Joel something to put in your bag. “Let’s just get this over with.”

They packed up your things around you, Joel grabbing your arms to help you to your feet, and Ellie linked arms with you as soon as you were up. Together, they managed to get you out of the cabin, back out into the cold.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

You had been so sure that one of you was going to die when the people on horses showed up, guns trained on each of you in turn. You thought it was going to be Joel when he shoved you and Ellie behind him, his head spinning around, taking count of the people who were a danger to you.

Then, they brought out their dog, and your heart stopped when they directed it towards Ellie. It was going to be her, you were almost sure of it, thought that it would get a whiff of something from the bite scarred over her forearm.

You held your breath for a long time, not able to let it go even when the dog settled, playing happily with Ellie. Surely, these people would shoot you, regardless. They certainly didn’t seem very friendly.

But no, they were taking you back to their town, with you and Joel sharing a horse while Ellie rode on her own. You’d never ridden on a horse, and before, you may have enjoyed the experience, but you could only feel that suffocating fear that made you choke on your words, so scared that these people were taking you to their town just to kill you. Or worse. You’d heard of people who do worse.

You couldn’t get the words out to express your concern to Joel, forced to stay silent and cling on to him as the three of you made your way past the walls, surrounded by strangers. You shared a look with Ellie, that nervous understanding shared between the two of you once more.

Your fingers twitch, aching to wrap around your gun, but that was the first thing these people had taken. Then it was your knife. And then the axe Joel had you storing in the side of your bag. It didn’t help that helpless feeling, that fear clogging your throat.

Joel’s tense frame loosens suddenly, something like relief sinking into his bones as he shouts, “Tommy!” A man immediately looking up from where he was stood atop of some scaffolding. Joel slides off of the horse, handing the reigns to you, before meeting his brother halfway in a tight hug.

Ellie frowns, and you understand the furrow to her brows as you looked at Joel and his brother. He was all the two of you had.

The two of you stick together as you follow Joel to wherever his brother is leading the three of you, sharing nervous glances and only just about relaxing when you’re seated with hot meals in front of you.

You did your best to tune as much of the conversation out as possible, even ignoring Joel’s comment about slowing down, as you shoved as much food as you could into your mouth while the opportunity was there. After all, who knew how long this would last?

Ellie kicked your leg when Tommy mentioned about a tour, the two of you reluctantly leaving your plates behind to follow the three adults. Maria went on with her touring speech, talking about when and how they settled in the town, with Tommy pitching in about the shared resources. It was only when she talked about separating you and Ellie from Joel that your attention was really caught.

“Joel.” You said, urgency in your voice, a pleading look sent his way as he wrung his hands together, his brother already heading in his direction.

“You’ll be fine.” He said to you and Ellie, nodding in your direction and missing the look of defeat you and Ellie shared as he walked away.

“Shall we?” Maria asked, looking between you and Ellie. She was half-turned away already, but caught the way you both gazed nervously at Joel’s turned back. The two of you nodded, following behind her as she made her way through the town, clearly as familiar to her as the back of her hand.

Ellie answered all of Maria’s idle questions whilst walking alongside her, though her answers were slightly withdrawn. It comforted you, even the slightest bit, to know that you weren’t the only one who was feeling distrustful towards this place. That you weren’t the only one on edge.

Maria opened the door to the house you, Ellie and Joel were meant to be staying in, swatting a hand in front of her face as dust rose up from the untouched surfaces.

“Homely.” Ellie commented, stepping around Maria to peek into the living room, and then the kitchen, whilst you remained beside the door with Maria.

“It’s not much, but it’ll keep you warm. And it’s got running water.” Maria said, despite this being more than any of you had had in a very long time. She smiled tightly at you, head dipping as she looked around. “Make yourselves at home.”

“When do I get my gun back?” You asked, probably the most you had spoken since your slight… outburst at the cabin, just a few days prior.

“Kids ‘round here aren’t armed. Nobody is.” Maria answered, eyebrows creased as she looked at you.

“Right, well I’m not a part of your commune, or whatever, so I want back what’s mine.” You replied, with more heat to the words than would’ve been considered respectful. You couldn’t really find it in yourself to care, though, because how were you meant to defend yourselves if you had no weapons? Especially considering Maria clearly didn’t want Joel here, and by extension, you and Ellie.

Maria sighed, a slight exhale from her nose, and you stepped away from her, looking towards Ellie, who stared right back at you with something nervous in her gaze. “We’ll talk about all this later, okay? How about you guys go take a shower, and I’ll grab you some new clothes.”

Ellie nodded, practically leaping up the stairs, and you heard doors slamming open until she finally found the bathroom, yelling an: “Aha!”

“There’s just the one shower in this house, but if you wanna have one now, mine and Tommy’s house is just across the street.” Maria offered, kindly.

“I’d rather wait.” You replied, voice snappier than you expected it to be, but you bounded up the stairs and flopped down in the first room you found.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Ellie had taken forever in the shower, so it was a while before you finally took your turn. As much as you hated to admit it, the warm water cleared away much of your bitterness towards this place. It felt good. Finally being clean, properly clean, after going so long living off of what little you could take when travelling across the country. You hadn't had a shower like this since Bill and Frank’s — and you hated thinking of it.

Maria had been around earlier, bringing two piles of clothes hanging in each arm, dumping them on the bed outside of the bathroom Ellie had been showering in. You hadn’t acknowledged her, so she had nodded and left quickly.

You didn’t exactly enjoy feeling like you owed anybody anything, but you had to admit that slipping on the clean clothes that Maria had left felt good. Wearing the long sleeved t-shirt underneath a thick jumper was probably the warmest you’d been in a long time, not that you would’ve admitted that to anybody.

The small part of you that had been numbed for the past few weeks began to thaw, and you felt almost embarrassed of how you had treated Maria earlier on — despite you having every right to act in such a manner. So, with a huffed breath of annoyance, you decided to follow the note the woman had left, and made your way across the street.

She had shouted to come in almost as soon as you had knocked, and you opened the door hesitantly.

The first thing you noticed was the sound of hair scissors, and it sent a pang through your chest. Then you heard Maria and Ellie chatting, and followed the noise. The chalkboard in her living room caught your eye, and you frowned as you passed by it.

“What’s going on?” You asked, eyebrows drawn together as you stepped into the room to see Ellie putting up her short hair.

“Just a trim,” Maria said, waving the scissors in her hand, “You’re up next.”

She noticed the way you tensed, drawing your arms back up towards your chest as your eyebrows furrowed further. It was defensive, the way you immediately curled in on yourself.

“No, no, I— I don’t want my hair cut.” By you were the words missing from the sentence, going unsaid but not unheard as one of your hands reached up to hold onto the too-long ends of your hair. They were splintering, and unhealthy, but you couldn’t do it.

The last person to cut your hair had been Tess — a memory you treasured, held so close that it almost hurt to think about. It was one of those things that had come naturally at the time, but felt so taken for granted once Tess was gone. You could remember the evenings so clearly, one of the only times that she allowed herself to come across as something almost maternal.

It would feel like you were betraying her, her memory, to allow someone else to take scissors to your hair. It was a job that belonged to Tess, and Tess only. You pretended it didn't hurt, the length your hair had grown. She would’ve never let it get this long.

Maria frowned, but seemed to take your defensive words and body language for a good enough answer. She placed the scissors on the counter, an act of truce, if you had ever seen one.

“Okay,” She said, hands up in surrender, before she reached to the counter and grabbed the coat that had been laid there. “Here, put this on. We’re going to the movies.”

You had no choice but to do so, tugging the coat on and resorting to holding it closed with your arms folded across your chest when your fingers trembled on the zipper. Ellie glanced at you with a frown, and checked you were following her and Maria out of the door, just huffing out a small sigh as you closed the door behind you, hurrying to catch up.

Sitting around a bunch of kids was one of the weirdest things to happen to you. You’d spent most of your life surrounded by only Joel and Tess, occasionally Bill and Frank, hell — Ellie was the first person your age that you’d really spoken to. After everything the two of you had been through, being surrounded by children felt much stranger to you than being surrounded by adults.

You could understand adults, to a certain extent. Kids… were a different story. So transfixed on the movie projected on the wall ahead, which you couldn’t understand. You felt vulnerable, sat in the middle of the room. Out of the loop, even, as adults watched and chatted around the edges of the room.

It was why you went to find Maria whilst Ellie followed Tommy out of the place, confused on why she had brought you here. “What am I meant to be doing here?” You asked her, when you finally found her standing to the side, gazing at the movie.

“We’re at the movies,” She laughed, saying your name, “You’re meant to be watching the movie.”

“Why?” You asked, incredulously, because how did this help anybody? Watching fake people in an image against the wall might’ve fascinated you, but you were nervous. Paranoid. At any moment, they could have people breaking into the town, knocking down the walls, anything… so why waste time and people watching a movie? To you, it would’ve made more sense to have more of these people stationed as guards.

“Entertainment,” Maria offered, moving from where she had been leaning against the half-wall. “Whatever you wanna call it. You’re not out in the wilderness, anymore. You’re safe. Take some time, enjoy the film.” She told you, and you hated the sympathy that she held in her gaze.

You moved to say something, but followed Maria’s gaze to see Tommy walking back through the doors. Without another word to her, you were shoving your way through the crowd and pushing the door open, back out into the cold air.

By the time you found your way to the house on Rancher Street, both doors at the top of the stairs were tightly shut. You frowned, unsure why they would’ve shut them, and made your way up to the room Ellie was in.

“Ellie?” You whispered into the darkness of the room, seeing her turned away from the door as she lay on the bed. She was still, and remained quiet. With a sigh, you closed the door and crossed the hall, opening Joel’s door with the same results.

You tiptoed back downstairs, frowning as you laid a blanket across the couch, swatting the dust that rose to the air.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Waking up to an empty house stirred the panic that you had been storing away. You felt frantic as you tumbled up the stairs, ripping the covers away from the unmade beds as if Ellie or Joel could’ve been hiding beneath them. But finding nothing just made everything so much worse, because what if you were right all along?

Anybody could’ve come into the house, caught the two of them off guard, and what could they have done? All of your weapons were taken from you, which meant no defence, and no deterrent.

You were ripping the kitchen apart before you could think to do much else, pulling drawers out and sending the dusty contents crashing to the floor. In the end, you found nothing of use — the sharp cutlery had long since been taken, leaving dust in the empty compartment that should’ve held knives.

Your last resort was the plate you had smashed against the counter, leaving a dent in the material upon impact. Blood trickled down your cheek from a minuscule cut, the result of a tiny piece of ceramic. You grabbed the sharpest piece of the plate in a gloved hand, and marched out of the front door.

Upon entering Tommy and Maria’s house, you were greeted with nothing but silence, despite the impact the door had made against the wall when you had opened it. A small piece of paper on their kitchen counter caught your eye, and you snatched it up.

Going to the stables first thing. Love you - Tommy.

The edge of the paper was crinkled, and you figured that Maria must’ve seen it already.

Your run to the stables was frantic, and not at all subtle. People stared as you practically sprinted across the town, almost slipping on patches of ice that blended in with the snow. “Slow down, girl!” Somebody had shouted at you as you passed, but you just gripped the sharp ceramic tighter, barely feeling the way it had begun to tear at your glove.

“Joel, Ellie!” You shouted, almost hysterically, as you finally saw the two of them. Ellie was already sat upon a horse, holding the reins as Joel spoke to his brother. They both turned to face you as you approached, an almost defeated look matching each other’s expressions. “What—What’s going on?” You asked, stumbling into Joel and feeling him grasp on to your shoulders to get you to finally stop.

Joel shared a look with Tommy, who looked back at him with what was almost sympathy.

“Kid, I…” He sighed, rubbing a gloved hand down his face as his speech trailed off.

“What?” You snapped, gripping the ceramic tighter.

“Listen to me,” Joel said, his hand squeezing your shoulder as he said the words. “Me and Ellie are heading to the University—”

“Let—Let me grab my bag.” You told him, trying to turn away but feeling his grip tighten before he turned you back to face him, a bracing expression on his face. He looked almost pained.

“You’re not listening!” He told you, sounding far too close to frustration. “Me and Ellie. Not you.” He repeated, watching carefully the way your furrowed eyebrows fell, something so similar to grief presenting itself in the way your whole expression fell apart.

You looked to Ellie, only to find her gaze averted, and shook your head as you turned back to Joel. “What? You’re— You’re what? Leaving me behind?”

“It’s not fair for us to ask you to—”

You cut him off, stumbling back and away from his hands, and watched as they fell from the air where they had held on to you. “It’s not fair?” You asked, trembling from something other than the cold as you looked at the only man you had ever trusted.

The ceramic in your palm fell to the ground, fibres of your glove clinging to the edges of it. Joel frowned.

“Not fair?” You repeated, at the sound of their silence. “You know what’s not fair, Joel?” You questioned, stepping forward to push your hands against his chest, feeling your chest ache when he did nothing to stop you. “Following you two, all this way, just for you to fucking abandon me!”

“We’re not abandoning you!” Ellie said, then, her voice sounding just as childish as the words did. Because if they weren’t abandoning you, what were they doing? They hadn’t even said goodbye — if it weren’t for you running out here, after waking up to find them gone, you might have never even seen them again.

