#i somewhat understand the others having separate dubs

[tstain-i-guess]

FUCK YOU MEAN "THERE'S TWO POLISH DUBS OF ROARY"????

AND I JUST FOUND OUT THE POLISH VA FOR ESPIO WAS IN ONE OF THEM TOO.

[lambtotheslaughterr]

Rise : Chapter Fourteen

A Rafe Cameron Series

[THIS STORY WILL CONTAIN THEMES OF NON-CON/DUB-CON, MENTAL-EMOTIONAL-PHYSICAL ABUSE, ETC. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. 18+. MINORS DO NOT INTERACT]

WC: 5.7k

Dividers provided by @firefly-graphics

CHAPTER THIRTEEN | MASTERLIST | CHAPTER FIFTEEN

            The door opened with a moan, & you rose to a sitting position, preparing for Adrianna to bring you your breakfast. You were glad you were given a couple days to recoup after the latest move. Everything was a blur. All you remembered was being sick, completely out of it, & never fully aware of your surroundings. But thanks to Adrianna, you managed to get better again. And now you could finally pull your own weight at the mill.

            But when you looked up to greet Adrianna, it wasn’t her dark brown eyes you met.

            Rafe stood in front of the closed door, his arms crossed as he peered at you. You felt like a fish out of water, like you were a strange sight to see. Adrianna insisted on you being separated from the others for some time in case your sickness was caused by the virus, but once you had improved she let you mingle with the others. But you had never seen Rafe in that time. He must’ve been busy running the place as best as he could in the end of world times.

            You brought your knees closer to your chest, resting your chin on them before you finally spoke.

            “Hey.” Your voice was hoarse, not having used it much, but you hoped the timid smile on your face revealed your welcomeness to his presence.

            Rafe frowned, his brows creasing & causing the skin there to crinkle. He stared at you longer, making you shift under his gaze.

            “Are you okay?” You questioned. He did look tired.

            “Are you?” He returned.

            You shrugged, rubbing your arms, “Better, at least.”

            Rafe moved further into the room until he was standing across from you. Your bed was a mattress on a pallet, so he towered over you with his staggering height. But you didn’t mind. You just wanted to stop looking at you with that worrisome look on his face.

            “I’m okay, Rafe.”

            His lips parted, as if he was trying to understand something that couldn’t be deciphered.

            “Are you?” You asked again, concerned about his unchanging gaze.

            “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, repeating himself to sound more stabilized.

            You nodded, but said nothing more. Was he here to bring you to the mess hall? You knew your way around enough, you didn’t need someone to hold your hand anymore. However, you couldn’t deny being somewhat relieved to see him, to have him here.

            “You didn’t bring food. Are we going there?” You asked, changing topic. Your stomach was growling with hunger.

            Rafe inhaled sharply, finally snapping out whatever funk he was in upon seeing you.

            “In a bit, yeah. I wanted to talk to you first.”

            Rafe moved closer then. You scooted over to make room on your full size mattress so he could sit with you. As he did, his eyes never left yours, & yours never left his. This was someone you were comfortable with. Rafe always looked out for you.

            “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked again, & you felt mildly irritated at that, like he was coddling you. You rolled your eyes, shaking your head, “Will you quit asking me that, please? I’m okay.”

            Silence filled the small room for a moment as Rafe seemed to think quietly to himself. You hoped he would hurry up with what he wanted to talk about so you could go eat before everyone else got the majority of it.

            “Do you remember anything?” Now it was your turn to be confused. Remember anything?

            Frowning, you stared at him, “Like what?”

            Rafe swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving swiftly under the skin of his throat, “Before coming here.”

            You paused to think. You remembered the lakehouse. Millie. The group separating. And then your head started to hurt. You winced, like you felt a headache coming on. Why was Rafe asking you this?

            “Adrianna said I’ve been sick for a while. It’s hard to remember.”

            Rafe looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself from doing so.

            “Why, Rafe?”

            He sniffled, pressing his lips together as he fell into deep thought. When he finally looked at you again, you were concerned about the look in his eyes.

            “Sayyed?”

            You felt your heart stop for a moment at the sound of your boyfriend’s name. Adrianna had told you what happened. That the virus came for him & Nuha too fast, that there was nothing to be done. You had a vague memory of Sayyed telling you he loved you, but you couldn’t be sure. It felt more like a dream than anything.

            “Adrianna reminded me.” Your voice softened, almost to a whisper. You wished you could cry over his death, over not being able to say goodbye, or at least remember it.

            “She…reminded you?”

            You looked away to stare at your feet, “The virus. I don’t remember a lot, Rafe. My memory is kind of foggy. She said that would be normal for a while.”

            He inhaled sharply again, drawing your eyes back to him. He looked conflicted.

            “What is it?” You asked.

            Rafe forced a smile then, shaking his head,, “Nothing. I’m just glad you’re better,”

            You returned the smile, though it was small, “Me too.”

            “Let’s, uh, let’s get some food, alright?” Rafe stood up, offering you his hand, & you took it, letting him help you raise yourself to your feet.

            In that moment, Rafe took a moment to look you over from head to toe. You felt like he was still studying you. But when his eyes fell to your legs, an amused smirk appeared on his face, “I can’t believe you packed these.”

            You looked down, addressing the clothes you wore. You gave a small laugh yourself, “I’d never get rid of these.”

            Rafe nodded, “I think that’s good. A reminder of happier times, huh?”

            You met his eyes, nodding, “Something like that.”

            Rafe left you at a table with Kai, Vic, & Maddy as he sought Anna out. He didn’t get far before she entered the mess hall herself at the farther end. Anna took in Rafe’s subtle look of rage as he grabbed her elbow & moved her to the hallway.

            “What the fuck is wrong with her?” He hissed, making sure his voice was low & voices carried far & quickly in the spacious room.

            Anna pulled her arm from his grip, rubbing the spot that he grabbed so harshly before answering him, “What? She’s fine.”

            “You know what the fuck I’m talking about. She doesn’t remember anything!”

            “So?” Anna bit back, glaring up at him, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

            Rafe was angry, but he stopped in his verbal assault to reflect.

            “Or would you rather she remember that you made her kill Sayyed?”

            His nostrils flared still as his anger began to simmer down.

            “I thought you’d be jumping with joy.” Anna added in a sarcastic tone, “But if you want her to know the truth then be my guest.”

            “No.” Rafe shook his head, “She said that you told her she would remember in time about everything.”

            Anna sighed, shrugging, “I don’t know. Like I said before, I’m not a psychologist. I took a class or two, so I know what she’s experiencing right now, kind of, but as far as if she’ll her memory of everything will return, I don’t know.”

            “What she’s experiencing?”

            Anna nodded, “Amnesia, obviously. Dissociative or selective, doesn’t really matter which, they both do the same thing.”

            “Which is?”

            She sighed heavily, clearly bothered that she had to explain the basics to Rafe, “After a traumatic event the brain will shut down, protect its host from the memories that caused the trauma. She doesn’t remember anything because her brain won’t let her. And I think that’s for the best, at least for you, isn’t it?”

            Rafe stared at Anna, “But only for some time?”

            “I. Don’t. Know.” She enunciated, “Could return tomorrow, next week, or never again. There’s no saying.”

            “If she remembers…” Rafe didn’t want to think about it.

            “Then you’re a dead man.” Anna said jokingly, but Rafe didn’t view it as a joke.

            If you remembered what he’s done, he would lose you all over again, & he was positive there would be no containing you then.

            It felt nice to be part of the group again. You had blurred memories of the time when the group was split, but you had an inkling that it wasn’t an enjoyable time. When you had seen Bear for the first time two days prior, you gave him a hug that would rival his nickname. He returned it with fervor, claiming he was glad you were okay.

            Now, he was nowhere to be seen.

            “Where’s Bear?” You asked Kai, who jumped slightly at the sound of your voice as he cleared his plate of food.

            “Um, I think out scavenging.” One thing that bothered you though since rejoining the group was that Kai never looked you in the eye. He kept his head down often & avoided a lot of talk with the others.

            “Hmm.” You hummed. At the far end of the mess hall, Rafe appeared, Adrianna right behind him. You left your food behind on the table & approached him.

            “Everything okay?” He asked, his tone full of worry. You were grateful for his older brother like attitude, but you hoped he knew you could take care of yourself again.

            “I want to be a part of the scavenging group.” Your eyes flashed between his & Adrianna’s.

            Rafe inhaled sharply at that. He gestured for Adrianna to leave the two of you & she did. You frowned, looking back at him, “What’s wrong?”

            “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He admitted.

            “What? Why? I was the best back at the lake house. We both were.” You reminded him.

            “I know, but ya know, things change. Micah is in charge of scavenging now.”

            “So, I’ll join him.” Little did you know how much Rafe pitied you. So innocently unaware of Micah’s hatred towards you. If Rafe allowed you to go out with Micah, there was no guarantee you’d come back.

            “No, _____. We need you here. You’re good in the garden with Maddy.”

            You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest, “Bullshit. I was never good at that. That was Millie’s thing.” At the mention of your deceased best friend’s name, you felt your defiance lower.

            “I want to scavenge.”

            “No.” Rafe replied with finality. “If you don’t want to garden, fine. We’ll find something else for you.”

            “I’ll be fine, Rafe. I know you’re always looking out for me, but I can take care of myself.”

            He looked troubled, almost…sad.

            Stepping closer, he kept his voice low. He brought the palms of his hands to your upper arms, not quite touching you, but grazing the skin there, “I can’t lose you again.”

            You peered up at him, your heart beating faster. Why was he looking at you like that?

            “You won’t.” Your voice was barely audible. But Rafe shook his head anyway, “I won’t risk it, I’m sorry.”

            With that, Rafe stepped back, his voice at normal level again, “Work with Maddy today, we’ll find something new for you tomorrow.”

            Then he left you standing there. Begrudgingly, you returned to the table. Maddy, one of the new people, grinned up at you.

            “I’m with you today.” Your tone wasn’t a happy one but that didn’t deter her bashful attitude.

            “At least you’ll get more sun.”

            Yeah, you thought to yourself, at least.

            It was nighttime, & you were helping one of the other new people, Barry, clean up the mess hall from dinner. You were about finished & ready to head back to your room when Rafe appeared.

            “You got the rest covered, Barry?” He asked & Barry nodded.

            “Great.” Rafe looked to you then, offering his hand, “Let’s get you to bed.”

            There it was again, the coddling. Sighing annoyingly, uncaring if it was obvious, you bypassed his hand & stalked towards the hallway. Once in the hallway, Rafe caught up to you, “What’s wrong?”

            “You’re babying me. I hate it. I wish you would stop.”

            “I’m not babying you.” He argued, his voice defensive.

            “No?” You stopped in your tracks to glare at him, “Keeping me from what I do best? Putting me to bed, Rafe? I mean, god, come on.”

            “I just don’t want you to push yourself.”

            Though you understood the sentiment, you wished he would let it go. You were stronger & better than that.

            “I’ll be fine. You’d know that if you’d let me do my own thing.”

            “Doing your own thing is what got you sick in the first place.” Rafe finally seethed, “I won’t apologize for looking out for you. And I won’t stop either, so get used to it.”

            Then he walked ahead of you. You stood there for a second longer, watching as he grew further away from you. You felt conflicted. You knew he only meant well, but you couldn’t help your need for independence. But you had to admit to yourself if roles were reversed, you would look out for him in the same way.

            “Rafe, wait.” You jogged up to him, gently touching his elbow with the tips of your fingers, “I’m sorry, okay? You’re right. I wouldn’t have survived if not for you. I guess I just want to do more for the group than just have my hands buried in dirt all day.”

            Rafe’s gaze softened at that, but he nodded, “I know. Like I said, we’ll find something else for you. I promise.”

            The two of you traded a smile before you started walking again. You were following blindly alongside him, not really paying attention to where he was leading you until the two of you stopped just outside a door you didn’t recognize.

            “I thought you were taking me to my room.”

            Rafe looked between you & the door, “I am.”

            Then he opened the door wide enough for you to enter. You peered inside first, taking in the larger size than your own bedroom. There was a bed against the left wall—a real one with a frame & everything—& a window straight ahead. It was dusty & musty but clean for the most part. But you couldn’t help the frown on your face, “I don’t understand.”

            “It’s our room.” He revealed.

            Your eyes rounded, staring at him appallingly, “Our room?”

            Rafe let out a shaky breath as he looked you over, “You don’t remember a lot…”

            You felt your brows cinch together, concerned about the tone in his voice.

            “You weren’t with Sayyed at the end. Not, ya know, with him, like before.”

            You felt your mouth fall open to ask but closed it. What was Rafe getting at?

            “You were with me.”

            What?

            An awkward, forced breath of air, that somewhat sounded like a startled laugh, left your mouth.

            “We’re together, _____. We have been for a while.”

            “No, what? That’s not…” Your head was beginning to hurt again as you struggled to comprehend what he was saying. Out of instinct, you backed away, but Rafe was quick to catch your hand, holding it desperately as if he was scared of you slipping away.

            “Anna’s not here to confirm for you, to help you ease into it. But I am.”

            You stared at him, distrustful. No. There was no way. You would never leave Sayyed, let alone for Rafe. Rafe was like a brother to you, you couldn’t…wouldn’t…

            “It’s why the group split.” Rafe told you, “Because Sayyed found out about us.”

            A shocked gasp left you, “No, no. I didn’t—”

            “You did, _____.” Rafe’s voice was soft but his grip on your hand firm, “In the woods. After Millie.”

            Tears kissed your eyes as you vaguely recalled something happening in the woods after Millie’s death. But the images were still blurred.

            “I’m sorry.” Rafe’s thumb rubbed the skin on your hand, “But it’s true. We’re together.”

            You stared past him, your eyes falling to the bed. You had slept with Rafe? Been sleeping with Rafe? It didn’t sound like you, it couldn’t be.

            A sob finally erupted from your throat as you felt deep down that what Rafe was telling you was true. You had cheated on Sayyed. With one of his best friends no less, with one of your own.

            “Oh, my god.” You covered your mouth with both your hands. You couldn’t fully remember the events happening, but you could remember the heartache of hurting the person you loved most.

            Rafe swallowed, stepping closer to you. As you cried into your hands, he wrapped you into a hug, his chin resting near the top of your head. He ran his hands in circles along your back, hoping to soothe you.

            “I swore I would protect you & I meant it. You may not remember but you know it’s true.” And you did. But still. This was the reality you were coming back to?

            Rafe pulled away just enough to grab your hands, to look you in the eye, “You’re my girl, _____. Mine. And I’ll be damned if I ever let another thing happen to you again.”

            It’d been a little over a week since you re-assimilated to the group. Bear, Micah, & the others were still gone in that time. But when they returned, you would be the first to find out. Rafe secured you a new position in the group. Sayyed’s old one.

            In an office on the ground floor that overlooked the gravel parking lot was a comm set-up. The computers were useless of course but there was a working satellite radio, & a few walkie talkies. It would be how you communicated with the scavenging group once they were within range & announcing their arrival. But while you waited for that call, you were constantly calling out to other survivors on the shortwave radio. In the week you had been doing that, there was nothing but white noise that responded. One time you heard a dead announcement about the end of times nearing, but it was on repeat. No one ever responded.

            It was about midday, & you were preparing to head upstairs to get lunch, when the sound of the walkie talkie crackled with a muffled voice.

            “Base, this is scavenger. We’re five miles out.”

            A grin ripped across your face at the sound of Micah’s voice. They would be here soon. You hadn’t seen Micah since rejoining the group, but with Rafe busy doing his other duties, this would be an opportune moment to talk to Micah about joining the scavengers. It wasn’t that you were ungrateful for Rafe getting you out of the garden, but you wanted more. Micah could give it to you. He was Rafe’s right hand after all.

            You responded over the walkie, “We hear you scavenger. Look forward to seeing you.”

            “Who is this?” Micah’s voice sounded, & it sounded displeased. He had always been so moody.

            “_____, Micah. It’s me.”

            There was no response. But you didn’t care. You were just happy to see two of your friends again.

            But the moment was ruined when the door behind you opened. You spun in your chair, finding Rafe standing in the doorway. There was a malicious look in his eyes.

            “What’s up?” You asked, suddenly feeling like you had been caught doing something you knew you weren’t supposed to be doing.

            “They’re almost here.”

            “Uh, yeah.” You glanced down at the walkie in your hand, “How’d you know?’

            Rafe reached into the backside of his jeans, revealing his own walkie.

            Of course, you thought to yourself.

            “But I can take care of it from here. I’ll help them unload & whatnot.”

            “No.” Rafe was quick to respond, shutting the offer down, “You’ll stay in here. I’ll help them.”

            “What? Why?” You felt yourself growing frustrated. Ever since he told you that you two were together, something you still struggled to get used to, he hadn’t let off of his protective side. In fact, it felt more heightened at points.

            “You get lunch, I’ll cover for you.”

            “No, Rafe.” You had had enough. It was one thing to get used to him against you at night, his body molding to yours as you fought to sleep at night, but it was an entirely other thing to boss you around like he owned you. “I can help. I will help.”

            “_____.” Rafe sighed, equally as frustrated as you.

            “Stop babying me, Rafe! Goddamnit!” You raised your voice, “Why don’t you trust me?”

            “It’s not that.” He groveled, his voice hard & low as he narrowed his eyes, “I just want you to eat.”

            “Bullshit.” You argued, standing up, “You promised me that you would help me. This isn’t helping & I’m not buying what you’re saying.”

            He stared at you silently, his lips rubbing against one another.

            “Do you trust me?” You asked.

            “Of course.” He replied without pause.

            “So, let me do this. Okay?”

            He looked past you, staring out into the gravel lot, contemplating your plea.

            “Fine.” He shook his head, “But we’re doing it together.”

            It wasn’t ideal, but you had learned quickly that Rafe wouldn’t compromise often. You had to get what you could.

            “Fine.”

            The two of you stared at one another momentarily before he stepped forward, his hand reaching for your face. You flinched just a little, but enough for him to notice. He frowned at that.

            “You still won’t let me touch you.”

            It was true. It was strange sharing a room, let alone a bed, with him. You loathed that you couldn’t recall your own memories, that losing Millie, Sayyed, & Nuha had fucked you up beyond repair. But the reality of you being with Rafe? It was still surreal to you. It didn’t sound right, feel right. But Rafe always looked at you with longing, like he missed you. You couldn’t feel the same. You still saw him as Rafe Cameron, coke fiend & BFF. It was hard to grasp that he was your boyfriend.

            “I just need time.” You told him, looking away to sit down. Rafe followed suit, dragging out a nearby chair by its legs before sitting beside you.

            “I know, I just…” His words fell short as he eyed you warily.

            “I know.” You reassured him that he didn’t need to voice it. You saw it clear as day in his eyes.

            “Any luck with the comms?” He questioned, nodding towards the radio.

            You shrugged, “No. Nothing. We might be the last of us.”

            “I wouldn’t mind that.” He said, but he was smiling in a joking manner. You didn’t share the sentiment.

            “As long as we’re together, right?” He asked, gripping your jean clad knee. Your muscles tensed beneath his touch, but you forced a smile anyway.

            “All of us, yeah.”

            Rafe was about to say something, his mouth opening, but the sound of gravel crunching caught both your ears. You turned in your chair to see Rafe’s truck pull into the lot.

            “They’re back!” You leaped from your seat, ready to race outside to greet Bear & Micah.

            Rafe beat you to the door though, & you noticed that he was purposefully walking slowly & using the width of his body to block you from surpassing him. You were forced to walk behind him. Like his dog. The thought made you cringe.

            Outside, you watched as Micah hopped out of the driver’s side. Matt & Robbie, you guessed, were in the bed of the truck & leaping over the sides. The passenger side opened then & Bear stepped out. You didn’t care about what Rafe wanted then. Pushing past him, you launched yourself towards Bear, enveloping his larger frame into a hug.

            “I’m so glad you’re back.” You spoke into his chest. He pulled you back then, looking you in the eye. You frowned when you saw his face. He had a black eye & split lip.

            “What happened?” Your voice rose with worry.

            Bear’s eyes flashed briefly to Micah who was rounding the front side of the truck. You followed his line of sight.

            “Micah, hey.” You offered a small smile.

            But Micah didn’t return it. He paused, staring at you bewildered. Then his expression changed to one of deep anger. It made your skin go cold. What was his problem?

            Without a greeting or smile back at you, Micah stomped towards Rafe. Rafe tossed you a concerned glance before he & Micah stepped inside.

            Turning back to Bear, you inspected his face, “What happened?”

            But Bear was looking at you that same way Micah had. He looked confused.

            “Are you okay?”

            You stepped back, surprised by his question. Why would he be asking you that?

