#hunter’s association event | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

saintobio · 3 months ago

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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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jinwoosbabyboo · 26 days ago

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Its For the Mission

You had to go undercover for a mission. The mission? Seduce the target to get information out of them. Your target is incredibly weak to a pretty face and a little charm. A/N: The boys know why you're going undercover and what you have to do. [Requested by: 17kurodaayumu]

‼️TW‼️: sensitive topics; forced proximity w/ unwanted touching, hints of sexual harassment & assault

"It's for the mission. It's for the mission." You whispered to yourself with a nod. Here you were in the hotel room of who the Hunter's Association suspects may be the head of an organization that has been strategically causing dangerous outbreaks across the country. It didn't take much convincing for you to agree to being bait. However, you didn't expect to end up in your targets hotel room ..... alone.

They were more than willing to tell you everything while you laid on the charm thick, perhaps too thick. They constantly trailed their hand up and down your thigh inching closer and closer to your forbidden fruit. You'd slightly adjust your legs to keep their hand at bay, but it never lasted long. Their hands trailed all over your body leaving a slimy feeling on your skin. You choked back bile as they laid sloppy kisses on your neck.

They mumbled every detail to their plans as if drunk off your body. There it was, you had finally gotten all the information you needed out of them to make an airtight case. Before their hand could sweep up your thigh again you twisted their wrist, side stepping to slam them to the ground and called in your backup. Your team rushed in as you stumbled out of the room vomiting until you were dry heaving into a trashcan you snagged from the bathroom.

Zayne

Zayne waited outside the hotel to pick you up once you sent him a text that the job was done. "How did it go?" He asked, shrugging off his overcoat to drape over your shoulders. "It went....." Your voice trailed off as you recounted the events in your head. "Let's go."

The car ride was silent save for the low radio filling the space. You barely let Zayne put the car in park before you flung the door open and beelined straight for the bathroom. You practically ripped your clothes off leaving a trail from the front door to the bathroom.

Zayne leisurely trailed behind, locking the door, closing the blinds, and picking up your discarded clothes. He found you already in the shower, steam fogging up the glass door and mirror. He could see you viciously scrubbing your body as if you were trying to remove it all together.

Something was very wrong, Zayne opened the shower door to find you distraught and shaking. As you stood there with tears running down your face Zayne grabbed your wrist halting your movements. Your tearful gaze snapped up meeting his concerned eyes and furrowed brows. "Are you trying to hurt yourself?"

You shook your head as if trying to throw the memory out. "I have to get it off ... I need their touch off me ..." You'd rubbed your neck raw, a single drop of blood ran down your neck mixing with the water. "Let me help" Zayne whispered as he took the African net sponge from your hand and stepped into the shower still dressed in his button up and dress pants. "Zayne....your clothes...."

"This is not about me" You stood there silent as Zayne gently scrubbed your body working meticulously around your raw neck; that was going to need first aid. He held the shower-head to you body and rinsed the soap off while rubbing small circles with his thumb where the soap washed away.

Zayne stepped out first, leaving you under the cascade of warm water as he shed his wet clothes, quickly drying off and throwing a robe on and coming back to towel dry you off.

Securing the towel around your body he then scooped you up bridal style and sat you on the counter. The silence between you two was far from uncomfortable it was like a warm cup of tea on a rainy day.

Simply blissful.

Zayne dressed your wound and kissed your forehead. "Would you like me to leave now?" Your eyes bulged at his question and then you saw in his eyes how worried and unsure he was. "No stay. Please." He wasted no time changing into a pair of pajamas you kept for him and then dressing you. He laid down with, pulling you close and resting his chin on your head. “Do you still love me after what I had to do?”

“Without question”

Rafayel

Rafayel insisted on coming with you on your undercover mission. "I'll just be in the background you won't even know I'm there" You had no clue just how right he was. The night of your mission you couldn't spot him in the intimate club no matter how hard you tried. It was like he blended in with the air itself. So when you ended up back at the hotel you thought he’d abandoned you.

Once you were stumbling out of the room Rafayel was right there. He rubbed your back as you wretched into the trash can before wiping your mouth and lifting you up in his arms bridal style.

“Tell me what you want” He softly demanded as he gently folded you into the car. “A shower…..I feel disgusting” He nodded, closing the door and walking around to the drivers side. He played music and tried to engage you in some small talk, but you were having none of it. You gazed out the window with dead eyes rimmed with tears.

"It's okay I can walk" You told him when he offered to carry you on his back. Instead he walked with you, one hand on your lower back as he guided you to the bathroom. He placed a towel for you into a towel warmer and stepped out while you showered.

You opened the shower door to find him standing there, towel in hand. You told him everything that happened as he towel dried you off. He showered you in praises as he moved on to moisturizing your body. Nothing sexual just reminding you of how good a job you did and how brave you were to be the one to do such a risky job. "Im surprised you still even want to touch me" You mumbled as you stared at the wall. "I want my touch to be the only touch you remember"

Rafayel stayed by your side until you fell into a deep slumber. Once your breaths were steady and you didn't stir in your sleep when he stood from the bed; he slipped out into the night. Since you had all the information you needed your suspect could simply disappear right?

Xavier

Xavier was quick to get you far away from that hotel as quickly as possible. "Did they hurt you?" He spun you around as soon as you two were back in your apartment. He quickly scanned your body checking for any kind of bruises or wounds. "Not physically" You mumbled, staring off seemingly in a daze.

Xavier's shoulders deflated at your answer he knew exactly what you meant. He didn't push you for anymore answers since the entire mission was recorded and will be in the debriefing tomorrow. "Let's get you cleaned up" You nodded mechanically as he squatted down to carry you on his back.

He gently placed you on the bathroom counter and held your chin while he brushed your teeth for you. As soon as you spit he was tipping a cup of mouthwash into your mouth; while you swished that he wiped your makeup off. Xavier couldn't help but stare at you lovingly while you avoided eye contact ashamed of what you ended up doing.

Gripping your hips he pulled you from the counter setting you on your feet. You didn't fight him as he stripped you down and then himself. He showered with you in silence, gently scrubbing your body hoping his touch would help relax you.

It did.

You didn't look at him until he was pulling a pajama shirt over your head. His eyes lit up as you scanned his face "There she is" he whispered, cupping your face. You held onto his wrists as a few tears spilled from your eyes. "Am I still special to you?" Your voice cracked as you shook from the memory of what transpired just over an hour ago.

"You're everything to me"

Sylus

You needed to leave you slipped out amongst the chaos of your team coming in to collect the suspect. You rushed out of the hotel, your feet moving faster than your brain could keep up. You fumbled with your phone trying to call Sylus, but your hands were shaking too bad. Suddenly you heard a familiar sound coming from above you.

It was Mephisto! You looked up to see him circling above you before taking off north. You chased after him knowing he would be leading you straight to Sylus. You were running for what felt like forever, taking turn after turn always keeping Mephisto in sight.

Then you finally saw him. His tall frame at the end of the street. You sprinted as fast as you could throwing yourself in his arms. He swung you around holding you tightly to his body. "How'd it go?" his question was met with low sniffles and tears as you buried your face in his neck. "Main suspect is in custody. Can we go back to the N109 Zone now I don't want to be here anymore" You hug him tighter in hopes that the feel of him will dissolve the memory of the mission.

Once you got back to Sylus' home he didn't let your feet touch the ground until you were in his ensuite bathroom. He turned on the shower testing the water before turning to you. "Strip." was all he said and you listened. You shed each piece of clothing and placed them in his outstretched hand. "What are you going to do with them?"

"Dispose of them obviously" He held them with his evol as he held the shower door open for you. "Take your time and only change into that robe I'll have something for you fit for a queen." You didn't understand why he only wanted you in a robe. "I'm not really up for sex tonight Sy"

"I never said anything about sex Princess" His expression was soft as he nodded his head towards the shower. You stepped inside more than ready to wash away that strangers touch. You took your time even went as far to simply stand under the water and let the warmth engulf you.

You stepped out, following orders of not dressing and simply slipping into the plush robe that was left on the counter for you. Sylus wasn't in the bedroom when you came out leaving you confused. You turned to see Mephisto studying you before screeching a loud caw and flying out the door. You followed behind him and he led you to the other side of the house to a room that looked like an in-home spa.

There Sylus was sprinkling the last of a few rose petals into a large jacuzzi bathtub. "Why is this all the way on the other side of the house?" Your brows furrowed as Sylus circled around you, shutting the door and guiding you to the tub.

"This side of the house is quieter" He untied your robe and let it pool around your ankles. "I drew this bath so you could relax I could feel how tense your body was and still is" He held your hand as you climbed in and relaxed against the bath pillow. You instinctively closed your eyes and hummed as the jets massaged your body.

Your eyes snapped open when you heard something being set down and your arm being pulled from the bath. Sylus had pulled up a small stool to sit next to you. He'd rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and was now massaging your hand; making his way up your arm.

Sylus took his time massaging your entire body while you soaked in the tub. He hummed off-key with the softest smile on his face. "I don't deserve you" You whispered.

"You deserve the world, the sun, and the moon My Queen"

#love and deepspace #sylus love and deepspace #lnds sylus #love and deepspace sylus #sylus #lads #lads rafayel #lads xavier #lads zayne #lads sylus #lnds rafayel #lnds zayne #lnds xavier #zayne love and deepspace #rafayel love and deepspace #xavier love and deepspace #nikaaaaimagine

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always-just-red · 3 months ago

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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 | Opt-in to my taglist here!

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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empty-vessel-of-a-person · 14 days ago

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Reasons why Sylus and MC’s Love is Strong and Enduring

The Front Side

Their relationship may have started in a wrong foot but they gradually (specially MC) come to terms that Sylus will constantly be at her side.

In “No Way Out” and “Radiant Brilliance” Sylus, the ever elusive and strong leader of Onichynus has no problem is showing weakness with MC. This is huge considering Sylus reputation. Being vulnerable and open is not something easy for a man like Sylus, but he let MC see every side of him.

Sylus is the first LaDS men to ever directly tell MC that he loves her and proves it to her in every way possible. (Source: Razor Grip)

Sylus is a man of confidence and conviction. MC is not very fond of him at the beginning (Nor he is fond of her) but I don’t feel that they genuinely hate each other. More like irritated and frustrated. But after all of the things ended in Sylus’ branch of the story, Sylus gradually but firmly makes his way to MC’s life. He always makes sure MC is alright and got everything she needs.

The memory “Wild Gaze” and “Melodic Weave” Is probably where Sylus gets the “sugar daddy” label. He really doesn’t mind spending his fortune with MC.

The Back End

They are on the opposing end of the society. Let’s not forget MC is a Hunter and Sylus is a wanted person of her organization. But romantically involved or not, MC never spilled anything about Sylus upon her return to Linkon from the N109 Zone. From this perspective, MC might be eternally grateful that she was able to return home, but this is huge for her. Considering she is all about being a hunter that not even Zayne is able to stop her from doing dangerous missions, her keeping secrets of Sylus whereabouts ans dealings is no easy feat.

Secret Dates and Escapades Shenanigans. This is one of the best tropes Sylus and MC have. The thrill of not to be caught together adds flavor to their relationship. We can see this on both “Melodic Weave” and voice call “Keep Distance”. Yes, Sylus couldn’t care less about what happened to him but MC is clearly not comfortable in the idea of them being seen together.

Given the conclusion above, they both still makes efforts to be together. And one of my favorite moments of them was during the “Riverbank Scenery” Phone Call. Sylus have to send a”suspicious” letter just to invite her out. And the fact that he called their meeting as a “rendezvous” instead of a date adds to anonymity on it and also heartbreaking. They may not directly say it,but they cannot be seen together. Which is why towards the end of the call, Sylus almost pleadingly ask her to stay with him longer.