“Yes, you are!” You yelled at here, feeling your throat clog up as your vision went cloudy, “And after everything…—”

You stared between them, waiting for them to have a response, but neither of them did.

“I lost everything, following you here. Everything! It’s all gone. Tess…” You trailed off, feeling tears bubble at the corners of your eyes as you said her name. It was a betrayal, more than anything. If it weren’t for this whole adventure, Tess would’ve been alive. Bill and Frank, maybe not, but Tess.

“That ain’t fair, kiddo, we—”

“None of this has been fair. None of it! And you—you were just going to fucking leave me! How’s that for fair?” You asked desperately, despite knowing that no answer they could give would be what you wanted. All of your fear over losing them, it had never considered that they may leave of their own accord.

Maria said your name, approaching from behind you, and you didn't flinch when she placed a hand on your shoulder. You missed the pain on Joel’s face at the way you allowed her to comfort you, but had moved away from his attempts. She pulled you a step back from him, and another, until she finally turned you away as your tears spilled over.

Tommy shook his head when Joel made a move to follow the two of you, and you pretended not to notice their gazes on you as they strode by.

“How could they just…” Your voice broke off at the edges, and you felt the haze to your eyes returning as you looked at Maria, the realisation that you were alone hitting you harder than any of your fear ever had. That was fear; a possibility of what could happen, whereas this… this was reality.

And your reality was that nobody loved you enough to stay.

PART TWO

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller imagine #joel miller one shot #joel miller angst #joel miller father figure #joel miller fic #joel miller fluff #tlou imagines #tlou one shot #joel miller platonic #pedro pascal angst #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal imagines #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x you #heartpascal writes

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saintobio · 2 months

Text

*๑♡՞ i, spy.

pairings. sylus, fem!reader tags. 1.5k wc, mild angst, suggestive ending, jealousy, petnames as usual (kitten, sweetie, baby doll), alcohol consumption, sylus being annoying lmao, loosely inspired by his immobilized memory

sylus can be very petty when he wants to be.

today’s weather was beyond freezing, and the view of the icy mountains in the arctic region stood tall over the hotel grounds where the hunter’s association team-building event was taking place. you had spent the entire day engaged in activities with your team, enjoying every moment, and your laughter mingling with the cheerful atmosphere. it had been awhile since you last went on a snowboarding trip with the rest of your hunter friends, so this day brought about just the perfect quality time to boost camaraderie amongst your team.

unbeknownst to you, sylus, who had also chosen to stay at the same hotel, was watching from a distance. his red eyes, usually cold and calculating, were now burning with an intensity fueled by jealousy. you had been spending time with xavier, your interactions light and full of warmth, and sylus could barely contain his frustration as he saw how your colleague brought you hot chocolate and used his palms to warm your cheeks.

“tch.” sylus absently swirled his glass of whiskey, the ice making a faint clink as he observed you from the balcony of his room. “seems like a stray kitten has found a new companion.”

then, as the evening arrived, your group gathered for dinner and you were happily chatting with your team, completely unaware of the storm brewing behind the scenes (aka by a certain tall man with grayish hair and crimson eyes). the rest of your hunter friends eventually headed back to their own rooms after finishing their meals, while a couple others chose to spend more time at the hotel bar. your activity of choice for the night was also the latter, telling xavier that it was okay for him to head back to his room knowing how he had been fighting the drowsiness off for the last hour.

meanwhile, sylus soon made his entrance at the bar, accompanied by a striking woman whose presence was impossible to ignore. her outfit was dazzling, and she seemed to be following sylus’s every command like a pet.

impossible! you thought, eyes widening in panic as soon as you saw the onychinus leader. if your hunter friends found out that the n109 boss was here, this hotel would turn into a battlefield in a heartbeat.

yet sylus, completely unfazed, walked over to your area in the bar counter with the woman by his side. his smirk was barely concealed as he approached you. “i didn’t expect to see you here, kitten,” he said, his voice smooth and dripping with subtle menace. “i brought a friend along.”

you looked up, your heart sinking as you took in the sight of sylus’s companion. she was effortlessly glamorous with her sleek blonde hair and exquisite fur jacket, her every movement seemingly calculated to draw attention. however, despite her overflowing gorgeous exterior, sylus’s gaze was fixed on you. and the asshole was watching your reaction with an almost predatory intensity.

“oh, sylus,” you said in an attempt to sound casual. “what a surprise.”

“oh, certainly, kitten. and by the way, this is elara,” sylus introduced, gesturing to the woman beside him. “she’s been kind enough to accompany me this evening.”

elara gave you a warm smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. her partner, on the other hand, seemed to revel in the way her presence unsettled you as he took a seat next to her, deliberately placing her between the two of you. “nice to meet you!”

“likewise,” you replied, shaking her hand and forcing a smile.

“care to join us, miss hunter?” sylus said with a smirk, his eyes glinting as he watched you hesitate. his arm was draped casually around elara’s shoulders, and the sight made your stomach churn with a strange mix of envy and frustration. “elara and i are just about to get some drinks.”

“join us, please!” the woman next to him encouraged.

“uh, sure.” pressured by the situation, you gave a subtle nod, only to receive a gleam of satisfaction in sylus’s eyes.

this bastard! you didn’t like how his hand was lingering on her arm in a way that was meant to be seen. each laugh they shared, each touch, seemed designed to push you further into a pit of jealousy. and the way stupid sylus kept glancing at you, gauging your reaction, only made the situation more unbearable. that’s it, you silently snickered in your head, i should call him stupid sylus.

you forced yourself to focus on your blue raspberry cocktail, trying to ignore sylus’s stupid blabbering while rushing to finish your drink. his actions were a blatant attempt to make you feel inferior, and it was working. it was definitely working. but you couldn’t lose your composure now despite him making sure to lavish attention on elara. every time he touched her back and her waist, you felt a pang of jealousy growing more and more intense by the second. it didn’t help that sylus’s presence was also a constant reminder of the way he could manipulate your emotions, and it was driving you to the edge.

“so,” sylus tapped his fingers on the counter, his voice low and intentionally provocative, “how’s your evening been, miss hunter?”

“fine,” you replied tersely, trying to mask the irritation and hurt simmering beneath the surface.

“just fine?” sylus asked, his smirk widening. “i thought you were enjoying yourself today. seeing you with your colleague was quite… interesting.”

“if you’re referring to xav—” you paused, remembering that xavier had a bounty in his head at the n109 zone and it was best to keep him out of conversations with sylus, so you decided to change the topic, “did you have mephisto report all my activities to you again?”

him and his equally stupid bird. so annoying.

“there’s no need for that, sweetie. you stick out like a sore thumb, so you’re not that difficult to spot.” he smiled as he talked, like he was having so much fun at mocking you. oh, he’s deliberately pushing my buttons! his actions were a cruel game meant to make you question your feelings and your place in his life.

before you could retort, elara suddenly tugged his sleeve, focusing all of his misrouted attention back to her. “honey,” she spoke to him sweetly, “what drink do you recommend i should get next?”

you rolled your eyes and turned away, the old man playing the piano now a much more interesting sight to look at compared to the two lovey-dovey couple next to you. but really, it was suffocating to be anywhere near sylus, and the only way to stop feeling all of these crazy emotions swirling inside of you was to not be around him.

and so with that, finally, after what felt like an eternity, you excused yourself. but the walk back to your room was quickly interrupted by the figure of a six foot two man, his towering height preventing you from taking another step without his permission. “where do you think you’re going, kitten?” he asked, noticing the sourness in your expression that you tried so hard to conceal.

“heading back,” you merely responded, trying to find an escape by pointing towards the opposite direction. “look over there, isn’t that luke and kieran?”

as soon as sylus turned his head, you made a swift beeline for the bar’s exit. you even sighed of relief as you managed to free yourself from his presence, now making your way through the empty halls of the hotel. unfortunately for you, sylus wasn’t one to let something like this go. so before you could even think of hiding and running away, he was already walking next to you—the frown on his face growing more pronounced as he grabbed your wrist and dragged you to the nearby elevator.

“let go—!” you protested, wiggling your hands from his tight hold. “where ‘re you taking me?”

“my suite,” he muttered, pressing the button to the top most floor. “sleep in my room tonight.”

you let out a loud, sardonic chuckle. “says who?”

sylus, crossing his arms, looked at you with thin, furrowed brows. “your only choice is to obey me, kitten.”

an exasperated sigh escaped your lips. “isn’t elara supposed to be with you?” you questioned, “you should bring her to your room, not me!”

it was too late. because no matter how much you struggled against his iron grip, you were later pushed inside his presidential suite, the grandiose of his room stupefying you. the smell of red roses and wine was a relaxing aroma that continued to pull you inside. yet, before you can take another step, sylus was already pulling you by the waist, leaning in to crash his lips onto yours.

at first you tried to push him off, but who were you kidding here? of course, you’d eventually melt into the kiss, allowing him to envelop his lips around yours, its soft and tender movements sending shivers down your spine. each kiss was a loud smooch echoing across the room.

“were you jealous?” he asked in a low voice, biting your lower lip and pulling only slightly away. “i don’t have that kind of relationship with elara. she’s just a staff member of mine that i asked to make you jealous.”

“okay, and?” you frowned at his handsome face, hating how easily he could get under your skin. literally and figuratively. “the way you were still touching her was…”

“your jealousy is showing, sweetie.” a smile of mischief crept up on sylus’s lips before he extended a hand to squeeze your ass. “and what about the way your male colleague doted on you all day, hm? had fun being treated like a princess by him?”

“why do you care?” you asked, trying to sound indifferent despite the ticklish kisses he was trailing along your neck. “it’s none of your business who i talk to.”

“oh, it is my business, baby doll.” sylus’s smile faltered for a moment, but he quickly recovered, now unbuttoning his shirt and suggesting a very rough night ahead. “because i care about what i have. and right now, that’s you.”

#love and deepspace x reader #love and deepspace x you #lads x reader #lads x you #l&ds x reader #l&ds x you #sylus x reader #sylus x you #sylus angst #sylus fluff #sylus fic #lads sylus #lds sylus #sylus x mc

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arc-misadventures · 2 months

Text

The Sorcerer’s Dark Magic

Bruised, battered, and bloody.

This was the sorry state of, Cinder Fall.

A member of, Salem’s inner circle had been identified whilst she was in, Vale. Beacon sent several of its highly trained, Hunter’s, and Atlas had also sent in members of its elite team of, Specialists to bring her in.

They had found her, and her cronies in the midst of a pack of, White Fang members lead by the murderous zealot, Adam Taurus.

The fight had been long, and bloody, costing the lives of several Hunters, Specialist, and many members of, Cinder’s entourage, along with scores of members of the, White Fang. Even the murderous zealot, Adam Taurus’s life was taken in the fight.

But, they won, and they had taken, Cinder Fall in alive. And, now it was time for her interrogation to begin.

An event that would scar many who whiteness the horrors about to be unleashed.

~~~

The door opened to reveal a trio standing before a one way mirror, they all turned, and nodded their greetings at the duo as they entered the room. Within the room there was the headmaster of, Beacon Academy, Ozpin. The deputy headmistress, Glynda Goodwitch. And, lastly there was a seasoned huntsman, and a drunkard named, Qrow Branwen.

Entering the room was, Headmaster of Atlas Academy, and General of the Atlas Military, James Ironwood, followed closely by his aide, Specialist, Winter Schnee. They joined the trio at the mirror to stare at the bloody, and bruised body of, Cinder Fall.

Ironwood: So, what’s the plan?

Ozpin; Hello to you too, James. Right now the plan is to wait.

Ironwood: Wait, wait for what?

Qrow: The Sorcerer is finishing up his treatment of the wounded.

Ironwood: The Sorcerer? You have a magic user; why didn’t you notify me that you found a maiden?

Ozpin shook his head as he watched, Cinder pull at her aura suppressing restrains that binded her hands in a vain attempt to escape.

Ozpin: I would have if we did, but no. The Sorcerer is just a nickname he picked up.

Ironwood: He? So it’s a male. Hmmm… Who is this, Sorcerer you’re talking about?

Glynda: His name is, Jaune Arc; He is an experienced, Hunter who is a teacher here at, Beacon Academy, and he doubles as an assistant school nurse when the need arises.

Glynda’s brief rundown gave, Ironwood a simple understanding of who he was, and considering how normal he sounded, he understood why, Ozpin never brought him up before. But, why would he need someone so plain to interrogate her?

Winter: Arc…? Does he have blond hair, and blue eyes?

Glynda: Yes.

Winter: I believe I met him. He seems like a kind, and caring individual who cares deeply for the wellbeing of his students. Why are you having him interrogate the prisoner?

Ozpin: We need her to talk; We need to know what, Salem’s plans are, and who is working with her. If we try doing so ourselves we will get nowhere. But, if we let, Mr. Arc do it himself, we will get all the answers, and more that we are looking for.

Ironwood: Are you sure about this, Ozpin?

Ozpin: Honestly, James if I was being ‘interrogated’ by, Mr. Arc. I’m not sure what secrets I wouldn’t spill to get him to stop.

Ozpin shuddered as he remember the last time he sat on, Jaune interrogating someone. It was effective, but disturbing.

Qrow: Wait, you made that sound like he wasn’t going to talk with her, but more like he’s going to ‘talk’ with her.

Ozpin: …

Ozpin: It must be done…

Qrow: Seriously?! You’re gonna make, Tai 2.0 go in there, and torture her?

Ironwood: What?!

James looked to, Ozpin as he held his head in defeat. He had no other options left. And, considering what, Cinder, and her associates were planning, and how they barely caught it, and just managed to stop it. They needed her to talk to prevent anything else from coming.

Ironwood: You can’t possibly have forced him to do this?!

Glynda: Jaune agreed to do it! He lost several of his friends in the raid to get her, this is his own way of avenging them. And, you know how effect his methods are, we both have seen what he can, and will do to someone.

Qrow looked away before taking another drink from his flask. He knew what, Jaune could do, he knew exactly what he could do. That didn’t mean he liked what he saw.

Qrow: Fuck…

Qrow took a swig from his flask as he turned back to look at the girl in cuffs. Ironwood gave the drunk one fleeting glance before turning to face his friend.

Ironwood: How will this, Arc fellow make her talk?

Ozpin: He will no doubt try, and talk to her at first. But, when that inevitably fails, he will use his semblance instead.

Ironwood: And, what is his semblance?

Ozpin: It’s… Oh, he’s here.