            “I’m fine…” Your voice faded, “Why?”

            His eyes flashed over your head to the mill behind, likely looking for Rafe & Micah.

            “Why are you talking to him?”

            “Who? Micah?”

            Bear frowned.

            “Why wouldn’t I?” You questioned, but you felt hurt by the inclination. Had something happened between you & Micah?

            Before Bear could respond, you heard the sound of your name being called.

            “Go get lunch.” Rafe ordered, his voice hard as he walked towards you & Bear.

            “But—”

            “Just go. I got it from here.” Rafe wasn’t looking at you though, his eyes solely placed on Bear.

            You felt like you were caught in the middle of an unspoken battle between the two of them. What the hell happened?

            “It’s okay.” Bear voiced, making you look back at him. He nodded, faking a smile, but you saw right through it.

            “Make sure you see Adrianna.” You told him, to which he nodded in agreement.

            Backing away from the two, you glanced over your shoulder in curiosity as Rafe blocked Bear from your view to speak with him.

            Inside, Micah was nowhere to be found. You began making your way to the second floor to get yourself some food. But as you did, you felt your stomach swimming & your head growing dizzy.

            Something was wrong. You had felt it when you first came to a week or so ago, but as the days passed, you felt the inkling growing stronger. Rafe was lying to you, or at least keeping some truth from you. There was too much negative tension, too many bad feelings in the air for you to be fully in the loop. That would come to an end. You’d make sure of it. If Rafe wouldn’t tell you the truth, you’d find someone who would.

            It was shortly after dusk when you found yourself crawling into bed. Rafe had yet to return to the room, & you saw little of him since lunch. Same with Micah. Bear.

            You felt like they were being kept from you, or you them. Either way, you’d confront Rafe about it.

            For the next twenty minutes, you read a book: a collection of Irish literature that someone had found & stored away on a bookshelf in the mess hall. But as you read, the words weren’t registering. Your mind was too busy trying to fill in the holes of your memory. But the more you tried the more your head hurt.

            You were mindlessly reading the final paragraph of a short story when the door to the bedroom opened. Rafe stepped inside, spying you on the bed before smiling. You didn’t return it. Dog-earing the page you were on, you placed the book on the floor, pulling your knees to your chest as you watched Rafe get undressed. His back was to you as he slipped out of his flannel, t-shirt, & jeans before he finally made his way towards you.

            “Watcha’ reading?” He asked, peering over you to see if he could spot the book. You shook your head, “Nothing.”

            He hummed in response, groaning quietly to himself as he slid under the covers shirtless & in his boxers. Once he was comfortable, his read resting against a pillow against the wall, he smirked up at you.

            “You alright?”

            You narrowed your eyes, “You tell me.”

            Rafe crinkled his brows at that, “What’s wrong?”

            “Something.” You blatantly pointed out, “I don’t know what, but something.”

            He was silent, staring at you unblinkingly.

            “But you do.” You added, “And don’t deny it.”

            Rafe sighed, sitting forward, “Okay, what’s this about?”

            You glared at him, frustrated that he was playing dumb, “Don’t. Don’t fucking do that. Don’t respond like you don’t know what I’m talking about, you know exactly what I’m talking about, Rafe!”

            Rafe returned your glare then as he studied your face, “And what exactly is it do you think I know?”

            “Everything!” You exclaimed, your voice cracking. No, you pleaded with yourself, don’t start crying now.

            “Everything, Rafe. Do you think I’m blind? Stupid?” You asked incredulously. “Micah looked at me like he hated me. Bear has his walls up. You’re keeping me from them. What the fuck is going on? And don’t feed me some bullshit about it all being in my head. It’s not!”

            “Okay, okay, calm down, will ya?” Rafe sighed, looking away in contemplation. You stared at him, willing him to look you in the eye & tell you the truth.

            “You & Micah aren’t friends.” Rafe finally looked at you, but revelation shocked you.

            “What? Why?” Your voice shook.

            “Because he…” Rafe fluttered his eyes closed in frustration, “blames you for Millie’s death.”

            What? You blinked away tears as the words repeated in your head.

            “Why would he…?”

            “I don’t know. I mean, I do, but it still doesn’t make sense. He’s angry, wants someone to blame. He picked you.” Rafe licked his lips, shaking his head, “And as far as Bear goes, he uh, he doesn’t agree with my method of doing things.”

            Though you were still stuck on Micah’s hatred toward you, especially the reasoning, you were concerned about what Rafe had just revealed about Bear.

            “Your method?”

            Rafe inhaled sharply, “I’ve done some shitty things, _____. But they were necessary. For our survival.”

            “What’d you do?” You were beginning to regret learning the truth.

            “I’ve hurt people.” Rafe responded flatly, as if he was removing himself emotionally from the conversation, “Killed them.”

            “The men in the woods?” You asked, suddenly recalling a vague memory.

            “Yes.” Rafe nodded, “And others.”

            “Others?” Your voice was barely above a whisper.

            “It doesn’t matter.” Rafe shook his head, “I did what was needed for us to get this far. I did what no one else could or would do.”

            You frowned, your mind running wild with the possibilities.

            “And the only reason I’m keeping a close eye on you is because not everyone here can be trusted.” The final piece of information unsettled you.

            “They know what you mean to me, & they know your condition. If anyone here wants to get rid of me, they know to go through you to get that done.”

            “That doesn’t make sense.” Your head was throbbing, “If you don’t trust some of them, why are they here?”

            Rafe met your eyes, his gaze unwavering. “Because we need them.”

            Your head was still spinning but your heart softened. Your distrust faded.

            “I told you I wouldn’t risk losing you again. I need the others to keep that from happening.” It surprised you to see his eyes begin to wet, redden, like he was holding back his own tears.

            “This is the new world now, _____.” Rafe began, “Our enemies become our resources to survive, whether we like it or not.”

            “I understand.” You commented. But you didn’t. Something was still off. But you couldn’t pinpoint it.

            Rafe smiled but it wasn’t happy or real. You scooted closer to him on the bed. Hesitantly, you placed your hand on his shoulder. You felt him shudder beneath your touch. Feeling braver, you maneuvered him so he was in a position where he lied with his head on your chest. Rafe was quick to wrap his arms around your middle, tugging himself closer to you.

            “Thank you.” You whispered, your fingers running through his hair.

            He turned onto his back then, looking up at you. There he was, your best friend staring up at you with that look of longing. Before you could say anything or stop it, he placed his hand on the back of your neck & pushed himself up.

            Rafe kissed you, his lips soft yet firm. You resisted at first, but found you had nowhere to go with his hand keeping you in place. And then before you knew it, you were kissing him back. It wasn’t because you necessarily wanted to, or because you had a sudden epiphany about being attracted to him, but because it was the first honest thing you had gotten in the last week. So you welcomed it. If only for a moment.

            Rafe rolled onto his front, never letting his lips separate from yours. He easily found himself between your legs, but the second you felt his prominent arousal pressed against your center, you gasped, shoving him back.

            “I’m sorry.” You covered your mouth, your hands shaking, “I can’t. I’m not, I don’t know. I just, I’m not ready.” You admitted.

            Rafe sighed, & you could tell he was mildly irritated, but he nodded once, “Okay.”

            He rolled over to his side of the bed then, looking at the wall. A pang of guilt shot you in the chest. Ignoring your nerves, you eased toward him, situating his arm over your shoulders as you rested your head on his chest. You felt relieved when you felt Rafe relax into it.

            “I’ll get there, okay? But I have to go slow.” You craned your neck to look up at him. Rafe’s face was expressionless but he nodded, leaning forward to kiss you on the forehead. Your skin burned where his lips touched.

            “I know you will.” He replied, “I’m just impatient to have you back.”

            The two of you settled into bed in that position, & soon enough Rafe was breathing evenly as he slept. But you lied there wide awake, reflecting on everything he had just revealed to you; more so on your relationship with him. You were genuinely worried that he would never get you back, & if that was the case, you worried about your status among the group. You felt that if you didn’t fall back in love with Rafe Cameron then you would cease to exist. And as much as you hated to admit it, you needed him to survive. It’s like what he said: our enemies are our resources to survive. Rafe Cameron was yours.

quite a bigger chapter for you all! i apologize in advance for the last half of this as i wrote while being drunk (teehee). anyway! just a filler chapter to ground reader's suspicions & her struggles with amnesia.

as always, please share your thoughts w me via commenting, reblogging w reviews, or dropping an ask.

thank you for reading!

beau<3

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[duckapus]

Nicktoons: Fractureverse

An idea based on FusionFall.

The Mawgu somehow returns, seeking revenge on the nine (technically eleven but for some reason Cosmo and Wanda don’t count as separate from Timmy for the purposes of the prophecy) Chosen Heroes who defeated him on Volcano Island. To that end, he tears the space-time continuum asunder, linking their worlds and many others (so every Nickelodeon universe I can think of) with unstable portals called Fractures, and then exploits the ensuing chaos to stage an invasion. He manages to do a lot of damage, most notably conquering Bikini Bottom and transforming it into his new base of operations, causing Fairy World to crash-land in the desert just outside of Retroville (it’s still mostly intact but it’s stuck on the ground afterwards), and stealing about 40% of the Irken Empire, but is met with resistance far sooner than he anticipated.

It turns out that Jimmy was aware of the possibility of the Mawgu escaping and had been working on countermeasures, creating weapons specifically designed to destroy his ooze’s unique chemical makeup and sap the energy his true self consists of. They’re not enough to defeat him outright, not yet, but for now they’re enough to turn this into a war instead of a slaughter. It also helps that the Mawgu’s powers don’t work well on machines (and that he doesn’t really understand them, though the Irkens now under his control do mitigate that somewhat), and that he’s somehow developed a weakness to weaponized ectoplasm. By contrast, his presence (and probably the whole shattering spacetime thing) now severely weakens Fairy magic, hence the quite literal Fall of Fairy World.

A war as unconventional as this requires an unconventional army, and one is formed by the various heroes and altruistic oddballs of the newly dubbed Fractureverse, as well as their allies, a handful of their enemies who can see the writing on the wall, and anyone else willing to step up and help. They call it the United Dimensional Defense Force, or UDDF, and its main headquarters is in a newly built part of Dimmsdale called Dry Atlantis, which is where most of the Bikini Bottom refugees are staying. As you’d expect, the actual Nicktoons team (particularly the Chosen Nine) end up as key players in the war, with Timmy in particular somehow ending up as the leader of the entire UDDF.

And then, of course there’s the villains. While a few of them either joined the UDDF or are still acting on their own, most of them have joined the Syndicate. However, there’s been a divide there. The New Syndicate, led by Plankton, have decided to put aside their antagonism for now and cooperate with the UDDF while remaining a mostly independent faction, seeing the Mawgu as a greater threat to their plans (and lives) than the heroes could ever be. The much smaller Old Syndicate, led by Professor Calamitous, were unwilling and/or unable to curb their ego and ambition, and are trying to exploit the war for their own ends. Interestingly, despite the name, Calamitous is the only one of the four founding members of the original Evil Syndicate to be part of the Old Syndicate, with Crocker serving as Plankton’s head of R&D and Vlad being too busy as the mayor of one of the Mawgu’s biggest targets to join anyone, though he has been financially and politically supporting the UDDF, and supplying the NS with his ghost research and knockoff Fenton Tech. Also the GIW isn’t working with anybody since the NS and UDDF have ghosts on staff and aren’t even remotely willing to hand them over, the OS is literally a war profiteering criminal organization, and they’re too Xenophobic and patriotic to even entertain the idea of betraying earth and siding with the Mawgu, which is good for them considering they’d either get turned into puppets or just destroyed. The Irken Empire isn’t getting involved (aside from a few individuals like Zim, Tak and Skoodge) despite the heavy loss they were dealt because Red and Purple, as per usual, don’t give a shit.

[lizzie-wendigo]

Pucca: Love Recipe (review)

Okay, as I said, I hadn't the slightest idea that the series had a reboot that apparently came out in 2018. And it's not surprising, it seems that it was not even released in my country, since even most of the chapters are blocked and much less dubbed into my language.

So I had to watch the few chapters available in English, it was not a problem for me, since I understand it. So based on what I could see of this series, I'd like to make a little constructive criticism, comparing it a bit with the original series and of course at the end I'll give it a specific rating, don't forget that this is my personal opinion.

Dynamics and plots of the series: 

Many people believe that Love Recipe counts as a third season, but the reality is that it's a reboot, since it doesn't even have a direct connection to the original series. Pucca only had 2 seasons, but Love Recipe doesn't seem to be a concrete third season. This series even depicts Ring Ring as a new person on the island, who appears to be a rich girl who is dependent on technology and opens a new restaurant, which happens to be Go Rong's new competition. 

Many of the plots of the chapters are simple recycling of plots that were already shown in the original series, such as: the separation of Won from the head of ching or the beauty competitions, or even garu put in jail. I understand that they want to change the context of these chapters, but they don't stop being recycled.

Character interaction and role changes: 

This point is both good and bad. I like that they've changed Garu's interaction with Pucca, in the original series Pucca was more intense with Garu, so much so that he pushed her, and was even paranoid at times, making their interactions together rarely calm; This aspect is corrected in Love Recipe. Although Pucca chases Garu, he even lets her kiss him, and his reaction is almost the same, without showing annoyance or displeasure. I have also noticed that Garu is less cold and distant with his friends and other people in general, now working in Go Rong as an ingredient collector. Besides that now he seems to be closer to Pucca (especially in the final chapter, where he already makes sure that he does loves Pucca). 

Unfortunately, I can't say the same about other characters, the most obvious examples are Ring Ring and Tobe, Both used to be complete antagonists of the main characters (Pucca and Garu), Antagonist is not the same as villain. And yes, both were the complete opposite of the leads. Tobe was the complete opposite of Garu (Cruel, impatient, dishonest, cheating and obsessive) just like Pucca's Ring Ring (Bossy, conceited, spoiled, materialistic and narcissistic), and all of these were reasons for the original series to give us battles very epic among these. Well, all of that went to waste in Love Recipe, Ring Ring went from being Pucca's antagonist to being her love rival and simple comic relief, her powers are completely wasted to make garcia-less jokes (not to mention that now her transformation and screams seem to cringe), the same for Tobe, who also happened to be simple comic relief. The same also applies to other characters that became simple comic reliefs and fillers, such as Ching, Dada, Pucca's uncles, among others. Even the original series gave us more endearing episodic characters (like the Texans, Santa's ex-friend, Mel)

In addition, it seems that they eliminated other characters from the original series (such as Destiny, Muji, Doga, Chief, Clown and Shaman), only to add others less funny and endearing, (such as Rin Ring's employees, Ring Ring's father, Go Rong's other employee; I don't remember his name, the bee aliens or the person who parodies the men in black) They even changed Santa and it's less laughable and less relevant than in the original series!

Humor and jokes: 

Okay, there are jokes in this series that I found somewhat funny or at least made me smile, but most of them are duller than the original series. And I don't know about you, but at least I'm not a fan of poop and fart jokes at all. In the original series they did, but they were not recurring. In Love recipe they even have a WHOLE chapter dedicated to it! WHY!? They don't abuse those jokes, but when they do, they overdo it a lot! I'm totally against these jokes, they are not funny at all.

Music and Acting:

Well, the most notorious thing regarding the music is that the original series only had an opening and ending theme, "Pucca funny love", a song that they not only used for it, but also as a battle theme. It didn't bothered listening to it in every chase, in fact I liked the song so much that I was happy to listen to it in every fight scene, of course they also used other soundtracks from time to time, but they almost always used this one. In Love recipe they don't do this, they have a new opening and ending theme, they are catchy. Although they don't use them for battle themes, since NEVER IS THERE!! And when there are, they're quite fast and boring.

Regarding the acting, I don't have much to say, because I saw them in English and now it seems that their original dubbing is not English, but Korean (where the series originally came from). Although I made a small comparison with the English dubbing of the original series with Love recipe, and I liked the performances of the original version better. But the most notorious change was that of the protagonists, if we remember, in the original series, they rarely acted, they often recycled many of the default sounds that the actors made, (Like laughter, moans, screams, etc.) although in one specifically chapter Garu speaks, I'd say that it's an exception. In Love Recipe, the actors seem to act out every mime the characters do. Personally, this change in voice doesn't bother me, pucca sounds just as cute as in the first series, and garu now sounds softer (it fits with the new personality they gave him).

Design and Animation:

We come to the last and most notorious point of this series (clarification: design is not the same as animation) Let's start with the designs........ WHAT-THE FUCK-IS THAT!? There's not much to say about the original characters, since they only underwent a couple of modifications (Like Dada, Master Soo or Santa), but the new characters... EUGH... They look like fucking avatars made on a wii. Their designs are horrible.

This goes hand in hand with the animation, many people complained that Pucca had a bad animation just because it was animated in Adobe flash, but I can assure you that it had much better quality than Love Recipe, I like that the expressions remain the same and even add more, but it doesn't make up for the poor quality of the animation. It's too generic (if you don't believe me, take a look at netflix original children's series, like Jurassic Park or their original movies, they all have the same animation). In the original series, they even had episodes where they traveled to other locations or in other universes, and they bothered more to improve or adapt the character designs (Like Puccapatra, Umberjacked, Ching it on, The bride of Muji, Surf ninjas, Garu of the Jungle, Etc) They even have a damn star wars parody!! STAR WARS!!! Even the Ring Ring's transformation looks much better and more detailed than in Love recipe, where she barely transforms. It also seems that in love recipe they never leave the island, and even so they don't put any effort into the animation, the settings seem very static and bland. It almost seems like they made this series with less budget than the original series.

Well, I can't say that this series was very bad, but it wasn't very good either, I honestly didn't expect everything to be the same as the original series, since it's a reboot; but as you can see, it could have been better, some aspects improved and others worsened.

So as a personal rating, I give Pucca: Love recipe a 4/10.

I want you to know that this is my personal opinion, although I tried to be as objective as possible. But you can leave me your opinion about this series if you wish (of course if you just come to insult me because I don't like it, you can go to hell)

[tsams-au-confessions]

Animal Rescue City au, remember that? K, let’s talk character placements

The clearest characters I have are the humans and a few of the animals, so without further ado:

Managing the ‘Rising Sun Animal Care and Shelter’ are the guys from my swap au, with Gea and Eclair as the responsible adults, their fathers dropping by to help once in a while, their little brother Clipsy running around town advertising the place, and the local goth power couple Frank and Ronty helping whenever able. I’m thinking Lunar Eclipse might be some sort of bird that got extremely attached to Clipsy and just won’t stop following him and attacking anyone trying to interact with the kid, all the while Umbra is Clipsy’s favorite animal to care for. The Project Bloodmoon Twins I’m thinking of making either magpies or Canadian geese, some sort of aggressive bird y’know? Pollux will be a peacock and Castor will be a goat.

Next up we have the currently unnamed center that will be manned by Withered Hopes Eclipse alone. This one specializes in animal rehabilitation for those creatures that have been hurt. Eclipse works very hard to keep the animals safe and untrusting of humans, he works closely with several shops around town to get resources for the center and will often have a group of volunteers at his door willing to help. There’s also his two little cousins, Stitches and Wrath, who are very avid animal fans. Those two have taken to running around town with the recently moved in FC and his older sibling, they are all on the lookout for any injured animals. KillCode here would be the local wild cat, lynx, cougar, something like that, though they’d be staying at the center permanently for several injuries they have sustained. Saber and Sickle are KillCode’s pups, both which had been separated accidentally after also getting injured, Saber was found by Eclipse and taken back, while Sickle was found by an old coyote, Buzzsaw, who took them in. Sickle and Buzzsaw kinda just wander around abandoned places in town, though they have taken a liking to Wrath.

And now, some local volunteers, Sun, Moon, Earth, KC, Stitchwraith, and Nexus. They’re all siblings, though they live separately, Sun and Moon together, Earth with their date friend, and the other three on their own. They all have taken several animals from the rescues around town and cared for them in their own homes, some examples being Lunar and the Eclipses who I think will be dogs, Tabby who’s a cat, Tiniebla the tarantula, Jigsaw the parrot, Days Solar and Night the axolotls, Hunter and Harvest who are also cats, Jack who’s a Pomeranian, and a lot more.

Next up is a single human, Sol, who works for one of the businesses Eclipse is partners with and lives in the apartment right next to KC. Sol is a mechanic, though he is skilled in many other things as well, and he doesn’t mind animals but also isn’t a fan of them. That is until he stumbles upon a very injured cat on his way home, and in an impulsive decision takes them back to his apartment and basically adopts them. The cat, dubbed Buck, is fairly old and rather grumpy and aggressive, often snapping at Sol if he gets too close to them once they recover from their injuries. This compounds significantly when Buck is around Ruby, their small week-old kitten. Still, Sol does his best to care for the cats.