The Consequences. By the time the we get to the “Razor Dance” memory, it’s clear that MC already has feelings for Sylus. But they are still keeping things a secret and I feel that the deeper reason for this is MC’s situation. What will happen to her once they are found out? MC might be branded as a traitor and lock her up. I know that Sylus will do anything and literally everything to save her but the real question is, will he risk it? I know for a fact that MC will not die but if the association finds out about it, she might be facing a problem same with what Ever Group is posing. MC has a very valuable asset and there is no guarantee that the Hunters Association will not take advantage of her as well.

The Conclusion

MC do not show any signs of giving up being a hunter or ever leave Linkon. She mentioned it in all the memories under the Wander in Wonder Event. She really hopes to return to Linkon and she misses her home. In the same event in the “Grassland Romance” with Sylus she asks him if he ever consider living in Linkon so they could always meet up and he readily agrees. With this we can assume the extent of Sylus love for her. He is willing to give up everything for her and be anything for her.

But although MC is not ready or willing (Depends how you take it) to give up being a hunter or leave Linkon, we cannot ignore the danger she is putting her self in every time she meets with Sylus. MC inviting him to live in her hometown can be taken as she wants him being in a more peaceful environment to keep him safe.

Their love story ma not be easy flowing but it’s not toxic. It may need a lot of effort, but it doesn’t make it less true. Loving Sylus can be a pain but it’s still rewarding.

#love and deepspace #sylus #sylus x y/n #lads sylus x reader #sylus x you #sylus qin #sylus x mc #lnds sylus #l&ds sylus #sylus love and deepspace #sylus x reader #love and deepspace sylus

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mingis-orangejuice · 4 months ago

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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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hunters-association · 3 months ago

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𐙚 for @hananoami and zayne.

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

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love-and-deepspace-wiki · 2 months ago

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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 · 3 months ago

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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heartpascal · 2 years ago

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 · 4 months ago

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*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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shomatoriashi · 1 month ago

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10/02/24; 01:06pm

sung jinwoo x fem.reader

anonymous asked: Hi, I have brain rot hours. So, what about Sung Jinwoo who believes that his significant other is his lucky charm? For example, he kisses them every time before he leaves them for a raid, and always comes back with new soldiers, abilities, or something of the sort. Or, in general, comes out with zero injuries. I know he breezes through raids easily, but it's such a cute idea! >w<

ever since sung jinwoo chose to live his life as a hunter, wishing to provide for his family in the wake of his father’s disappearance-

he always knew you were his good luck charm.

even during the times where he was still labeled as the weakest in the world, he felt that your sole presence was enough to ward off the looming threat of death.

you were someone he had known during his high school years, a mere civilian who had normal parents and wished for nothing more than to live a simple life, even with the existence of gates. you stuck by his side, never once minding his average looks or the way he dressed meekly, wearing plain hoodies and ripped jeans.

jinwoo recalls the day he spoke to you about his goals of becoming a hunter; that even though his powers were a bit weaker and below average in comparison to everyone else, he still had to do something to care for his little sister and sickly mother. and yet despite the concerned eyes that look back at him along with your anxieties, you supported him unconditionally.

that was the moment jinwoo knew he had fallen for you, clinging to you while promising you how he would work hard to build a future together with you. your own kind smile was enough to cause a surge of confidence to go through him, giving him the strength to continue on as a hunter.

now, it became a bit of a tradition for him to embrace you tightly while sharing a kiss with you before attending any raids. your words of encouragement would always echo in his mind, giving him the courage he needed to face the dangers of each raid.

from nights spent tending to his every wound to comforting him each time the nightmares became too much to bear-

you were always there for him, even when he was at his worst.

and you sure as hell deserved him now that he was at his best.

following the events of the double dungeon, jinwoo was able to escape death, obtaining a second chance by becoming the sole player for the system. and through a series of well calculated events, he was able to shed his once meek and weak self, becoming stronger than ever.

now known as south korea’s 10th s-rank hunter, jinwoo quickly became a sought after hunter worldwide, with hundreds upon thousands of people wishing to have him join their guilds or attend certain raids with them.

yet even with this drastic change, one thing remained the same-

and that was you.

you were still his good luck charm.

before entering a gate or doing a mission for the association, jinwoo would still embrace you tightly while giving you a searing kiss, stating how it was for good luck, allowing all of his anxieties and fears to melt away as he basks in your loving embrace. after his kiss, you would always reassure him, telling him that you would wait for his homecoming.

despite how silly it felt to be jinwoo’s proclaimed good luck charm, your boyfriend still swears that you give him good fortune. from mining thousands of crystals that could sell for millions, to obtaining a rare key to a mysterious dungeon, and even having a significant increase in shadow soldiers-

every single one of his greatest achievements were linked to you.

and you prayed that you could forever remain as his good luck charm, especially now during his time of need. not long after jinwoo’s mother woke up from her slumber, a powerful gate appeared in the midst of japan, and jinwoo was torn at the thought of leaving you and his family behind to deal with the raid.

you knew that jinwoo said that the gates had nothing to do with him, that he would remain in seoul.

however, you knew him better than that. jinwoo left your place after lunch, wishing to check on his sister and mother while promising to come back home to you after dinner. you simply gave him your usual kiss and tight embrace, allowing him to go back home as you prepared some things for him.

later that night, jinwoo returns home to see various tupperware containers filled with premade meals that should last a few weeks. his grey eyes widen at the sight of it all, mouth parted in a slight gape as he steps into your kitchen.

“these meals are for you and jinho, when you head to japan.” you tell him without looking back at him, already scooping a new batch of rice into fresh containers with some seasoned side dishes placed within it. “i know you well, jinwoo, and there’s no way in hell you would leave innocent people in need.”

jinwoo remains silent for a few more beats before shaking his head, already coming closer to you. with his arms wrapped around your front, jinwoo pulls your back closer to his chest, placing you flushed against him while pressing a kiss against your temple.

“how could i ever live without you?” he asks you with a teasing tone, eyes filled with love for you. you smile and meet his gaze, matching his expression when you frame at his face with your two hands.

“hm, i don’t know…. but you need someone like me to keep you grounded.”

“damn right i do.” he admits to you with a grunt, leaning in to kiss you deeply. with a sigh, you open up to him, allowing him to deepen the kiss and taste you. he acts like today would be his last day on earth, kissing you like his life depended on it all while delving his fingers into your hair.

when you became dizzy, and the need for air became too much, jinwoo pulls away from the kiss first, smiling down at you before pressing a kiss against your forehead.

“a kiss for good luck.”

you giggle and finish with your usual sentence for him, “and i’ll be here, waiting for your safe return.”

all stories are written by rei; please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works!!

#sung jinwoo x reader #sung jinwoo x you #jinwoo sung x reader #jinwoo sung x you #solo leveling x reader #sung jinwoo x y/n #jinwoo sung x y/n

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pmpmyread · 14 days ago

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Title: Crimson Vows Pairing: Nanami Kento x f!reader Genre: Vampire AU Summary: An ocean, a tragic death, and a plethora of unanswered questions. For over a decade, these are the things that keep you separated from Nanami Kento. When presented with the opportunity to support the efforts in Tokyo to investigate and stymie the latest surge of Special Grade vampires, you're compelled to leave your life overseas and rejoin the Tokyo Hunter Academy's ranks as a vampire Hunter, only to find yourself paired on a mission with Nanami, a reunion that sets you both onto life-altering paths. Content warnings: 18+/MDNI, blood/blood drinking, biting, violence, language, mature themes, graphic sexual content. Content tags: Vampire AU, romance, vampire hunting, investigation missions, action sequences, angsty/hurt/comfort plot with smut, mentions of death, processing of grief, power dynamics, brief allusions to mind control, POC!reader. A/N: This fic is part of the Spookinky event. Thanks to @tsukimefuku for hosting! Thank you @espace--positif for helping me with reviewing and for the banner! [Also on AO3]

“Can you show me the one with incendiary rounds again?” you asked the staff armorer.

“Of course. Let me bring it for you,” he politely replied as he disappeared into the backroom for the third time.

Less than forty-eight hours ago, you were turning in the keys to your apartment and placing your few remaining life belongings into a storage facility. Now here you were, halfway across the world, in a repurposed classroom that served as the Tokyo Hunter Academy armory, evaluating what would be the best weapon of choice for killing a vampire in your upcoming mission.

It was quite the displacement, and yet you did not particularly feel out of place.

The existence of vampires had been a well-kept secret until the early 2000s, when the Internet and the era of social media democratized news, and the spread of information rendered global governments and their covert agencies incapable of containing such an enormous secret.

Along with the revelation of the existence of vampires came the one of the existence of vampire Hunters, those humans with innate skills allowing them to detect, neutralize, and kill vampires with ease. As the daughter of two vampire Hunters, you were not unfamiliar with the inner workings of this world.

The armorer returned with what you reluctantly settled on, being the closest thing to the beloved piece you were forced to leave back home, unable to board the plane until you were formally re-certified as a Hunter.

This would have to do.

“I’ll take this one.”

As soon as the armorer registered the weapon to your name and gave you the corresponding ammo, you set out for your rendezvous point at the school’s gate.

A configuration of mixed sentiments swirled through you as you walked through the halls of the school you’d spent a year attending over a decade ago.

Some things felt the same, others were vastly different.

You walked past an old classroom repurposed into what was now a press room, where the Hunter association higher-ups would sit and give regular briefings, pretending that all things were under control and taking the credit away from the tireless Hunters that were perishing on the front lines. Every once in a while, they would begrudgingly trot out a prolific Hunter like Gojo Satoru, who was popular with the media for his blunt honesty and with the people for his affability. But not even he could lift the somber atmosphere that loomed over the city these days.

Tokyo was living through its worst surge of vampire-related crimes yet. Several deaths and disappearances were reported daily now, some people were assumed to have been turned into vampires, and some were confirmed to have been.

The lack of support to combat these attackers did not help. As soon as it had become public, vampire hunting as a field of work, much like any other highly specialized training, had fallen victim to human capital flight, with the top Western countries benefiting from the best training and talent by sitting at the top of the global capitalism food chain, resulting in other countries and regions being grossly understaffed.

It was partly what had compelled you to leave your equally important position as a World Health Organization researcher specialized in studying the effects of vampirism and to come support your old alma mater on the front lines.

But it wasn’t the full reason. There was something else, a restlessness that stirred within you for years now, a certain dissatisfaction with life, a sense that you were meant to do something else, and deep down, buried under these sentiments, a desire to live a life that could have been.

In hindsight, perhaps it was that rumination alone that pushed you to drop the life you were reluctantly settling into and rejoin the ranks of vampire hunting, straight to the perilous field.

The same force that fuelled the blooming feeling of nostalgia that hit you right now as you spotted the vending machine that sat by the exit you were just approaching, along with the cherry soda flavor you hadn’t had in years, compelling you to stop to purchase a can.

The same feeling that enveloped you as the first tinges of sugary carbonation hit your tongue, bringing a welcomed, familiar stinging sensation to your nose.

Perhaps it was that silent wish that you could never fully verbalize, as you closed your eyes and let yourself be transported by memories of simpler times.

In hindsight, you wondered, if perhaps it was this deep-held sentiment that somehow made the universe conspire for this moment to happen, in the exact way it happened, when you opened your eyes and turned around in time to see a foreign yet familiar figure turn the corner, heading towards the exit, heading towards you.