~~~

The door opened, and closed with a heavy click of steel. A blond haired man entered the room. Cinder eyes him warningly as he walked over to the table, and took the seat across from her. He put down a notebook, and a pen, before brushing some unseen dust from the desk before he turned to face her.

: Hello, Ms. Cinder Fall. My name is, Jaune Arc. May I call you, Cinder?

Cinder said nothing, and just stared him down. They stared each other down for a while before, Jaune shrugged his shoulders, and opened his notebook to start taking notes.

Jaune: Not much of a talker, eh? No matter, we’ll get you talking soon enough.

Jaune: Now then, Ms. Fall, let’s summarize the past days events: A team of, Beacon students stumbled upon your little operation going on in, Mount Glenn. A team of veteran, Hunters from, Vale, as well as a team of, Atlasian Specialists came in to prevent you from colliding a train into the old train house in downtown, Vale thus releasing a horde of, Grimm into the city. Did I make a mistake in any of that, Ms. Fall?

Cinder: …

Jaune: Still not talking, eh? No matter, I’ll get you talking sooner, or later. So, pray tell what were you planning to do?

Cinder glared daggers at the man who radiated golden retriever energy, but said nothing.

Jaune: Twas a rhetorical question, since you won’t answer me after all. So, let us speculate then shall we?

Jaune: Hmm… you wanted to launch a horde of, Grimm into the city… but, why?

Jaune: Since the White Fang were involved was it to act as a protest against the mistreatment of faunas?

Cinder: …

Jaune: I expect that was the, White Fang’s plan, at least what they thought the plan was. So logically they would do this to kill people, both human, and faunas as a means of retribution for past, and future wrongs.

Cinder continued to glare at him, but within those burning eyes, Jaune could see her asking him a simple question.

Jaune: What the hell am I talking about? That’s what you’re thinking, I can see it in your eyes. But, well, extremists all ways take the simplest things, that often have the simplest solutions to the extreme. Hence the name: extremists. But, what’s your angle in all of this?

Jaune leaned closer, and stared, Cinder down. Their eyes locked on one another in a staring contest that made, Cinder’s blood burn. And, yet this feeling in her blood wasn’t from rage.

Jaune: We asked your associates what you game in all of this was… And, what were their names again…?

Jaune flipped through his notebook, before pulling out two photos, attached to slips of paper.

Jaune: Ahh yes… Mercury Black, and… Emerald Sustrai, that’s their names. The didn’t snitch on you, they never would. But, as they say… ‘Dead man tells no tale~!’

Jaune could see her eyes flash wider for the briefest of moments. She seemed to not care about her associates, at least, she seemingly didn’t care that much.

Jaune: But, your pal, Roman Torchwik. He sung like a song bird, and told me all of your dastardly deeds, after receiving some proper… motivation~!

~~~

Ironwood watched carefully as he listened to, Mr. Arc as he interrogate the prisoner.

Ironwood: Did you also ‘interrogate’ this, Torchwik fellow?

Ozpin: There was no need to, we offered him a plea deal for all the information he had on her, and he was rather forthcoming coming. Although his information as to what, Ms. Fall’s plans are, were rather limited.

Ironwood: I see, hopefully this, Arc fellow can make use of it. Now, I don’t mean to sound… disturbed. But, when is this supposed… ‘interrogation’ meant to begin.

Glynda: It already begun. As soon as, Jaune entered the room the ‘interrogation’ started.

Winter: How can you be sure of that? All they’ve done is talk, nothing that hints towards torture has started.

Glynda: She’s sweating…

Everyone looked over to see a bead if sweat drip down, Cinder’s forehead as cold air escaped her lips.

Ironwood: What? That rooms kept cold to stop her from using her fire semblance, why is she sweating?

Ozpin: Good question…

~~~

Jaune: Now… Roman told us all about your evil plans. Well… that of which he was privy to that is…

Jaune put on a show, Cinder could tell he was trying to put her off guard, and it wasn’t working. The sweat falling down her head was getting on her nerves though, the room was freezing cold, and yet she was sweating. She could help, but wonder why.

Jaune: You hired him to steal large quantities of, Dust. Though he says you threatened him. Now, I am curious as to why you needed that much, Dust? You weren’t selling it, and you did make several bombs on that train, but the quantity of, Dust that was used in those bombs is no where near the amount that was stolen. Are you trying to artificially inflate the price of, Dust?

Cinder glared daggers at the man, hoping to burn a hole through this golden retriever of a human being. But, still refused to answer.

Jaune: That would mean you’re working for, Jacques Schnee! I knew you were a heartless bitch, but I couldn’t believe you were that heartless to work with that Grimm spawn bastard son of a bitch!

Cinder: I don’t work for that, Dust whore… Ahh?!

Jaune relished the sound of her little outburst as a vicious grin crept from the corner of his mouth as he stared down the prisoner as she pulled back from him.

Jaune: You spoke~! Ah-hahahaaa~!

~~~

Winter: Calling my sperm donour a, ‘Dust whore;’ I best remember that.

Qrow: Oh, you’re not upset that people are making fun of daddy?

Winter: The majority of the people of, Atlas, and Mantle despise my father, I among the top three individuals that despise the man. I’ve been using photos of the mans face for target practice for the new recruits.

Ozpin: Really now? And, how is that going, Specialist Schnee?

Winter: Better than I expected; Atlas’s military personnel’s average accuracy when handling firearms has gone up by 27%, and is still climbing.

Ironwood: Oh really? I was wondering how that increased happened. Well done, Specialist Schnee. Start implementing that in, Atlas Academy, I’m curious to see how the students will improve if we implement such a… policy.

Winter: I will see it done, Sir.

Ozpin: Should we implement such a policy here as well, Glynda?

Glynda: We shall discuss that later, Ozpin. The Sorcerer is at work.

~~~

Jaune: So tell me… what was your plan…?

Jaune’s smile sent shivers down, Cinder’s; it was a calculated smile, its intent was to unnerve, and put one’s foe on the backfoot.

Cinder: …

Jaune: …

Cinder: …

Jaune: Hmm?

Jaune: Still no talky?

Cinder: …

Jaune: Okay then… So you don’t work for that dust whore. You obviously don’t work with the, White Fang, you’re obviously not a faunas. Unless…?

Jaune was giving her the once over, as if to find some hidden faunas trait that was hidden behind her clothes.

Cinder: I am not a faunas…

Jaune: No…?

(Tap, tap, tap.)

Jaune: I would have guessed you were some sort of snake faunas; Hidden fangs in your mouth, elongated tongue those kind of things. Nothing?

Cinder: No…

Jaune: Well, then you’re obviously working for some sort of hidden secret organization that’s bent on the total, and complete destruction of the world!

Cinder: …

(Tap, tap, tap.)

Jaune: Hmm… you’re quite good at hiding your emotions, but your eyes keep giving things away.

Cinder’s eyes flashed for a moment before she looked away. She cursed herself for letting her emotions escape her harsh grasp. She had done plenty of research on the staff at, Beacon Academy, but, Jaune Arc was one she couldn’t find much information on. At most it was common knowledge that if you asked anyone anything about him they would tell you the same thing. Jaune tended to keep his personal life like that, personal. At most it was know that he was single, and the only son if his family.

Well, as secretive as he may be, it was no where near as…?!

Jaune: Why does the witch want to destroy the world?

~~~

Ironwood: Wait, what?! Ozpin, how does he know about, Salem?

Ozpin: One of, Mr. Arc’s greatest skills is his observational awareness. I thought I was being subtle with any information retaining to, Salem, but he picked up on my… unsaid words. And, forced me to talk…

Ironwood: Forced? Did he use his semblance on you?

Ozpin: Possibly…? I am not sure.

Ironwood: Can’t you tell when he’s using his semblance?

Glynda: It depends on how, Jaune’s using it. It can be very subtle, subtle enough that you don’t even realize he’s using it. Subtle enough that even he doesn’t realize he’s using it at times.

Ozpin: But, when it’s obvious he’s using his semblance you become painfully aware that he’s using it. To say it’s blood curdling in its usage is an understatement of the extreme of extremes.

Qrow: Ughh… I remember when I saw him use it to its fullest extent; Can’t say the guy didn’t have it coming, but throwing up my lunch wasn’t what I had in mind that day…

Ironwood: …?

Winter: What the hell is his semblance?

~~~

Cinder: What witch?

(Tap, tap, tap.)

Jaune: Oh come on now… I know all about, Salem, and Ozpin’s stupid little shadow war going on behind the scenes. So if you plan on playing dumb well…

(Tap, tap, tap)

Jaune: Let’s just say it won’t work well for you.

Cinder could feel sweat dripping down her head in a freezing cold room, his words caused dread to slowly build up in her heart.

Cinder knew that playing dumb wouldn’t work any longer. At best she could deflect, and feed him bread crumps to cause him to look away from her true objective.

Cinder: I was trying to… trying to cause a, Grimm stampede in the hopes of destroying, Vale.

Jaune: To what end?

Cinder: Spread the seeds of chaos, and show, Ozpin, and his allies that his precious little cities are not as safe as they think they are.

Jaune: To what end?

Cinder: I just told you; To destroy, Vale.

Jaune: Don’t play dumb with me my dear, I’m not an idiot like, Ozpin, or General Ironwood. They would take you words at face value, but I can tell you’re hiding something…

Cinder: What is there to hide; you already know everything I planned to do, you’re just trying to confirm what happened for you reports, aren’t you?

Jaune: Well…

(Tap, tap, tap.)

Jaune: You could say that… but, your goal wasn’t to destroy, Vale… No, no, no. Your goal may be quite well thought out, but you don’t care if, Vale fell. No, no, I recon your plan wasn’t to destroy, Vale… A definitive bonus if your plan succeed, but no. Your true goal was to distract, Ozpin… but, to distract him from what tis the question…

Cinder’s heart was beating erratically as this interrogation continued on. She had read, Mercury’s, and Emerald’s reports on the man; they read of a kind, and caring man who would lay his life down for his students without a moment’s hesitation. But, the man currently before her, was not that man.

He exuded an aura of cold, calculating indifference, and a predatory smile that sent shivers down her spine, the exact same smile he was giving her right now. There was a sparkle in his eyes as he came to a simple conclusion; the an answer to a riddle that answers everything he wanted to know, and more.

Jaune: You’re after the, Fall Maiden, aren’t you…?

~~~

Ozpin: The Fall Maiden…?

The answer to a question unasked escaped, Ozpin’s throat in a ragged whisper. It made sense, too much sense that this was, Cinder’s goal, she was after the, Maiden’s powers, and she was willing to destroy, Vale to get it.

Qrow: So it was her, and her cronies that attacked, Amber! Why didn’t I see that…?

Ironwood: She never did finish off, Amber because, Qrow came to the rescue, this is all an elaborate plot to get the, Fall Maiden’s power… I amazed that, Mr. Arc was able to come to such a conclusion.

Glynda: But, to go to such extents to acquire the, Fall Maidens powers seems a bit over the top.

Winter: Couldn’t she have just killed her when she first had the chance, and acquired her powers that way? Why did she plan to destroy, Vale in the process?

~~~

Jaune: Oh? Now isn’t that an interesting reaction!

An involuntary, sharp gasp escaped, Cinder’s lips as he effortlessly hit the nail on the head. Arc, knew about the, Maiden’s, in the case what else did he know! She looked away from him, daring to hope he would not find anymore clues in her broken mask.

Jaune: Excuse me, we’re talking; tis quite rude to look away from someone while we’re talking.

Cinder couldn’t look at this man, there was something off about him…

(Tap, tap, tap)

Jaune: Excuse me, don’t turn awaywe’re still talking here.

Something that could make the skin crawl…

Jaune: Oi, look at me.

Something that was deemed unnatural…

Jaune: We’re not done speaking, Cinder.