These next guys were mentioned somewhat a few paragraphs ago, though now they’re getting the spotlight. Recently having moved into town, the Foxy family fit right in with the folk around the place, being passionate about animals as well. Foxy has a great appreciation for the sea and the life in it, often going on rambles over the correct ways of sailing and how to navigate in the seas and his various encounters with curious sea creatures. Puppet used to be an animal rehabber and as such understands the struggles the rescuers might be facing, so she often drops by to give some advice or even help once in a while, specifically at Eclipse’s place. FC likes foxes, like, a lot, he likes dogs and cats too but foxes are his absolute favorite animal, he would like to meet a fox at some point in his life and so he likes to walk around the town and its outskirts looking for animals to observe. FC’s older sibling, a foster kid who was recently adopted, is not as passionate about animals as the rest of the family but would absolutely never turn down a chance for adventure, they can often be seen accompanying FC in their many quests for Fox spotting.

And finally, I would like to talk about the local vets, Dusk and Dawn. Dusk could be considered a bit of a jerk with how he addresses people, he’s blunt, sarcastic, and kinda just a negative person, though the care he shows towards animals couldn’t be anymore different. He treats his patients with care, trying his best to make sure they won’t be in too much pain, and despite never being willing to admit it, he’s deeply invested in each animal’s life. Dawn is a positive guy, often showing a smile to everyone who visits their clinic, he likes to assure them that he and Dusk will do everything to help their little friends. He has a rocky history with animal care however, having previously been involved in a nasty animal experimentation group, he’s fairly desensitized to animal’s suffering, but his previous experiences do give him a bit more knowledge on medical stuff than the average vet. He’s genuinely trying to help but it’s hard for him to get attached to any patients that pass through their door.

And that’s about it for now, my eyes are begging me to go to sleep so I guess I’ll be seeing y’all later

So much to read...it sounds interesting though!!!

[kheprriverse]

pspspspspsps

the language of Termina that you showed in a wip with Terminus and Time interacting...is that from anywhere in particular, or did you create it? I'm very curious for details! 👀✨

[I hit a button on accident (twice) when nearly done with this and it reverted and deleted basically everything (twice) so please excuse any sorta messy un-hinged-ness to my writing here. Plz take Ctrl+Z away from me I'm begging you]

but AAAA!! ty for the ask as well as the kind words and general interest in the reblogs! And you wanted me to infodump so... uh below the cut will have my brain garbage flung out until I decide to stop typing. Enjoy!

For now what's in the post is a complete mix of things.

I was delving into some fan-created Hylian languages, but mostly used the font from here (which its all a very interesting read even if its incredibly old) for now as a placeholder. Because I DO plan to delve deeper into Terminian sometime in the future, along with some cultural stuff.

As for what it says, its totally scrambled nonsense LMAO. English translated poorly into japanese, written backwards, then scrambled a little, then flipped XD

I was going to be somewhat simple with the post and just using OOT/MM's script and maybe jumbling it, but in going through fan-made languages I sorta fell in love with the font that I ended up using. It IS a placeholder though and not meant to be insanely accurate to anything let alone easily deciphered.

Buuut in case you wanted to know what's actually being said I have it written out already!

Terminus taking the time to shit on Legend for no other reason then that he just can. Much to Time's displeasure.

I decided to scrap the short comic. But I liked the idea of Time and Terminus both being able to converse with one another privately (without the rather invasive mental connection they have with each other).

I like the idea that the hylian languages across the eras are so similar, enough to where the boys can MOSTLY understand one another in speech (but maybe not in writing). Then as they travel over time, things become easier and easier.

But Terminian?? Not a single one of them knows it or has even HEARD of Termina until FD came along and Time had to spill the beans. They probably didn't even know a separate, completely different, language like this even existed. Much like Mudoran in lttp.

Things I wanna focus on/keep in mind when working on this:

What was the cultural impact FD (dubbed Terminus by the boys) had on Termina? (What came first: the chicken or the egg? Also what is his role here?)

How does termina's culture compare to Hyrule? (holidays, food, beliefs, history, etc)

What does the language look like? Do I want it to be Syllabary? Abugida? Alphabetic? I'm personally leaning towards Syllabary but other forms of writing have interesting potential. Whereas Alphabetic (like some of the other hylian scripts) would be easier to work with.

What does it sound like? I feel like this would be where Terminian and Hylian experiences a sort of disconnect (especially if we go with an alphabet system). I've thought of a very stilted(?) almost reversed way of sound -- like smth isn't entirely right and just feels strange. But to residents of Termina it's completely normal and very easy to speak.

Termina is a very strange place and I really wanna play into it. I'm also very happy that you showed interest in this because it allows me to say stuff I normally would've just kept to myself.

Also I plan to delve into a Twilit language, culture, and just generally the whole world, too. Because yeah ofc we're going there. I am simply coping.

[wewebegging]

Modern TDIM AU + Du'lie

Just some information about Hector and Charlie in my AU. Warning for spoilers ahead! This is just my thought process for the characters.

Hector:

Hector is 31 in this story.

Hector is still heavily abused in this story, after his mother's death that he caused. (By pulling her plug on her deathbed.) Hector became an FBI agent, after his first case with the "Imaginary Killer" he starts questioning his morality and sanity.

Because of the abuse Hector went through in his childhood, he is extremely aggressive. During the capture of the Beast of Arkansas, Manny had sustained a fractured jaw and shattered skull. After trying to kill Hector in a last ditch effort.

Hector has a scar on the left side of his face, similar to the one he can get in game from Mark during the final act. However Manny gives it to him before being captured.

Because of his childhood and recent events, Hector chooses to never engage in conversation unless absolutely needed. His mother would berate him for speaking out of turn, either in a vocal way or with physical actions. So he prefers to stay quiet, talking about yourself shows weakness anyways. Plus as an FBI agent he has to be curt, So it works out.

On a stormy night after driving home from a crime scene, Hector finds a mangey kitten mewling near his apartment. Reminding him of himself, he takes the cat inside. Giving it a life of luxury, and dubbing it the name "Holmes". (Definitely after Sherlock Holmes...)

While I personally enjoy Hector being seen as having cat behaviors. I also love the idea of him having guard dog energy. Trained to kill, intimidating, aggressive and extremely loyal to those close to him. However he secretly has a big soft side, like a big lap dog who won't leave your side. Following you to the kitchen and back. Never leaving your side, and once you do sit down? He instantly gets into your personal space.

Because of this, Hector actually doesn't mind being physically touched. In reality he loves being touched, in a good way. Whether it be leaning or just small touches. He craves them more than anything. It takes Hector awhile to get used to it though, sometimes it's all up to gut feelings.

Hector has extremely bad anxiety. He is medicated. However when he is not, he vomits during stress. Until his body starts starving himself. Not letting a single smell or taste of food enter his system.

Because of this, Hector has an extremely bad relationship with his senses. (All except for touch.) He easily becomes overwhelmed, making his head hurt and stomach start to fill with bile. Blood and gore on the other hand doesn't phase him at all, but social interactions or a certain mix of sounds? It shakes him to his core.

Charlie:

Charlie is 24 in this story.

Charlie is extremely close with his mother. Tending to her in anyway he can, and visiting her whenever. He often tells her about work and especially his new partner. Unfortunately her wilting brain, understands this "partner" as a romantic lover. Making Charlie embarrassed everytime, but he doesnt have the heart to tell her otherwise.

Hector pisses Charlie off, a grown man shouldn't have such a hard time simply speaking! He is somewhat uninformed about Hectors mental situation, and eventually apologizes to Hector.

Charlie's first successful case was "The Architect" a man who would string dead body piece together, making horrible architectural art pieces. Charlie was captured by the man, getting prepared to be his next victim. However while the killer had tried cutting off his left hand, Charlie used his lighter to burn through the ropes holding him. While his hand was left mangled, the killer had been knocked out with a swift jab to his throat.

Charlie has little feeling in his left hand from this, sometimes wearing a hand brace just to try and ease the phantom pains.

Also, Charlie does know his canon crew in this AU. Instead they all go their separate ways. Kate becomes a bartender who owns a small crystal business on the side. Jamie still works as crew, but instead for a broadway show in Chicago. Where she later becomes a main lead, with her new found girlfriend Erin. Mark follows his photography passion, and also does product photos for Kate.

[south-sea]

I would also LOVE to hear about the dynamic you have planned for Metal and Shadow in the Second Chance AU. Give me some headcanons if you'd like.

some of this was touched on with the previous ask because it kind of got away from me, but i'll keep this one more to the point and conversational--

metal definitely struggles to see this timeline-displaced shadow as not-the-one-he-originally-knew, but only in a responsibility kind of way. he knows they're two separate people, but he will still always default to "taking care" of this-shadow. he thinks of it somewhat as repaying the kindness that-shadow showed him in the events referencing rivals 2.

they are literally housemates. metal's new mechanic/caretaker lives in the same general area shadow eventually takes up residence. metal basically invited himself to "live" there too, and shadow just never questioned it. this mostly equates to metal occasionally sitting down in the den somewhere to defrag his systems.

metal communicates via sign language, but eventually allows his new caretaker to reactivate the voice box that was still left in him from his little IDW neo metal arc. speaking aloud is often a last resort, purely because sign language is more comfortable. the only exception is when he's communicating with shadow, in which case the default is using his voice, because shadow doesn't know sign language (yet).

i consider metal's voice to be Adrenaline Dubs's take on neo metal, so it's a big spooky scary voice that tends to catch people off guard when he does use it. he doesn't find this funny nor does he particularly have the foresight to warn people/care if it would startle them, even though it does all the time.

metal does not have the capacity for empathy, and is still figuring out how to logic his way around why people act/react the way they do, as he can't predict it. his method for "taking care" of shadow largely involves doing whatever's logical on a purely scientific level, whether that's ratting him out for self-isolating, or forcefully dragging him into his black shield when things get dicey.

both are travelers to an extent. shadow's focused on undergoing tests (some grueling and even downright painful) for the first few months after his revival, but eventually starts to branch out once the research is more out of his hands. metal, also given the ability to hop worlds, does whatever he damn well pleases, if for no other reason than to collect data. he's a walking library.

metal has a truly unfathomable amount of storage space for data, and only questionably-realistic methods for which to manage it. this is part of why he (eventually) chooses to travel-just-because; data collection is one of the very, very few things he has identified as Something He Likes To Do. every single world he visits and person he meets has a "profile" in his database.

if he's processing, metal's eyes glimmer not unlike the way they do in the OVA; if he's just thinking normally, they do not. since his storage space is so large and consequently demands longer processing times on occasion, this distinction was intentionally programmed in by his caretaker, so people know he's not just ignoring them.

shadow is tiny. i erroneously claimed he was 2'09" without his shoes earlier today. i was wrong. he is 2'10". (3ft exactly with them on.)

if you only count the time he was consciously awake, shadow is like… a year old, maybe just under two. metal is, at max, six, and that does include all the time he was out of commission/put into stasis. both are childish in their own ways. both are also incredibly responsible. (usually.) shadow's relationship and understanding of his own age is complicated. his trying to be "mature" is more often than not a façade. there are days he allows himself to be more childish, and that usually amounts to being more emotionally open/needy. metal is similar, but more rarely, and it usually amounts to him demanding company; he is not subtle about his needs, when he can identify they are in fact needs.

shadow has a full set of chaos emeralds, which he keeps stashed away in a bag-of-holding type thing. these are emergency-use only, as the full array of his powers still rely on them. these were acquired through questionable means after he got his shit kicked in by a giant poison plant-thing and realized he is in desperate need of his usual arsenal. he has never (and probably never will) go super; the max he's used at once is 2. he likes the green and light blue ones the most.

sonic is eventually made aware of metal's absence and why. he doesn't find the whole multiverse thing unusual, just based on the game canon alone, and accepts it. if anything, he's relieved metal has finally found his freedom.

Mr. Tinker, and a whole bunch of other ex-badniks, will eventually be involved. "second chances" is the running theme for the entire cast, so a lot of it revolves around these guys getting their lives reframed in a more safe and freeing environment they wouldn't otherwise be allowed if eggman/the weight of their original timelines were still holding them down. (metal in particular will have some extremely complicated feelings about Mr. Tinker (and sage)'s return.)

[rotationalsymmetry]

All right. So, I think it’s probably better to not continue engaging on the original post from a couple days ago and I think it would have been better if I’d done my usual and explained my position separately to start with. There are some things that mean things in context that would not have that meaning out of that context — for instance, perhaps arguing on someone else’s post “I want to be able to complain about stuff without it being associated with calls of censorship” might imply that I want to/am directly complaining to the writers about this stuff, since after all I am tagging this on to someone else’s post.

And there are some things about this that are very reminiscent of other times I’ve waded into Discourse without really understanding the context and as a result came across way, way differently than I intended.

(It’s I think somewhat analogous to the “queer as a slur” thing: the reason that whole concept is so fucked up is because queer IS a slur, queer is often used against us in derogatory ways and this is common knowledge, so someone who isn’t connected to a community that has reclaimed the word is gonna react with “ooh, I don’t like that word” and then you can’t tell which of the “hey just so you know you should tag the q word” people just don’t have the context and which ones are doing it entirely on purpose and which have run into and bought into some terf outlier ideas (like maybe they figure “lesbian” should mean “not attracted to men, period”) but aren’t full terf and might never be.)

There is something about dynamics on social media that just makes all this stuff extremely fraught and doesn’t really cut slack for normal amounts of not knowing stuff, not phrasing things perfectly, and/or picking up code phrases and using them for their surface meaning because you just don’t know what the dog whistles are supposed to whistle for.

Anyways my own blog my own opinions: I think part of where I was coming from is that I do actually think that “hey I have personal ethics and I want my writing to reflect that” I is not the same thing as censorship, and the original post was written as “you don’t have to” (which, when I mean personal ethics I don’t give a shit about, eg, writing about Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy or whatever) and then when Twilight got brought into it I was all like “yeah, I don’t want to write stories about stalker boyfriends who are presented as good and loving boyfriends.”

It’s important to me to tell stories that engage with themes of consent and bodily autonomy, either in the story itself or in the bigger context of the story (ie having a way to label things non-con or dub con if that’s what’s going on.) That doesn’t mean I think anyone else should have to or that I have the standing to tell other people what ethical standards to follow in their own writing if they’re not even asking me. But yeah, for me, if I’m writing, there’s some things I want to prioritize.

I want to avoid writing harmful (racial etc) stereotypes, I want to avoid writing scenes where it’s ambiguous whether this is a rape scene that’s intended to be kind of a turn-on — I have non-con fantasies, I could write non-con fantasies and I could also write stuff really digging into what effect sexual trauma has on people, I want there to be a hard line between these things. And I want to avoid writing stories where side character death is treated as, idk, scenery? ambiance? And I want to avoid “torture is OK if you’re the good guys” tropes and other designated hero tropes where the heroes are not in any way more ethical than their opposition.

I figured out how to work this around 15 years ago. Writing involves two types of things: a creative stage, like a plant growing, and a stage that’s like pruning the plant. (Which is mostly about technical stuff like grammar and pacing, but can also be about “is this the kind of story I’m comfortable writing?”) When you’re writing, “am I engaging in misogyny by calling my female villain a witch?” is going to block the creative flow and you should just use whatever words are coming to you without worrying about it, much as it’s also important to not get hung up on whether your spelling is right or whether you should be using the Oxford comma. That stuff is for the pruning stage. (Although it’s not always a straightforward write/edit thing; sometimes the “I want my writing to do certain things” stuff can be used effectively in the generating ideas phase too. But the important thing is that when you’re growing you should be growing, not second guessing yourself, you shouldn’t grow and prune at the same time.) There is a way in which getting too tense about writing responsibly can get in the way of actually writing, and it’s also possible to get writing responsibly (to your own standards) concerns in there before you’re showing off a finished product.

If you’re showing anyone at all; there is also great value in “I’m writing this just for me”, it doesn’t have to be a thing you show other people to be worth doing.

Most of the sort of ethical writing discourse I’ve seen on tumblr is beyond wonky and I generally ignore it. It is, well, extremely wonky to tell people “you have to write fem slash regardless of what you personally like, I don’t want to hear any excuses” or… I don’t even know what else is going on, because mostly I stay way away from that stuff. But there’s something that actually makes sense a few steps away from that, which is “if your default protagonist is always male, is that because you just haven’t considered trying to write female protagonists more often?” Because sometimes that happens! It happens with me! My internal sense of a default human being is male, in the same way that my sense of a default dog is a Labrador retriever, if I don’t get further direction I’m not going to picture a pekingese or a pug. He’s also white, straight, and abled — I live in a society, you know?That doesn’t mean I’m attached to writing Relatable Everyman characters, it just means if I’m going to avoid writing primarily extremely predictable white dudes (who are probably full of angst, because, well, that’s what I like to write about), sometimes I need to remind myself that other types of human beings exist.

And it’s the same with relationships and rape and stuff. I’ve read two books by women in the last few months that had scenes that were weirdly sympathetic to rapists/almost rapists, and I don’t know these writers’ souls but if that were me, that wouldn’t be because I actually wanted to write that, it would be because I’ve read too much High Literature by guys that treated that sort of thing as Art and I was just kinda copying it because I wanted to write Art too. You know? Whereas if I’m coming from a place of my own values I’m going to center on the experiences of people who are at risk of rape or who have been raped, and I’m going to be saying something on purpose that I want to say.

final thing. Sometimes people internalize other people’s “for me I want to do this” statements as “you should do this.” This is understandable because often people say “for me I want to do this” when the MEAN “everyone should do this” but want to idk be more polite or something. This especially gets tangled up with social justice stuff, because the social justice movement is a mix of people who are primarily interested in the greater good, people who want to personally be a good person and not a bad person, and people who want to be SEEN as being a good person and not a bad person. (And people who don’t want any of that but do want to use social justice language to bully and control and hurt.) It’s a mix of motivations and it’s complicated both by the bullies and by people who aren’t bullies but do want to use social pressure as an instrument of achieving social justice. Which necessarily is going to leverage people’s desires to be seen as a good person. It’s complicated.

[anika-ann]

Love on the Brain - part 3

Ch3: Turning Green

Type: MCU x Criminal Minds crossover series

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader    Word Count: 7200

Summary: The cooperation between the Avengers and the BAU bears first pieces of fruit, your team noticing things you have missed. However, tensions start to rise.

Series masterlist

Warnings: series includes criminal behaviour such as stalking or kidnapping; graphic violence, gun violence; (mentions of) death; allusions to dub-con; possible PTSD and flashbacks; sexual innuendos and foul language. Loads of fluff and teasing. I’m covering my bases here to make sure - probably sounds worse than it is. If you’re interested in specific warnings for individual chapters, let me know.

A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics​;

“Jealousy is the dragon in paradise; the hell of heaven; and the most bitter of the emotions because it is associated with the sweetest.” AR Orage

-

You shifted in your seat, looking around the room as to subtly avoid Emily’s eyes; a move she could no doubt see through, but didn’t call you out on.

When you reached one of the small lounge rooms Tony liked to use for less formal meetings – even if according to him, all work meetings should be either informal or taking place in a lab – Emily snatched you for a chat.

The reason for which had your eyes wander did not only lie in the fact you had never been here and were actually curious to take the room in – the more intimate setting, couches and armchairs in earthy tones and a fake fireplace –, but mostly stemmed from knowing this chat would have not so hidden ulterior motives.

You were sure Emily would love to catch up as much as you would; but things weren’t so simple. Even entering the room, both of you were well-aware that it would be Emily asking questions and you answering rather than vice versa and her questions would have a single goal: to get insight. And whether you liked it or not, you needed to give her exactly that so she could help you. So she and the rest of the team could help Steve.

This awareness didn’t help the awkward air; nor did the fact you still weren’t sure where you stood with each other after you had left without much warning or keeping in touch.

“Swell place Tony Stark has here,” Emily commented noncommittally, earning an equally disinterested hum from you; you still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Never been here before either?”

Your shook your head. “Nope… I don’t spend much time here outside of work. The Initiative offers apartments not too far from here with reduced rent.”  

“I see. Keeping work life and personal life somewhat separate. Smart.”

You scoffed humourlessly, eyes fixed on the forest green rug under the small conference table as your eyebrows jumped a bit.

“Yep. Works out well until it doesn’t.”

And wasn’t that right.

Except that the only thing to separate the two was the place you lived. Other than that, your friends, your neighbours, they all had ties to the Initiative; and you best friend was one of the Avengers, the Captain himself.