He was different, much different from what you remembered, taller, older, more built. He wore a suit now, you’d never quite imagined he would. He looked different, but it was unmistakably him. You recognized him first, but only by a mere few seconds. He stopped in his steps when he did.

Knowing what you knew now, you wondered perhaps if it was not something you’d somehow willed on your own.

Your mouth went dry as his eyes anchored yours. Your breath hitched, and for a moment, you wondered if you’d ever remember how to inhale again.

You stood in awe as you witnessed a decades-old forgotten wish, uttered in your deepest sorrows, granted in the most unexpected way, as a juxtaposition that no amount of fantasizing could have prepared you for; standing before Nanami Kento, with the sweet taste of synthetic cherry blossom soda on your lips as your name escaped his in a low rumble.

And suddenly, it was 2006 again.

September 2006, Tokyo

Changing leaves signaled a new beginning; a new season, a new semester.

For you, it also meant a move to a new school, a new country, and a new language, courtesy of the latest Tokyo-based assignment taken on by your vampire Hunter parents.

This wasn’t your first rodeo, having gone through half a dozen similar moves since your early school years. You’d grown somewhat accustomed to the instability concomitant with this lifestyle of traveling Hunters, had developed small coping mechanisms, and tried not to grow too attached to your classmates and your teachers, always keeping in mind that this would likely be temporary. It got easier, as you got older, and over time.

But it didn’t make it any less painful.

While you were raised in an era where Hunters were newly revered for their innate powers, this admiration didn’t translate well on the school playground.

Following you was a perceived air of superiority and prestige that you’d never wished to carry. Even in the most diverse of environments, it was easy for you to stick out. Being alone was one thing. Feeling lonely while surrounded by people was the worst.

This year would be different, you told yourself. You would attend one institution dedicated to training the next generation of Hunters. Even if it was in a new country, you’d at least have that in common with them, right?

Wrong.

For starters, you started in September, which was the second semester of the Japanese school year. What you found instead were friend groups already formed, and after the novelty of having a new student wore off, you were quickly relegated to your own corner.

There were still some things that made you different, like your darker complexion, your textured hair, and the slight language barrier. So for the next couple of weeks, you began mentally bringing yourself down from the high hopes you’d created for yourself and attempted a soft landing at the reality that this year would be more of the same.

One day, you were eating lunch on the school’s rooftop. You heard their conversation before you saw them, and could immediately identify their voices. Your two inseparable classmates, Haibara Yu, and Nanami Kento.

Haibara’s voice grew more animated as he seemed to be recounting the exciting twist from a movie he’d seen. Haibara paused when your eyes met and you heard him say something indistinguishable to Nanami, then he waved at you and they both made their way towards you.

Haibara was the one who spoke first. “Have you seen it? Human Earthworm? I think it has the potential to become a series.”

You sat quietly, for a moment, watching Haibara open his bento box. You looked at him and then you locked eyes with Nanami briefly, before he returned his attention to unwrapping his lunch, what looked like a sandwich he’d just purchased at the convenience store.

“Haibara, you shouldn’t assume that everyone has the same weird taste in movies as you,” he said with a sigh.

You were so caught off-guard by the casual way by which they’d included you in their conversation, without preamble, without the awkward introduction, as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

“I have seen it, actually,” you finally replied. “I think it was good, but they left things too open at the end. Perhaps they’re saving it for a sequel?”

“Exactly! That’s what I keep saying. People say it’s a cult classic, but they underestimate this franchise. I think it has the potential to go mainstream. See, Nanami, I’m not crazy after all!” he said, elbowing his friend.

The conversation continued until you’d all finished your lunch and walked back to class together. It all happened suddenly and organically. You shared every single one of your lunches together for the rest of your time there. Soon enough, you did everything together, from studying to training to group projects.

The dynamic between the three of you remained the same.

With Haibara, it was an instant connection. He was so easy to talk to, especially since you had similar tastes in movies and games. It was like connecting with a long-lost brother.

With Nanami, it was a slower, more subtle connection, manifested in moments of understanding exchanged in quiet pauses between classes when it was just you two together. Or the one you had one day, after school, while you were studying for one of your theoretical tests.

“Okay Haibara, rapid-fire questions this time. Focus!”

“Hit me!”

“What are the two types of vampires?”

“Bloodborn and Turned vampires!”

“Good. How do the two types of vampires come to be?”

“Bloodborn are vampires by lineage, Turned vampires are turned by Bloodborns.”

“Correct. And how do you neutralize them? ”

“A Hunter of equal level can kill turned vampires or above. Special Grade vampires are significantly stronger than graded vampires and must be killed by a Special Grade Hunter. Bloodborn vampires are even stronger and are rarely killed by anyone other than fellow Bloodborns.”

Nanami, who had disappeared to fetch you all some drinks from the vending machine, reappeared in your peripheral vision with two cans. He lightly tapped Haibara’s face with one of them.

“You forgot one thing,” he said, handing you the other can, a cherry blossom soda.

“Bloodborns can temporarily cure Special Grade vampires,” he added, in his usual impassive tone.

“That is statistically so rare that it’s practically technicality. I don’t think that will be a question on the exam,” you said as you reached to take the can.

“Why not?” he asked, pulling back on the can.

“Tell me, Nanami, what kind of Bloodborn would willingly cure a lowly Special Grade vampire?” You tugged on the can, finally snatching it out of his hands.

“I don’t know. Perhaps they have a pact or something. But there’s a non-zero possibility it could happen.” He took his seat on the bench on the other side of Haibara.

“That is way too specific. Haibara, I wouldn’t worry about it, Nanami’s just being pedantic. Again.”

“So you don’t think it could be a trick question?”

You rolled your eyes. Haibara, who sat between you and had watched the scene unfold quietly up to that point, let out a giggle. You could almost feel the inevitable teasing comment he was going to make melt onto his tongue as you watched his eyes focus on something ahead of him, glowing in recognition.

“Ah, Ieri-san. I have a question for you!” He jumped up, briskly walking towards Shoko, who was heading towards the vending machines.

“God, they never stock these machines, I swear,” Shoko lamented.

Her comment brought your attention to the vending machine, and it was only then that you spotted the glaring gap right where the cherry blossom soda was usually stocked.

Your attention turned to Nanami, who had since returned his attention to his textbook. Notably missing from his hand was his own drink, the one he’d expressed craving just a few minutes earlier. His favorite flavor. You knew this because he was the one who had introduced it to you.

The one he’d let you have the last can of.

Nanami Kento was too altruistic for his own good sometimes. It was something that both frustrated you and endeared you to him. You opened what you now knew to be the last cherry soda, making a show of it.

“Nanami, I don’t know if I can drink all of this. Split it with me?”

You got up and walked up to him to minimize his chances of refusing. You shoved the can into his field of view, forcing him to interrupt his reading. When he met your gaze, it was initially with an annoyed scowl he schooled back to neutrality as his eyes narrowed in realization.

“You don’t have to share with me,” he said as he averted his gaze and attempted to return to his textbook.

You acted oblivious. “I’m still full from lunch. I can’t drink all this.” When you noticed he wouldn’t bite, you added, “Come on, you know Haibara doesn’t like this flavor. If you don’t take it, I will literally spill the rest and it will go to waste. How tragic would that be?”

“Alright, fine,” he finally relented and accepted your offering, downing half of it in one shot. Just as he was about to grab his sleeve to wipe down the rim, you nabbed the can back and directly took a slow, deliberate sip from the can where his lips were a mere few seconds ago. You watched as his cheeks took a crimsoned tinge, your eyes anchoring his in playful challenge.

“I see you, Nanami.” It was all you said before Haibara returned and you retook your seat, savoring the saccharine taste of cherry blossom soda, and one of many silent, unspoken sparks that traveled between you and Nanami.

The end of the school year arrived in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, as did the end of your parents’ assignment. What you’d spent weeks convincing yourself to be a practiced indifference to the tension invoked by the separation from who you considered to be your two closest friends ever quickly proved itself to be a complete mirage on the last day of classes. Try as you might, you could not mask your melancholy.

On one of those last days, you were traveling back to campus from a rough Hunter mission.

“Geez, these missions are getting more and more intense, don’t you think?”

“They’re not only intense, but some of these are also borderline mis-leveled,” said Nanami. He seemed even more irritated than usual.

“Yes, but we’re the dream team! Together, we can handle anything!” Then looking at you, “Ahh, we’re going to miss this so much. These missions won’t be the same without you around!”

“Nanami won’t miss me.” The words spilled out before you could stop yourself. And you felt a thrill when his eyes finally shot up at you, the first reaction you’d gotten out of him today.

“What makes you say that?”

“He doesn’t sound like he will. He didn’t even acknowledge our final mission together. In fact, I think I was a pain for him more than anything else.” You replied.

“You sure enjoy making these snap judgments about me. Have you ever considered I’m still recovering from this brutal mission we were just on?” Nanami said.

“You couldn’t be more wrong. Nanamin will miss you the most! He’s just not good with goodbyes.” Haibara cut in.

“Yeah? Is that true Nanamin?” you asked, parroting Haibara’s nickname for him, feigning indifference to a question that suddenly meant so much to you. As you sat there at the mercy of his response, you felt everything inside you balancing on the edge of some invisible cliff. You wondered when exactly it was that this boy grew this much in importance to you.

“More importantly, we should get Haibara to the infirmary as soon as possible,” Nanami said, referring to the minor scratches sustained by your friend in an attempt to change the topic.

But you knew, in the way Nanami’s eyes averted yours, in the fact that he did not address let alone reproach you from calling him by the affectionate nickname that bothered him, in the way he deliberately evaded confirming the incriminating portion of Haibara’s declaration. You knew, later that month, when you stood at the school’s gate for the last time, and you embraced him in a hug, in the way he squeezed you for longer than necessary, in the way he tilted his head an angle so that this moment could stay between you two, you just knew that he meant every word when he finally whispered in your ear. “I do hate goodbyes.”

Haibara’s rambling cut into the moment: “… and besides, we’ve got online chat now! So there’s no excuse not to stay in touch, okay?”

It technically wasn’t your final conversation together, but it might as well have been because it ended up being the one you replayed in your mind the most in the years that followed.

You did stay in touch, even after you moved back overseas. Despite the time zone differences, despite the varying busy schedules, not a single forty-eight-hour cycle passed without your hearing from one or both of them.

Until one day.

Three days passed without action in reply to your last message, which was composed of you venting about the harsh winter you were dealing with in your current city.

Three days turned into a week, and a week into two.

Part of you assumed that your two friends were unusually busy, while the other couldn’t help but wonder if this was the point at which all your long-distance friendships seemed to inevitably taper off.

Only when your last message timestamp showed “17 days ago” did you finally get a message. It was from Nanami, asking if he could voice call you. You were thankful that it was a Friday and that you were uncharacteristically staying up and happened to be online at your computer at the time. You quickly typed your reply:

Yes, of course, is everything okay?

You kept your eye on the typing indicator as it appeared and disappeared repeatedly as you fumbled into your drawers, fishing for your old headset. When you connected to the call, your blooming giddiness lasted only for the short time it took you to detect the pain in Nanami’s voice as he confirmed he could, in fact, hear you.

Almost a year and an ocean separated you from the last time you’d heard it and yet it was something like no other. You didn’t get to ask what was wrong before he engaged in a retelling of the worst news you could have ever received.

Your friend Haibara. Gone.

A mission gone viciously wrong, mis-leveled, a Bloodborn of all things.

What the fuck.