Something that was indescribable to the senses…

Jaune: Cinder… Look at me.

But, it was something completely explainable.

Jaune: Haaa…

Something so obvious, and simple, that it was often overlooked as an item of irrelevance.

Jaune: I said…

A semblance.

Jaune: Look at me.

Cinder could feel her entire body being wrenched forward, her muscles screaming in pain as they were forced to move in what felt like an unnatural, but completely natural manner. Her body was set straight in her chair, her head forced to stare at, Jaune face, making her stare into those calm, uncaring cerulean eyes of his. She tried to turn her body, to squirm in defiance as he stared her down, but she could not move her body by a hairs breath.

Jaune: Now, shall we continue our discussion?

Cinder: A-A semblance…

Jaune: Hmm…?

Cinder: A semblance! Y-You’ve been using your semblance on me this whole time! From the moment you entered this room, you’ve been using a semblance on me to make me talk, haven’t you!

Jaune: CorrrrecT!

~~~

Ironwood: Ahh, telekinesis!

Winter: He’s a telepath? That would most certainly explain how he was able to get, Miss Fall to talk.

Qrow: Nope.

Ironwood: What?

Qrow: The kids not telepathic.

Ironwood: He isn’t?

Winter: But, the way he forced her body to move, that’s clearly a telekinesis based semblance.

Qrow: It may look that way, but his semblance is nothing like that. If it was, I would be better at holding my stomachs contents when he decides to… let loose.

Glynda: I’d doubt that.

Qrow: Well… it wouldn’t be as bad… hopefully?

Ironwood: Then what is it?

Ozpin: It would be best to let, Mr. Arc explain it…

~~~

Cinder: Y-You’ve been using your semblance to extract information from me! Haven’t you!

Jaune: Mmmm… In a manner of speaking… I’ve mostly been connecting dots, and what not from what clues you’ve given me. That, and reading your facial expressions, any little bodily ticks you are showing off. I’ve mostly been using my semblance to make you feel a sense of unease. It’s been quite effective if I do say so.

Cinder: What is it; Telekinesis?! Are you some sort of psychic?! What is your semblance?

Jaune: Oh, nothing so… civilized as those…

(Tap, tap, tap.)

Jaune: Nothing like that…

Cinder: That tapping! You’ve been doing that ever since you came here… why?!

Jaune: As I said, ‘To make you feel unease.’

(Tap, tap, tap.)

Jaune: I take it that it has been working.

Cinder: How does tapping your fingers make me feel unease?! Do you have some sort of telekinesis based semblance?! I demand to know!

Jaune: As I said: It may seem liked that, but no. I don’t have a physic, telekinesis, and sort of moving stuff with my mind based semblance.

Cinder: THEN WHAT THE HELL IS IT!!!

Jaune calmly stared at, Cinder as her rugged gasps of breath slowly tapered out. Before he calmly responded to her question.

Jaune: I’ll answer your question: How is that I am making you feel unease, why the tapping, how I forced your body to turn to face me. I’ll explain it all. But, in exchange you have to answer something for me.

Cinder: And, what is that?!

Jaune: What does, Salem want with the keys to the vault, and what does she intend to do with its contents when they are emptied?

Cinder: W-What…? H-How did you figure it out…?

Cinder’s rage, the blazing inferno that burned within her body was suddenly snuffed out as if it was a match struck in the midst of a typhoon. What was replaced was stunned fear. She hadn’t mentioned a single thing, no clues, no hints, but this freak had managed to put together every piece of her plan, and managed to figure out what her true goal really was!

And, all he did was calmly look at her with a cocky smirk forming from the bottom of his lip.

Jaune: Oh I just managed to connect the dots that others leave unseen. Four kingdoms. Four Academies. Four Maidens, and lastly, Four Relics. My educated guess tells me that one of the four relics is hidden in one of the four kingdoms academies. And, that they are kept behind in a secret, hidden vault that requires a key to unlock them. And, that key, is a maiden. Am, I wrong?

Cinder: …

Cinder: You’re correct…

Jaune: Am I know~?

~~~

The group all stood back as, Jaune turned to give them a dark smile as he managed to make, Cinder spill all her information on why she was going to attack, Beacon Academy.

And, it had only been ten minutes.

Glynda: Salem’s after the, Relics? I can only imagine the destruction she could wrought across, Remnant if she had even one of those…

Ironwood: We need to tighten security back in, Atlas. And, in all the other academies at that! In all the kingdoms! We cannot allow her to gain access to any, Relics!

Qrow: What is she even planning to do with those things? They aren’t all that dangerous no are they?

Ozpin: She not after any one, Relic for its individual capabilities… she wants all four of them.

Ironwood: What is the difference is she has one, Relic, or all of them? The destruction she could wreak across, Remnant could be unimaginable!

Ozpin: Not if those two came back…

Ironwood: What?

~~~

Jaune: Excellent! Now that we have all the speculation as to why you are doing this out of the way. Now I must ask who your other accomplices are, and what they are doing, and we can finish everything up once, and for all. Alright?

Cinder: No…

Jaune: No…?

Cinder: You said you would tell me what your semblance was… I answered your question… But, unless you tell me the truth… I won’t tell you anything! It doesn’t matter if you torture me… I will never talk!

Jaune: No, that’s fair… You answered my question, tis only fair that I answer yours in kind. Tell me… I assume you’ve done your research on all of the staff at, Beacon, myself included. So, I can assume you heard about my nickname?

Cinder: Yes… The staff here call you, ‘The Sorcerer.’ But, none of the students know why.

Jaune: That’s because, ‘The Sorcerer,’ isn’t really what my nickname is all about. And, I can assure you, a few students know what the story behind my nickname is, and my semblance is as a result of that. And, the reason why no one knows that start is simply because they just don’t like talking about it.

Jaune: You see… I can use magic…

Cinder: Impossible… Only five people in the world can use magic, and they all happen to be female… which you clearly are not.

Jaune: True… I just like to referring my semblance as magic, helps others… comprehend my semblance, and its abilities.

Cinder: Then what is your semblance…?

Cinder leaned in and scowled at, Jaune as he returned her scowl with a devious and, all knowing smirk as he softly replied.

Jaune: Blood Magic~!

Cinder: What…?

Jaune: Blood Magic! That’s what my semblance is! I can freely manipulate the blood of any living being! Making them my puppet…

Cinder could feel her eyes darting to the right, and lefr, then back to, Jaune, and yet she had no intention in her mind to move her eyes.

Cinder: M-M-My eyes?! You’re moving my eyes?!

Jaune: I can also regulate your heart beat! Why do you think I kept on tapping my finger?

(Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…)

Cinder focused on her body, slowly she started to feel the controlled beating of her heart as, Jaune tapped his finger to a steady beat.

Cinder: You made my heart race at an unnatural beat… causing my body to go into shock because of my blood wasn’t flowing properly, causing me to…

Jaune: Panic. Yes, tis a very effective way at making people nervous. I have to tap the beat though… I could hold out my hand, and flex my fingers inward, like so…

Jaune held his hand before, Cinder, and simply made a closed fist that lasted, but a hairs breath. However…

Cinder: AHHHHHHH?!!?!

It caused, Cinder to collapse in pain as her breath came in hard, and laboured gasps like a drowning man struggling for air as water filled their lunga. Her eyes widened in horror at the stunning realization of what he had just done to her.

Cinder: You… Y-You… haaahaha… you were crushing my heart?!

Jaune: Correct… My semblance is no doubt among the most powerful there is. I can tell precisely where a person is based upon feeling a persons circulatory systems. I can even tell people apart to some extent.

Jaune turned behind him to look at the one way mirror, and pointed at it.

Jaune: Right there is, Qrow Branwen. I can feel the alcohol in his veins, don’t ask me how, I can’t explain it. Next to, Qrow right there should be, Glynda Goodwitch. I can tell it’s her because the blood flows differently in woman than it does in men.

Jaune: I can also tell it’s her because I can sense more blood in the… front.

Jaune turned back to look at, Cinder; his face etched into a look filled with self loathing, and disscontempt.

Jaune: There are many things I despise about my semblance.

He shook his head in disgust as he pointed back at the mirror.

Jaune: Ahem… right next to her is, Ozpin; I can tell because I can feel his body posture that indicates he is resting on a cane, and that he is holding a bug in his hand. And, all the caffeine in his veins. Guy seriously needs to cut back on the joe…

Jaune: Next to, Ozpin is another woman. I have no idea who she is, but I know she’s there.

Jaune: And, right there is, General James Ironwood. I can only sense half a man partly floating in the air… such a perverse feeling… I can feel the blood flowing to his toes on one leg, but on the other it stops when it reaches his hip. The same on his arms; I can feel it reach his finger tips one one hand, and yet on the other I feel it stop at the shoulder joint… Such a ghastly feeling…

~~~

Winter: B-Blood magic?! That’s his semblance: Blood Magic?!

Ozpin: It is as he says… he can sense, and manipulate the blood in a persons body. To say it’s ghastly is a understatement of a lifetime.

Qrow: He can tell it’s me based on my blood alcohol levels? I better cut back a bit…

Glynda: He knew it was me because of my bust…?

Winter: At least he takes no pleasure in knowing that.

Glynda: Haaa… A gentleman to the end…

Ozpin: James? Are you alright?

James Ironwood gaze was dead stead at staring at his right hand, his robotic hand. It was a terrifying thought, that, Mr. Arc could feel precisely where his body ended, and where his cybernetics began without even touching at him. He understood the pains wrought upon his body in ways no others could, not even the victim of such mutilations could feel.

Ironwood: I can… speculate why I haven’t seen, Mr. Arc until now… Such a semblance must bare heavily on its user…

Ozpin: Jaune tends to keep to himself out of necessity, rather than a desire to be left alone. To many people around is like listening to a thousand voices all at once. Simply put; it’s overwhelming to the senses.

Ironwood: I take it then that, Mr. Arc is done with the interrogations? At least…using his semblance?

Ozpin stared at, Cinder as she managed to regain her breathing, and steadied her heart beat as she stared defiantly at, Jaune. Ozpin shook his head at the notion.

Ozpin: I’m afraid, James… the worse is about to begin…

~~~

Cinder: Haa haaa… Hahahaha!

Jaune: What’s so funny?

Cinder: You told me what your semblance is… I now know what you can do with that semblance of yours… it doesn’t matter what you do now! It doesn’t matter what! I will not tell you anything! You’ll crush my heart before I let anything spill! Come on, Arc! Do your worst!

Jaune: Pfff! Haha… hahaha… Aaaahahahahahaha!

Terror filled, Cinder veins as, Jaune let loose a laugh that found everything, down to most minute of details, in, Cinder’s attempt to show her bravado, her arrogant pride absolutely, unequivocally hilarious.

Jaune: Haha-ha-haaaa…

Jaune: My worst? You think me grasping your heart is the worst I can do…? My dear sweet summers child… I can do so much worser things than that, that honestly; I’m not sure what my worst is!

Jaune: I can bend every bone in your body till it shatters, then put them back together! I can stop your heart, kill you, and then bring you back to life! I can cause a brain aneurysm, and kill you on the spot! Cure you, and again I could bring you back to life! I could crush your entire body, turn every muscle in your body in on yourself until your body is nothing more than a meat cube! And, I know I can do this, because I’ve already done it before, and I will do it again!

Jaune: So tell me, Cinder Fall… Do you want to just tell me who else you are working with, and what are your other plans. Or, shall I torment you with pain unimaginable that I may break your mind from the pain?

Cinder could understand that he was just saying this to scare her, that he wouldn’t got that far to break her. But, she knew deep in her heart, that he could do it. But, she knew he couldn’t kill her, he needed her alive, otherwise all her secrets would go with her to her grave. She resolved her, and she would grin, and bare what was to come.

Cinder: Do your worst asshole! Hak-sptoo!

And, with that she spat on, Jaune’s who merely rubbed it off, and shook his head in disappointment.

Jaune: Haa… very well… I did warn you…

Jaune leaned back in his chair, and held his hand up, before he turned to gaze at, Cinder one last time.

Jaune: You know… They say there are different ways one gains their semblance; Personality, or circumstances… I believe the later one is applicable for me. Cause you see… everyone thinks I’m an only child. When in reality, I’m the only son in my family, when I actually have seven sisters. So, I think I developed my semblance, just to shut them up, because I swear…

Jaune leaned forward, and gave, Cinder one more predatory smile.

Jaune: That seemed to happen at least once a week!

Cinder pondered for a moment what he meant by, ‘once a week.’ Until it dawned on her, and a terrifying thought appeared across her mind. If he knew how to deal with that, then he knew how it was cause, and if he knew how it was cause…?!

“Snap~!”