It wasn’t healthy; but neither was turning a blind eye to the feeling you for Steve in order to preserve your friendship.

“Jones… would you actually look at me so we could talk?” Emily asked gently, a hint of amusement in her voice.

It was so characteristic of her; kindness, no-nonsense attitude and humour. You missed her; she was like an older sister you never had, one that was willing to give everything and asked nothing but acceptance and respect in return.

You gulped and let your eyes stray to her face; her eyes shone as warmly and sincerely as her words, causing your mimic muscles to come to life and give her the tiniest of smiles.

“Sorry. Uhm. I don’t live here and I don’t hang out here that often. I’m not saying the Avengers aren’t my crowd at all, but… they’re mostly Steve’s friends and he only pushes a little to get me friendly with the band,” you explained further, earning a nod of understanding.

“You looked just fine with Romanoff, Stark and Barton if you ask me, but I hear you. Steve on the other hand… you seem really close.”

Heat flushed your cheeks, your heart stumbling in your chest at her observation. Were you so obvious in wanting to be even closer too?

“I don’t want to embarrass you, just… I can tell. You told him about us, but not to the others,” she observed quietly, non-judgemental and yet, you felt a pang of guilt.

Your time at the BAU wasn’t insignificant; in fact, it was a better part of your professional life so far and your personal as well, because one did not work at the BAU for years without forming deep attachments.

It was a shame not to talk about it your new friends… but you didn’t only carry attachments and happy memories with you. Every single one member of the team had demons following them around; it was one of the reasons why the bonds you had created ran so deep. It often hurt to reminiscent. Remembering could be terrifying and would push straight into an unpleasant place which was difficult to claw your way out of.

An undeniable truth was however, that when on the team, sooner or later, one learned to read the other; and Emily read you like a book. Naturally, it hadn’t escaped her notice that Steve knew that you had once been working with a genius mind of 187 points.

There was no denying it you told Steve bits and pieces, just like there was no denying that you had still shared shamefully little and even less with other people in your life.

“I didn’t say much… I—I don’t keep it a secret, I don’t keep you all a secret,” you whispered, attempting to explain. You weren’t even sure what. “And when I left, I didn’t mean to-- I just…”

“Hey,” she interjected, once again more understanding than you deserved. “It was a tough case. You left for a good reason and you seem happy. That’s what matters.”

You swallowed heavily, feeling tears prickle in your eyes. When you let yourself close them, all you saw was red; red and dark empty brown, stickly like the blood on your hands.

When you snapped your eyes open again, it was to Emily’s compassionate tight-lipped smile.

“You all stayed,” you argued weakly, blinking away your tears before they could spill over, before the nails threatening to gnaw at your gut could dig their way in.

Emily’s easy – but not dismissive – shrug was like an invisible force who pushed the figurative aggressive hands away.

“Each of deals with these things in our own way. There’s no shame in walking away when it is what you need.”

“Can’t help feeling differently about it,” you turned one corner of your lips up humourlessly, taking a calming breath as you confessed your sins. “It stings sometimes. And I… I should have stayed in contact more, so we didn’t have to meet in these circumstances.”

“You did what you needed to do at the time and that’s all any of us can do. We miss you, but… we understood,” she shook her head, a smile with a teasing edge lifting the corner of her lips. “And you evaded my question, miss. Tell me about you, about him. About you two.”

Right.

You had genuinely forgot that was what she was asking about before. You cleared your throat.

“Yeah, Steve and I are close,” you admitted, still feeling like your face was on fire upon saying it out loud.

What else was there to say about you two without sound like a love-sick fool?

Facts, Jones, remember to share facts, not your feelings.

“He, uhm, he saved my life, several times.”

See? Fact.

“I like him already,” Emily hummed, her little note putting you more at ease.

“He’s good at what he does. He’s a good leader, looking out for his team. But he’s not the kind of person who would expect something in return, you know? Just… if you treat him like a normal person, with normal human decency and respect, he’ll be grateful for that. I love that about him. He was so genuinely shocked when I brought him cookies after the first time he jumped in to save my life-”

“Ooh, you baked for him?” Emily interrupted again, grinning.

You chuckled, fighting the urge to hide your face in your palms when you remembered Steve’s flabbergasted face – or Captain Rogers’ at the time – when you offered him the Tupperware box, heart nervously hammering against your ribcage.

“It was kinda embarrassing really.”

“Nah. A way to man’s heart is through his stomach more often than not. I’m sure he appreciated it.”

“I guess he did, in the end,” you shrugged, lips spreading in a genuine smile. “We grew closer and closer after that, it helped that we’re neighbours.”

Your smile fell quickly when you realized that was the only reason why you knew about the photos; had he found it, he would have probably dismissed it.

You felt an icy shiver run up your spine at the mere thought.

You were aware you weren’t a very objective observer, but neither was he. You because of your former job; him because of his minimal sense of self-preservation.

“I… I know that me being so close clouds my judgement. My bad experience from the BAU stalking cases too, but… there are objectively things that are disturbing.”

“Not what I was asking, but tell me. Things like what? Besides the bullets, of course.”

What wasn’t disturbing about this whole thing?

“Like how didn’t he notice?” you questioned, no matter you sounded like a broken record even to yourself. “Yes, he’s famous, I get that. He learned to ignore everyone staring and sneakily taking photos, I guess, but… it’s just bugging me. No one should be able to sneak up on us. Especially not on him.”

Not on Mr.Supersoldier himself.

You internally sighed.

“Hm… It’s probably like you said. He’s used to it, tuning it out. Is he comfortable dealing with his fans?” Emily pried further, clearly not minding the change in topic too much.

Neither did you. Truth was, it was fun to observe Steve with fans; sometimes you were annoyed if they got too much, but he could get adorably flustered at the attention. And he was golden with kids; not that it made your belly flutter to see him squat to a five-year-old’s height, shake their hand and call them a special agent to have them show off their toothless smile.

Not at all.

“Depends. He always tries to be nice and he is, but I know him enough to see when he really puts a lot of effort to keep appearances and would rather to tell them to go to hell. He hates when they get handsy, flirt way too much,” you said, almost adding ‘and so do I’. “He loves dealing with kids though… his eyes light up when he sees they look up to him.”

“I’d pay to see that,” Emily hummed knowingly, clearly thinking about your reaction rather than Steve’s. Rude. “What is he like? In private, I mean. We know things about Captain America, but who is Steve Rogers?”

“He’s a little shit who’s too reckless and stubborn for his own good.”

The exasperated words were out of your mouth before you could think twice of them, eyes growing wide once you realized what you said – even if you spoke no lies. He was a little too reckless; and yet, here you were, too stupid to tell your heart off.

Emily burst into a surprised laughter, irises sparkling with mischief as you rushed to elaborate on your blunt response.

“Sorry! I just feel like he doesn’t take this seriously enough. And he is exactly that. He’s a good strategist, but sometimes he just throws away the plan. He can be reckless, though he’s not stupid by any means. He’s brilliant, of course. He knows how to roll with the punches, sometimes literal ones.”

Emily chuckled again, but nodded, signalling she was listening and you could go on.

“He’s really feeling the leader responsibility. Always stands by the ‘leave no man behind’, case on point – me,” you pointed at yourself unsubtly, sighing. “Sometimes that gets in the way of thinking about his own safety. He appears confident even when he’s doubting his abilities as a leader, feels the pressure – because he knows he has to be. There aren’t many people he would let see it affect him, who get to see him vulnerable, human… I’m not even sure how many times he’d let the other Avengers see that and they’re like his family… Uhm. Anyway, he’s surprisingly fun when he lets loose, when he doesn’t have to live up to the great golden boy persona.”

Echo of amusement was still present on Emily’s face as you trailed off, but her smile was nothing but warm at your ramble.

“He sounds pretty great. I’m glad you have each other.”

Yeah, so were you. Even if the implication of have could considerably differ depending on context; and of whom she would ask.

“How would he make enemies, besides the obvious?” Emily asked carefully, falling into a more serious mode again.

The heaviness didn’t escape you; or perhaps you couldn’t escape the heaviness behind the word ‘enemy’. Because despite what Tony Stark initially thought, the stalker certainly was an enemy force and they were a serious threat to man who didn’t deserve anything but love.

“He’s a likeable person. Maybe a bit too much.”

You would know; whether it be you or way too many others to your liking.

“He’s… he attracts people, romantically or not. And I think that rejection, no matter how gentle, or ignorance, could lead to antagonism. That’s one thing.”

“And other than that?”

“He’s really observant, so he can call out people directly on their shit and usually isn’t afraid to do so, so someone might be offended, take it too personally,” you mused. “The only times he hesitates is when his behaviour, no matter how right he feels it would be, affects others negatively. He isn’t afraid to challenge authorities, but if others should suffer from it, he’ll keep his mouth shut for as long as needed. Not a second longer. If he sees a bully, he just can’t help himself. He won’t get violent unless necessary, but he puts them in place. That was my second guess for an unsub – someone who feels humiliated by his intervention or someone who’s jealous of him.”

Emily nodded, mentally cataloguing all the information, no doubt forming conclusions in her mind, thinking of all the alternatives offered.

“Alright. Anyone with special interest in him that you can think of?”

Besides me?

And half of the Avengers Initiative and half of New York City? … That probably wouldn’t narrow it down.

You thought further – and instantly came out with a name, one that made your stomach and your jaw a little tight. Because yes, she certainly did take special interest In Steve.

Then again, it was only natural; with her more than with others.

“Sharon— Agent 13, I mean,” you quickly corrected yourself. “But she’s a Carter. Peggy Carter’s niece. Steve and Peggy were--- well, back in the forties, they were sweethearts. She’s well into her nineties now, but they go visit her together sometimes.”

“I see. What she’s like?”

“Pretty. Smart. Kinda badass,” you said simply, keeping your description court.

It wasn’t that you didn’t like Sharon Carter – she was a wonderful agent, a very capable one, and she was friendly and respectful enough. Virtually, there was nothing wrong with her.

You just weren’t a fan of her affiliation with Steve; she had him practically wrapped around her finger at times, because she was a link to his past he naturally clung to. It was unfair, really – she had him and she didn’t even have to try.

God, you were a horrible selfish person when it came to him.

“She’s good at what she does, but she only revealed her name recently, operating under another one to avoid favouritism,” you added, which had Emily nodding and grimacing.

“Well, I can relate to that,” she remarked, a subtle jab on her mother – an important ambassador persona – whose name Hotch initially thought was Emily’s ticket to the BAU. “Anyone else?”

“Not that I can think of… problem is, women are fawning over him all the time. And I mean all the time. I don’t even think I’d be able to remember all their faces during a cognitive interview.”

“That many, huh,” Emily noted, raising a knowing eyebrow.

You smirked humourlessly in return.

“’fraid so…”

“Okay, anyone in particular you can remember who was acting strange in his surroundings? Fan, recruits, …anyone? Someone who could be angry with him or hold a grudge?”

You sighed. You couldn’t think of anyone straight away and Steve had been less than helpful when you asked him the same. You hoped Spence would have better luck with him.

“He mentioned Brandon Martins, one of the recruits, but he’s already on the board. I can’t think of anyone else right now,” you admitted, ashamed.

Perhaps you needed to pay more attention to your surroundings – to Steve’s surroundings – but he made it difficult to look at anything and anyone else when he was in the room. You had a problem, alright, you were aware. But your tunnel vision never had been so relevant.  

And you had never been so useless.

“Take your time,” Emily prompted your gently, observant of how your nerves and frustration started worming their way through to your judgement again, your mind and heart growing frantic by the minute.

Time was what you didn’t have with cases like this.

“Right-“

“Hey, I know we’re on clock here, but he’s safe for now. He’s got the so-called Earth’s mightiest heroes having his back. And you.”

You tried to smile, grateful for her attempt, but failed spectacularly.

“And now you three, I know. I just… I just really hope that’s enough,” you whispered sullenly.

Emily smiled ruefully, but reached her hand over the table, softly squeezing yours. She didn’t speak, but you heard her words anyway – years of working together did that sometimes and the bond, no matter how rusty, was still present.

We all do. And we’ll do everything we can so it is.

Steve Rogers might not be a profiler nor an expert on human mind, but he knew all about complicated relationships; his relationship to you being an exemplary case.

Despite what many people considered him to be, ignoring obvious facts as him having been to war and fighting battles every day, he was also a man who knew of the world not being black and white. He knew all about shades of grey and blurred lines. He knew all about ambiguity.

But lord help him, the way he felt ever since he saw Dr. Spencer Reid enter the room, ever since he had witnessed the affection with which the genius circled his arms around you--- he was experiencing ambiguity on a whole new level.

Dr. Spencer Reid was without doubt a highly intelligent and a surprisingly empathetic man with hunger for knowledge and an insight as deep as humanly possible. He making links among clues that frankly had Steve’s head spinning while the doctor practically danced around the board with the marker in his hand, taking detailed notes and making the picture you had begun to paint somewhat organized and clearer.

Steve would be a fool to pretend Reid wasn’t an undeniable asset who could play a key role in solving the case, not to recognize his importance; he wasn’t an idiot.

He just hated with passion the importance the man seemed to have to you.

He despised the willingness and eagerness you had ran into the man’s arms; his stomach felt tight with panic and envy upon noting the warmth radiating off your very being when you hugged the lean genius.

He hated the fond smile on the man’s lips when he saw you too, the soft look in his eyes.

And he certainly wasn’t a fan of how the intruder and attention thief put Steve’s life under a microscope in the name of science and progress of the case.

Steve was already exhausted; a tension he couldn’t seem to get rid of build inside him fast, threatening to burst unless he found an outlet.

Perhaps it was worse now, because for once, Tony Stark wasn’t the source of this irritation.

The billionaire had removed himself from the room and helped Agent Hotchner by providing him information about the first women who were willing to come to the Tower for questioning. Meanwhile, Jarvis’ algorithm kept sorting through all the agents currently or previously employed by the Avengers Initiative.

Steve wished he could have an algorithm running on him too instead of being scrutinized by the kid who might have been around his age, but certainly didn’t have the looks of it.

“Do you get lunches together?” Reid’s voice snapped him from his dark thoughts.

“Huh?”

The other man just smiled briefly, voice unbearably curious and sickeningly nice as he repeated his question.

“You and Jones or you and Agent Romanoff. Do you go out to get lunch or coffee sometimes?”

Something spiteful in Steve smiled in victory even at that invasive question, something he only tried to supress half-heartedly.  

Yes, we do. You don’t get to have lunches with Sparkles these days, do you? I do.

“Yeah sometimes. I don’t see how that’s important.”

But it was important.

Because Steve was getting lunches with you, he was friends with you. He was the one you snuggled to when you needed a hug after a hard mission, he was the one who got to protect you when an enemy made the mistake of wanting to jump you from behind. He earned the cutest and slightly ashamed thank you.

Steve had all that; Dr. Spencer Reid didn’t.

“How often? Did you get lunch or dinner or anything somewhere within the timeline we built?” Reid pried further, eyeing the board as if the answer was written there.

Steve fought the urge to huff; twenty thousand words a minute. As if—

Be civil, Steven. For Sparkles.

Plus, the sooner you deal with this, the sooner the BAU team will be gone.

For a moment, Steve felt terrible for wanting to cut your reunion with your friends short; but short visits were the best, right? And the team was mainly here to do their job, nothing more…. But damn, if you were happy to see them, you’d deserve Steve was happy for you too.

He did need to get a grip and be professional.

He looked at the board as well, pushing himself to remember all the times you had lunch with him in the timeframe they chose. He wasn’t surprised at the realization that there definitely were some – but it stunned him that timeline-wise, they were too close to his liking.

“We did, actually. The first woman was the same day.”

“Really?”

Emily Prentiss chose that moment to enter with you and Natasha on her heels. Steve’s head automatically turned to you, eyes seeking yours.

The moment his gaze found yours, he felt a strange calm wash over him; because despite the slight redness of your eyes, you appeared lighter than an hour ago, eyes bright and searching as you took in all the notes Reid had made. You seemed to feel better, which was a wonderful news on its own.

But more so, you were there, suddenly tangible again; and the jealousy turned bitter on Steve’s tongue, a reminder that his feelings and hostility were childish. You were no toy and Reid was no kid he was fighting with on a playground to get it. And despite what he wanted, you were yet to actually be his – if ever.

He truly did need to get a grip.

“How it’s going, guys?” you asked no one in particular.

“We completed the timeline...” Reid announced swiftly. “And I was just wondering about you. You and Agent Romanoff.”

“Natasha’s fine,” the redhead noted, pleasantly noncommittal in her offer.

“Natasha then… well, the thing is, neither of you are in a photo.”

Oh.

Steve’s gaze instinctively skimmed over the photos, but he recalled with clarity that Reid was in fact right. And now he felt like an idiot for not pointing it you himself; or realizing it.

It was obvious now that Reid brought attention to it; but even before, Steve rationally knew neither you nor Tasha were there.

Yet, no one had said so. Steve surely hadn’t and that was frustrating, truly; but judging by your small sound of surprise, you hadn’t noticed it either. It was a small comfort, but one nevertheless.

“Oh.”

Steve could tell you were a little mad at yourself for not paying attention to that, but it had nothing to the sudden surge of panic in his gut.

These women in the photos were in danger; these were women he had met with. You could be one of them. You could be in danger. The mere idea hit him like a truck, stunning him breathless.

Hopefully, the absence of your photo meant you were safe; but your safety as another woman Steve had been interacting with quite a lot was something Steve had failed to consider.

Because he had been acting like a selfish prick, secretly pleased by your worry for him; but luckily, it seemed the universe spared you, giving him a chance to redeem himself when sending Dr. Spencer Reid.

God, he hated that, but it was painfully obvious they needed the man.

“I hate to say this, but it is strange. This woman…” Steve said as he squinted at Reid’s chicken-scratch-like writing under the firs photo, “Janet. She approached me when we had lunch and you disappeared to the bathroom.”

“Ah, that’s right! I remember her now…”

“Then why isn’t there a picture of you?” Spence pointed out the obvious, effectively making Steve forget the strange expression of distaste which appeared on your face upon recognizing the other woman. “If it happened on the same day, in the same bistro, at the same hour? You should be there, but you’re not. Why?”

Steve’s stomach dropped to his feet as it occurred to him that not being in the photos might actually be worse than being in them. How was it that you were such a constant presence in his life these days and the stalker failed to capture it? Did they intend it? Were you in graver danger than the other women? Than him?

Why did you look intrigued by the questions while he felt his insides twist in dread?

Somehow, he could clearly hear words you’d say in answer, sarcastic and teasing: Sucks when it’s the other way around, doesn’t it? Karma is a bitch, GG.

“Right now, I’m leaning towards the idea of celebrity stalking in the terms of an obsession, probably a romantic one. But I’m not sure we can rule out other possibilities,” Reid continued, Steve’s eyes automatically snapping from you to him.

“Alright… well it begs to question what the not worthy means,” Prentiss pondered. “Does the phrase have any special meaning to you?”

Steve’s mind went straight to a private afterparty, Asgardian liquor and each team member trying to lift Mjolnir, Thor’s magical hammer, which was apparently only to be lifted by those who were worthy of wielding it.  

“It doesn’t… besides Thor’s hammer, but that’s something only the six Avengers know of and I like to think it’s neither of us,” Natasha said, clearly thinking about the same night. “And neither I suppose that Odin came to Earth to snap photos of Steve with a bunch of women.”

“…right. So do we think it’s Captain Rogers or the women who’s not worthy of… whatever the unsub means?”

“Steve’s fine,” Steve noted absentmindedly, not minding one bit if Prentiss – or Emily – called him by his first name.

He caught your smile as he offered so, all of sudden not caring one bit if Reid called him the same despite the fact they had been using their last names until now.

He often found he minded very few things if it earned him a sweet curl of your lips.

“Thank you, Steve. I think we’re all good calling each other by name rather than titles.”

“Agreed,” you stated, clearly content – no, beaming – that your former and current colleagues got along well. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell you otherwise. “Well, I’m with Reid. I’m definitely leaning towards the women not being worthy of… well. That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Something with Steve.”

“His attention? His time? His affection?” Emily guessed.

“Hm… someone not seeing any partner adequate for him could think so, true, definitely if they are stalker of the fourth kind,” Reid muttered, frowning as he turned to face you. “But that circles us back to you and Natasha.”

“If we’re not there, it could mean the unsub thinks we’re worthy for some reason… whatever their reason is,” you finished Reid’s thought, clearly understanding what the doctor was talking about, unlike Steve who felt utterly lost. The fourth kind of a stalker?

Bile burned on his tongue; the way you and Reid worked together as a well-oiled machine was just as useful as irritating.