The shock immobilized you in your seat, and until this day, you didn’t understand how you’d managed to commit every single word Nanami said to your memory, a conversation you would mentally revisit over and over again years later. Perhaps it was in the substance of what he was saying, the incisiveness of his words, or the unusually heavy emotion with which he uttered them that made the entire call painfully memorable.

You didn’t realize how uncontrollably you were crying until you reflexively sniffled and heard it unceremoniously echo on Nanami’s side. A reminder that you were here on earth, that this was not a nightmare, that you were on this call, on the other side of the world, with Nanami.

Nanami, who had barely escaped with his life, who had witnessed the entire ordeal.

Who had watched your friend die.

You desperately tried to calm yourself down, taking deep breaths, preparing to break the silence you were only now noticing had settled between you, punctuated only by your sniffles.

“Nanami, what about yo-”

“I have to go now.”

“Wait! Let’s chat tomorrow? Or I guess later tonight, your time. If you can?”

“If I can.”

“Nanami, you’ll talk to me? This is all so fucked, but I’m here if you want to talk.” You tried to keep your composure, because how could you offer to help you didn’t seem to have “I know I’m not there but I’m here for you.”

A pause and what sounded like a sharp exhale from his end.

“I have to go.”

“Okay. Talk later.” Your intonation was more akin to a question rather than a statement.

The call disconnected, and its summary added itself to the bottom of your group chat, a string of text, showing that the call had lasted just under ten minutes and that only two out of three group members had attended. This screen, these words would be the only thing that held your company the next day, and the one after that, and the one after that, as you spent nearly all of your free time not spent in classes or getting what little sleep your mind would allow you to, staring at the screen in the hopes to catch a message or call that would never come.

You waited, and you worried, and you wondered.

You pinged him. Every day, for weeks. Every week, for months.

Your worry grew into sadness, then frustration, then numbness.

It took you a few months to come to the reality that you should stop waiting, that you shouldn’t expect anything, that the circumstances would not change.

That you had had your final conversation with Nanami Kento, and that you were alone again, mourning simultaneously the death of a friend and the loss of a friendship.

Current day, Tokyo

It was under a caliginous sky that you embarked on what would be your first mission back with Nanami. You learned Ijichi was the name of the driver who was escorting you to your mission location. You had barely caught it, in his unceremonious introduction, a welcomed interruption of whatever was going to happen after Nanami uttered your name.

By the time you turned your attention from Ijichi back to Nanami, he was already headed towards the exit. It took a moment for your mind to make the mental migration back to reality and connect the dots on what was occurring.

You were going on your Hunter recertification mission. Nanami. He was your mission supervisor.

Your mind still couldn’t reconcile what you were seeing with your eyes. You hardly felt ready to tackle a real hunting mission. But you would have to. Your recertification now hinged on it.

Years of imagining out how this moment, which you never believed would happen, could play out, and never did you imagine sharing the backseat of a Tokyo Hunter Academy issued car with Nanami on the way to a hunting mission. It was the closest you’d been to him in years, and yet somehow, the most distant you’ve ever felt.

The tension in the car was palpable. It had been a quiet ride so far. A glance at the GPS indicated you were still 20 minutes out from the mission’s location. You were growing restless. Nanami had not stopped tapping on his phone since the beginning of the trip.

“Have you been briefed?”

“What?”

“For this mission, has anyone briefed you yet?”

“No, not yet. At orientation, they told me I’d be briefed by my re-cert supervisor.”

“This process is so inconsistent,” you barely heard him mumble.

“What?” You said for the second time, feeling a little silly as you did.

He put away his phone and turned to face you. The moonlight filtered through the car window, perfectly hitting at an angle that highlighted his chiseled jaw.

Even in the car’s darkness, there was no mistake; he was too handsome. His eyes levelled with yours and for a moment, you felt time stop. You averted your gaze for a bit to collect yourself, your eyes catching Ijichi’s in the rearview mirror in surprise, and he, in turn, also averted his. The reminder of another observer in the car was enough to school you back to reality.

“I apologize for the disorganization. The recent crises have completely destabilized the onboarding process. I’ll be your recertification supervisor. My task is to evaluate whether you’re fit for field missions, and to recommend a level for you. Seeing as you already have extensive field experience, this will mainly be a levelling evaluation.” He paused, as though to leave room for any interjection.

“Okay,” was all you could say.

“We’re heading to the lake shore forest at the edge of the city. The latest surge of Special Grade vampires points to a deliberate effort from a Bloodborn to create them. The intel collected over the last few weeks points towards this area s being a prime location for disappearances.”

“I’ve read about this. It seems to have seriously picked up in the last month or so.

“Yes. The entrance we’re surveying is opposite the one that was red taped. The goal is to retrace where specifically these Turned vampires seem to come from.”

He moved the tablet to the center seat to allow you a better view. You both inadvertently leaned in at the same time, meeting in the middle. You tried to pay attention to the indicators he was drawing on the digital map he was showing you, but your focus was elsewhere. His clean smell, a mix of leather and cedar sent you on a tailspin that somehow had you imagining what he looked like when he applied whatever cologne he had on. You desperately pulled yourself together, an attempt to prove to yourself that you were not so far gone that simple smells could make you lose control.

Until he spoke.

His voice was low, rumbling, baritone.

“Ours is a recon assignment. Two, maybe three dozen Turned vampires are the most I’d expect, based on the reports from the previous teams who were recently there.”

And then he added, “Your first few missions back might feel daunting at first, but I’m certain that you’ll get quickly accustomed.”

You felt him lift his eyes to look at you.

Were those words of encouragement?

He was being so overly formal and professional to you. It would have driven you insane if he wasn’t also so kind and caring. It was reminiscent of the high school days where he took on the role of unofficial tutor in your friend’s group.

You recalled how your classmates gravitated towards Nanami around exam season, valuing his ability to break down concepts into their simplest forms, and to capstone his explanation with a few encouraging words. He was well suited for this kind of role, that much was undeniable. For a second, it was like no time had elapsed between the days he would pep talk you and Haibara before a big test.

It almost made you forget about the elephant in the room.

Almost.

You wondered what this conversation would sound like, were you not on this mission, were Ijichi not in the car, were your Hunter license recertification not hinging on Nanami Kento’s sign-off.

It was not lost on you that he had, so far, successfully used professionalism as a shield against the major topic at hand. For now, you would respect this unspoken armistice, you told yourself.

But only for now.

You clipped your flashlight to your holster as the two of you advanced into the forest. You had already taken out two hordes of Turned vampires, already more than the three dozen Nanami had expected. You’d successfully taken them out.

“Something’s off tonight,” he mumbled.

Just as you were going to ask him to expand on his statement, you felt it before you saw it. It first came as a rapid movement from the corner of your eye, and you knew Nanami did too, based on his sudden alertness.

“Special Grade,” he said. “Two… No, three of them.”

“I don’t think so.”

Nanami raised an eyebrow at you.

“Care to elaborate?”

“The signature is too strong.”

“Which is why I count three…”

“No, I think it’s more than that. I think it might be-”

You felt its presence and signature for a moment before you spotted it in the darkness ahead of you. A colossal figure interrupted you, emerging just a few meters in front of you.

The atmosphere crackled with an electric charge. The energy shifted dangerously. A sudden wind picked up. A blend of foreign and familiar energy surrounded you, akin to a suffocating embrace.

Years of hunting, studying, and researching, along with an unmistakable gut feeling, helped you identify it to be a Bloodborn vampire.

“Shit. Bloodborn,” you muttered in Nanami’s general direction.

With a practiced motion, you popped your weapon’s magazine free and counted five remaining bullet rounds. You might have been informed, but you certainly were not prepared.

“Retreat plan?” you spoke again, your mind running through the protocols drilled into you by hours of training as your eyes searched the tree behind which Nanami had ducked a short moment ago.

You found him standing a few meters ahead instead, out in the open. His usual composed countenance, the caution you’d known him to exhibit since the start of this mission, since forever, appeared to have long diminished.

What little light emanating from the moon above was enough for you to perceive brows furrowed in calculation, jaw tightened in concentration, determination manifest. It took you a few seconds to realize what he was plotting.

“Wait, are you-”

Nanami suddenly charged at the figure.

What the hell?

As you watched him run and pick up an incredible speed, you fumbled with your weapon, looking to aim at something, anything, as you prepared to lay unexpected cover fire for your seemingly possessed partner.

It was difficult to see anything in the dark, but thankfully you were able to get a surprisingly solid read on the vampire’s signature and could track its whereabouts with utmost precision. You’d have to track Nanami mostly through sound, you thought to yourself.

As if on cue, you heard the sound of metal against flesh, signaling a direct hit by Nanami on his target.

“Left arm,” you heard Nanami’s steady voice call out from somewhere in the close distance. You moved closer, aiming down sights, and you saw what appeared to be its right arm for a brief second. It was the first and only shot you’d seen so far, so you took it.

Another direct hit.

You watched as the figure staggered its steps, both limbs now affected, your closer proximity allowing you to distinguish the monstrous features it exhibited. Pointy ears, long limbs, and an extremely tall stature.

You heard hit after hit, Nanami using the opening you’d created to his advantage, landing as many hits as possible. You lined up your shot as you moved closer, deducing you’d have at least one more good go at it before the beast recovered.

“Left a-”

A powerful surge of energy preceded a sound so rambunctious that you could feel it in your own body. Your eyes had gotten accustomed to the dark by now, at least enough to see Nanami’s limp body shoot off into the distance and land several meters away with a bouncing thud.

Between being paralyzed at the prospect of the worst-case scenario, and the shock of having a Bloodborn vampire, in its most feral form, now fully set its attention on you, your attempt at calling out for Nanami wound up getting caught in your throat.

You quickly started backing up, mentally mapping out the quickest way to back your way toward where you’d watch Nanami land and then back out through the nearest exit. You weaved off the beaten path to put both distance and some foliage density between yourself and your threat.

What you had in heightened senses, the vampire seemed to counter with speed. You watched as the figure weaved between the trees, rapidly closing the distance between you two.

You took a shot. It landed on a neighboring tree trunk.

Four bullets left.

You emerged from the wooded area and stumbled onto a fork in the road.

You could sense but not see the beast closing in on you. You turned around and shot in its general direction. It completely whiffed.

Three.

You chose the direction you judged would lead you closest to Nanami. The closer the vampire got to you, the more you felt an uncanny draw to it. It was as though it was trying to communicate with you.

It was gaining ground. You had to change strategies. You aimed and shot two bullets in a double-tap succession. One of them grazed the Bloodborn, and the other one missed.

One.

You turned around and broke into a sprint, hoping that the speed gained by running facing forward would make up for the fact that you wouldn’t be shooting at your target anymore.

Your mind quickly flitted to a bird’s-eye view of your current predicament, about how quickly this had all gone wrong, about the domino chain that started at your dissatisfaction with life and would potentially end with an abrupt, violent ending of it, about Nanami Kento, the old friend you’d just reunited with and who likely needed your help now more than ever.

Something snapped in you with that last thought, and for a brief second, you empathized with the way Nanami had thrown himself at his adversary a few minutes ago. Weaponizing your desperation, you stopped in your tracks and turned around. You pointed your gun at the approaching figure. You aimed down sight and you took your last shot.

The sound of your final incendiary round crossing into the air echoed through your ears and your mind as both your vision and sound faded out. In your suddenly weakened state, you felt the distinct stifling presence of a vampire closing in on you. Shortly after, you felt limbs around you, decidedly not human, grabbing you and slinging you over its shoulder.

And the world faded to black.

1870s, Atlantic coast, Northern West Africa

The setting sun casts a warm hue of crimson red into the sky, carrying an uncanny air of peacefulness and tranquility; the energy that occupies the beach below is anything but.