Cinder:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Then she would know what true pain felt like.

~~~

Haaa…

To think I went through all of that just for that last bit…

#rwby #jaune arc #cinder fall #emerald sustrai #mercury black #rwby roman torchwick #winter schnee #james ironwood #qrow branwen #glynda goodwitch #rwby ozpin #rwby salem #rwby amber

193 notes · View notes

hisunshiine · 4 months

Text

—immortal lust |myg|

🧛🏻 pairing: vampire!yoongi x vampire hunter!reader 🧛🏻 au/genre: vampire au, e2l, angst, smut 🧛🏻 rating: M 🧛🏻 wc: 8,783 🧛🏻 warnings: mentions of parent death (off-screen). creepy themes associated with graveyards, vampires, and vampire hunting. explicit smut: fingering, unprotected vaginal sex, voyeurism, exhibitionism, implied bdsm, implied orgy, biting, blood drinking (vamps, duh!), use of blood for lubrication (again, vamps!) 🧛🏻 an: thank you to my beta readers @downbad4yoongi and @lo1k-diamonds and @mrsparkjimin18. I know this ws rough at first, but I think it became a very enjoyable piece of literature in the end. @colormepurplex2, thank you for the prompt to write, and congrats on earning the most points for the network in the semi-annual tally! You earned it! 🧛🏻 summary: In the shadows of a world where the supernatural breathes just beneath the surface of the mundane, you are a skilled vampire slayer from a revered family harboring a secret desire that contradicts your very existence.

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This story is written for @colormepurplex2 as her gift for being the top leading point earner for our network, @bangtanwritershq and for our Quarter 2 event: Seven Deadly Sins

ᥫ᭡ AU Type: Lust — Vampire AU ᥫ᭡ Themes: Enemies 2 Lovers & Forbidden Desires ᥫ᭡ Inclusions: Bargains & Contracts, Confessions and Secrets, Explicit Sexual Content, Blood & Violence

masterlist ❁ ao3

24 Years Ago

“Why are you crying, Uncle Sol?” Eight-year-old you stands in the darkened doorway of the study, bleary eyes struggling to take in the scene in front of you.

Soleil Belmont sits in the overly stuffed, brown leather armchair in front of the fireplace. Your uncle by choice, thanks to the life-long friendship between him and your mother, Valkyrie Blake, is how he came to be in your life. The hands that cover his damp eyes wipe furiously at his cheeks, as if to hide the evidence of his tears from your sight. You didn’t even notice how he looked—the mud caked on his boots, the tattered look of his shirt under his leather jacket, the small cut by his hairline or the bruises starting to appear along his face.

“Come here, sweetie,” he asks, voice breaking as you walk in your thin nightgown across the wood floors, feet making quiet sounds with every step you take closer to him. Once within his reach, he places a clammy hand on your shoulder.

“There’s been an accident.”

The funeral itself was one of the worst days of your life, watching the twin caskets of your parents lower into the rectangular cutouts in the earth. The gleaming black lacquered wood was polished to perfection, only to be marred by the small handful of dirt you’d thrown before begging to be taken away from the graveyard, away from the scent of death and decay.

That day is when you decide you never want to experience death. You never want to be so badly injured in a car accident that your family has to have a closed casket. That you’d never see your child grow up, and leave her abandoned in this world. You hate that death is the inevitable end to life, and that fear leads you down the path you’re on now.

You - Present Day

The dream begins much like all of the other ones you’ve had as of late. You’re in an old cemetery—gothic gravestones coated in thick moss with flora obscuring the names and dates of the not-so-recently deceased. Large tombs with crumbling marble and ivy-covered wrought-iron fences, the overgrown oaks with Spanish moss reaching eerily towards your figure in the shadows from the waxing crescent moon. The dirt beneath your feet feels malleable as you step quietly past the final resting places of all of the former slayers. You’ve traversed these grounds before, more than several times in your adult life, as you’ve learned about your family, the work that they did—that you are supposed to continue—and can name all of the family lines that take their final rest here.

An eerie fog begins to rise from the ground, permeating the air until it covers your boots and ankles, weaving its way along the marble and stone placards, hiding the Lord’s Prayer epitaphs and angelic motifs from sight. A shiver raises the hair along your arms and the back of your neck and you sense him. He’s here, watching you with his luminous eyes and heightened, immortal beauty. You know he can hear the way your heart thrums in your chest, can smell the prickles of adrenaline that drip from the sweat at your hairline, and possibly the arousal as it seeps through your panties.

You attempt to refocus your thoughts away from the nervous energy, standing still. You wonder if he believes that you are doing this so as to not trip or step on dead wood littering the ground to make too much sound. You know it wouldn’t matter. Quiet as a mouse or trampling like an elephant would make no difference to this being. He is well over three centuries old, exact years he has been alive though are not documented anywhere. No one has lived after a close encounter with him to document his life pre-turning, according to the various journals and tomes housed in the slayer library.

All you know for certain is that the earliest records of the vampire known only as ‘Yoongi’ appear in the late 17th century, identify his maker as ‘Namjoon’, and his three known fledglings as ‘Heizi’, ‘Taehyung’, and ‘Hoseok’. Only one of his creations is dead—the one who killed your parents. A loud crack of lightning whips your head to the left, the flash revealing the amber backlit eyes embedded in the dark silhouette of the famed vampire crouched on the edge of the cremation tomb several yards away. Your amygdala reacts, heart rate spiking as he moves faster than you can capture—one second he’s atop the Van Helsing columbarium, the next he’s standing in front of you, strong hands clamped to your arms holding you tight, keeping you from moving. Your small but deadly sharp stake is rendered useless by your side.

There’s no time to scream, no time to do anything but hear the rush of blood through your veins as his mouth grows from a smirk to a downright smile, fangs glowing from the reflection of moonlight.

“You made it too easy, kitten,” he purrs, bringing his face closer to yours before dipping his face into your neck. He takes a deep breath, inhaling your scent as he scrapes the tips of his pointed teeth across the sensitive skin of your neck. “And to think you were able to kill Heize. I must do better at training my progeny. Oh well, another slayer to add to the crypt. You didn’t even last two minutes.”

Squirming in his grip, you try to disengage his clenched fists from your arms as his mouth descends to your thrumming artery. You wake with a gasp, hands flying to your neck to check for puncture wounds.

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Down in the gym at the bottom floor of your house—if you can call it that—you push your muscles to their extent, fists flying into the punching bag. You whip around, grabbing the thin bladed stake from the side pocket of your athletic leggings and plunge it into the second bag made for staking.

With a deep breath, you step onto the bag to pull your weapon loose, watching small bits of fluff flutter to the mat beneath you. Wiping the sweat from your brow, you check the time on the clock, noting it’s near lunchtime. Sheathing your weapon, you head up the staircase to sunlight.

On the ground floor, your eyes easily slide past the neoclassical designs along the hallway, high ceilings with blank walls, and columns lining the open floor plan with large arched floor-to-ceiling windows. The protein shake you prepared earlier sits on the top shelf in the fridge, and you grab it along with the jelly to make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You’ve just finished when Soleil Belmont walks into the kitchen, a gentle squeeze to your shoulder as he bypasses you to the fridge.

“Can we talk?” he asks you, but you don’t want to argue with him, not when tonight could be the last time you ever talk to him.

“Sol, I have to do this. You can’t change my mind about this. He sired the vampire that killed my mom and dad. He’s killed countless people for sport, leaving behind orphaned children like me.” You hope the finality in your tone will keep him from prying or asking more questions.

It works.

“I love you. And I won’t try to change your mind. You’re much like your mother, stubborn to the very end.” Your mother’s best friend and your legal guardian until you turned 18 joins you at the table with a bowl of grapes, a look of acceptance in his eyes. “You know, if anything happens to you, I’m selling this house. It’s much too big for me and I’m getting older.”

Your eyes gaze across his features: the greying hair at the edges of his hairline, crow’s feet meeting the creases of his eyes, the weariness in the undereye circles and fine lines. He’s nearing 60, an age you don’t think you’ll live to see. An age your parents never got to be. At 32, you live on your family estate alone, with Soleil in the pool house you had renovated years ago as a Mother-in-Law suite once you turned 21 and gained your inheritance—and learned the truth about your parents’ death.

Just as much as you probably could have lived without ever knowing the truth of your parents’ lives, and their demise, you didn’t need all the space he was trying to give you, but he wanted to allow you the chance to be an adult, have a social life and you assume a sex life without having to hear it. You appreciated it in the moments you brought men back from the bar or campus library, but other times, it was just…lonely.

As a Belmont, Soleil knew about vampires. His family is well known across Europe for their work in Romania slaying creatures of the night, and Soleil’s great-grandparents moved here in the early 1800’s to spread their knowledge to others to continue hunting as the new world grew and vampires spread to the new continent. This is how your families came to be friends and fight alongside each other. Until Heize killed three of the four hunters tasked with taking her out, leaving you and Sol as the only survivors of the Belmont’s and the Blake’s.

“I think you should. I only keep it because it has everything I need to train. I could practice in peace without worrying about people judging me for all of my weapons. Most people think it’s a little weird to have wooden stakes and crossbows when working out.”

Sol chuckles, making a joke about how between the gym being littered with staked bags and the UV lights that line the entire property at night, people would be confused when purchasing, but then the light leeches out of his eyes as he looks you over.

“Remember to keep your wits about you, okay? I never wanted kids because I knew that hunters' lives never end happily, and when I lost…we lost your parents and my fiancee, I wouldn’t have had a reason to keep living if it weren’t for you.”

You decide now is best to give him the ticket and the envelope.

“Sol, I think…I think it’s best for you to go away on a trip. I think I’ll be able to focus better knowing you are out of harm’s way if you leave.” You slide the ticket across the table towards him, the envelope underneath it. “It’s a one-way ticket to Paris and enough money to be comfortable for as long as you want.”

“You don’t think you’ll survive this, do you?” Sol asks, eyes searching yours for clues, but you remain steadfast.

“Don’t worry about me, Sol,” you say and he makes to interrupt you, but you don’t let him, dealing the killing blow. “I’m not your daughter, so you don’t have to stick around anymore. Go live your life. I want you to go and live your life.”

The hurt in Sol’s eyes is visible, but your plan works. His hand reaches out to grasp the ticket, leaving the envelope of money where it’s at.

“I don’t need Blake money; the Belmont’s have enough of their own.” He takes a moment to pause, eyes locking back all emotions as he stands. “I’ll pack and leave town. Don’t be distracted.”

Soleil walks to the hallway, turning back just once. “Goodbye.”

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The past 11 years seem to be coming to a head. You’ve spent all of your time after graduating from college training for today. Ever since you learned the truth of how your parents and Sol’s fiancee died, you’ve been plotting for this moment.

As a member of the famed Blake family, vampire hunting is in your blood. As a child, you obsessed over vampires because of the ability to avoid dying, and as an adult, that obsession helped you with your training. You knew more about vampires than one would expect having been brought into the fold so late, but you put your head down and studied more, learning all you could from previous journals and occult texts to gain insight into the vampires with ties to the one called Min Yoongi.

Several years ago you went out to avenge your parents, trapping Heize in a classic bait-and-switch. You didn’t think it would be so easy since she was estimated to be around 200 years, but she fell for it simply because Soleil was the only one she didn’t kill, and in her blood haze, she underestimated you. A simple ‘accidental’ dropping of a message from Sol that said where to meet, coupled with thoughts that you and Sol made sure to keep in your head to continue the ruse allowed Heize to willingly walk into the decrepit mausoleum that was booby-trapped with the thinnest of steel wiring criss-crossing the doorway several yards inside with you and Sol on the other side.

In her haste to grab Soleil, she blurred—her speed too fast to stop her from splicing herself into pieces and effectively decapitating herself was a pleasure to watch. Grabbing the blow torches stashed in the room, her body quickly lit up with flames licking the marble walls as you made your exit.

It’s been over 5 years since then, and every second since has been spent planning for tonight.

Min Yoongi - Present Day

Laying in the coffin in his home, Yoongi awaits dusk. His body is antsy for the moment the sun is below the horizon; even in his slumber, he knows that you are out there waiting. For him. He’s followed your movements since the death of his fledgling, Heize, watching to see how this novice of a hunter could have overpowered one of his chosen flock. Imagine his surprise when it turns out that it was you—the last remaining survivor of the Blake family who knew nothing of vampires true existence until you were an adult.

But over time, he realized as novice as you were, you were skilled. Your lithe movements and ability to track his kind was a novel experience for him to observe. You took down creatures of the night in preparation for what you expressed to your guardian as training for taking out him. Yoongi laughs to himself.

He admits you’re smart, the plan you laid out is a good one, but you forgot to block your mind from thoughts of the plan several times, which allowed Yoongi to plan his counterattack. In the light of the midday sun, even from outside of his home, he sensed you as you approached and left a note. He could hear your heartbeat, hear the rustle of the paper as you placed it through the mail slot of the front door.

His eyes shot open the moment the sun fell below the horizon. Yoongi hated that he was not yet able to avoid the forced slumber that overtook his kind when the sun rose, nor that he was not averse yet to the fatigue that set in beforehand, warning him of the lack of time remaining to the night. Elder vampires, of which he’s only met two who had lived over a thousand years, were almost immortal. The ability to walk in the sun and thus are not affected by the need to sleep when it rises. Yoongi envies them, but he plans to join them one day.

He flits to the main hallway, hand reaching for the note and taking in your handwriting in seconds.

I know what you are. I want to be one of you. Please meet me tonight and turn me, or I will tell everyone vampires exist.