Then again, the heavy weight in Steve’s stomach eased at your suggestion; that would mean that you were, in fact, not in danger. And whatever you were supposed to be worthy of, he would agree with the stalker.

Because you were worthy of everything.

“Could it be because we are agents? We’re… let’s say more equal?” Natasha suggested, voice uncharacteristically lacking self-confidence.

But there was no need; your eyes snapped at her, intrigued.

“Oh. You mean in the sense of the mentality people sometimes have with celebrities? People want an actor to date an actress…”

“… so given that Captain America is a superhero, maybe he needs a superhero girlfriend,” Natasha nodded, a small proud smile on her lips as you beckoned to Reid to write it down.

“Okay… that’s good. I like that theory, but it only fits Natasha. I’m not a superhero.”

“Yes, you are,” Steve argued swiftly, a knee-jerk reaction to you even suggesting you were less than an Avenger, never mind the ‘original six’ Fury had hand-picked.

You lowered your gaze self-consciously, breathing in and opening your mouth to protest – but you never got the chance.

“You’re certainly close enough,” Reid agreed absently as his gaze scanned the board. “Neither of the women we identified were law enforcement.”

“That’s a good theory. I mean, what are the alternatives?” Emily shrugged.

“It could be anything,” Spencer replied matter-of-factly. “We’re still trying to find a common denominator within these women and coming out empty. They are different race, age and social status, various jobs from a cleaning lady to a manager or a tattoo artist. For now, the only thing they have in common is that they interacted with Steve… and apparently, they might be less worthy than you because they’re not law enforcement. But that’s it.”

“It’s gonna be a long day and night,” you sighed, frowning as the board.

No one disproved you; but no one voiced their agreement either. It was a simple fact.

Still, Steve didn’t like the gloom returning to your face; running on instinct, his feet shuffled your direction to stand beside you, briefly squeezing you hand hanging limply by your side. While cold to touch, it was all warm in returning the gesture as you gave him a half-hearted smile.

Steve was well-aware of two pairs of eyes watching closely, but he cared little for them; the only reason he took a step back again was because Natasha spoke.

“How do you guys see the odds? How much would the unsub focus on the women – if all we have is one photo of each – and how much would they focus on Steve?”

Reid grimaced.

“It’s hard to tell before we figure out as precise motivation of the unsub as possible. But the fact is that something made them act – they sent the pictures. We’re still in the dark about too many variables. If we look at it from an entirely different perspective, it could be that Capt- Steve is not worthy of his title if he cannot protect them-“

A sudden rush of anger flared up in Steve – more at Reid questioning his abilities than at the suggestion alone, because yes, no one was perfect and it stung every time they failed – but you put the fire out before it could find its outlet.

“He’s not actually saying you’re not worthy of the title or that you’re not capable or that you’re not doing everything you can. He’s not questioning whether you’re doing good enough job-“ you rushed to explain, hand brushing to Steve’s hip as you felt him straighten his posture defensively behind you, causing Reid’s expression to change into a mask of confusion, then regret and then brief panic.

“Oh no, I’m not! I’m merely trying to explore all possibilities, all directions the unsub’s mind could be going. I did say I think that the romantic obsession is the most likely option, I just wanted to point out we need to make sure to get a good understanding and exploit all options. To interview all of the women and anyone you marked as a potential unsub through the criteria we talked about-” Reid babbled, momentarily sounding as if he was trying to talk twenty thousand words a minute.

Steve forced himself to bite the bullet and ease his stance as you shot him a tight apologetic smile over your shoulder – apologetic on a behalf of a friend. It was both sweet and bothersome, really. You were simply too good and trying so hard for all of them to get along it was no wonder you looked exhausted.

“Wow. I should have brought a knife to cut the tension in here,” Tony snarked as he and Hotch re-entered the room, earning himself two eyerolls from you and Natasha, while Steve just sighed.

Emily cleared her throat, seemingly amused by the whole situation; it was clear as day that quirkiness of certain team members – be it the Avengers or the BAU – and small conflicts or misunderstandings caused by it were something the teams had in common.

“We also need to find significance of the first woman. Or of an event that occurred before you met her to trigger taking and sending the photos. Is there anything important before this day that you can remember?”

Steve didn’t think too hard, to be frank. There wasn’t much happening that could be relevant to the case, no matter that the previous events weighted his mind.

“Nothing out of ordinary… we were on a three-day mission,” he said. “As in me, Clint, Natasha and Bruce as medical.”

“That one was dark,” you muttered as if you could touch the shadows in Steve’s mind; and in a way, you had.

You had touched them and tried your best to chase them away, working to bring a smile to his face again, gently and without pressure; but you fought mercilessly the long bony clutches of guilt and nihilism which always attempted to pull him under after a mission like that.

It was one of the things he adored about you and was eternally grateful for. One of the things he loved and would kiss you for, even if all he said was a heartfelt thank you.

“How so?” Emily queried, turning to you.

It was Natasha who answered. “Human trafficking. Never easy.”

“Yeah… you took me out for movies to lift my spirits after,” Steve reminded you fondly, earning a grin – because you needed no reminder, apparently.

“That I did and it worked. That’s the power of Pixar to you—oh,” you stopped abruptly, head snapping to your former team members, baffling everyone in the room, Steve included. “Oh. It was one of the busybodies again. They snapped a pic of us sharing fries at McDonalds after that.”

Oh indeed. That. Steve didn’t care much for these; except maybe it made him preen whenever the journalist misjudged the situation at hand in his favour.

But given the nature of contact the unsub tried to initiate, he supposed it could be relevant.

“…is that a euphemism for something?” Emily questioned, effectively turning Steve’s face red in a second.

“What? No!”

You just snorted, the sound somewhat adorable and he clung to it, because while unsure how this particular euphemism would work, he could imagine what it could be a euphemism for.

“It’s just that chivalry isn’t dead. He’s perfectly willing to share his fries with me unlike some people,” you said, gracing Reid with a very telling look.

The doctor just smirked, an amused – and unfairly affectionate – spark in his eye as he lifted his hands, palms up.

“Hey, if you want fries, just order your own, Bean.”

And just like that, all pleasant images were gone from Steve’s mind, warmth replaced by a pang of sharp jealousy that dug deep.

Because Steve understood the nickname. Yes, you it could have been that the doctor chose this nickname because you were shorter than him; but it wasn’t. You were a person living on sugar of various kind and jelly beans were by far your favourite. The fact that this... stranger, Spence, not even Spencer or Reid, your former colleague, your friend, your—something, a person you profoundly cared for knew that detail about you irked Steve immensely.

This was for him to know.

Damned be getting a grip and being professional.

“Okay, so they snapped a photo and posted it?” Hotch pressed.

“Worse. They sold it to tabloids,” you sighed, eyeing Steve with a small mischievous smile as you continued, almost melting his greening heart. “It’s ridiculous really. As much as I appreciate Steve sharing his fries with me-“

“Still sounds like a euphemism,” Tony snickered, which gained him a sharp glare from Steve, because suddenly it wasn’t even remotely funny; because your smile now felt as if mocking Steve for something he could never have.

“-they made it into the ultimate romantic gesture,” you finished. “Yes, there was a bit of a rustle on social media, but it wasn’t anything we’re not used to.”

Reid hummed, thoughtful, writing a note on the board in front of the timeline they had built earlier. Your steps were quiet as you walked to his side – Steve’s fingers twitching with need to grasp at your hoodie and keep you exactly where you had stood with him – and took the marker from Reid, fingertips brushing, earning a soft smile as you supplied the date.

Steve was beginning to see red.

Damn the ‘Bean’. Who did the guy thought he was?

“Do you really think it’s important?” Steve questioned, a little bite to his tone. You casted him a sideway glance – a tiny wrinkle between your brows, because you noticed his ire.

Good. Or was it?

“It’s probably not as significant to you, but combined with whatever was happening in the unsub’s life, it could have a meaning,” Agent Hotchner supplied helpfully. “How often do you leave for mission this long or longer?”

“It’s not uncommon. Two, three times a month. Some are for a week, rarely longer, but most of them are done within a day or two.”

“Hm…”

“You think it could be that the unsub was, uhm… missing him?” you suggested, searching gaze drifting to Steve from Hotch as you were trying to decipher Steve’s suddenly sharper voice.

Okay, not good. Being in your disgrace was the last thing he wanted or needed right now.

“That’s what I’m thinking, yes. And the first thing they saw was him with a woman, again.”

“So they got a little green,” Natasha hummed, gracing Steve with a sideway glance, eyebrow inconspicuously raised.

Steve stared stubbornly ahead, avoiding her jab. Damn her observation skills.

“That would be my thought, yes.”

“Huh, I don’t even… I would have never thought of that on my own,” you whispered, causing Steve’s heart to stumble in his chest – it startled him to think you already saw through his antics. But your eyes were firmly set on the board until they skimmed over the BAU agents. “I’m really glad you guys are here to help.”

“We’re glad to help,” Reid assured you oh so helpfully, winning another of your smiles; and a look that lingered a bit too long and was a lot warmer than Steve would like. “We miss you in the team.”

Yeah, Steve could fucking bet the quirky doc with a boyband haircut missed you. Good grief-

“Stark, where are you with aligning the timeline with the street cameras?” Steve bit out, flashing the billionaire a glare, minutely startling him.

“Getting closer, Cap. I might be onto something.”

“Well, work faster-”

“Me and J are trying, okay?” Tony protested, pouting, only feeding Steve’s irritation because Christ, he knew that, and it still did nothing to ease the feeling of wanting to punch something, to squeeze something so hard it would break. “Frankly I still have no damn clue how the unsub got their hands on the bullets and it pisses me off.”

Welcome to the fucking club.

“How high of a clearance would they have to obtain to access this particular warehouse?” Reid asked, and for a brief moment Steve actually had to close his eyes at the sound of his voice, nostrils flaring.

Peripherally, he saw you move away from the board; but he kept eyes on the billionaire because if he looked at you, he would--- he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Maybe pressed you against the desk, grabbed your lower back for support so he could bend you over as he kissed the living daylights out of you right in front of everyone, so they could see that not one person in this room besides him had the smallest claim on you-

“The highest, or second highest to even enter. I’m looking into this and it makes no damn sense, because neither of the people whose IDs I’ve seen stayed in the warehouse for longer than a few minutes. They had to know what they were looking for.”

“And that it exists in the first place,” Reid added, making Tony grimace.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve talked to a lot of people about this… project,” Steve uttered.

“No, I really wasn’t. Your bae here might have called me an idiot, but I’m not completely daft.”

Steve wasn’t familiar with all of todays slang, but he knew you were not in fact, his bae. It only pissed him off further.

“I know you’re not,” Steve assured the man despite not being so certain anymore, feigning calm. Meanwhile you shamelessly murmured: “Jury’s out.”

Alright, that did have the corners of his lips twitch up.

As did the fact you seemed to materialize close by his side out of clear air, enveloping his senses; your perfume, your voice, your light touch on the back of his hand, your reassuring shy smile that tugged at his heartstrings.

“Hey. We’ll figure this out. Why don’t we let them work for a bit? We could spar a little? I think we could both use working out some nervous energy,” you offered, way more kindly than Steve deserved, he realized.

“Ew, guys, come on!”

“What?” Steve snapped at Tony heatedly, because did he really have to-

“Virgin ears here!” the jerk complained, causing Steve to clench his hands into fists.

He was gonna punch him at last. No, strangle him, maybe the thing he needed to squeeze was Tony’s neck-

You and Natasha snorted simultaneously and you pulled at Steve’s wrist, not minding the tension in his tendons.

“Barely. And you know, some of us actually meant sparring, no ulterior motives. We’ll be back in about an hour, if that’s okay? And we could order a late lunch after?” you asked, wordlessly checking with others. “‘kay. Thank you, really.”

With that, Steve let you lead him away from the room – and wouldn’t he let you lead him anywhere, to hell itself with your fingers wrapped around his wrist and his heart at once?

The automatic doors slid shut behind you, shielding you from the voices from inside.  

“Right. Like these two ever didn’t have ulterior motives…” Tony muttered under his breath once you two were gone.

Natasha only hummed in agreement.

“Amen.

Now, what were you saying about being onto something?”

→ Next part

Series masterlist // Steve Rogers masterlist // Misc masterlist

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, is it? 

This one was a long beast, but hopefully you enjoyed a little insight into Steve’s possessive mind 😊 I’m gonna leave you to ponder whether there was something more between Jones and Reid or whether Steve is just seeing things 🤭

Thank you for your support 💕

EDIT: I am, once again, kindly asking you to tag possible spoilers when you share your wonderful theories in reblogs or to just write a simple POSSIBLE SPOILER before theorizing in the comments 💗 Thank you 🥰

[avengerswriter4eva]

Prisoners of War, Part 1 (Natasha/reader)*

a/n: I’m kinda sorry for this? I’m working out some issues in the only way writers know how 😊

Warnings: non/dub!con; dark!fic; villain!reader; dark!natasha; power-bottom Natasha; gun play, knife play; violence/aggression; kidnapping; restraint; strap-on use; using; choking; degradation; dubious arrangements of a sexual nature; some d/s dynamics; mind control; use of magic during sex; enhanced/non-human; oral; fingering; over-stimulation;

“Natasha Romanoff. I hoped it would be you, or the one with the wavy hands,” you murmured from across the room as the redhead began to regain consciousness.

“Fuck you,” she spat in your direction. The reaction was not unexpected, but it still made you chuckle slightly.

“Only if you play your cards right, Widow,” you murmured, turning to face her as you twirled a knife between your fingers. Natasha eyed you and you smirked, realizing she was trying to find a way out of her restraints. “Good luck with that. Vibranium custom-made cuffs.” You smirked as you prowled around her. She was in a chair in the center of the room, well away from any objects that could turn into potential weapons. You had studied this woman for years both before and after her transition to shield, and you were over-eager to get your hands on her. Among other things.

You glanced down at her wrists, locked in vibranium cuffs that separated her wrists, keeping her hands apart. Similar devices trapped her ankles to the legs of the chair, and the chair itself was made of metal. It wasn’t going to break if she wanted to start twirling around.

“Who are you?” Natasha’s eyes followed you as much as she was able as you moved around the room, eyeing her from multiple directions.

“I was so pleased when I got the call. It meant that they had caught one of you two at last and that my ‘skills’ could be put to good use.”

“What are your skills?” She asked. A valid and understandable question. You turned to face her before you answered, making sure she got a good look.

“I’m half of what your witch could be if she learned…well…anything.” Your eyes flashed silver as you answered, and Natasha’s green ones opened in surprise.

“You’re a witch?” Natasha asked, somewhat skeptically. Fair. You couldn’t help the small smirk though at the insinuation.

“No, babygirl. I’m whatever I want to be.” You chuckled as her brow furrowed immediately, but you couldn’t tell if it was in regards to your confession, or the nickname that fell off of your lips instinctively as your nature began to take control. Natasha’s eyes widened again as the knife you were playing with dissolved back into your palms, disappearing entirely from view, only to be replaced with a pistol that you flipped around easily in your hand. Natasha shook her head.

“How are you doing that? Are you…you’re enhanced?” She seemed to be thinking faster than she could process questions, and you couldn’t really blame her. The possibilities were, indeed, endless.

“I’m…not from around here,” you answered carefully. Natasha scowled as you patiently waited for the next, inevitable question to form.

“Why me or Wanda?” She asked. She was getting suspicious again, and it wasn’t without good reason. You chuckled, but there was no mistaking the threat implicit in the humorless laughter.

“I have a…thing…for women like you,” you murmured. You shivered slightly at the uncomfortable feeling of being truthful with her. It felt like a vulnerability, and that’s not why you were here. Natasha’s trademark smirk framed her plump, bitable lips and you eyed her hungrily as she watched you.

“Women like me? Like us?” She smirked at you cockily. Her smirk stayed firmly in place when your palm made contact with her cheek, her head snapping to the side.

“You’re a cheeky little shit, aren’t you, Ms. Romanoff?” You hissed as you watched the tip of her tongue poke between her lips, tasting the blood in the corner of her mouth. You wanted to know if her tongue was good for other things.

“And what do you want? To kill us?” Natasha watched as the blade reappeared in your hand and you twirled it between your fingers before moving suddenly, one hand grabbing her red hair and yanking her head back, the other pressing the sharp edge of the blade against her now-exposed throat.

“That depends entirely on you, Natasha,” you murmured quietly in her ear. She flinched at the sensation of your breath on her neck, much closer than she expected you. “You have a few options.” You heard the redhead’s pulse quicken as your lips hovered dangerously close to the shell of her ear as you whispered. You could have sworn you almost heard her whine when you stood up straight suddenly and moved away from her.

“What are you offering?” Her tone was almost flirtatious and it made you hesitate momentarily, wanting to look at her but not wanting to give her the satisfaction. You didn’t know if this was her Red Room training kicking in – to use every advantage she had, and the woman had plenty – or if this was just Natasha being Natasha – you could easily see her as a flirt. You took an extra moment to make sure your composure was still collected before turning towards her again, juggling the blade between both hands.

“I’m willing to let you go, under certain conditions. If you please me.” You started, an evil smirk traveling across your face as you gauged Natasha’s reaction. Her expression moved quickly between curiosity and offense. It looked like curiosity was winning.

“Or?” She asked, her green eyes locking on yours without hesitation. You watched curiously as her jaw clenched resolutely. This one was even feistier than you expected, and you hoped she lived up to the challenge.

“Sometimes your ledger bites back, Ms. Romanoff. Consider me an underworld bounty-hunter, of sorts,” you chuckled as Natasha squinted at you, trying to gauge whether or not you were telling the truth. You were.

“What are you proposing?” Her tone had quieted. The assassin had already made up her mind, but she was trying to make you chase her for it.

“Let me show you,” you shrugged. Her eyes widened as a blue arc spread from your fingers, moving through the air between you and settling around Natasha’s head before sinking inside. Her eyes widened as her mouth fell open and you chuckled when you watched her thighs clench together. You didn’t have to know exactly what she was seeing to know that she was enjoying it. She was panting by the time you released the power’s hold on her and she didn’t flinch when you traced your thumb over her bottom lip. You locked eyes with hers as she sucked it into her mouth, her green eyes twinkling as her pupils dilated. She got the message. But you didn’t trust her yet. You’d be a fool if you did. You felt her tongue working the pad of your thumb and your stomach clenched despite your efforts to not react. “You’re pretty good with that mouth, baby. What else can you do with it?” You pulled your thumb out with a pop, staring down at her and awaiting her answer.

“Stop fucking around and let me show you,” she smirked at you, shrugging her shoulders and indicating her restraints. Her head jerked the other way due to the slap from the opposite direction. “If you’re such a badass, why were restraints even necessary?’ Your fist clenched and you stopped it centimeters from her face. You were never going to hit her, just wanted to judge her reaction. She didn’t move a muscle.

“Good girl,” you murmured in her ear. You waved your hands, the restraints vanishing immediately but you held Natasha in place effortlessly without having to place a finger on her. “You’re wearing too many clothes, Ms. Romanoff,” you murmured. You clucked your tongue when her hands moved to her zipper. Another wave of your hand and her dress lay piled on the floor. You watched the goose bumps march across Natasha’s skin as she tried to acclimate to the cooler air. You watched her chest heaving in anticipation under her bra, and were certain you would find a damp patch beneath her on the chair. When you got there. She gasped as blue energy moved towards her, forcing her legs back apart even wider. You smirked as you stepped between them, twirling a pistol between your fingers. “Open,” you ordered. Natasha eyed the weapon, but you caught the glimmer in her eye – it turned her on, she wasn’t the least bit afraid. She should be. Her jaw lowered obediently, but you caught the defiant smirk just before she complied. You shoved the barrel of the weapon between her teeth, holding it in place. “Be good and don’t move, baby,” you warned as your finger hovered confidently over the trigger. Natasha nodded her understanding.

Her mouth and attention occupied, you waved her bra away without a second thought, groaning at the sight of her breasts now exposed to you. “You’re so pretty, baby,” you cooed at her, unable to control yourself. The barrel slid further into her mouth and you saw tears forming at the corner of her eyes as she tried to stifle all reactions. She moaned around the gun as you pinched one of her nipples, rolling it roughly between your fingers, feeling the warmth radiating off of her. Natasha’s mouth moved with the gun as you lowered yourself to your knees between her legs, sucking the other nipple between your teeth, biting slightly before sucking even harder. Natasha gasped for air and you used the opportunity to shove the weapon deeper. She took it. She panted when you pulled the weapon back, watching as it vanished back into your hand effortlessly.