Two figures scurry towards the coastline. The Bloodborn vampire reaches it first, and she waddles her way into the water until its level hits her midsection. She frantically unsheathes her dagger from her waist belt; it glows amber, both heat and light emanating from it.

She turns around just in time to watch the Hunter who accompanies her catch up to her, halting just at the coastline. Her eyes meet his just in time to watch him school his worried countenance back to fervent determination.

Without further preamble, she chants an incantation that predates humanity itself, a mother’s plea, to both the forces of Light and of Darkness. The surrounding air shimmers as she slices her palm open with her knife, only slightly wincing at the sensation of the action that will seal her fate.

She watches as the drops of blood drip from her hand, coagulating on impact with the sea water below her and forming into a carmine coloured bead, which she picks up into her hand and brings to her lips. The next words she utters are whispered, a caveat, a Bloodborn’s insurance. The bright glow of her knife disappears, replaced by a wraith-like texture.

She feels her life force weakening as she waddles her way back to the coast. She knows she’s on the clock. The Hunter takes notice of her struggle, furrowing his eyebrows as he makes the trek as if to meet her halfway. She lifts her hand up to signal him to stop. He reluctantly does.

When the vampire finally reaches the Hunter, he opens his arm, revealing the small baby girl he is protectively holding, wide eyes blinking up at her parents. The woman bends down and kisses her forehead. Throughout this entire ordeal, this is the only time the mother truly feels emotive, the only time her tears form at the corners of her eyes.

She brings the crimson bead up to the child and slips it under the thin garment she is wearing, placing it just over her heart, and presses down. She watches as the blood turns back into its sanguine form and gets completely absorbed into the child, illuminating her small body for a brief second before she returns to normal, an action that seals the fate of the child and of their lineage.

Only then does the woman bring up her attention to the man, who has been watching her intently the entire time, with love and reverence but also worry.

“Don’t look so glum, Mr. Hunter. By the beach, together, for the rest of our lives. You lived up to your promise.”

On the beach, in the distance behind them, the distinct sound of Dongola horse hooves hitting the sand can be heard.

“For eternity,” he corrects.

“What’s that?” She asks, playfully feigning ignorance for one final time.

“By the beach, together, for eternity. That was the promise.”

“That will come too. But not before you complete your task.”

“The curse ends here.”

A promise to a Bloodborn from her consort, sealed with a final kiss on her forehead.

The woman walks towards a rocky structure by the coastline, leaning her back against it before she impales herself with the knife.

The Hunter turns his attention to the approaching delegation of his peers.

He raises one arm in surrender. He tells them he won’t resist. His only ask:

“Spare the child! She’s human.”

The Hunters don’t trust their betrayer and take the child from his arms. He holds back for a second and this is the only time he shows the slightest bit of resistance.

One of the Hunters brings a talisman to the child’s face. To the Hunter’s relief, it glows the right color. Now reassured that his child will be spared, he lets himself be taken prisoner by his former allies.

Now he could accept his fate.

Current day, Tokyo

Your eyelids fluttered open to fluorescent lights and the low hum of a heartbeat monitor. It took you a moment to remember that you were in fact, not visiting your grandmother in her village, nor were you waking up in your apartment at home, but you were in a school infirmary, on the other side of the world, in Tokyo.

Memories of the night’s events rushed back to you, like a wave washing back to the shore. The sensation of being carried by arms you knew could only belong to a vampire was indelible. The pain you’d felt before you lost consciousness. In fact, you felt surprisingly energized now, all things considered. Only once she spoke did you notice Shoko in your peripheral vision.

“Welcome back,” she said in the flat tone you fondly remembered her by.

“How long was I out?”

Shoko glanced at the clock after glancing at the clock hanging on the wall.

“Almost an hour now. Nanami was quick to bring you here. I do wonder how many traffic laws he violated to get you here so quickly. Poor Ijichi got relegated to the backseat and got carsick.”

You raised yourself on the bed and sat down, noticing the IV still hooked to you.

“Is he okay?”

“It’s carsickness. I think he’ll be okay.”

“I meant Nanami.”

“Oh, Nanami seemed completely fine.”

“Seemed? As in, you didn’t examine him?”

“I didn’t have to. He said you were the only one injured out there. Okay, now I have to ask, are you feeling okay?”

Shoko’s question had you wondering for a second. Last you remembered, Nanami had launched across quite a distance. Surely, he must have sustained more than a few scratches.

“Where is he?” you asked, evading her question.

“He was here a moment ago. I think he went-”

Shoko never finished her sentence. Appearing in the doorframe at that exact moment was Nanami, holding a stack of papers in one hand and a soda in the other.

Cherry blossom.

He’d taken off his glasses, and you could see the marks where they usually sat on his nose. His eyes lingered on yours for a second. It was the first time you’d made actual eye contact since your reunion. This time his thick glasses were not there to hide his micro-expressions. He looked neatly disheveled, his hair was slightly out of place, and his tie was loosened. Was it a hint of relief that you caught in his hazel eyes?

“You’re up.” A statement rather than a question. Whatever it was, you watched it disappear just as quickly as it had appeared before he made his way inside the room, moving around Shoko who had stopped what she was doing and was quietly observing the interaction. You had almost forgotten that she was in the room.

“I am,” you replied cautiously.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

You turned and looked at him for a moment before turning to Shoko.

“I’m fine, right? Please tell me you’ll discharge me right now.”

Shoko stared at you for a second, as though she was evaluating her response.

“Only if you promise to show up to a follow-up tomorrow.”

“I will, promise.”

“I need you to sign a few things, protocol, since it’s your first time here. I’ll be right back.” Shoko’s eyes moved between you and Nanami, as though she was hesitating to leave you two alone.

When she was finally out of the room, you quietly watched as Nanami approached you, and placed the soda can on your table side, his silent offering, before sitting on the visitor’s seat across the room.

“How are you feeling?” He repeated his question, and it somewhat irritated you.

“I don’t know, Nanami. Physically I’m feeling okay,” you said, as you attempted to cross your arms but got restricted by the IV drip still hooked to you. Without thinking, you swiftly ripped it off in frustration.

Nanami watched you impassively.

“And otherwise? Do you remember what happened?” He pushed.

“Do you?” you asked, your tone coming out more accusatory than you’d intended.

“I do, but also, I wasn’t the one who passed out.”

“Really? I guess you’ll have to teach me your ways, then. I watched you fly a good distance and heard the way you landed behind those bushes. I’m surprised to see you without a scratch.”

“You sound disappointed.”

You stared at each other for a few seconds. You always found Nanami to be relatively harder to read. But now he was decidedly a shut book.

“We should get our stories straight.”

“Excuse me?”

He gestured to the stack of papers he was holding and handed you a copy. Mission report was the heading.

“We were split off. We should align our reports so they match. What was the last thing you remember?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, and you thought he must have felt it judging by the uncharacteristic manner by which he was evading your glare, choosing to fix the report he was holding instead, as though it carried the answer to his question.

“Why would we need to line up our stories? We should just report the truth.”

“If our stories differ too much, or if there are gaps in the sequence of events, it will raise questions and it could affect your recertification status.”

If the circumstances of this entire mission didn’t feel sketchy enough so far, this bit definitely sounded off. He was speaking so casually about such a critical mission. His apparent indifference was driving you insane. You felt like a pot about to boil over.

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think that you’re holding my recertification over my head and that you’re asking me to forge my report.”

His head snapped at you, irritation now visible in his knitted brows. Finally, a chink in his armor.

“Your next sentence better be that you do know me better,” he said, sounding annoyed. Finally, some emotion.

“Why should it be? The truth is, I really don’t know you, Nanami. A decade ago, I thought I did. But now?”

You felt yourself slowly losing control over your voice. The heart rate monitor started beeping, signaling your increasing heart rate.

His eyes narrowed at the monitor and you could have sworn that they softened when they returned to yours. When your name left his lips in a low whisper, you felt the first tears stinging your eyes.

“You should try to remain calm.”

And you lost it. A decade’s worth of frustration spilled before you could process the words.

“I was calm for over ten years, Nanami. A decade without a single sign of life from you. Do you know I got extremely sick and couldn’t eat for over a month after that last call? Do you know the number of sleepless nights I spent wondering what exactly happened? Worrying about you and your well-being? How long does it take to send a brief chat message? ”

“I got logged out and could not log back in.”

“You got logged… You’re telling me that the reason I never heard from you again was because you conveniently got logged out of a messaging app a mere few hours after you called me to deliver the most devastating news? I call bullshit.”

“I did get logged out, eventually. But you’re right. I was dealing with the most brutal and gruesome loss imaginable, so you’ll have to excuse me if I didn’t drop everything to get back to you right away.” His voice was growing in a frustration that increasingly mirrored yours.

Each sentence was a new arrow in your quiver. Your tears were freely flowing now, the sentiment of scorn rising to your head as you lined up the next words.

“You gave up, Nanami. You didn’t get back to me at all. He was my friend too, and you robbed me of a proper mourning. I couldn’t even get his address to send proper condolences. What you did was completely fucked up, and you know it.”

In the past, in the rare moments you’d been able to suspend disbelief and delude yourself into imagining ever crossing paths with Nanami again, you’d played out the different directions this conversation could take. In your hazy enactments, you’d imagined this scenario to be a lot less confrontational and always believed you’d be able to approach discussing this tragedy with sympathy and a certain level-headedness.

You told yourself that normally, you would. And while there was nothing normal about the last twenty-four hours you’d lived through, it didn’t make you feel any less guilty for the reproachful tone you’d slipped into and wielded against him.

Nanami got up and handed you a box of tissues from the counter. You expected him to return to his seat, but he stayed where he stood just by you.

“The Bloodborn we ran into today. I’ve been tailing it for the last ten years. Today’s confrontation was the first time I’d gotten this close since…”

Nanami did not need to complete that sentence for you to put two and two together. If you thought your guilt couldn’t get worse, you were proved wrong at that moment.

“Lately it’s grown an army of Turned and Special Grade vampires at his beck and call. He’s the source of the latest surge. It seems to be going for numbers over strength at the moment. They’ve formed a perimeter around what I suspect to be his base of operations. I left my life behind once, but I haven’t halted my hunt. And I certainly haven’t given up on anything, or anyone.

“I came back to the school because they happen to have the resources and intel that will be useful to stopping this menace, particularly now that there is public pressure and internal interest in actually stopping this threat. This is the closest I’ve come to bringing justice for Haibara…” he paused, his breath hitching ever so slightly, and only then did you realize that this was the first time either of you had uttered your dear friend’s name.

He returned to your side. “But none of this happens without weakening the Bloodborn. And with public scrutiny and the recent emphasis on protocol…”

“Okay, I understand,” you said, cutting him. “I’ll line up my report with yours, to avoid scrutiny, but only on one condition. And it’s non-negotiable.”

“And what is that?”

“I get to go on all missions related to this matter too.

“I don’t-”

“Non-negotiable, Nanami, I insist on this.”

You saw him glance at the heart rate monitor before he finally relented with a nod.

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” That this was his third time asking you was not lost on you. He seemed hellbent on closing out the conversation with you with more gentleness than he’d opened it.

It made you question if you were imagining it.

“Sign this, then you’re discharged,” Shoko said as she returned to the room with visibly more urgency than she’d left it.

“A sudden eagerness to get rid of me, Dr. Ieri?” You chirped in your best attempt to engage in a tone that you hoped would draw her attention away from what you could only imagine was still very much a teary countenance.

“As much as I’d love to keep you with me, I’ll need the room.” Her voice was grave as she absentmindedly handed you your discharge documents before adding, “There’s just been another major attack.”