An address is scrawled at the bottom of the note, but he doesn’t need it. He can follow the heady scent of you to wherever you are. Even in sleep, he sensed when you drew near and his subconscious couldn’t help reading the thoughts that lay in your mind. You truly thought this ruse would work? Hell, it would’ve worked on Heize, or his other fledglings, had they not known who you were. There is fear to be had with mortals knowing of their existence; vulnerability lay in the moments that the sun is out, and a house fire could destroy a whole flock in minutes if their kind is not careful. Yoongi cursed their inability to wake while the sun was out, and now that he knows you know where he resides, he must find a new place to live out his days.

A glance at the old grandfather clock in the hallway shows him that the sun is now well and truly gone, allowing him to slip through the entrance of the home and out onto the sidewalk. He takes a deep breath, searching for your scent through the others that encompass the air around him; the grass along the road, the burnt rubber of tires in traffic, the lingering warmth of the sun before its descent, and then the faint smell of jasmine flowers after a fresh rainfall. You.

Blurring into motion, Yoongi travels several miles towards the city, slowing once other scents begin to emerge. Thin crust pizzas covered in meat and cheese, overflowing trash and body odor, and a desperation that covers the city’s nightlife with a humming buzz. The fading jasmine keeps him moving, though now at a human pace as he approaches what appears to be a dance studio. The sign above the door confirms as much, and he’s not surprised that the glass door is unlocked despite the red and white closed sign hanging at eye-level for passersby.

The floral scent grows tenfold, as if Yoongi has stepped into what he assumes your bedroom would smell like. There is a strange undercurrent that he isn’t used to associating with you, but he assumes it’s just lingering from the studio. As he walks past the lobby area, the shadows of the fake potted plants and the empty chairs intrigue him. Why you chose this place is beyond his comprehension, as a dance studio such as this one, owned by the Blake family—your family—for years, is in the middle of the city and one of the few places not related to the hidden career path of hunting. Unless you count using dance as a way to build agility for fighting those who cannot die, well at least not die easily.

Yoongi’s cockiness as he meanders closer to the hallway towards the various dance rooms leaves him caught off guard when the sound of whirring behind him causes him to move unnaturally before going eerily still. The slightest misstep is only noticed by Yoongi, whose barely beating heart seems to pick up minutely—not that anyone living or dead would be able to tell. He chuckles at your meager attempt to lock him in; a motorized grate lowering across the lobby door and windows.

His strength could easily rip the grate off of its frame, but this little game you’re playing is just too good to walk away from without seeing what you’ve planned with his own eyes. It only pops into his thoughts once he’s walked through the back studio where your scent is the strongest, that the grate lowering was not part of the plans his Mind Gift overheard from you.

So it’s only to his own surprise when the undercurrent rises to an overwhelming level and he realizes what his hubris blocked out. The mirrored room before him is splashed floor to ceiling with blood.

You - Present Day

With the scent of your blood so overwhelming to the centuries-old vampire, you watch from the corner of the room as he drifts towards the mirrors and closer to where you need him to be. Your fingertips itch on the small switchboard you hold, ready for your plan to unfold. He looks almost dazed, eyes unfocused as his fangs poke his bottom lip. He looks so different, from the way the journals make him out to be, in person he’s much more attractive, and you have to really focus to make sure you don’t miss your mark.

When Yoongi enters the area you’ve marked off with tape, you release your hold on the button that allows two things to happen simultaneously: a set of low UV flashbang grenades are set off, the mirrored walls reflecting the blinding light with a cacophony of sounds to drown out any thoughts he might try to detect, and a 4x4 cage made of the thinnest wire springs into place trapping him within its confines.

You watch him through your military-grade glasses, the lenses preventing the bright lights from disorienting you as his brilliant eyes shut against the danger they sense. He is a few centuries old, and you know that despite the direct hit of the UV light, which only lasts for a split second, the slight damage dealt to his skin heals seconds later.

But your aim wasn’t to kill him. He laughs, a loud bellyful that sounds almost joyous until you flip the second switch, which sets the alkali metal aflame. His laugh is silenced almost immediately, a growl rumbling lowly in his throat.

“What game are you playing at, little mortal?” His voice carries an edge, and you shiver with delight. You’re sure that it’s never been this easy to capture a vampire that is several centuries old, but sometimes the best laid plans are the most simple. You step forward from the corner you were in, no longer hidden as the flames light the room and you pull off the tinted lenses.

“I’m not playing any games at all.”

He glares at you, the slits of his eyes glowing an intense amber shade—an enhancement to what you predict were originally beautiful brown eyes—and you bravely take a step closer.

“Then what, praytell, would you call this,” his hand waves gingerly towards the room around him, “smoke and mirrors set up you have me in?”

“I…I want to experience being bitten.”

This time, the vampire does laugh fully, his head thrown back exposing his fangs and the long lines of his neck from his sharp jaw. His milky white collar bones are barely exposed in his black, button-down, long-sleeved shirt.

“No hunter,” he spits the word as if spitting a foul taste from his mouth, “would willingly subject themselves to a bite, to risk becoming that which they hunt.”

“I would.” Your answer rings with sincerity, at least to your own ears, and you hope that the vampire can see the longing in your eyes.

“What reason would I have to give in to this request? The promise that you’ll let me out of here before daylight comes to burn me into ash? That you’ll let me out of this fire prison you’ve created? Do I look like a fool, mortal?”

“I think you’re desperate enough to make sure tonight is not your last night on Earth, and you should know that you hold all of the cards.” You take a deep breath before sharing your deepest secret with the immortal being before you, your voice rushing with a frenzied speed. “I only learned of your existence once I was an adult. Before that, I prayed to whatever gods would listen to find a way to avoid the inevitable—to escape death. You know I grew up without parents, right?”

Yoongi only stared at you, glowing embers following your every move.

“Of course you know. I killed your progeny for their murder once I knew the truth.”

He hissed at you then, fangs extended fully as his eyes deepened with rage. He looked as if he had half a mind to grip the flame-laden cage and come after you, but held back—barely. You wait, quietly assessing him as he reins in his anger, chest no longer rising and falling in unbidden anger.

“That was a death that I deserved, and your anger will not sway how I feel about it. But it also doesn’t change what I am requesting of you. I want you to bite me.”

Min Yoongi - Present Day

Min Yoongi doesn’t believe the predicament he’s currently in. A fool! He curses himself. A damned fool to walk right into the trap you laid out for him.

The flames entrapping his body are low, but still, the heat has him on edge. His search of your mind as you speak shows no pretense, but he remembers how easily you fooled him with your thoughts just earlier today. The scent of your blood sang to him, luring him deeper into the dance studio until his mind couldn’t handle the amount; it overwhelmed him just long enough for you to pounce.

Now that the flames have had time to thrive, the smell of burning metal drowns out the worst of your scent, and he asks you questions to buy himself time to think. But he can’t understand you fully. Your actions and words do not align with what he knows of hunters, of what he knows of you from afar. To hear you earnestly wish for him to bite you, despite knowing how hard you trained to kill his fledgling, contradicts everything he thinks he knows about the prominent hunting families.

And still, your request piques his interest. The calmness of your body belies no deceit, no racing heart or skittered words as you barter with him as if discussing what to have for breakfast with a partner. And he’s studied your body, unbeknownst to you. He’s watched as you brought home men to fuck, heard the way your body reacted to their attempts at pleasure, the way your nervous system changed when you lied about seeing them again. Has smelled your jasmine scent and can’t lie that he’s wanted a taste…if only to then rip your pretty throat out.

He realizes in that moment that you do not know fully and truly what it is you are asking for. There are mysteries yet hidden from the mortal world about vampires, about their bite and the effect it has on the living when not immediately drained.

Yoongi grins, finally deciding to answer your request after long moments of thought.

“I accept your demands, hunter. I shall bite you in exchange for sparing my life.”

You - Present Day

Your heart beats loudly in your ears as you walk away from his gaze to shut the door to the dance studio. You take a few deep breaths before turning around to walk back towards the switchboard, where you activate another switch.

A low hum reminiscent of fluorescent lights quietly fills the quiet of the room, to which Yoongi questions.

“Another precaution?”

You glance at him over your shoulder with a smirk.

“Just my way of making sure that you stick to your end of the bargain. Should you harm me against my will, I have a way to activate those lights lining the room, which are high-powered UV lights, and not just the ones that last for a second.” You look back at the switchboard, finger searching for the one to shut off the fire and disengage the cage. “The only way out of here safely is with my blessing.”

“Afraid of me, hunter?” His query has you pause your movements.

“Afraid of you? No. You’re my best bet at getting what I want.”

Facing the vampire, you maintain eye contact as you grip the hemline of your shirt, pulling it up and over your head in as fluid a motion as you can to leave you in just a simple underwire t-shirt bra and your denim jeans—you assume his bite will still be messy, and walking out of here covered in blood seems like a sure way to attract police attention. Again, you see Yoongi take on that supernatural stillness that only creatures of the night can achieve. His eyes are like focused lasers on your body, and you feel a thrill as you reach behind you to release him.

With unnatural speed, he blurs into your space, forcing you back towards the wall—a cold hand on your exposed hip and the other leaving a dent as it braces against the wall by your ear.

“Any of my kind could’ve given you what you wanted. It need not be me,” he murmurs as his nose trails along your jawline seductively. But in the next moment, his fingers tighten into your skin as he growls. “So why strip and offer yourself to me?”

You squirm in his grip, a sense of deja vu taking over as you remember the dream you had a couple of nights ago. “Because,” you gasp out, “you’re the oldest vampire I know in existence. Newer vampires have no control, killing almost immediately.” You arch in an attempt to create space off of the wall—you hate the way you feel trapped. You question whether you should have trusted your instincts about Yoongi.

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Why would a hunter want to be bitten?” His hand leaves the wall to grab your chin. A chill sweeps down your body from the points of contact, sending goosebumps along your exposed skin. His eyes flash a luminous amber. “Tell the truth.”

Your mind feels hazy from his command, almost as if you’ve stepped outside of yourself to watch your mouth open. “I’ve always been fascinated by vampires,” your voice sounds dreamy, a wistful look upon your face, “ever since my parents died. I want to escape that fate, I want to master death.”

A low hum from Yoongi helps break the spell as his eyes ever so carefully appear to peel back the layers until he sees through to the real you. The little girl who cried at her parents funeral and vowed never to meet her maker. You sense when he makes his decision, his eyes growing lighter and his hand tilts your head to the side.

“There is much you do not know, and you know not truly what you ask for.” He inhales a breath he doesn’t need, and his voice changes, a different tone taking over. “But your body reacts—it longs for this, does it not?” he teases. “I can smell your lust, your desire.” He presses his body to yours, firm planes and muscle meeting your softer curves. You feel the closeness of his lips as they graze across yours.

A small whimper escapes your mouth. “Please,” you softly beg so your lips caress.

Yoongi’s tongue slips between your teeth in a kiss of seduction. There is no rush to his movements, only a controlled, steady pace as he meets your tongue with his. You feel his teeth prick your lip as his hand moves to cup the back of your neck, pulling you closer. There’s no sound, except for the hum of the device and your heavy breathing. Yoongi doesn’t need to breathe.

You gasp for air when he trails featherlight kisses along your carotid artery, his hand sliding along your side and over your covered chest and onto your shoulder. Once there, he pushes your bra strap down and removes the fabric covering your breast, freeing it from the holster. His thumb circles the peak of your breast, taught from the friction. He must be enjoying the way he’s building the tension in your body, and you wonder if humans taste better to vampires when they’re aroused.

You don’t get a chance to ask. The insertion of his fangs into your neck is nothing like your dreams. The prickle of pain as they lance open your skin fades almost instantly when you feel the first pull of your blood through your veins and into his mouth.

You gasp, astonished as the euphoric feeling settles over you like a warm blanket and Yoongi’s arms wrap around you as he drinks from you in deep swallows. He’s taken in a few mouthfuls before he pulls away with a shudder that shakes his whole being.

“Divine,” he whispers, blood trailing along the sides of his chin as his hands move to fully free you of your bra, then trail along your curves. The contact is exquisite, the coolness of his hands doing wonders for the flames licking underneath your skin.

“More, touch me more, please,” you sigh, wanting nothing more than the creature who holds you in his arms. The feeling of him seems to burrow under your skin to the very depths of your soul as if he’s leaving a permanent stamp embedded.

His deft fingers cup your breast, causing you to moan with barely any movement. “Not enough!” you whine, uncaring at your petulance. Yoongi chuckles at you.

“Where do you want me to touch you, kitten? How do you want me to touch you? Under your jeans? Gentle or rough? Perhaps you want much more than that?”

You blink coquettishly, nodding yes and begging him to take more of your blood from you. Your hands reach for him, fingertips pulling at the edge of his clothes as if to free him of them. You��re rewarded with his alabaster skin, the light dusting of hair below his navel leading into the very pants your fingers fiddle with the button on.

His tongue laps at your heaving chest, and you watch as he cleans away the blood that ran from the bite he left. His fingers tug at your nipples, and you give up tugging at his pants as the sensation causes your head to fall back in a breathy whine. Your fingers have worked efficiently enough though—his pants fall to the floor and he kicks them aside to join the growing pile of clothes, and you add your jeans next in haste.