You braced Natasha’s shoulder with your palm as you released your hold on her, holding her upright until she almost instantly regained her balance. You watched the muscles ripple just beneath her skin at the sudden freedom and the possibilities that it allowed. You almost wanted to her to try it. Almost. Instead, she sat obediently. “Hands on your head,” you murmured. She complied and you took the opportunity to stare at her breasts again. She watched your reaction carefully.

“Like what you see?” Your eyes went silver when they flashed back to hers, only to find her smirking at you. You used your powers to move Natasha’s hands on top of her head where you wanted them. You palmed her wrists in one hand, tugging the woman off-balance and onto her knees in front of you.

“Are you going to play nice, you little slut?” You growled and you watched the flush rise in Natasha’s cheeks. You kicked her knees apart slightly and she clenched as your foot moved slowly up her thigh before withdrawing. She nodded as you began unfastening your pants with your other hand, sliding the flexible material easily down your thighs and stepping out of them. Natasha inhaled sharply, inhaling you for the first time and your watched as her eyes darkened expectantly. You caught her leaning forward slightly, jerking her back upright by the hold you had on her wrists over her head. “You don’t get that yet, pet. You have to earn it.”

You were starting to get used to the way her eyes widened and narrowed in reaction to different things, and the way she responded to the strap on materializing on your waist in front of her face was no exception. Natasha licked her lips in anticipation earning another chuckle from yours. “Suck it like a good little bitch,” you ordered. She had barely registered the demand before you pushed the tip past her open lips and halfway down her throat. Her eyes locked on yours as she adjusted, nodding slightly before you began to move your hips. She was something to watch. She was desperate for friction as her legs were held apart by your hold, rendering movement impossible. Her hands were locked securely on head in your iron grip. You felt a surge of arousal at the idea of such a strong, powerful, superhero woman completely under your control, sucking the toy like a pro.

Natasha stumbled backwards onto her back on the floor as you pushed her violently, frustrated and needing more. You were on her in an instant, the strap-on rubbing against her still-clothed core as you finally smashed your lips together for the first time. Natasha’s hands, suddenly free, tangled in your hair at the back of your neck, tugging you closer, her legs wrapping securely around your waist. She wasn’t even trying to get away at this point, she wanted it too much.

You buried your face in her neck as her hand snaked between you, guiding the toy up and down her slit over her stockings and panties and Natasha tugged at your hair surprisingly roughly. “Are you going to fuck me or not?” The last word was cut off abruptly as her hand closed around Natasha’s neck, applying even pressure.

“I’m going to fuck you until you’re too stupid to talk back,” you growled. You didn’t want to use magic to rid her of her last articles of clothing. You wanted to feel it. You grabbed the hem of her stockings and panties in one go, yanking roughly and laughing as Natasha squirmed beneath you at the sensation. “Are you a little sensitive, pet?” You growled, your teeth burying themselves in the skin of her neck as you guided the strap to her entrance, sliding the tip in but refusing to move further. The redhead whined, her hands moving from your hair to under the collar of your suit, her nails digging into your shoulders as your thumb dragged slowly across her swollen clit. Natasha’s eyes rolled back in her head as you slammed into her suddenly and without warning, your hand trapped between your body and hers as you rubbed circles around her clit while beginning to rock slowly inside of her.

Before long, though, her thighs were squeezing your waist and she was arching her back, trying to pull you deeper. “Is that all you’ve got?” She gasped when your grip on her neck loosened momentarily to allow her oxygen. You pulled your other hand away from her clit before bringing the palm down on her thigh hard, your palm lingering on the reddened outline, increasing the sting. You growled at the cocky smirk on her face, letting go of her neck to grab her hips with both hands, pushing her off of the toy, leaving her legs shaking in desperation. You maneuvered her where you wanted her.

“Such a good little slut you are,” you murmured appreciatively as you stared at her ass up in the air in front of you as you guided the toy back inside of her. She pushed her hips backwards, sinking you even deeper in and a guttural moan escaped her mouth before you jerked her upright onto her knees, pulling her flush against the front of your body that you’ve now removed any remaining clothes from, your hand returning to her throat as you started pounding into her relentlessly, your other hand gripping her hip and guiding her movements. One of Natasha’s hands landed on the one on her hip and she squeezed your fingers, moving with you effortlessly.

“Fuck,” she groaned after you thrust into her hard. By the way she was breathing and her legs were shaking, she wasn’t going to last much longer. That just wouldn’t do. You pushed her back down onto her knees on the hard floor, pulling the toy out of her suddenly and watching her muscles clench around the sudden and unexpected emptiness. She rolled back over almost immediately, her eyes defiant at the denial, only to widen at the sight of you, strap-on gone, desperately wanting to see if her mouth was as talented as you thought.

“Come here,” you pointed to the spot on the ground in front of you, spitting on it to mark it for her. Natasha crawled forward obediently, kneeling on the spot and inhaling sharply at her proximity to you once again. Your hand moved to the back of her head as you guided her forward, tensing uncontrollably in anticipation as you felt her warm breath on you first. Her tongue followed not long after – and she was better. Fuck was she better.

Her tongue alternated between firm touches and soft, tender licks, keeping you off-balance as your abs clenched desperately. You jerked a little when you felt cool hands on your thighs, but allowed it as you pulled the redhead into your dripping core even further, staring down at her as she went to work – and the woman took her job seriously.

“Fuck,” you groaned when Natasha’s left hand slid up your thigh, finding your entrance and slipping three fingers inside with absolutely no resistance. Her right hand slid around your thigh to your ass, holding you against her mouth as much as you were holding her. You gasped as you felt your stomach clenching, knowing that you were close. She knew as well in the way that her pace increased, as well as the now-continual pressure on your clit from her tongue.

“Please?” Your eyes snapped open at the unexpected sound of her voice. She was begging you to cum for her. You nodded and smiled, your thumb caressing her cheek before you guided her head forward again and she resumed her movements, skillfully building you back up like there hadn’t been a pause at all. You clenched suddenly, tugging her head forward so fiercely that she moaned into you, the vibrations sending you over the edge as you came apart on her waiting tongue. She moved it slowly, cleaning up as much as she could of the mess she made before you dragged her away by the hair.

“Your turn, pet,” you growled, your eyes flashing dangerously. Natasha’s smirk spoke volumes.

“Give it to me,” she retorted. Her eyes widened again as blue energy began flowing out of you, trapping her arms and legs and holding her still, spread open beneath you.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t asked, princess,” you growled, moving towards her and settling between her legs for what was going to prove to be a very long night.

Natasha had her first orgasm of the night less than two minutes later, clenching around four of your fingers as your mouth wrapped around her clit, sucking eagerly and your thumb traced her ass. You didn’t stop, and her efforts to push you away were short lived as the sensation of multiple hands began moving over her entire body, setting every inch of skin on fire at the sensation. You watched Natasha writhe beneath you over and over again, her body collapsing further after each orgasm, taking a few deep breaths while she was able before you began again.

When she was cum-drunk from your mouth, you switched back to the strap again, rutting into her desperately as you chased your release as well, soaking the floor beneath both of you as you climaxed together. She was clinging for you now, desperate for you to top, but needing you to keep going.

An hour before the sun was due to rise, Natasha had curled in on herself on the cool floor, every inch of skin flushed with continuous release. You smiled as you conjured a blanket for her, wrapping it around her securely and tucking a pillow under her head as she continued to sleep. “See you soon, Ms. Romanoff,” you murmured as you pressed a chaste kiss to her temple, still tasting her in your mouth.

You didn’t know that the next time your paths crossed, it would be under very different circumstances.

[shihalyfie]

Digimon’s troubled history with home video releases (and why the upcoming thing is very cool)

So, Discotek Media just announced Blu-ray releases of Adventure, one dubbed, and one in Japanese with subs. This is, of course, a big deal, because it’s the first time Adventure has ever gotten an official Japanese home video release in Western territories. But if you know Digimon’s very troubled history of home video releases and official localization, the details of this upcoming potential release are way more of a big deal than they even are on the surface.

Let’s talk about Digimon’s history with official licensing, official home video releases, and official translation!

Some minutiae about video stuff and technicals

Every Digimon series up to Savers aired in standard definition, and was released in DVD format (both Japanese releases in Japan and US-based releases with the English dub) in 480p (640 x 480 pixels). Unfortunately, this ultimately didn’t age well, because as monitors got bigger and high-definition, 480p became too small to see much of anything. On top of that, the Blu-ray format, having the digital data directly on it, is much better at data retention, so because of that there started to be demand for Digimon Blu-rays, including dubbed ones. The “ideal scenario” for a lot of people would have been a “dual audio” release, where you can have both the Japanese version and the dub on one disc and be able to switch audio tracks.

Unfortunately, a dual audio release is not possible for sheer logistics reasons, purely because: the dub had cuts! Short of redoing the whole editing from scratch, you can’t have footage that syncs up the Japanese and English audio, because the little cuts here and there the English audio is timed for would throw them off sync. Furthermore, the English dub had edits to the footage (airbrushing things to censor them out, or translating Japanese text), and if you’re acting in the interest of preservation, you do want to actually keep those edited frames. As a result, this is why Discotek’s releases are splitting the original Japanese version and the English dub; you can’t really treat them like the same product.

In any case, if you want Blu-ray releases in HD 1080p (in this case, 1440 x 1080 pixels), you run into a few logistics issues:

If you’ve ever tried to artificially upscale a picture into a bigger size, you’ll naturally run into some problems like pixelation and other unfortunate things, because in the end it wasn’t originally made for that bigger size. So imagine applying that to a whole video and you’ll understand why it’s not easy to just resize a video to 1080p and call it a day. Discotek has historically circumvented this problem by releasing an “SD-BD” format for shows that can’t be upscaled, but this doesn’t apply to Digimon in this case (for reasons you’ll see below).

There are Japanese Blu-rays, but the English dub footage has to be handled separately from the Japanese for the above reasons of dub cuts and edits. On top of that, as Discotek points out in their post, a lot of the English dub footage has worse quality tracing back all the way to the source.

Speaking of said Japanese Blu-rays, even those still have...problems.

The good thing is that the Japanese Blu-ray has more accurate colors to the original palette than the Japanese DVDs do. The bad thing is, uh, everything else. It might be hard to tell from this Tumblr upload alone, but something awful happened to the line quality and background details. It is, admittedly, somewhat better than dealing with DVD corruption artifacts (which is why Discotek still does an SD-BD format, since it’s better for preservation than DVDs), but it can be a bit painful to look at, and it’s why I still don’t use Blu-ray screenshots for this blog despite owning 02′s.

Now, on the other hand, you have the movies. I’ve made posts about this before (see: Digimon Adventure, Our War Game!, Hurricane Touchdown, and Diablomon Strikes Back), but the Japanese DVD releases for the movies came with some seriously bad color destruction, which is finally rectified in the Blu-rays. On top of that, the movies were made for giant wide screens, so we don’t have the upscaling problem anymore, right? Everything’s fine, right?

...Or you’d hope, but unfortunately, the Japanese Blu-rays for the movies have severe sound problems compared to the DVDs. One step forward, one step back.

So as for the reason why Discotek’s announcement is such a big deal: not only are they going through the work to salvage and repair the old English dub footage, they’re even upscaling it with AstroRes AI technology, which leads to the situation where their upscale is actually better quality than the official Japanese footage remaster. Wow. If they choose to use their own remastered version for the Japanese version, too, it might outright be better than the official Japanese release, which, if you know anything about American localized releases of Blu-rays compared to their original Japanese ones, doesn’t actually happen very often. (But it does happen quite a bit with Discotek, since they’re very big on media preservation of niche things.) There seems to be a lot of detail put into this release; their presses for the discs seem to be taking obvious cues from the Japanese release of the Adventure Blu-ray (the Adventure 15th anniversary box, not the Adventure and 02 combined one; in my very biased opinion, the former is superior from a design perspective anyway).

On top of the project being overseen by With the Will’s admin MarcFBR (who, conveniently, also happens to work at Discotek), the project also seems to have longtime veteran Chris McFeely (who ran a very important Digimon website back in the day that served as a valuable resource for English dub news) and longtime Digimon fan translator and fansubber onkeikun (if you follow anything Japanese Digimon-related, you probably owe her at least part of your soul), so it seems like we have reliable people who know their stuff on both the English dub and original Japanese ends. In the case of the latter, it also is reassuring to know that there’s potential extra quality control for the translation for the Japanese version, because, well...needless to say, the history of Digimon official translation hasn’t been great either.

Digimon’s very thorny history with official translations

Contrary to popular belief, while it’s definitely Adventure’s first time getting official subtitles on home video, it’s not actually its first time getting official subtitles at all. The first time this happened was back in 2013 when some Adventure subtitles appeared for a brief time on Netflix. Allegedly, the subtitles started off bootleg bad quality before eventually getting corrections, but unfortunately we don’t have a lot of records of them because of how quickly they were taken down shortly afterwards. If we count all of Digimon and not just Adventure, 02 used to have subs on Crunchyroll even before that (yes, weirdly enough, 02 actually had official subs before Adventure did) -- but they were infamously terrible, switching between Japanese and English dub terminology and just being permeated with mistranslations in general. “Mimi became a nutritionist in her epilogue career” is still probably being quoted somewhere out there.

In fact, Toei anime having good official subtitles (at the very least, good enough that recent series like Appmon or Ghost Game can be confidently recommended without concerns) is a fairly recent thing, and even then there’s often mishaps -- Super Sentai and Kamen Rider fans can report their fair share of problems in recent Shout! Factory releases, and let’s not forget that even Kizuna came out recently with some really bad problems (which, incidentally, the aforementioned onkeikun called out publicly). On the flip side, Adventure recently made it to Crunchyroll in 2021, with the caveat that it’s only available in Europe; the footage seems to be based on the Japanese Blu-rays, and while I’m not European and can’t confirm for myself, testimony is that the translation seems to be good.

Other non-Adventure series have varying degrees of luck. 02 also made it to Crunchyroll in Europe shortly after Adventure, and while the translation is better than it used to be, testimony indicates it’s not quite as good as Adventure’s. Tamers apparently had a short-lived time on Hulu, but, well...

...Yeah...

And, of course, the things that have never gotten official English subtitles: all of the theatrical movies up to the Savers one, X-Evolution (hoping for this one might be a really long shot), and all of Frontier and Savers. Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon don’t even have Blu-rays in Japan (with Savers especially suffering from this because it means there’s absolutely nothing to preserve it in pure digital format).

How much should I hope for?  I don’t know if Discotek intends to do the movies (including The Movie or the Japanese movies) or 02 and after; I want to hope so given that the company historically has gone to comprehensively cover things that can be even more obscure than this, but I imagine this isn’t a question they can easily answer now, and for the time being I hope people can support this release to hopefully get more. You’ll have to ask them and not me about the potential status of footage for The Movie, too, given that fans haven’t had access to clean footage for that in a very, very long time. (But of course, I don’t know if you should pester them too hard about it beyond just generally showing your support and requests; if they have plans for anything else right now, it’ll certainly be under NDA.) How far will they go with this? I don’t know, but I’m grateful for anything we get, and hopefully this will set a precedent for a brighter future going forward.

[donutloverxo]

A Royal Scandal 2

Modern royalty au

(Image from Pinterest)

Cowritten with @lizzygal

I'm so sorry! I made a mistake while posting this yesterday so I'm reposting it now. Hope y'all enjoy💖

Note - Since y'all liked it so much we've decided to post this fic on both ao3 and my tumblr! There will be no taglists for this however💖 You can subscribe to the ao3 story to receive updates!

Please note that my stories are not to be stolen or reposted on any other site. Reblogs are welcome. This blog and this story is 18+. Do not read, follow or interact if you are not 18+.

Summary - Modern ruler, His Majesty King Steven G Rogers, is on a quest to make his long term secret relationship the real thing. He is a man in love and wants his lover and partner to be his queen.

Warnings - Smut (m/f), dub con/non con, sex tape, scandals, mentions of past domestic abuse, soft dark Steve, possessive Steve, spanking, power imbalance, Mentions of previous domestic abuse.

Pairing - King!Steve x reader

Word count - 8k

To be fair, Steven could understand why his mother was so upset after watching the entire footage from the royal steam rooms. He had a far better understanding after having seen the footage in question. The one that had led to his mother’s reaction that very morning.

Seated beside Carol on the ride back, he slipped in his wireless earbuds and pulled up the first video he found online on his phone.

A separate car had been sent for you for whenever your meeting completed. However, he had a whole series of his own back at the palace before his day could be considered over in the administrative offices. Days were never really over for him. Should anything happen somewhere in his nation, he would be informed. As was expected for a ruler.

Until then, he had fifteen or so minutes to kill till he arrived back at the royal palace, depending on city traffic.

Which was how he found himself watching what was obviously some sort of hidden camera. As the royal banya did not have CCTV cameras. Steve found himself making a mental note to himself to ask Carol about it.

After he watched the video.

He had the feeling that this would not be going away anytime soon. Therefore, he needed to know what was on there if he was going to have to defend his actions, or even speak about it.

It was somewhat surreal watching himself walk into view wearing nothing. Not even a towel. Talking with someone who was obviously you.

Based on where the camera was located, Steve could tell it was somewhere in the hallway that led from the steam rooms into either the showers or locker room. Thank all the saints above your back was to the camera. Half of it anyway. You were standing at a turn in the hallway, leaning against the wall. Half of you hidden. A towel wrapped around your body.

Thanking those saints above still that there was no sound, Steve watched on as a voice narrated the video, some celebrity blogger dissecting the footage as if it were a pivotal moment in some sporting event.

Steve watched himself turn to face you, facing the camera too and exposing his entire self to the world.

Not that he was ashamed. He had nothing to be ashamed about. Steve was built tall and powerful like his father and mother’s father. He kept himself in shape and as for the manhood that hung heavy between his thighs, he refused to be embarrassed by that either. The blogger however did have several opinions about what she referred to as, the royal sword.

She also seemed to be very opinionated when Steve watched himself kneel down in front of you. He’d never watched himself go down on you before and found himself transfixed, easily able to ignore the blogger’s excited rambling.

For once, Steve watched your hands sink into his hair as he sank between your legs. He watched your pleasure grow and grow, he watched you sag back into the wall and reach up, grabbing at it like a cat stretching out in the hot sun.

Seeing it happen like this? Steve felt like a voyeur. He felt like he was doing something wrong. And then, he watched you climax on his face. He watched your hands tighten up against the corner of the walls meeting. He watched himself stand and no longer noticed the commentary as he sheathed himself between your legs and proceeded to pound you into the wall without mercy.

His attention caught on one little inconsequential thing. Watching one of your legs that wound over his thigh bounce wildly each time.

Quickly he exited out of the video and blog. Unwilling to watch more. Pulling a bud from his ear, he glanced over at Carol who was watching the city fly by her window.

“Have you inquired as to if the palace guard has looked into how the video was taken in the royal banya?”

Blonde hair dusted her shoulders as she looked at her king. Carol answered without a second of hesitation. “Already done Your Majesty. The camera was found this morning. A webcam of some type. It’s been sent away for fingerprints and I have the best IT professional I know looking into it, to determine if we can track down who it belongs to. The royal guard has also launched an investigation into all palace employees.”

“Thank you,” he answered her with complete sincerity.

Captain Danvers had been at his side since he assumed the throne and had proven herself hundreds of times over. She was his confidant. She was his bodyguard. She was his closest thing to a friend, if Steve could say he had such a thing. He could tell Carol anything. He had told Carol about you. Carol had told him about her sick mother and in return, Steve have given her a cottage on palace grounds while providing a nurse. So that Carol would be able to spend as much time as possible with her mother in her final days. Carol still lived on the palace grounds in that cottage down by the gardens.

“I’ll let you know when I know something,” she assured him.

***

Your return to the palace felt like it took forever. Mostly because your panties were very obviously damp from leakage and you were greatly concerned about a wet stain. The modern equivalent of a scarlet letter. Letting everyone know what you’d done.

Twice you’d checked in a bathroom along with every mirrored surface you came across.

Alas, it seemed you were in luck.

No one would know that you’d had inappropriate contact on a workday, or think you’d had an accident. Granted if someone would have noticed you planned on blaming your monthlies.

By the grace of the many women who came before you, you managed to get back to the palace without being caught and were about to go change your panties when a familiar face popped into your office.

“Hey! You’re coming! I’m not taking no for an answer!”

Wanda.

Bright red hair and a brighter red dress that was far from office appropriate appeared in your office, leaping in like an acrobat leaping onto a stage. Making you look up from where you stood behind your desk, digging through your handbag.

A bunch of different thoughts buzzed through your head.

What was Wanda talking about? Where did she want you to go? Did Wanda wear that mini-dress to work? Cause it was about five inches too short and did downright sinful things to the girls. Wanda could always pull off anything. She looked amazing in clubwear, sweats and those tea-party dresses that Jackie O was always wearing.