An air of gloom hovered over the school for the following days. You learned, both through hearing firsthand accounts of your surviving colleagues, and through their reports, of the gruesome details of the latest attack. All indications pointed towards the same Bloodborn’s elusive hideout as being ground zero for the crisis at hand.

You’d sat in the briefing room the day following your first mission, listening as one of the squad leaders detailed the way by which the turned vampires had prioritized Hunters as their targets, and had successfully done so, based on the death count. He’d vocalized the odd configuration of the two conclusions drawn from this latest failure. That the number of human casualties might be lessened with this shift in strategy and newfound sophistication from the vampires, but that Hunters would be the ones to pay the ultimate price.

“Hey, what are your thoughts on all this?” You caught Nanami at the end of the briefing just as he was about to slip away.

“On what, specifically?”

“This latest attack, it almost feels retaliatory.”

“All vampire attacks against Hunters are retaliatory by definition.”

You rolled your eyes at his pedantry. Some things never changed.

“I know that, but you’ve read the reports, yeah? There were cases where they literally walked past human targets and spared them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. Have you?”

“So by retaliatory, you mean…”

“I mean against us, you know, considering how our last mission went.”

“We shouldn’t talk about this here,” he said, in a lowered voice.

“But we will talk about it right, Nanami? It’s already been a couple of days. I know what we put in the report doesn’t tell the full story.”

“Nanami-san!”

A younger fellow Hunter had just turned the corner and called out to him. You only recalled Ino’s name by the way he stood out from the other hunters with his energetic demeanor. Without knowing him beyond that, you found that he bore an uncanny resemblance to…

“Have you been assigned the stakeout mission yet?” Nanami turned back to you, cutting into your thoughts.

“I have. In two days… with you.”

“Good. So we’ll talk then.”

With that, he broke away from you and began walking towards Ino. Judging by the handful of interactions you’d observed between the two, the younger Hunter seemed to have taken a great respect towards Nanami. This didn’t surprise you one bit, but it made you wonder who was the other version of Nanami Kento, the elusive man beneath the thick mask he’d put on over the last decade?

You knew he had the answers. But you would not wait on him to discover them.

It was Nanami himself who’d sparked the idea within you, by his revelation both about the Bloodborn’s connection to Haibara’s death and his intention of leveraging the school’s resources. Thus you found yourself, later that afternoon, in the school library, digging through the Tokyo Hunter Academy archives.

With the budgeting issues the school had gone through, the digitization of hard-copy reports was at the bottom of the list of what was being prioritized. You figured that perhaps there was something that was missed, anything that could help shed some light on the motivations of this old new adversary.

Your hopes were dashed after a couple of hours of tallying the hard copies of what was available in the school portal, as you realized that all the digital versions of the reports surrounding this particular Bloodborn vampire were accounted for.

You raised yourself, perhaps a bit too abruptly, from the crouched position you’d held for the better part of the last half hour, sifting through the bottom shelf that covered the year 2006, feeling a bit lightheaded and disoriented, and dropping the file you were holding as a result.

“Shit,” you muttered to yourself as you picked it up and mindlessly opened it.

Having read these countless times, you instantly identified the words that comprised the report from one of the first responding hunters, the one that had found the two young student Hunters who had encountered a new, underestimated foe; Nanami in critical condition, and Haibara deceased.

You recalled that one day, a couple of years following the incident, you had been so desperate to find out everything you could about it that you’d managed to connect to the Global Vampire Hunting database, and with the help of stolen credentials from your mother, successfully pulling the files related to this mission gone wrong and sneakily printed them out. You’d since committed every line to your memory.

Which is why the discrepancy stood out immediately to you, like a sore thumb.

Your heart rate sped up as you fumbled with your phone, not wanting to waste time making the trek out to the computer room to sign in to the network. A few authentication clicks and you were in.

You pulled out the digital version of the same report and quickly scrolled down to the section you needed, the line that began with “number of vampire signatures detected at the time of arrival”. You couldn’t help the gasp that came out of your mouth as you read your phone, then the paper report, then your phone again.

The number on your phone was the one you’d always believed it to be: one. It made sense, as it was the signature that matched the Bloodborn.

And yet, in the hard copy version, the number shown was two. One signature belonging to the Bloodborn. The second one was unidentified. The paper report also mentioned that the signature was only detected momentarily before fading away.

Even more shocking than this revelation was the very presence of this discrepancy.

What was the truth, and who was trying to hide it?

Your second mission with Nanami kicked off on an overcast mid-January day. Having had the privilege of sampling the delicacies that were North-East American winters, this climate, by comparison, was rather mild to you. That said, there was not much to like about cold and dry weather, icy roads, and shorter days that translated into shorter periods of daylight and more time for vampires to be out and about.

The mission comprised a stakeout and mapping out the comings and goings of one particular area of the forest whose specific configuration eluded the school’s records. It marked one of the few unmapped areas of the forest, making it a prime suspected location for the Bloodborn vampire’s hideout.

The school had lent you two sets of keys, one for a car, and one to a literal cabin in the woods, to serve as your base of operation for the upcoming days. This was supposed to be a solo mission, and you imagined that his request to have you accompany him had raised a few eyebrows and God knows how he managed to make it happen, but none of that was not your concern.

No, your concern was to solve the enigma that was the connection between Nanami Kento and this Bloodborn vampire, and this mission would serve as the perfect stage for your investigation.

You decided that your best bet would be to ease Nanami into becoming comfortable around you. Anything less and he would revert back to shutting you out.

This endeavor proved to be a difficult feat, at first.

The cabin was one of those chalet-style units, its layout symmetrical, barring one difference. It contained one primary bedroom at one end and a guest bedroom on the opposite. From the moment you arrived, Nanami dropped his duffel bag into the guest bedroom, marking the end of whatever debate you were going to have about the decision before it even started. From there, a mental border was drawn, separating both sides of the house, one that was only crossed on rare occasions, when you were using the central kitchen.

You knew he couldn’t avoid you forever, especially not in this predicament. So on the first night, you bode your time.

You both decided to begin your patrols as close to sunset as possible, to maximize the chance of catching prime-time vampire activity.

On the first night, the patrol began quietly, the sound of your trudging steps in the fresh snow your only companion. After a while, he finally broke the silence and started sharing his findings about the Bloodborn. It was the most you’d heard him talk since your reunion so you actively listened as he recounted in chronological order, all of his encounters with the wretched beast.

It was not lost on you, that he’d begun at his first encounter with the Bloodborn following the initial incident, which would have been years later. But you took what he gave you, and you interjected with clarifying questions that helped paint a better picture of the years you’d spent apart. By the end of that patrol, you’d managed to pinpoint a perimeter around which the hideout was most likely located.

The second night began with him asking you questions that you would have gladly welcomed just a few days prior. Now that you were on the clock, you were not fond of the idea of spending your limited one-on-one time discussing yourself rather than him. But you took the bite and tried to steer the conversation with your answers.

You talked about your experience studying public health, about your research around vampirism, and your work at the World Health Organization to find a cure for people who were recently turned.

When Nanami admitted to having followed and read your research and gave praise to the specific advancements you’d contributed to the cause, you felt conflicted. Part of you felt flattered, no, your heart soared at the fact that he’d meticulously read and understood your work, at the idea that he’d even been thinking of you in any way, even all those years later.

The other part of you wondered why he hadn’t reached out and resented the fact that he had found a way to stay connected to you while severing any type of access to him.

This dilemma dampened your mood as you almost found it hard to match Nanami’s tempered optimism after you’d stumbled upon a cavernous opening from which you’d observed several Turned vampires stumble out, indicators of an entrance point to the Bloodborn’s hideout.

You’d all but written off the evening as a failure until the end, when you returned home and you were ready to split off for the rest of the night, but saw Nanami waiting for you at the door as you took off your boots.

“I want to apologize for not reaching you out for all those years. I went through it after… Haibara’s death. But it was no excuse to inflict more suffering on you. Nothing can change those years, and that time, but if you ever want to talk about it, about him, about the past, about the memories, know that my door will always be open for you.”

You were speechless. This truly came out of left field, and though you’d always wondered what this apology from Nanami could sound like, you found yourself more than unprepared for it when it finally came. So you simply stared at him.

“Good job out there today. Have a good rest of the night,” he said after a moment, as he turned away and closed his bedroom door behind him.

That encounter left you so agitated that you’d barely caught a wink of sleep, a factor which more than likely played a role in the events of the next day.

The day had already started differently from the previous ones. Nanami had woken up earlier than usual and had gone for a walk, something you learned when you woke up much later through the text message he’d left you.

When he came back, the sun had already set, and you were already running behind your planned schedule, which comprised placing inconspicuous trackers into the ground surrounding the suspected hideout location. When you questioned him about it, he’d been uncharacteristically short and vague about his absence, something that only added to your fatigue-induced irritability.

The previous day had brought along with it some milder-than-usual temperatures, which had caused large puddles of melted snow which was now turning into ice under the freezing night temperature. It made the trek down to the hideout even more treacherous. You’d both slipped a few times, further slowing your advance.

But the night quickly and drastically shifted tones when you found yourself confronted with a fully transformed Special Grade vampire. It looked just as monstrous as the Bloodborn you were chasing, except it was smaller in stature and still retained some of its humanoid features.

This one was a strong one, and had somehow slipped your senses until the last possible second, when it came up behind you and slashed at you, its sharp claws cutting through your thick coat clean through the skin of your left arm.

“Behind you!” you called out to warn Nanami, who was just a few steps ahead of you, seemingly as oblivious as you were.

He turned around, engaged in a flail more than a slash, only in the general direction of the vampire, missing his target and quickly turning back away from you.

You had never seen him miss. Ever.

Only then did you realize just how bad of a shape he was in. You had half a mind to equip your gun, before realizing that you may have to take the close quarter fight yourself. You watched as Nanami bent over his knees, seemingly on the brink of collapsing.

You could almost hear the mental calculation the vampire had made in its head, as it charged for who it now understood to be the weaker target. Your aim was unsteady, the vampire’s movements too erratic. As much as you trusted yourself with a gun, you refused to risk the sliver of a chance at harming Nanami.

You charged behind the vampire, who was now closing in on Nanami. You failed to see the vast patch of ice ahead of you. Your slip sent you on a trajectory that would have found first into the ground.

But in yet another intense moment of desperation, you refused to yield to gravity. You twisted your body upwards, tapping into a kinetic force that surprised even yourself, and launched yourself upwards into the air.

When you saw the ground rapidly approaching you this time, you redirected your movement to target the vampire who had yanked up Nanami by the collar and landed squarely on him. Without thinking, you nabbed your partner’s cleaver from his loose grip and dove the blade into the vampire beneath you, putting a definitive end to the attack.

When Nanami dropped to his knees beside you, still catching his breath, you climbed off the vampire and kneeled next to him, bringing your face down to his level. He closed his eyes and tilted his head down, and you just knew he was hiding something.

“Nanami,” you said, as calmly as your adrenaline would allow you. You unzipped your coat and took out your right arm, pushing up the sleeve of the right arm of your sweatshirt.

“Nanami,” you called out again, a warning this time, as you prepared to vocalize what you’d known deep down for days now and had refused to acknowledge on the surface.

“I see you, Nanami. I know what you are. You need to drink. Here’s my arm. Please. Enough with the games.”

When the figure before you finally anchored your eyes with his now bright red pupils, you told yourself that it was the beast within that was in control when it forcefully yanked your other arm out of your coat instead, the left one, the injured one; when it swiftly pulled back the sleeve of that arm, revealing flawless golden brown skin and that had, in fact, fully and very much unnaturally healed. You told yourself it was the beast that spoke when it finally uttered these words in a voice you barely recognized, before biting down on your arm.