Another mewling sound leaves you when his tongue toys with your pert nipple, fangs scraping along the soft contours of your breast as he chases the last of your blood. When you feel your back hit a mirrored wall behind you, you welcome the cooling feel of the glass, though unsure of when you moved. Yoongi’s leg pries apart your thighs, hand dropping to the heat between as he presses against your still-clothed core in search of your clit. When his fingers push your panties aside and he begins to rub slippery circles against you, he chuckles lowly.

“How wet you are, indeed, pet. Yes, I think you want much more than just my bite.”

In your own mind, you agree with his words. You want so much more than just his bite because you want all of him—his bite, his touch, his cock filling you over and over as you crest in shuddering waves of insurmountable pleasure—for all of eternity. His lips drag along your neck as he speaks, leaving small kisses between his sentences. His fingers dance along your slick opening, teasing but never broaching. Not in the ways you want him to fill you.

He hikes up one of your legs so that it rests on his forearm, opening you up to him and at the same time that he plunges his fingers into you, he returns his mouth to your skin, placing a bite in the swell of your breast and drinking deeply. Your body thrums, blood pulsing slower to be in sync with Yoongi’s at every swallow of your life force.

You’ve never felt this way—no one has ever finger fucked you like this, and through the roaring of your blood in your veins, you distantly hear your own voice begging him for more. The heel of his hand makes contact with your clit, and you keen when he holds the position, fingers deep inside you to rub against the spongy patch of nerves as his wrist makes circular movements to stimulate your clit. Your hands work at the buttons along his shirt, pulling with haste and faintly recognizing the ping of the buttons as they ricochet free. Shoving the cloth off his shoulders, you’re exposed to delicate collarbones, a lean torso with blush nipples and a toned chest that tapers into a narrow waist. A small smattering of unruly black hair leads a path down the center into the briefs low on his hips.

You see starbursts behind your eyes as you cum, hard, walls fluttering rapidly around his long fingers. The air in the room is thick with need, desire running so deeply in your veins that you feel lightheaded. All you want is more, more, more. It’s not enough that he bit you, not enough that he brought you to ecstasy with just his fingers. You crave everything he has to give you. As if not of your own volition, you rock against the fingers still inside you, hands reaching to pull Yoongi’s face back towards yours.

Fingers twine with the hair at the nape of his neck, and with reckless abandon, you kiss him hard. The metallic taste of your blood mixes with a taste all his own and you relish the way the two mix into a delightful cocktail on your tongue. His fingers thrust shallowly into you as he slowly makes to remove them from your body. Your hips cant towards him, chasing the feeling until he drops your leg from his arm and you’re left empty and wanting.

The hollowness he’s left you with makes you want to cry, but when you try to pull away from the kiss and complain, he chuckles against your lips. “Hush, kitten, we’re just getting started.”

It seems like an eternity that he’s abandoned your pleasure, but with his supernatural strength, it takes mere seconds for his hands to rip your panties from your body, rid himself of his remaining clothes, bend his knees for access to hook his elbows around the backs of your knees, and lift you up. Your back slams into the glass mirror, and you feel the way it shatters around your body, but you feel no pain. Not when the new position has your core exposed to him and his velvet, steel cock is positioned at your entrance, teasing you with what’s to come.

The view of him between your thighs is amazing. Your eyes trail down his body, showing no shame as you rest them upon his cock, a blushing hue color fueled from your blood now pumping in his body. It’s erect, his lust for you is apparent as he flexes his hips. The tip sinks inside you with help from your first orgasm lubricating his entry, but he doesn’t let it get far before pulling back. He edges you with languid pumps, and you watch in anguish each time he retreats from your warmth. His cock glistens farther up each time he dips inside of you, and the unhinged, sex-craved and cock thirsty being inside you wants him covered in you, the smell of sex so overwhelming that people on the street can smell it.

“Oh, yes, kitten, everyone will know all of the depraved and debaucherous things I’m going to do to you.” He thrusts in with one fluid movement, and you swear you feel him in your chest. The fullness his girth offers splits you open like you’ve never experienced before, while his length reaches deep inside you.

A glance at Yoongi's face as he takes in your naked body proves that he too feels the snug way he fits inside of you, and is also expecting to see the bulge from the tip of his glorious cock pressing against your skin. A flash of disappointment when it doesn’t happen flits across his face, and you realize he was not joking about the depraved things he wants to do to you.

A press of his palm to your lower abdomen has your mouth open in silent pleasure as his hips swirl delectably; the pressure provides the perfect grind of his flexing muscle against every part of you that squeezes him, and the sound as he slips through you just to thrust in again only makes your lust rage more. It’s sinful, everything about the way he’s fucking you roughly is.

Gasping out sensual curses mixed with your name, Yoongi’s eyes flash an intense color, and as if reading your deepest thoughts, he pulls out of you and shifts away from the pane of shattered glass to one still intact. He flips you so that your breasts press to the mirrors. His fingers dig into your hips as he pulls them backward, his feet nudging your own apart. You brace yourself with your hands on the glass, breath leaving a hazy fog with each shuddering exhale of air as you find reprieve from the fire beneath your skin with a pressed cheek to the reflective wall.

“Fuck…me…” you moan out the curse when he seats himself fully inside of you, his pelvis pressed tightly against your ass cheeks as he lets out a low, throaty growl.

“I thought I was,” he replies smartly, but the shake to his voice shows how much restraint he’s showing. You press your ass into him as much as you can, rising onto your toes for leverage. Your eyes stare at his reflection behind you, watching as he curls his body around yours to lick at your earlobe. “I had plans of killing you, dreamt of the way I would torture you before I snapped this pretty little neck of yours, did you know?”

You didn’t know for certain, but you feel like all creatures of the night have the goal of killing humans one way or another, so it doesn’t really bother you. In fact, his words make you clench around him, because the way he’s worded it seems like these are no longer his plans. He confirms as much as his hips rock back and forth in a teasing rhythm that barely sates your needs for him.

“I’ve decided that this pussy is just too good to go to waste, kitten.” His head drops into the crux of your neck, breathing deeply. “Your sweet blood calls to me, and will taste even more decadent when you cum around my cock,” his tongue swipes over your skin before his fangs burrow into you with such an all-consuming lust, you nearly sob with how good it feels. His hips begin a punishing pace as he wraps his arms around you, one hand going to hold your right breast as the other hand drops between your thighs.

The pads of his first two fingertips slip around his thrusting cock, stimulating your weeping core before moving back up to strum along your clit, matching pace with each press inside of you. “You will make such a lovely creature, don’t you think? Cum for me, kitten, and I will make sure of it.” His words trigger a deep need inside you, words that soothe an ache you’ve carried since you were a child.

Your orgasm bursts from you in an earth-shattering explosion, so heady and rippling that you fear you will black out from the strength of it. You barely feel when his teeth sink into you again. He takes a deep pull from your artery, and your high gives him exactly what you think he was searching for. It’s almost shameful the way he moans against your skin as he drinks you in, but you’re so lost to his thrall that it only makes your desire for him deeper.

His thrusts stutter until he is no longer able to hold back, and he fills you as he rips his fangs from you. His head is thrown back as he growls through his ecstasy, and you blink slowly at his reflection, eyes tracing the veins in his neck now running red with your blood trailing from his mouth.

With more restraint than you thought he had left, he turns to you and you feel a fog take over as he asks you a series of questions about getting out of this room safely. You answer them each methodically, as if you have no control over your words.

You feel yourself growing more and more tired, watching every few seconds when your eyes decide to open again from each blink, bleary-eyed as Yoongi dismantles the failsafes you put in place should things go wrong. Your chest aches for him, wanting him closer to you, touching you, drinking from you.

“Soon, 달달한 피.” He kneels before you, dressed once again, hiding his body from you. You hate it. “It’s time for us to go somewhere safe.”

He pulls you into his arms and you preen, if you could purr, your chest would be rumbling in the pleasure of the feel of him. Your head rests on his shoulder and you try to stay awake; some part of you wants to pay attention to where you’re going, but blood loss wins as you sink into a deep slumber.

Yoongi - Several Days Later

Pain.

Your body thrashes with pain as the blood you just consumed spreads throughout your system. The last few days after leaving the ballet studio and entering Yoongi’s…home, for lack of a better word, has been full of the most exquisite satisfaction your body has ever experienced. You told him as much each night since arriving.

He’s reveled in giving into his most debased fantasies, and your body is covered in the proof; bruises littering your skin, chafing around your wrists and ankles, blood staining the rug beneath his feet where he now stands, watching you.

Yoongi hasn’t turned a mortal in almost 200 years—not since he turned the one you killed. You make a better replacement for her in many ways, he thinks. Your beauty, your mind, your 달달한 피, or sweet blood, which he can’t wait to taste once you’re resurrected. And because this is the longest he has gone since bestowing the Dark Gift upon a being, not to mention that he is closer to 400 years than he likes to admit, he is sure you will be powerful beyond belief.

He heals his wrist and glances at the time; he chose to turn you at sunset so he had time to prepare before he needs to rest. The marble walls that surround the underground basement bedroom of Yoongi’s home echo with your sounds of pain, so Yoongi leaves you in the bed as he ventures towards another wing. He knows that when the sun sets again, you shall be ravenous, and he needs the help of his brothers to bring in enough sustenance for when you wake.

His maker, Namjoon, lounges in his study with a beautiful woman straddling his hips. Her skin tone is darker than his, and their coloring makes a beautiful picture of caramel and chocolate swirls. She is draped over him, arms wrapped around Namjoon’s neck as she bucks her hips slowly against him, no doubt riding his cock now for several hours. Yoongi doesn’t hesitate to enter and approach him; he’s used to such displays.

Namjoon licks his lips as he pulls his mouth from her neck, and then smiles up at Yoongi from his couch.

“Well done, enthralling the last of that hunter family. One less family we need to worry about.”

Yoongi focuses on Namjoon’s face, trying to ignore the whimpering moans from the woman getting off in front of him. It’s making his own cock stir, and he’s tempted to join in, but then he wouldn’t have time to gather the blood you need. He indulges for a few moments longer though, watching the way her supple breasts press against Namjoon’s firm chest as she kisses along his neck.

“You can join, brother. Would you like her mouth or her ass?”

Yoongi shakes his head but continues to enjoy watching the beautiful woman as she rides his maker. He’s tented in his jeans, but that’s also a normal occurrence for all of the men living here, since you can always find someone having sex at any moment.

“I wanted to let you know that I will be inviting a few mortals over. I plan to head out with the others and gather a few.”

Glee arises on Namjoon’s face. “You’ve given her your blood, brother? Oh, this is brilliant. Another one to add to our flock! We haven’t had anyone else in years.” He sighs out in content and then murmurs something into the woman’s ear which has her shuddering. He sinks his fangs into her to enjoy her orgasm before turning back to Yoongi.

“I can’t wait to meet your newest fledgling, Yoongi. I must know though…will you be possessive or is she one we all can share?”

Yoongi smiles, his fangs poking into his bottom lip as he grins at his maker over the shoulder of the woman who is now leaning away, head thrown back as she bounces on Namjoon’s cock with a fierceness of someone chasing a fourth or fifth orgasm.

“I think she may be open to sharing, brother, she should awake tomorrow at sunset.”

Yoongi turns away with a chuckle as he heads to find any of the other five of their flock to accompany him to the bar.

You - The Next Sunset

It’s disorienting how clear everything looks to you. You gasp as a hunger you’ve never felt before takes you into its grip and takes over your mind. Lurching out of the bed you’ve been fucked in every which way since arriving, you clutch at your neck. The hunger burns.

“Come here, kitten, I’ve got what you need right here.”

You turn to the voice, and a bright splash of scarlet comes into view. You don’t even think about it, you just bring it to your mouth and drink messily. You latch on and slurp down as much as you can, wanting every last drop to sate the intensity, but the voice tugs you away. You feel anger but then you’re given another warm mouthful of scarlet and indulge gluttonously.

This time, when the voice calls to you, there is no anger, only a need to follow, to go to the voice and await more from it. From him. Yoongi. Your memories flood you all at once, a pulsing thrum as your pussy throbs now that the blood from the drowsy humans is in your veins, and you search for him.

When you find him, you stumble up from your knees away from the bodies and throw yourself into his arms. You realize you’re still naked when he maneuvers your body so that your thighs are on either side of his, bulge from his jeans rubbing your core from the friction. Leaning into you he kisses you languidly, tongue cleaning up some of the mess you left behind before swirling with your tongue to share the taste of the humans in a kiss.

Your hips grind against him, the kiss turning sexual in moments and Yoongi growls in response to your libido, now heightened after death.

“Fuck,” he groans as you unzip his jeans and reverently pull his cock from his boxers, and using a combination of the blood dripping on your chest and your spit, begin to stroke him with firm movements.

Moments later you return to your first position, straddling Yoongi as you sink onto him repeatedly, one hand gripping your ass and the other in your hair, keeping your mouth on his.

‘Just like that, beautiful, he likes when his cock is buried deep inside a pretty girl.’

You gasp as you hear a melodic voice in your head, turning your head behind you to see six men watching you take Yoongi’s cock as his lips trail down your neck and chest.

You cock an eyebrow at the men, all so beautiful, you could cry at their jaw lines and angles, broad shoulders and dilated eyes.