“Coming?” Fell from your lips in a valiant attempt to stall till you could make sense of what was happening. “What are you not taking no for an answer for this time?”

In your roommate swept like a hurricane.

“It’s practically six!” She declared, as if that was supposed to mean something to you. It had you staring at her and waiting for more information. Hands paused in their hunt for clean panties and a pantyliner in your bag’o’stuff. “No more talk of this fake boyfriend. You and me are going to go have dinner. We’re going to hit the bars to pre-game and then to the clubs! Everyone is going so you are too!”

Such news had you freezing in your patent leather pumps.

Pre-gaming? Dinner? Clubs? Everyone?

How?

It was only Thursday and then you remembered.

It was a long weekend. The winning of some great victory over the Germans from the big war that you only kinda remembered hearing about. Mostly because you’d been busy with the border issue and the education overhaul. You’d known that it was coming up and the entire four-day weekend would be spent celebrating.

Wanda saw your face. She saw what you were thinking. She was practically a mind reader. Which led her to pointing at you scoldingly. “No! No no no! No checking emails or messages. No more work. No! We’re going out tonight and we are going to have fun! You remember what fun is? Right?”

But…you really did have emails and messages to check. You actually did have a ton of work to do. Granted you always had emails and messages to check, plus work piling up. It was the nature of your job. Helping in the running of a country was a 24/7 gig.

“Wanda…”

“Nope!” She declared, marching on into your office and behind your desk to chase you out. Shooing you. Literally making you hop away and grab your handbag because you just knew Wanda wasn’t letting you back near your desk. That much was for sure.

Like a sheepdog, she herded you around your messy desk as you attempted to protest, to get her to listen, to inform her that you really really did have a good bit of work to do.

“Wait…hold on…wait, Wanda…just one second…gah!”

“No more protests! I’m not going to hear it anymore! I refuse to let you hide behind work or the fake boyfriend.”

More protests came from you. You tried. You really really did. But Wanda was shoving and pushing and hip bumping you out into a hallway that did not look like an office building, instead, it was very obviously a palace.

Your heels clicked on polished white marble that shone. Walls were cream and had priceless art hung around, gold gilded borders ran up along where the ceiling met the walls. Light fixtures were old, bronze and cut glass. Furniture that belonged in Sotheby’s was sparsely decorated around the halls.

Door were old and creaky up and down the halls, wooden with locks that required big iron keys.

It was unlike any other place you’d ever worked.

You could feel and see and even smell the smokey history oozing from the walls.

A few people were hurrying out of their offices and locking the doors behind them, which Wanda didn’t even let you do as she went on indignantly. “No! Nope! Clint from Tinder will not wait forever! He digs foreigners and he has a job and he loves to dance!”

At mention of Tinder, your gut lurched.

Dear god not this again.

Why had you ever agreed to let Wanda make you a Tinder profile? At the time it seemed so reasonable. Let her make the profile and she’d get off your ass about your alleged imaginary boyfriend. Problem solved! How on earth were you to know she’d be on the damn app making matches for you?

“Why don’t you go out with Clint from Tinder,” you wanted to know, earning yourself a roll of Wanda’s eyes as you were dragged down along the hallway to the massive marble stairs. Looking as if they’d been carved from one piece, smoothly curling down a floor to the ground floor. Large chandeliers hung with cut glass that threw light everywhere. A massive painting hung up on the large wall of a long dead large royal family in the palace of past.

“He’s not my type. But he is absolutely your type.”

Somehow you doubted that.

Sighing deeply and focusing on not snapping your ankle on the stairs and in your heels, you followed Wanda down, mixing in with the few stragglers who were leaving work and making mental notes to text Steve and let him know you’d be late coming back to the palace that night. You were then planning when you could check your work emails and work-phone messages. That had to be done in a quiet place where no one could overhear. Maybe you could go out to the club and feign a tummy ache? Then sneak away from Clint? It’d probably be much easily to sneak away from Clint than Wanda.

Click. Click. Click.

With every step you maneuvered down your heels were noisy. You’d managed to fling your sizable bag over your shoulder and just knew Steve was going to be annoyed with you. But he was an adult. Being adults meant the two of you would have to do things that you didn’t want.

“So help me, if it kills the both of us, you and I will be going out tonight and having a fun time! This is a celebratory weekend! There are festivities going on all over the city!” Wanda went on, yanking you along behind her upon reaching the bottom step and heading in the general direction of the ground floor exits.

Hurrying along behind her, you followed but you weren’t happy about it.

God did you have so much work to do and you really really wanted to spend the night with Steve. And maybe if you gave in to Wanda, she’d get off your ass about your fake boyfriend? Wait, no, your secret boyfriend, because Steve was very real, you just didn’t want to be eviscerated all over the internet and tabloids for dating a king.

You’d seen what happened when a pretty actress had dated then married a prince who didn’t rule his country. The only thing you had going for you was Steve’s country was still looked at with some serious side-eye from the world, due to past events and rulers. Plus, he wasn’t a young prince that had grown up before the eyes of the world. He was a son of a tyrant, a citizen of a sizable nation the world still viewed suspiciously with a questionable human rights record.

“You’re going to love the club! It’s totally new and they open at ten. Meaning we can have plenty of time with the girls!”

Girls?

As in plural?

Because of course this would be a group event. Wanda never half-assed anything.

“Wanda…” you began.

Before Wanda could turn her attention on you, loud shrill lady screams came and you were greeted to the sight of Maria, Okoye and Pepper. All three threw up their arms and grabbed Wanda in a big hug, yanking her away from you and freeing you from her grip.

Loud girl screeches followed.

There was group hopping and hugs and laughter.

It should have made you realize that it’d been so long since you had a fun girls night. It should have reminded you that you were young and your life shouldn’t be all about work and sneaking off with your boyfriend whenever the two of you were able to.

Your heart should have been warmed by the sight of your palace coworkers who were clearly part of the aforementioned Girls.

How long had it been since you had fun?

How long had it been since you’d had a night out on the town?

What were you doing?

Were you jumping and screeching and hugging too?

No.

You were digging into your handbag so you could text Steve real quick. To let him know about your change in plans before he began to think you’d bailed because you were a coward and got cold feet.

Just as your fingers touched the smooth surface of your iPhone…

A noise caught your attention.

Movement.

Peering up to the side at the wall, or what you’d assumed was a hallway wall since you were in another hallway nearly identical to the one upstairs. All while the hugfest continued. You noticed that the wall was at a weird angle. As if it were opening up on a hinge and by the time you realized that the wall was actually an opening to a hidden passageway, a hand grabbed your elbow and yanked you in.

No more than a soft squeak came from you.

In you tumbled.

Into a dimly lit hallway that was actually a passageway you found yourself. With a metal sounding click the wall slid back into place and a big hand fell over your mouth. Making you immediately panic, immediately reach up to grab the hand that was silencing you. Making an arm band around your chest and pull you flush back against a broad muscular body.

“Did you honestly think for one moment that I would allow you to go get drunk with Wanda? Or go to a club with a man that she met for you on Tinder?”

Steve.

It was Steve.

His faint aftershave still burnt your nose but paired with the masculine scent that was him, you relaxed only a little bit, just a smidge.

How the hell did he know all of that? Had he bugged your office? Was he following you?

Deep in your chest your heart pounded wildly. Your skin was on fire. Even though it was dimly lit, you swore you could see each nail and groove in the wooden walls of the hidden passage.

Steve’s shoes were soft on the carpeted floor. Yours however never reached. Your legs dangled. Desperately you stretched out to try and reach your toes down, but alas, Steve was holding you up and was simply that much taller than you. Easily holding you up as he carried you.

His voice an angry snarl, a seething whisp against your ear. “That is so disappointing my love. A failure on both our parts,” came his angry voice. Walking with sure footing and a quick pace through the only barely lit halls.

Turning here and there, quickly and suddenly, until you were very much lost.

A protest came from behind his palm that was crushed against your mouth. Your blood heating with every passing second till it felt as if it were boiling. All that sudden fear was turning into anger at this treatment.

“I’ve clearly failed you if you’re unable to announce with nothing but the utmost certainty that you’re both in a relationship and have no desire to go out clubbing with whomever Clint from Tinder is.” The word clubbing was spat out, as if Steve found it vile on his tongue. “As for you? Yesterday we were discussing where to go for your birthday and today, you refused to answer one of my calls! You have work to do tonight to make up to me your behavior today!”

Further down the hidden passageway you were unceremoniously carried pulled to his front. Your brain racing at warp speed.

You had work to do? You had to make up for your behavior?

Had he lost his damn mind?

Had he not seen the video of his naked nether-regions all over the internet? Or the sex that made the footage a sex tape? The two of you were now amateur porn stars and he was mad that you? Because you were trying to be lowkey until the entire situation blew over? Steve was mad because you were being reasonable?

A most valiant attempt was made to free yourself.

You struggled. You kicked. You flailed and shrilled behind the hand over your mouth. No longer taken by surprise or frightened. Now you were growing angry.

On top of being terrified of being found out in that footage and ridiculed by the world, or worse, chased out of this country by a horde of angry people who didn’t agree with you being the kings choice as not only a foreigner, but one from pretty humble roots. You were upset that the world saw such an intimate moment between the two of you and even if Steve didn’t care that his junk was all over the internet, you cared. You cared a great deal. The royal junk was your junk. It was bad enough you had to know he’d dated women before you who’d seen him nude and were intimate with him, but now the world? It was simply too much for you to comprehend.

Steve slowed and turned, using his elbow he made something pop and a slight crack of light where there was obviously another hidden door in the wall appeared.

Using his broad shoulder, Steve pushed the door open and stepped out into a hallway that led down to the royal chambers and split off.

With his knee, he shoved the hidden panel shut and tightening his grip on you, Steve hurried down that hallway.

A completely different one from where the administrative offices were located.

Rich wooden paneling covered the walls. Making everything appear warmer, lusher. An amber haze hung in the air.

Thick carpet was underfoot. Furniture spoke to its age but had been made with a quality that endured. Like this palace. Built when his land was called something else but had stood through time in proof of his claim to the throne.

Generations before him had ruled, claimed spouses and lovers in these halls, grown old and made history and now it was his turn.

Merely that knowledge had him growing excited in his slacks for a second time that day. All of your thrashing and struggling didn’t help. If anything, it sparked a part of his brain that insisted he ravish and conquer you in his royal bed.

Mouth pressed to your ear, till he felt amber and diamonds press against his lips. “I swear, I will spend the rest of tonight inside of you until things are as they were yesterday. Until you remember that when I speak to you in any manner, you answer. Considering how thoroughly you’ve consumed every last part of me, it is only fair.”

And then, in his slowed pace down the hall ever closer to the door that would lead into Steve’s Royal Apartment, he saw a portrait up on the wall that made him pause.

It was him.

Or his portrait from when he’d turned thirty.

There he stood looking down at you both. Dressed ceremonially in his crown, holding the traditional ruling scepter and wearing the robes from kings of past. Fur, jeweled toned fabric that he’d easily filled out with gold adornments, amber buttons and pipping on his shoulders.

What was most striking about this portrait compared to all the others of Steven throughout the palace, was he was alone in it and unlike all the others, at the time, he’d not been single.

Further making that internal fire burn hotter.

Making him stop and force you to look up at it with him. Framed in a gilded bronze heirloom. Up where he had to look at it to be reminded of what could have been.

“Look! Look!”

You stopped struggling and looked, were well aware of his mouth against your hair.

“See? See it? You could have been there with me. At my side. Wearing my crown. Wearing the robes and jewels of my grandmothers. My queen.”

And indeed you saw.

When you’d seen the finished portrait, you had been blown away at how your body reacted to the sight of your lover in his traditional uniform he only pulled out for big special events. How powerful he looked. How sexy he was wearing a crown, holding a golden scepter with an eagle on the end clutching a piece of amber the size of an egg.

The arm around your chest fell so he could point at the empty space in the picture beside him. “Look. Right there. That is where you would have been. Right there. At my side.”

His hand over your mouth still held you flush against him. Pulled tight against him.

That thought, that entire notion of you painted on a portrait, up there with Steve at his side. It was so surreal to you.

When it was just you and Steve it was fire and gold and everything was amazing. When it was King Steve and his Chief of Staff it was stimulating and exciting. You still weren’t sure about being queen. A queen! That wasn’t like being a princess or a duchess. A queen was different. Even the word felt different.

It made your heart start to pound wildly in your chest again. It made you breathe hard against the back of his hand. It made you have a physiological reaction.

***

This was not how Carol intended to spend her night.

It was not how she wished to start her off-time. Having given Val the update on all things that had transpired for the day as she handed off command of the Royal Guard to her fellow captain.

No sooner had she told Val everything, did one of the messengers from communications come hurrying in. A slip of paper in her hand. A note that changed everything for that night, that week and even that month.

It had left Carol walking through the royal apartments towards the Queen Mother’s rooms.

As she knew exactly what King Steven was doing and quite frankly, she wanted no part in disturbing that unless she absolutely had to.

Besides. The message that had been sent to the palace via royal envoy was meant for Her Majesty. It was best Her Majesty the Queen Mother figured out how best to deal with this coming…situation.

Compared to His Majesty’s Private Rooms, Sarah’s were all light and brightness. White marble and ornate touches. Colorful priceless paintings and large bouquets of fresh flowers in crystal vases. Soft plush furniture held little personal touches. A white chenille throw draped over her couch by a fireplace. Pink slippers sat on the floor. Books both new and ancient with various markers holding her place were scattered about. Fresh flowers. She loved fresh flowers. They were everywhere.

As expected, the door to the Queen Mother’s apartments were open.

Carol still paused outside of it to knock gently.

“Your Majesty?” She called out, looking at her watch to see that it was nearing seven. Around seven was when the queen took her dinner meal privately. Of course she’d leave the door open for kitchen staff to bring up food as usual. It wasn’t one of the nights that was reserved for Steve and his mother to have their dinners together.

After the death of her husband the former king, Sarah had effectively thrown open all the doors that he had imprisoned her with.

Her soft voice drifted out.

Delicate and gentle.

The Queen Mother sat in a large chair by a big window overlooking the city. Her pale hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. A string of pearls tightened and loosened around her fingers as she lowered the book she’d been reading. A pleasant smile came over her soft features.

Upon seeing the stone of Carol’s face, the queen frowned. “What is it? What is wrong?”

Only confirming that something was wrong, Carol shut the door and locked it.

Dinner had been brought up. Smells emanated from the queens private dining room off to the left. It reminded Carol that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning. It had been that kind of a day.

Clasping her hands before her, she rocked back on her heels. “A message was sent by Her Highness Janet Van Dyne. She and her daughter will be at the palace tomorrow…”

Janet and Hope Van Dyne?

Steven’s former fiancée and her mother?

Two golden eyebrows rose, making Carol press on. “Her Highness is under the impression that they’ll be staying here? In the palace?”

All of this was new to Sarah.

She had not heard from Janet since Steve’s coronation. When she and her husband had been in attendance. Earlier that particular year, Hope had broken her engagement with Steven to run away with a Maharaja.

It’d been all over the tabloids.

A young princess of the Netherlands had broken her engagement to the crown prince of an incredibly traditional nation to follow her heart. Hope had spent many years splashed across tabloids and blogs with a handsome charismatic Asian Prince. She’d lost her royal title and gave tell-all interviews about how her family had forbade her from running away and how she’d never marry a man from infamous Rogers Royal Line. And then, oddly, she was back home with her family this year.

Sarah had found it unusual. Alas, she was a busy woman with a life of her own to keep her busy.

“Was anything else in the message,” Sarah wanted to know.

Carol shook her head.

It had been a simple message that was very to the point.

Sighing in a most un-Sarah-like sort of way. She set her book down on the arm of her chair and rose. Tall. Willowy. Pursing her lips. Her dress fell around her in a gauzy cloud.

“Do you want me to tell His Majesty?”

Pausing, the older women considered the question. Dare she tell her son? He deserved to know. Nothing good would come from this visit.

If it were Janet alone? Sarah would not be so suspicious. But Janet and Hope? And that they would come so last minute? After the release of this video footage from the royal sauna?

“Is my son with her?”

Silence.

Carol was quiet.

A noise came from the Queen Mother. A clicking of her tongue. Stepping into her slippers, she pulled the hem of her dress up. “I suppose I should not be surprised that you would keep this from me.”

More quiet came.

“I won’t ask. I’ll find out my own way and leave him be for now. Janet and Hope won’t be here tonight. This can be a problem for tomorrow, today has been difficult enough for us all. Let tomorrow be tomorrow.”

Let tomorrow be tomorrow.

On her other hand was her wedding band. A treasure itself. Now on the widow’s finger. It was so symbolic of the cage she’d lived in for the duration of her marriage.

Absentmindedly, she twisted the rings. “Have you eaten yet?” Pulling them up and down her hand. “I had hoped you would come. I had the kitchen bring up extra.” Off slipped the rings that she had to wear in public. In her hand they jingled until she set them down on a smoothly polished table.

With two heavy clicks, they bounced on the wood by a vase full of peonies. Freeing her for the time being.

“I missed you while you were away.”

A blush bloomed over her porcelain complexion at Carol’s words.

As she watched Carol lock the door to her chambers, a warmth bloomed within her chest. Such words were so simple. So honest. They were words she had not heard before in her life. In this new chapter however, in this new time in her life, she had become accustomed to kind words and compassion.

“I missed you as well.” She confessed, stepping closer and still keeping space between them. As some habits died hard. “Stay with me? Tonight?”

“There is nothing I want more, Sarah.”

***

As it turned out, now you were ready to talk.

However.

Unfortunately.

Steve was now past that point and was on a whole other page.

You found yourself protesting when he carried you into his bedroom like some manner of caveman would carry a slab of meat. Shrilling out when he yanked and ripped and tore at your dress, forcing it over your head after ripping fabric and popping buttons, till it was an unsalvageable heap of material and threads.

Which was an absolute tragedy.

You loved that dress.

You even pointed out that fact to him somewhere between the threshold of his bedroom and his massive bed that really was fit for a king.

It was so big!

A headboard wider than Wanda’s itty-bitty car was long. An elaborate collection of regal flourishes and shapes. Dark sheets so soft they were slippery awaited you as you screeched and hollered, letting out an outraged sound when your bra was popped then yanked roughly from you.

“Steven!” You admonished your king, toes digging deep into the thick carpet as you’d lost your shoes back in the hallway leading to his quarters.

This whole evening was going off the rails for you. There was no other way to put it.

Dim sconces on the wall lit the way. Highly effective mood lighting if you ever saw it. Allowing you to see the set in Steve’s face, the firm line of his mouth.

His fingers wrapped around the back of your neck so he could hold you close, ground out for your benefit. “All day long I tried. Calls. Messages. Texts. Did you want to talk? No. You ignored me. Now I do not wish to talk either.”

Pushing you forward, you found yourself stumbling but knew if you didn’t walk on your own, Steve would merely toss you up on his bed. Up on the sea of pillows. Framed by gilded silver and dark curtains that came down from above to allow for privacy.

“All day long you denied me. I’ll remind you what is mine until you’re thinking clearly again. Until we’re back where we were yesterday!”

“I’m ready to talk now! I’m in a place where I can discuss this with you! I am thinking clearly!”

Words were not needed.

Oh no.

Not when the king grabbed your hand, pulled your arm back and pressed your palm against his straining erection. Hot to the touch. Shockingly hard. Painfully so even you were willing to bet.

Your knees hit the bed and you were pushed forward till you fell over, till you wound up on the expanse of bedding in a tangle of hands and knees and that silky smooth material.

A big explosion came from Steve. Feeling like and you were flailing on your stomach, trapped beneath his oppressive weight and the bed. Fighting. Wiggling. Trying to get free from beneath him but bigger stronger arms had your wrists.

Something was being wrapped around your wrists that you couldn’t see, as your vision was impeded by the broad chest in your face. Right there. Blocking your line of sight. Pinning you down to the sea of grey until finally, finally, he was up and you were once more struggling, wiggling, jerking and finding that you were tied to the headboard.

You were tied to the headboard. You were naked and bound to his bed.

Silky fabric that was Steve’s tie bound your wrists snugly together and wove into the headboard, securing you there most soundly.

It was outrageous! It was absurd!

You were tied to his headboard!

It was a first for you.

When your gaze returned to your boyfriend and even that was now a bit questionable, you were greeted to the sight of Steve shedding his suit. Yanking off each garment without pause or care. A few tears were heard and he was far rougher than need be. A button or two may have flown off.

“You cannot be serious! That’s your plan? You’re going to take what’s yours? Are you serious? This is not the dark ages!”