“Shouldn’t I be saying the same to you, Miss Bloodborn?”

A jolt coursed through your veins as his fangs pierced your flesh. Your face was heated, and you felt yourself transform.

The realization that hit you at the moment felt like a reversion to a mean, like a final puzzle piece finding its place, like order being restored.

You were falling backwards, losing your balance. Everything felt both slow and quick at the same time. You desperately clung to consciousness as you grabbed onto the presence before you. It was calling out to you, repeatedly so. Was it saying your name? Familiar safety wrapped in a foreign host, ruby orbs reverting to a recognizable hazel color, hints of the man that once was fighting to regain surface.

Nanami…

His name melted on the tip of your tongue, a silent prayer as darkness enveloped you.

You awoke with a start and immediately felt the difference. You were back at the cabin, lying in your bed, but it felt different. The surrounding colors were more vibrant, the sounds louder, the scents stronger. You felt like a new firmware was downloaded into your brain, and you were armed with newfound knowledge, an instinctual drive.

You were awakened.

You felt him before you saw him, by the heat that radiated from him, the steady but fervent tempo of his heartbeat, the pureness of his soul.

He carried with him an aura, an unmistakable signature so familiar to you, one that you now realized you’d felt from the moment you met him all those years ago, faint and unidentifiable as it had been to you at the time.

A Special Grade vampire.

But a good one?

And when you finally turned your head to face him, sitting in the chaise that bordered the opposite wall, he must have felt your movement because he raised his to face you at the exact moment.

Trying to get a read on Nanami had never been easy. And despite your newfound ability to read his vitals so clearly, you still were left playing the usual deciphering game.

“How long have you known? And how did you know before me?” you finally asked.

“I had my suspicions… The first mission we went on. You were right in your recollection that the Bloodborn launched me back. What you failed to remember is that we both were, you even more so after he’d chased you. The state I found you in… I thought I had lost you…” he paused, and you watched the pain cross his features as recalled the moment.

“I intended to carry you back to the car, but then you healed on your own. It was both strange and familiar. By the time we got you to Shoko, you were exhausted but fully healed.”

You sat up on the bed, suddenly feeling restless. He stood to stand at the feet of your bed to stay in your view. You patted the spot in front of you, inviting him to sit.

Only then did you realize that he’d long since crossed your unspoken border for the first time and that he was in your space now, in your room.

The first of many breaches to occur that night.

In your shared silence, bridges were being built. In your curious glance, an unspoken question hung.

Nanami took a deep breath and began telling the story of the day his life changed.

He recounted how the mission had started, how Haibara had been optimistic as he always was, how everything had escalated so quickly, so badly. He spoke of the Bloodborn looming over him and how he was ready to accept his death. He recalled when he awakened, first from unconsciousness as he realized in horror that he had survived and that Haibara hadn’t. He spoke of the second agonizing awakening as the beast he was trained all his life to destroy.

You listened as he spoke of the moments when the despair was too overwhelming, when he contemplated ending it all, only to read about another attack, another victim somewhere in the world, and the sheer determination of ending this curse took precedence over the sweet release of succumbing to it. You noticed how he instinctively reached for his neck as he recounted this part.

You asked about his transformation and his symptoms, and he described patterns that you could now retrace in your own life. You asked about how he sustained himself, and he described depending mostly on blood banks nearing the end of their shelf life, occasionally animals when times were dire. The infirmaries had been running low on blood lately, due to the increased number of injuries caused by the surge in incidents, he told you. He’d been rationing what he had left but had run out during the stakeout mission. He’d tried to go hunt but was stalled by the hazardous patches of ice.

After a moment, you came to a realization.

“You’re still in Bloodthirst,” you said.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not fine, and I know it. How long had you gone without?”

You shoved his hair out of his eyes, fingers brushing against his forehead. Suddenly you felt yourself gain access to him, to his mind. You dug deeper, deeper still, and like your other abilities, it was desperation that powered your attempt to convince him to let you ease his suffering if only for a little, driving you deeper and deeper.

Until you hit a wall.

Nanami grabbed your hand by the wrist and abruptly pulled it away from his forehead, his eyes flashing red momentarily. The beast was surfacing.

“Don’t...”

“Nanami, you’re too deficient. I can feel it.”

“Don’t try to get into my head.”

“I’m not trying to. Not deliberately. And, I don’t need to be in your head to feel your suffering. How long have you been holding back?” You pushed.

The conflict of his instincts warred within him, clear in his eyes, which flicked between bright red and their usual sweet honey.

“You won’t hurt me, so please, Nanami, let me help you.”

You bit your lip out of nervousness, and your sharp fang clumsily pierced through the corner of your lower lip. You were still unused to it. You winced at the sharp pain. You felt its scent before you felt the drop of blood slowly slide down and you knew that Nanami felt it, too. You could feel it in the quickening pace of his heartbeat, in the hitching of his breath, in the way he met your gaze, in an electrifying moment.

And yet he didn’t move. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment when breaking down Nanami’s barriers became synonymous with breaking his resolve. All you knew is that your body was now moving of its own accord, your mission becoming singular.

You engaged your newfound strength to push him down, and you were, surprisingly, met with little resistance. His back hit the mattress harder than you intended. You straddled him at his hips and placed your hands on the bed on either side of his face. Your disposition made it look like you were the one in control. But the truth was that you were at the mercy of his expression, unreadable as always, desperate to bring relief to the man who’d suffered alone for over a decade.

Your arms wobbled as you lowered your face to his. His expression remained impassive, but his vitals betrayed it. Pulse quickened, pupils dilated, rapidly switching on and off red and amber. Your eyes fixed his. You had half a mind to offer your arm again, bravery had brought you this far, but you wondered whether it would take you all the way. Your eyes moved back to Nanami’s, an attempt to decipher what calculation he appeared to be making.

The decision was made for you both, when the drop of blood, which had been sliding back from your lips, trickled down to your chin unbeknownst to you, falling to the whims of gravity, and landing directly on his own lower lip.

And then his tongue darted out to lick it.

And something snapped.

You couldn’t tell whether you moved first, or he did. The exact sequence of events would remain unclear, discarded to the back of your mind as you felt the acerbic taste of your own blood on Nanami’s lips.

You felt the restraint melt away with the growl that emanated from Nanami’s chest. You squeezed your eyes shut as though it would help mute the moan that remained captive in your mouth, escaping only when he forced yours to open by ensconcing his tongue between your lips, as he lapped up the remaining blood and proceeded to suck on the spot on your lip where the incision was made.

Your eyes opened to a squint only to meet piercing red eyes. They told a story, one whose ending you’d successfully deducted earlier, one that Nanami still now appeared to be unable to accept.

This wouldn’t be enough for him.

You felt the world tilt suddenly, and it took you a few seconds to realize that he had flipped your positions, his eyes never leaving yours. When you felt his arms carefully cushion your fall, you knew that he was still more man than beast.

You could not say the same for yourself.

Years of studying vampires, of hunting them down as a Hunter, could only help you label what was happening, not control it.

You used your right hand to pull the box braids that had bunched around your neck aside, tilting your head to the side to give him access to your neck.

Under your observation, he hesitated, ever the paragon of self-control.

You reached your hand up and placed it on his, and slid it up his arm, then to the back of his head, right at his undercut. When you pulled him down, it was again without resistance. His eye color flickered faster as he got closer.

“Forgive me,” you heard him whisper, a warm breath that went into your ear and straight to your core.

Your mind was hazy and you couldn’t tell what he was apologizing for. Either way, your answer would be the same.

“Don’t hold back,” you whispered so softly that you didn’t know if he’d heard it.

The act didn’t shock you as much as the first time; it came in a brief sting and a sensation of soft lips that contrasted the sharp fangs that already established punctures. You gasped, and he stilled; you felt him reverse, but you stopped him before he could, pushing his head back down onto your neck. After a brief pause, he picked up where he left off and you heard the rest more than you felt it. His quick rhythmic breaths and inaudible gasps evened out as he sated himself.

“Why would a Bloodborn feed a lowly Special Grade vampire?”

It was a genuine question you’d asked, what felt like several lifetimes ago. Back then, it was unfathomable. Right now, it was blatantly obvious.

“Shouldn’t I be saying the same to you, Miss Bloodborn?”

You tried not to think too hard about the contempt that dripped in Nanami's tone when he’d referred to your identity, at the reality that your feelings would likely never be reciprocated.

You could have sworn that Nanami detected your disquiet, because as if on cue, he brought up his right hand, tracing soothing small circles around your exposed shoulder.

In your confused haze, you tried to tell yourself not to read too much into this sudden attuned gentleness. You didn’t realize that you too had started scratching circles with your nails into his undercut until you felt the perceptible shudder that ran through his body right as you did.

He shifted his position slightly as you felt drops trickle down your neck, and you held your breath as he chased them with his tongue, moving lower down, over your collarbone, getting dangerously close to your chest. When he closed in on the drop of blood, he sucked a little harder at the fleshy skin just above your chest, eliciting a small moan from you. The heat that was slowly forming in your core ignited like a solar flare. He stopped his movements and when his eyes shot up to yours through his disheveled hair; they had reverted to their natural hazel hue again.

A pang of arousal shot through you violently. Centuries of dormancy came roaring back to life. The lines between human and vampiric urges were now thoroughly blurred.

Nanami straightened up, and you watched a second conflict cloud his eyes, primal but very much human.

The sight of your red blood over his skin should not have been doing this much to you. But it did.

“You’re going through Bloodthirst.”

A statement more than a question. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve before he started rolling it back, exposing a veiny arm.

“The first waves after transforming will be brutal. I imagine yours will be intense since you’re-”

“Bloodborn.” You completed his sentence for him. “You must really hate me right now.” Even as you identified the self-destructive mental pattern you were sliding into, it’s not like you could stop it. Anything to get him to change his mind. Anything to have him push you away.

“I don’t hate you,” he simply said.

“You hate Bloodborns.”

“Still quick to make snap judgments, I see.”

You sensed a reversing shift in your dynamic; his invitation, your resistance.

You said nothing in response, and he simply extended his arm. You kept your eyes locked on his as you sank your fangs into his arm.

Nothing could have prepared you for the taste of Nanami Kento’s blood.

You were a lot less gracious than he was, a lot less controlled. It was like being catapulted through a range of vivid emotions, colors associated with feelings, sounds associated with sentiment.

You were lost in the sensations. You ached with him and you raged with him; you felt his sorrow and his devotion. Overwhelmed by the sentiments he was telegraphing, you opened your eyes to Nanami quietly observing you, his usually unreadable face twisted into a perceptible sadness. Only once you were finally sated, once the intense pang of thirst subsided to a low baseline hum did you finally pull back, your eyes still trained on his.

“I could never hate you,” he added, as though to emphasize what he’d just undeniably showed through his blood, the corners of his lips tugging into the tiniest, sad smile that brought tears to your eyes.

Nanami brought two fingers up to your chin, pushing the rest of the dripping blood into your mouth. You closed your lips over his fingers, maintaining eye contact as you brought your face closer to his, emboldened by the combination of your awakening, of his words, and of the little glint in his eye. He didn’t move until you released him, like he was awaiting for permission.

“I don’t hate you either,” you managed to whisper against his lips, before closing the distance.

When you did kiss this time, it was in earnest. It was fervent and urgent, all tongues and teeth. There was a moment you were both clinging to, both determined to not let escape. You’d never felt so attuned to someone, it was as though tasting his blood had opened a new dimension within your mind.