“Yoongi, I didn’t realize you liked an audience,” you tease as you slow your movements and put on a show, pushing Yoongi’s shoulders down to the mattress so that when your chests meet, the view of how well you take him, how well he splits you open as you sink down and envelop him to the hilt, is visible to all of them.

“I like an audience, kitten, and sometimes I like when the audience joins in.” The look he’s giving you as you continue to ride him lets you know the question he’s asking you.

“With this new immortal lust of mine, I think I’d like that too.”

Sealing your decision with a bite to Yoongi’s neck, you take a deep pull as you feel the bed dip with the weight of the others joining you for what you hope will be the height of immortal lust that will last an eternity.

The END

달달한 피 (daldalhan pi)- “sweet blood”

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thefirstknife · 4 months

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ViDoc... 2!

A lot of cool stuff shown, my favourite being the strike, but first I want to mention this:

They said that when looking at Ace of Spades they realised they have the potential to make the rest of the deck of cards so this is why TFS weapons look like this and have character portraits; they're a deck! And specifically, these characters were chosen because of their ties to Cayde's story.

Obviously we have the generic Warlock, Hunter and Titan to symbolise the Guardians, but then there's others. Ikora and Zavala are obvious. Bottom left is most likely Shiro-4; hooded Exo with Hunter knives, I'm not sure who else it would be. The hood first made me think Elsie, but the Hunter knives don't make sense then.

Bottom right? That's Maya Sundaresh! Both as human and as Lakshmi-2, as we've learned from Veil Logs. It helpfully also has the Ishtar Collective logo. For those that don't know, Cayde worked as her guard, as an Exo, while she was still with Ishtar on Venus so that's why she's connected to him.

And top right? We have the "neoteric kiyot" cloak with the symbol of the Six Coyotes. Six Coyotes Exo member with ties to Cayde? That's Micah-10. Micah-10 category 10000 event.

Also for those that don't know, back in Beyond Light we got a really neat story about Micah-10 as a child in the lore book Your Friend, Micah Abram and some associated lore pieces that confirm Micah-10 is this kid. In one of the entries from the lore book, Micah is exploring Europa and accidentally alerts two Exos who then end up panicking, trying to shoot the intruder and then catching the kid. Then on one of the raid armour pieces, we have Cayde's flashback to this event from his POV, showing us that he was one of the Exos (as Cayde-1 then). He tried to shoot Micah, not realising it's a kid, then later grabbed them and held them up; the implication here that this is almost certainly the source of his mismatched memories that made him think he had a son. Him holding Micah is what eventually progressed in him simply remembering holding a child and constructing a story to go with it.

Micah-10 is an incredibly interesting character in general, as she is the closest thing we have to someone fulfilling the prerequisites for a speaker; even as a child, she was having strange prophetic dreams where something was speaking to her (most likely the Traveler) and showing her as an Exo. As a Guardian, she has the unique quality of being followed by Ghosts and has the title of "den mother of Ghosts."

She was also illustrated for the Volume VI grimoire collection, the one about Ghosts! Her Ghost Stories lore book is featured there accompanied by an illustration which shows her with a sniper, which the weapon with her image in TFS seems to be:

And yeah the sniper appears to have trans colours which I can't see as anything other than deliberate because Micah-10 is canonically trans! (Link to my post about it with links to a few more posts about it)

Incredibly exciting to see her featured on one of the TFS weapons, especially after she was featured in the grimoire and also in the TFS CE, in the autograph book where she left her own message, and so did the Ghosts that follow her. It's also interesting to tie her to TFS when we're going into the Traveler, given her unique relationship to the Traveler that she's harboured since she was a child. Can she become more than just a lore character now? Please?

Destiny fandom when a minor lore-only character gets one new mention be like: time to write an essay.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #the final shape #the final shape spoilers #micah-10 #long post #me looking at this card and thinking then suddenly the lightbulb turned on and like. oh my god that's micah #please please please micah as a full character in the game #or at least more lore about her

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baldursgate3tempobsessed · 11 months

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hello! i’m not sure if ur taking requests but maybe an astarion x bard! tav who is neutral good? ik in game he hates it when we’re nice, so i’m wondering how you think he’d handle a tav who is not only kind but also not really interested in sex

Oooh, I like this! Time to bring out the bitchy cat energy. Because he is a bitch. Lot of Act 1 in game references here btw. Sfw, but y'know, Astarion sad boy backstory is always looming. Also conveniently ignoring the canon fact that Astarion doesn't know how to swim because I can~~~

Astarion supposed he could have come across a worse rag-tag crew of undesirables to associate with. It was made clear, disturbingly quickly, that he wouldn't have made it out here on his own. Not with the goblins and cultists lurking around every corner. And a damn vampire hunter for gods' sake.

Astarion could have done much worse than this merry-band of weirdos. Like laying dead in a ditch for instance. That said, it didn't change the fact that he was quickly growing tired of their leader's antics.

You were just so annoying. So selfless, in one of the stupidest ways he had ever seen. For one thing, why one earth would you ever trust a gith or Shar priestess? Or a vampire spawn for that matter. How no one had stabbed you in the back yet was beyond him, considering how you gave them every opportunity to do so.

Not that Astarion would, or at least not yet. But he could. Easily, considering all the misguided trust you had put in him.

But despite your flaws, he had to admit that you were capable, that much was clear. You were strong, quick, witty, and not above deception to keep the peace. He.... liked that about you, in a way. The extent to how far you would go to save others. It was courageous, as well as incredibly stupid, but he could respect it.

Slightly.

it helped that you were a cute little thing, even with the aggravating sunshine personality. Cute enough for Astarion to start thinking of... certain options. You would be easy to manipulate, he was sure of that. Enough so where his life could become one of your top priorities. You already seemed to like him, without him turning on the charm. It would be so easy to get you wrapped around his finger, with nothing but a few shiny words and some pleasant bed-warming. Nothing that he hadn't done before. And if anything, your absurd levels of kindness could.... make everything a little more pleasant than what he was used to. Gods willing.

And tonight seemed as good a time as any, considering everyone was still on a high from being the tiefling's heroes. You were excitedly talking at him, adorable in a frankly infuriating way. Or maybe the wine was working on him more than he had anticipated, he wasn't quite sure. But... your smile seemed extra enchanting tonight.

Enough so for him to get to the point after you asked how he was feeling, "I'm just looking for a little more excitement. A little more fun."

You cocked your head at him, innocently confused as he continued, "You know, we could always make our own entertainment darling. Get a little closer, so to speak."

"Sure!" You said, jumping on the opportunity faster than even Astarion had expected, "Can we do it now?"

Astarion blinked, pleased if not a bit surprised. He's not wholly against giving the camp a show, though the children still lurking about definitely put a damper on things. But maybe if you went far enough away...

"And can I choose what we do?" You asked, a wide smile on your face.

Astarion laughed, delighted at just how easy this was going to be, "Depends on how adventurous you're planning on being."

He hadn't expected you to grab his hand, easily intertwining your fingers with a smile, "I can show you."

Astarion hadn't been prepared for the quick escalation of events, but he was happy to abide by it. He nodded his head, giving your hand a small squeeze before saying, "Then lead the way."

And lead the way you did, right to the Waypoint of the swamp. Not exactly the most romantic place to be having sex, but Astarion had done worse. That was until you conjured the dancing lights, the dreary darkness suddenly transforming what should have been a putrid bog into a dreamy landscape, filled with flowers and freshwater.

Astarion looked to you, eyes wide, "How...?"

"We purified it!" You announced with a massive grin, "We did it this morning, before the party. Halsin and the other druids came down, I amped up their magic with a fantastic song, and bam! No more stench of the hag. Isn't it pretty?"

That... sounded exactly like something you would do, sweet thing that you were. Astarion nodded as he looked around, a little touched that you brought him here at all.

But as nice as the gesture was, he wasn't here for strictly fun. He had a plan, one that you were doing a wonderful job of putting into motion. Considering how you were in the middle of pulling your shirt over your head.

You looked at him expectantly, laughing a little when he rushed to join you. But before he could get his underclothes off, you were stepping away from him and... jumping into the water?

Astarion stared as you sputtered up to the surface, wiping your face with a loud laugh, "My gods, it's cold!"

"What on earth are you doing?" He called out to you, cautiously walking towards the water, "Are you trying to freeze to death?"

"Oh, hush!" You said, waving your hand in the air with a splash, "If we can kill an entire goblin camp than we can handle some cold water. Now get in already!"

Had he mentioned that you were aggravating yet?

But he hadn't made it this far to back out now. Besides, this was far from being on the list of the worst seduction tactics that he had to endure. Though it may have been the oddest one. Astarion couldn't remember a single time that jumping into a purified water pool led to lovemaking. But there was a first for everything. Though it didn't help that the water was indeed freezing.

"For fuck's sake," Astarion cursed when he came up for air, "This is your definition of fun?"

You giggled as you swam towards him, stopping to wrap your arms around his neck with a smile. Another unexpected move from you, a factor that he hadn't expected, but found oddly endearing.

You were playing with a lock of his wet hair, twisting it between your fingers as he wrapped his arms around you, "Well the fun part hasn't started yet."

Astarion laughed softly, his eyes zeroing in on your lips, "Is it about to start now?"

"I think it is," You whispered back, "You ready for it?"

"More than you know," Astarion murmured, leaning in to finally connect your mouth.

But before he could press his lips against yours you were dodging him, giggling as you whispered in his ear, "Good. Let's race."

And then you were pulling away from him entirely, diving under the water just to show back up a few feet away, a manic grin on your face, "Whoever gets to the opposite bank first wins!"

And then you were off, swimming away. You little cheater. Astarion didn't even think as he want after you, a childish competitiveness taking over. You still won, of course you did with that large of a head start, but he managed to beat you on the second and third try.

By his fourth win you were officially pouting, which only devolved into a splashing fight from there. One that he gracefully let you win.

It was all so stupid. Completely juvenile and beneath him. But then why was he having so much fun?

Eventually, you both got out of the water, opting to sit on the bank as you talked. Just... talking. Nothing more, and about the silliest things:

"If Halsin can turn into a bear, do you think I could learn how to grow an extra finger or two? It would make the lute playing so much easier."

"If you don't mind looking like a freak than sure. Are you thinking of literally growing them or having them attached?"

"If, and just hypothetically, Lae'zel and Shadowheart fought to the death, who would win?"

"Darling in all honesty, I think it would just devolve into lesbian sex."

"If you could go anywhere in the world, right now, where would it be?"

"...I think it would be here."

It was a startlingly fun conversation, one that had Astarion being sincere in ways that made him uncomfortable. But that didn't stop him from participating. The two of you talked about anything and everything until the sky started to lighten, both of you leaning into each other as you watched the sunrise.

That was something Astarion would never tire of, how beautiful the light and sky looked at the start of the day. Part of him still couldn't believe that he was able to see it at all, after two centuries of darkness. But now here he was, sitting on a peaceful riverbank after talking the night away, almost like... like he was a person. A real person who mattered. With someone who somehow thought the same.

You sighed, your head resting on Astarion's shoulder as you watched the pink sky, "We should head back soon. Before anyone starts to worry."

Astarion nodded, his heart clenching the slightest bit when you pulled away to stand. He... didn't want this to end. Not yet. Not when he-actually now that he thought about it, he hadn't done anything in the past eight hours that he had planned. The two of you hadn't even kissed, despite the fact that you had spent the vast majority of the night wet and in your undergarments.

How in the hells did that happen?

Astarion was still trying to figure that out as you tossed his shirt and pants his way. He stood, hastily putting it on while he struggled to figure out what to say next. He was completely off his usual script, at a complete loss as you re-opened the magical waypoint.

You turned back to look at him, that same sweet smile on your face that you had been wearing the whole night, "You ready to go?"

Astarion wasn't the type to stutter, but that's where he found himself when he blurted out, "I- wait- I mean, is that it?"

You cocked your head at him with a tiny frown, one that Astarion wanted off of your face immediately, "Did you not have fun?"

"I didn't say that, but it wasn't exactly the fun that I was referring to," Astarion said as he closed the distance between you, regaining a fraction of his usual forced confidence. Why were you so good at making him feel off-kilter?

He took your hand in his, reverting back to the seduction tactics he knew as he used his other hand to tilt your chin up, "I was thinking something a little more... intimate."

"I know what you meant," You said with a little laugh, giving his hand a small squeeze, "But my way seemed just as enjoyable, don't you think?"

"Darling, that's not exactly the point I was trying to make."

"Oh, I'm aware, but it was mine," You said easily, standing on your tip toes to kiss him on the cheek, "Thank you Astarion. It was fun, and I hope we can spend more time together like that in the future."

And just like that you were pulling away again, letting go off his hand to step into the portal, the feeling of your lips against his skin still lingering as you disappeared. Despite himself, Astarion brought his fingers up to where you kissed him, standing there like an imbecile as new feelings started to course through him. Emotions that he had no names for.

Maybe... this was going to be a lot harder than he thought it would.

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #baldur's gate 3 #asks #you'll pry my long posts out of my cold dead hands #cutsey #pre-relationship basically #our boy is trying lol #silly things

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