His tongue snagged onto your sharpened fang, and he hissed at the contact, sending a shiver down your spine. You tasted his blood and this time it wobbled with treacherous exhilaration. The first signal that he, too, was unraveling.

When Nanami’s mouth moved downward, it was in a mix of kisses and nips and bites. He was gentle but left marks. In his onslaught, he paused just above your breast and gave the area a sly lick before he continued. He finally tugged on the corners of your shirt and gently pulled it over your head, finally able to grant attention to your left side, starting at your neck, peppering every inch of your body with his kisses from your collarbone to your breast to your abdomen. He pulled your pants down, your underwear followed. His movements were optimized, precise.

When he stopped and called out to you, you almost did not hear over the now overwhelmingly loud sound of your blood coursing through your veins and your pants as you tried to keep yourself tethered to reality. You raised your head in time to see him hovering over your core, stormy eyes telegraphing a question.

“Please, Nanami,” you breathed out.

It was all he needed to hear. With the two fingers that were between your lips just a moment ago, he slid between your legs and began to work you.

The gasp that escaped your lips was one of both shock and pleasure. You moaned as he played you, like a musician would his instrument, first with his fingers, then with his tongue, then with both. Your heightened senses made you feel every brush, every knead, every minute variation in movement as he found alternating rhythms.

“Hah…fuck!” you cried out.

“My good girl. Don’t hold back on me,” he said, echoing a markedly less tame version of the coaxing you’d whispered into his ear earlier, and only then did you realize how utterly flipped this script had become. Your mind spun at the swiftness by which the tables had turned, at the polarity, at the juxtaposition of his controlled passion and your erratic unraveling.

The vibration of his voiced praise rumbled into your core and tingled up into your brain, and that was enough to push you over the edge. You couldn’t coherently voice your pleasure if you tried. Only words of gibberish ran through your mind as you slowly came undone on his fingers, exhaling expletives punctuated by open-mouthed gasps of his name.

He continued lapping at you, cleaning off every inch of your surface area, until you grabbed the back of his head, right at his undercut again, your new favorite place. You brought him up to find the remnants of your blood on his chin, now newly covered with a sheer layer.

He looked so alluring.

“Nanami…” you murmured.

In a manifestation of your newfound ability for quick recovery, you raised yourself up and straddled him for the second time that night. You grabbed his face into your hands and kissed him, intoxicated by the taste of all versions of yourself in his mouth. This time it was slower, more careful, tongues caressing each other in a reluctant fight for domination, a battle you both dragged out, not wanting it to end. You found a back-and-forth rhythm that you emulated with your hips, grinding against his, chasing any form of friction, realizing only now how bothersome of a barrier his clothes were between you two.

You pulled back, working your way down to undo the buttons of his shirt, and he watched you. You couldn’t help but trace your fingers against his muscles as you did, working your way up from his stomach, up his chest, to his shoulder. He let out a soft and low groan as your cold finger traced his heated skin.

You had already grabbed his belt, eager to pull more of those sweet sounds out of him by returning the favor he’d so graciously done for you, when you spotted it, at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, a prominent scar denoting two incisions, unmistakably from a vampire bite.

“Is this from…?” You trailed off, still struggling to label the horrific event that nearly destroyed his life.

“It is.”

You glanced at him as he averted his eyes, but not quick enough for you not to catch the expression on his face. It did not belong to the vampire, not even to the man, but to the young boy who bore the misplaced burden of not being able to protect his dear friend, and who came out of that incident less human than he went in.

You’d never known Nanami to be emotionally expressive. Even throughout this passionate encounter, his countenance carried a control that paradoxically garnered both your admiration and your frustration. But right now, as you traced a finger over the reminder of that painful memory, you watched his face twist beyond its usual air of melancholy, his features betraying the sorrow that still festered beneath his surface.

The thought of another Bloodborn being the source of the torment of the sweet man before you triggered something violent within you. You were ruled by extreme emotion, by an unharnessed urge to make things right, driven by a desperate powerlessness at what should have been the height of your powers.

How you longed to go back in time and undo the calamity inflicted by this beast.

How you wished you could absorb all of his pain, if only for a moment.

How you desperately wanted to overwrite the damage caused by this destructive bite.

Logic said that you couldn’t do any of these things. But you were a far ways from being anything within the realm of logical right now.

You were not thinking clearly when you sunk your teeth right where the faded scars were, in an untenable attempt to draw out pain more than blood. Your mind was a haze when your hot tears mixed with the blood you were drawing. You were disoriented when you finally relented, burying your face into the side of his neck and squeezing him into a tight hug. But you were very much in your right mind when you uttered your next words.

“I’m here for you, Nanami,” you said in his ear.

“I know,” he whispered back, after a moment.

This wouldn’t be enough.

He shifted his weight over you, bringing you back down. Your hands flew to his pants as soon as he freed you from his embrace and for a moment, you wondered what you looked like: tear struck face, bloody mouth, disheveled hair, fumbling with his belt like your life depended on it. You wondered how it was, that after he placed his hands over yours to help you remove the last barrier of clothing that separated you and you finally looked up at him, that you found him gazing down at you in quiet reverence.

“Can I-”

“Yes, please, yes,” you said in a low whimper as you buzzed with anticipation.

His lips found your forehead just as you felt him notch into you, and you squirmed and gasped into his chest at the sudden but welcome invasion.

“Fuck,” he hissed. “Did I-”

“No, hah, don’t stop!” you sighed, grabbing his arms to brace yourself.

He kept going until he filled you completely.

And then again.

And again.

Your bodies moved in tandem, a decade of longing that took classmates to fire-forged partners to blood-bound lovers, manifested in the most tender dance you’d engage in that night, pure affection finally triumphing over ferality, even as you exchanged the most breathless words and the most salacious sounds, even as you vigorously met each other at each thrust, each trying to prove an unspoken point, even as your bodies violently thrummed with the need for release. And when your flashing eyes met as you both barrelled towards your climax, a wordless plea floated between you two.

Don’t hold back.

And neither of you did.

It was early afternoon now. You were lying on your side, facing Nanami, who was lying on his back. You were in a mesmerized trance, tracing over his taut muscles, accustoming yourself to your newfound heightened senses of his vitals. You basked in this warm cocoon of comfort, stretching out what you both knew to be a mirage of a moment of peace.

“What am I thinking now?” he asked. You traced over where you saw his chest rumble from his voice.

“I told you, it doesn’t work that way. So far, it’s only been sensations at given times. And it seems to be in moments of intense emotion. I still have a lot to learn about… all of this.”

“It will be an adjustment. Your case is rare but not unheard of. And you won’t have to face it alone,” he said, after a moment.

“I’m not even sure I could reliably trace far enough to find my Bloodborn ancestor. Both sides of my family are from old Hunter clans, as far as I know. A Hunter breaking ranks to get with a vampire must have been considered to be the ultimate act of treason, especially in that time.”

“I might be biased, but I could see how treason can be relative,” he said playfully as he took your hand in his. You pondered on the weight of his words, on the uncanny parallels to your current disposition, on history rhyming.

“We should have Shoko check you out. We can trust her.”

“No. We’re closing in on the hideout and that beast. This is our chance. I’m not leaving until we finish this. There’s a reason you haven’t told anyone either. We have to do this our way.”

Nanami’s reservations were palpable, but you both knew that he couldn’t counter that argument. You attempted to change the topic.

“So… you heal quickly, and have heightened senses, though not as good as mine. You’re also a weakling to sunlight and you sometimes eat for two.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it.”

“This is like that video game. You remember the one with the convoluted stats, that one RPG Haibara kept trying to get us to play?”

Nanami hummed. Silence. Then a scoff.

“What is it?” you asked.

“He was hellbent on you and I getting together. Even after you moved away. He said that it was inevitable and that if we couldn’t make it work, then he would. I was just thinking that in a twisted way, he did.”

It was your turn to scoff.

He raised a curious eyebrow at you.

“You just implied that we ended up getting together. I don’t remember that happening.”

“Oh, you don’t think so? We’ll have to rectify that. After the mission.” He grabbed your hand in his.

“After the mission,” you echoed. A silence. You fidgeted with his hand.

After a moment, you pulled away from him, and turned on your back, mirroring his position as you faced the ceiling.

“We’ll avenge him, Nanami.” Your words fluted upwards, a crimson vow, binding a Bloodborn and her consort.

“We will.”

You felt the cocoon of warmth dismantle as you both made the mental migration back to the task at hand.

Two nights later, you set out to execute an assault.

You’d composed a message to the school, detailing your plan of attack and strategically scheduled it to send for the last possible moment, right before your planned incursion. It was the best compromise you and Nanami had settled on, as you looked to minimize any detection that could be triggered by the other Hunters in order to maximize your chances of success.

You’d found the entrance, combatted the weak forces that grew stronger as you approached their leader and had found yourself facing your ultimate target.

The plan had gone as anticipated, until this moment, which found you contending with the one thing you’d both failed to plan for: a mental hold the vampire revealed itself to have on Nanami, drawing from the tethering connection a Bloodborn could exploit with their victim.

At first Nanami’s movements were simply slowed, then stalled, then stopped. For the moment, it seemed to have incapacitated him.

You’d continued to dodge the vampire’s attacks as you evaluated Nanami’s condition, and for the moment that was all you could do. Your current plan of attack relied on both your dexterous movements and Nanami’s close-range combat to land incisive blows on the beast.

You’d prepared to take a defensive stance until you noticed that the Bloodborn was no longer attacking Nanami. And was instead fixing you.

Your eyes moved to Nanami’s just in time for you to watch them flicker to those crimson irises, markers of the vampire within.

The Bloodborn growled out an order in a language you did not need to understand in order to decipher its message, the validity of your interpretation confirmed as Nanami turned to you in what appeared to be a sudden, combative stance. You backed up as he trudged towards you, his cleaver wielded, his vampiric eyes fixing you in calculation. A cackle emanated from the Bloodborn, visibly pleased at the scene unfolding in front of it.

Nanami was now a few meters away from you, and you had half a mind to catapult yourself off the back wall to dodge what was obviously an imminent attack. If you could just dodge the attacks coming from both and hold off until the reinforcements arrived…

Instead, you stayed in place, opting to call out his name, an attempt to appeal to the human you hoped could still hear you, to the man you cherished.

You watched his eyes flicker ever so slightly, so subtly that you wondered if you’d imagined it.

Finally, he reached you, and you heard the distinctive shot of one of your incendiary rounds traveling through the air before you registered that, in a swift movement, exploiting a moment of arrogance on the part of the Bloodborn, Nanami had grabbed your weapon from your holster and fired a direct shot clean through its heart.

When the Hunter’s eyes flickered back to normal, showing a definitive break from his mental captivity, you knew you were back on track. He leaned against the wall for support, likely having used up all of his energy into executing his gambit.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the Bloodborn struggle in attempting to get back to its feet. Without a word, you took Nanami’s cleaver and used the back wall to launch yourself towards your weakened target.

You flew through the air and landed an incisive blow, cutting the vampire in half, ending his torment over the region and its inhabitants, once and for all.

You detected a large amount of familiar signatures approaching. A group of Hunters.

You rushed back to Nanami’s side, who was still leaning on the wall but on his back, having watched the final scene unfold. You gently grabbed his hand from his side and raised it up, and placed the handle of his cleaver into it. You brought your other hand to cup his cheek and his eyes finally met yours.

In the moment, it was not joy, nor sadness, nor relief that ruled his expression, but a wordless acknowledgment of a vow kept.

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