Ignoring you, Steve shoved his slacks down his long legs. Allowing his rigid cock to bob obscenely. Causing an eyeroll to immediately come from you. A hint of something dark on his hip caught your eye. But it was only a flash and as he was moving, yanking off his suit jacket and fiercely ripping open buttons on his shirt, you couldn’t get a good look.

Was it a bruise? A tattoo?

Somehow you doubted kings were even allowed to have tattoos. Or that Steve even had the time to get himself permanently inked. When the hell did he get that bruise?

Momentarily distracted by him climbing up on the bed, you looked up to give your bindings a good hard yank.

No luck.

Steve’s weight was pushing you down. Shoving you into the bed. Pinning you down as you protested, implored and began to plea. Which was exactly what he wanted. After everything you had put him through today? You would beg. You would plead. You would forget all about that video.

“Open your mouth.”

It was an order.

It could be nothing less.

An absolute command that had your lips slowly parting as your eyes widened in surprise at the sudden treatment, this roughness. Steve held his painful erection in hand and pushed his tip to your lips. Pushed the red end of his cock sticky with precum past your lips. Till you were forced to open your mouth wider and wider for him. To take him deeper and deeper into your mouth.

Steve held your gaze and pushed his member in further. Straddling your chest and gripping his headboard in one hand, till it dug into his fingers. While his other hand grabbed your face to hold it tight.

You’d never be able to take all of him. He knew this. You’d never been able to no matter how much you’d tried. But he wanted to see how much he could fit in your mouth tonight.

“Don’t swallow. Don’t let me down again.”

Your mouth was so warm closing around him. Wet. Sacred. It made him want to close his eyes to sink in deep but Steve would not. He would do that soon enough. He would lose himself in your cunt soon enough.

A few small movements from his hips sank his cock deeper into your mouth. Filling your cheeks as you struggled. Until you found a motion of moving up and down his length, running your tongue along his sides. Wetting up his shaft till sloppy noises started to fill his ears and a small little dribble began to moisten the corners of your mouth.

Those blue eyes remained set on your own. Never once showing you mercy.

“Tomorrow. In the future. If I call or text, you will answer.”

There was no follow-up. Nor was it a question.

Long fingers that belonged on an artist or musician sank into your hair tightly.

All you could do was nod as drool rolled down your chin and you suckled his cock like you would a popsicle, without swallowing, sucking on his sensitive flesh as he liked and without the aid of your own hands to steady his member.

It was glorious and Steve could only slightly appreciate it. As the words that fell from his mouth were more important, more vital.

Feeling how wet your mouth was getting was fantastic. Absolutely. Your nimble tongue was a gift. No one had ever sucked his cock like you.

However…he was still frustrated, still angry, still hurt even.

He’d not worked his way through those feelings as of yet.

Perhaps? In your body?

Those feelings teased and taunted him with his unworthiness. Of how you hadn’t been firmer with your roommate. How you had allowed her to drag you down the stairs for a night out with possibly another man? It infuriated him. It sent his hips rocking into your mouth. It had his cock rubbing up along the back of your throat and made your eyes water.

No.

Steve would not lose you. He loved you too much to even entertain such a notion. No. Infact, he would make sure that he ruined you. By the end of the night, he would make certain that you’d never even amused the notion of being set up. He would be completely sure that when you left his chambers come morning, you would never be doubted when you told Wanda or anyone that you had a partner.

“I want to start publicly courting you. I want to be engaged this year. I do not want to hide any longer. When people look at you, I want them to know that you belong to me.”

Noises came around his cock that Steve knew were words and he did not care.

“Look at yourself.” Steve stilled, his words harsh, bitter even. “You have my cock in your mouth and I am completely at your mercy. Tied to the bed of kings because I cannot go one night without dreaming of you, fantasizing about your tight cunt and smooth skin. I would give you the world and all you want is nothing. You are the worst type of infuriating.”

As if to prove his point, he steadily pumped his pelvis up into your mouth. Each slide in pushed saliva and pre-ejaculate out, making it ooze from the seal of your lips around his erection. Against your throat his wet balls bounced. His ass rested on your chest and he could not get enough. More. He wanted more. He needed more. Craved more.

The urge to go harder was strong.

Steve wanted so badly to fuck you. To make you feel how much you drove him mad. How you caused him physical pain from longing alone.

With drool smeared down your chin and neck, never looking more beautiful in his opinion, Steve pulled his dick out. Done with your mouth for now. Needing more. Needing to grab your tits and to be closer to your face, looking closer into your eyes.

In a familiar sort of way, your throat bobbed.

“Did you just swallow when I specifically told you not to?”

A moment of hesitation followed from you that had Steve gripping your face, easing his body down yours but holding your slippery chin tight in his grip. Your eyes were wide. Again, probably without even realizing, you swallowed in nervousness.

“I’m…I’m sorry…”

“I’m sorry what,” he demanded, leaning down closer, licking the wetness from your chin and earning from you a most satisfying shiver that wracked your body.

“S-s-sorry, Your Majesty.”

His tongue was hot and wet on your chin. His body was heavy and hot on your own. Skin on skin contact made your brain short circuit. It was a miracle you could string those syllables together. With your hands bound so snugly to the bed. All you could do was take it. Take what he gave you.

Feeling him push your thighs open and position himself between your hips made you gasp. Words failed you.

And then words didn’t even matter because he was pushing into you. Claiming you. Taking what was his because you did belong to him. You belonged to him in every possible way.

A scream exploded out of you when he dove right in. Sank in till his crown was pressed up against the wall of your cervix. Deeper than anyone had ever been before. Hands were grabbing your ankles and spreading you wide. Spearing you on his cock. Stretching your body taut.

“So wet. You were made to take me. Made to take your king.” He whispered more to himself even though you heard. You would have heard a pin drop. You could hear your heart pound and blood rush through your ears, each gasp your lungs took. You could feel every last inch of him deep inside your core. Painfully stretching you open like this. Burning. Tingling. Twisting.

Hands tightened on your ankles till you looked up at Steve. Hovering over you like a pillaging warlord about to ravish his prize.

“You have till Monday to decide how you wish us to become public. I will not wait a day longer.”

Seeing you like this before him. Splayed out. Your pussy curled around his member, plump from being filled with your breasts round puddles up on your chest. It set his hips into a frenzy. Powerful thrusts were sent into your tight walls that made Steve grunt every time from the power behind his motions, from the sight of his cock vanishing up into you. Watching your pussy take him so hungrily as you cried out beneath him each time. Breasts swaying. Skin slapping on skin with the contact. Your hips jiggled, his headboard creaked, his balls slapped soundly against you both.

“Say it. Say the words to me. Say them!” Steve commanded you. Pieces of his hair falling and sticking to his sweaty forehead as he sank in to the very depths of you then pulled out, revealing a glistening shaft before slamming his member right back in where it belonged.

“Yes…yes…yes…yes…” you chanted, over and over, again and again with every thrust in, every withdraw that was like heaven and hell, your body needing him to complete this circuit only the two of you could create. “…yes…yes…my king…yes my king…”

Those words. They were a song to his ears and had your ankles slapped together. Those words had the backs of your thighs slapped wetly against his chest, your feet touching his shoulder as Steve continued to pound into you.

Pumping into your now closed thighs, into your tighter walls at this angle.

“Look!”

Dimly your eyes fluttered, you looked into his burning blue eyes.

“Look. Here.”

You followed his gaze to where he pointed, looking down at his pelvis, where his hip met his abdomen in that hard cut of muscle that was visible above his beltline. The one you loved to lick.

He did have a tattoo.

It took you a second to realize what you were looking at and focus, as his thrusts continued without mercy, pounding away, slamming into you without mercy. Shaking and pushing you into his bed.

Your writing was inked into his skin. Your very own signature.

Your name was forever scrawled into Steve’s skin and then, it hit you. Your climax took you by complete surprise. Your entire body went stiff. A pained noise came from you and you shattered all around his cock. Fingernails dug into your palm and you stared at your name in cruel ecstasy.

Steve fell too. You could tell from his thrusts getting wild, falling out of sync. You could tell because he swore out, clenched his face and held your thighs tight to his chest.

Pumping deeply into you while your body milked him for everything he had to give.

Making him merely a man in that moment with you.

Up on his headboard, you were tightly secured and would soon have bruises from arching up against the silk tie restraining you. Unable to do anything but feel and accept what your king was giving you. On your back. In a bed that past kings had slept in.

None of which was lost on you.

Not as your body felt leaden, filled with molten hot lava. Limp. Your secret garden continued to suck him in, clench around him and spasm, making your eyes roll up in your head, your body dig into his bed and words fall from your mouth.

In a most dignified sort of manner, your king humped into your body like a jack rabbit, chasing the last vestiges of his climax with coral wet lips and dark honey hair now damp with sweat.

A sight for your satiated eyes.

“Let me call my mother in the morning.” You breathed out slowly, as if figuring out how your lungs worked once more after a marathon. Your words making Steve still above you. Though your cunt did not. It twitched around his royal girth and you met his gaze from on his pillows. “Tomorrow you can have Maria release a statement saying whatever you want. Just let me tell my parents myself. They should hear from me that I’m not coming home.”

Whatever wind that may have held up his sails had clearly been withdrawn.

Almost tenderly now, Steve leaned forward to quickly loosen the silk around your wrists and free your hands from his headboard. Stretching out his long powerful body above you. Flushed red now. Glistening. Though he left his tie there. He remained inside of you too. Filling you and stretching you full.

Gently, he pushed your legs down until they wrapped around him and he was able to rest his weight most carefully on top of you. Pressing wet kisses to your nose, your cheeks and chin. Worshipping your face with delicate touches and caresses.

“I’ll fly them out here whenever you want. When we get back from Switzerland, I’ll have them waiting for you.”

Softly you answered, reveling in his softness now that your body had been given her reward, her treat, her pleasure from his roughness. Smelling the musk of his sweat and feeling the wet glide between your bodies.

Leisurely, your hands found their way up his muscular arms to his shoulders. “You know what I mean. I won’t ever be their daughter again. I won’t ever be Wanda’s roommate. I’ll have to quit my job. Nothing will ever be the same.”

Those words, well, they settled uncomfortably in him.

All of them were true.

You would be giving up so much. He would have to make sure to take care of you even more so, keep a closer eye on you. He would need to have a talk with his mother come morning.

“That’s true,” Steve softly conceded, rubbing his nose along your own. Barely grazing his lips over yours. A hint of a tongue touched you before his breath danced over your mouth. “We would be together though. Finally together. You. Me. Not hiding anymore.”

Speaking of hiding.

That word alone had you pulling away from his mouth to lean to the side, to get a look down at his Adonis belt. At the alluring groove that led down to his pubes where your name was now in black.

Nay, your signature.

As if sensing what you were after, your boyfriend tilted up a smidge. Enough for you to see but not enough for him to leave your body. Pray tell that couldn’t happen.

“When did you do this?”

“Do you like it,” Steve asked, as if your opinion mattered. Which was laughable considering how permanent it was.

He’d literally took your signature and had it tattooed on his body.

“Of course I love it. Now you have a part of me on you all the time.” An incredibly modern take on Steve’s royal jewel gift thing, but in reverse you thought. Then grinned as it sank in. “I can’t believe you did it though.”

Why wouldn’t he have done it?

Steve hadn’t thought twice when Maria had gone on about getting her late mother’s writing tattooed on her side, in a lasting forever tribute. Having your writing on him at all times had been an idea that hadn’t left him. Not until he’d had a tattoo artist praised for their work brought to the palace late the other night.

He wasn’t even going to lie, king or not, there was something downright satisfying about having something like this hidden on his body from all. Known only by you and him. A secret only for you two.

Bringing him right back to the thought that the biggest secret the two of you shared would soon be out.

Soon it would be public knowledge and that had Steve brushing his fingertips over your cheeks, kissing the swell of your cheekbone and moving ever just so to make a small moan come from you. “You’ll never regret this. I’ll love you for the rest of my life. I’ll devote myself to making you happy. You’ll never regret becoming my queen.”

[lemonjoonah]

Blood Bounty - Part 3 (M) - Finale

Pairings: Yoongi x Reader, Taehyung x Reader, ft. Seokjin x Namjoon Word Count: 15.5K Rating: M Genre: Historical fantasy AU, Vampire AU, Thriller, Drama, Smut Warnings (CONTAINS SPOILERS): Dub-con (consent is freely given but the context is dubious), non-con vampire feeding, non-con kiss, unprotected sex, light bondage, oral sex (f. rec.), cum eating, pain during intercourse (don’t be like the OC here in the beginning and try to conceal it, you should tell your partner if something hurts), somewhat antiquated thoughts on virginity, virgin reader (it’s a flashback and there’s a small amount of blood...), death of major and minor characters, drugging (with vampire blood), murder, violence, blood, gore, sexism, blood slavery, kidnapping, captivity, forced marriage, manipulation, gaslighting, once again it’s some pretty dark shit, consider yourself warned.     

| Series Masterlist |

Summary: He’s taken everything from you, your blood, your memories, your life, and after months spent as Taehyung’s own personal feast, you eagerly take your chance to flee. Unfortunately your escape doesn’t go as well as you had hoped, as you are soon caught by another blood thirsty beast. The vampire Yoongi claims to know you, and that he wishes to return you home. But when you can only remember the pain caused by his kind, you find it difficult to trust him, since he too could just be another monster waiting to feed.

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who stuck with me through this mini-series. I truly hope you enjoy the end of this tale (and the hints to another separate series in the works 😉).

...

Your new stead is surprisingly responsive to your commands, possibly desiring to get as far away from the predators as you. Taking you down the road to the kingdom at a startling pace, causing several branches to whip painfully in your direction. When a stinging blow inevitably lands on your brow, enough to draw a spot of blood, you pull back on the speed of your mount. You are not so far now that you worry about making it back before nightfall.   

The route home becomes more populated the closer you get. For the first time in years you are among people like you again. Those who see you as just another person passing by, not a temping entree, nor a traveller to rob. Some even nod to you as they cross your path, you respond in kind, but keep your face hidden beneath the hood of your cloak.

Your first few paces inside the town comes as quite a shock. The notable gathering spots are even more vacant than they were during your nighttime strolls. With the stalls of the market bare, and so many businesses closed,  the only well occupied space appears to be the mounted boards on the end of every other street. You stop at one littered with official orders for curfews, new regulations, and missing souls. The most notable of all to you is the obituary detailing your brothers passing. 

You swallow back your grief, and proceed to examine the document claiming that he had died of a devastating injury and no more. It seems your parents will still not admit to any weakness that might carry in the family's blood. But with each stamped flyer, there’s been an addition made, one that was obviously not approved by the crown. 

‘The crown prince is dead, and our princess lost. If we let them rule any longer we will be next!’

You are stunned by the note, fearing how bad the circumstances must have become in your absence. Backing away from the board you prod your stead onward and in the direction of the public stables. Hoping to find the mount it’s own new home, while you return to yours.

“Three pence for a night,” The master grunts, looking up from his work as you dismount near the entrance to the paddock. 

“I have no coin, but-”

“No coin, no stall. Don’t waste my time and move along.” He interrupts before returning to shovelling the pungent manure.

You wrinkle your nose at the odour and persist in your efforts. “I was going to offer for you to take ownership of him instead. I have no use for him now.”

“Keep him? Tell me, how did you come to own this stead? Is it truly yours? ” He leers down, placing you beneath his scrutinous glare. “People don’t just give up a worthy horse. How can I know that there is not someone out there who will come looking for it and will blame me for their loss?”

“I can assure you the last owner will not come to retrieve him. Now do you want the horse or should I go find another who is willing to take my offer? Maybe that nice family there.” You point to a couple making their way into a nearby building. 

Your bluff calls his, leading the man to grimace and huff, “Fine. I will take it, now be gone with you.”

With the horse now tended to, you start to walk away, passing the entrance to the tavern, the door the mentioned pair just walked into. It’s hard not to take note of its current occupancy, for it is packed with people, all shouting and trying to have their say. With the entryway cracked open an inch you are able to catch several snippets of the debate.

“We can’t wait any longer. They are changing the narrative as we speak! Now stating they hold out hope for the princess’s return.”

“And what if she does?” A familiar man stands in argument. “Would you have us send the kingdom into turmoil when hope still exists? I would not be as I stand before you today without the surgeon she sent to us. A blacksmith cannot work without a hand. My wife and I would have been out on the street before long.” 

“Can you not see what they are doing for what it is?” The first speaks again to counter his point. “It’s a convenient ploy! With an heir lost, only the promise of another, with more favour than them will quell our anger. If she was still alive they would have found her by now.” He pauses to pat the smith on the shoulder. “I mourn her loss too my good friend, but we can’t wait for a small sliver of hope when we continue to live the way we do. Taxed within an inch of our livelihoods, while the list of missing continues to grow and those who are in charge hide behind their walls, keeping secrets that affect us all. If she returns we can offer her a good standing among us. But their rule must end.”

You edge closer and closer to the door trying to get a better view of the meeting in progress, when a throat clears and grunts, “Run along lad...” Nearly jumping from the fright you turn around to find the stable master having come up from behind. Bowing your head you comply, thankful that he had not realized the gravity of what you overheard. 

What had truly happened in the time you were gone? This isn’t just contempt but a full blown revolution building. Your people think you dead, and understandably so, but if they see that you are alive and well, maybe a better path can be found than one that will surely end in blood.

When considering your options you know there will be no way in through the front gates, your parents have always kept them heavily guarded, and no one will believe you are the child of the king and queen dressed as you are now. Rather than stir up trouble, you proceed to your fastest route in, the trap door hidden on the perimeter. 

In your absence it appears to have remained unused. The roots of the hedge have grown over, needing to be tugged out of place until the hinges and wood are freed from their grasp. You drop down into the passage, closing the hatch behind. With no light, nor lantern you are left to navigate the abandoned hall in the dark. The palm of your hand brushes against the damp stone wall, crossing cobwebs and critters on it’s trek to lead you to the portrait door. You try your best not to think of the time spent in this place, and the company you are now left without, but the sound of your steps resonates around you. Tricking your ear into thinking it a whisper of the past, as if his promises still remain locked away down here, echoing off the bedrock for you to claim.  

You are grateful when you finally reach the castle's interior, although for the time of day even the palace appears deserted and cold, you slip about the halls feeling like a stranger in your own home. Hoping to return to your old bedroom before you find anyone else, so you can at least reclaim another part of what you once were. But when you find the door and step inside someone is already there, crying at the foot of your bed. It’s too late to back away for they look up, just as startled as you. It’s your former lady’s maid who steps back from shock at your appearance, followed by a baffled stare when she catches a glimpse of your face.

“My word...” She gasps as tears continue to roll down her cheeks, “I never thought I’d see you again. He brought you back, I can’t believe he brought you back.” She runs forward wrapping her arms around you, a blubbering speech follows. “I’m so sorry, your b-brother... he’s gone. After everything that happened, everything you did, he’s still gone. An-and the threats to the crown, ever since his death everyone has been in an uproar. I haven’t dared to leave the grounds out of fear that someone will know I work here.” “It’ll be okay. We will figure this out.” You attempt to calm the maid you can only remember fragments of. She must have thought you had run off with Yoongi that night, but now is not the time to correct her with actual horrors you endured. 

“Having you back now will surely pull the king and queen from their stupor. They have been pleading and praying for your return.” She looks down at your clothes with apprehension. “Court is in session right now. They are locked away until a matter is settled, but we can ready you to meet with them once they are finished.” You nod prompting her to seek out your wardrobe. “I’ve been keeping them well looked after in case of your return.” She pulls out a dark dress, a sign of mourning for your brother. “I believe this will still fit. You don’t look to have changed much.” 

As she laces you in you can feel the garment tug on your ribs and chest. Maybe a little too small, but it will have to do for the time being. Once finished she escorts you to the dining room, while you continue to marvel at the empty halls. “Where is everyone?”

“Much has changed... your parents' fears have grown in the time you’ve been gone. They feel they can trust far fewer than they have before, and so, many of the staff were let go. If anyone ever even asked about you they too were sent away.” She stops at the set of double doors and urges you inside. “If you remain here and I will go and have the King and Queen informed as soon as the proceedings let out.” 

“Wait, don’t leave...” You were going to ask her more questions to address the gaps in your past, hoping you might stir more than a few moments you have of her and your life here, but she has already closed the door and departed. 

You are left in the dining hall, waiting only with the excessive spread of your parents forthcoming dinner. The feel of the room compared to the passage below is unfamiliar, unlike the dark narrow tunnel this place is void of memory and the feelings that come with it. You pray that such a disconnect will not last long. 

Mounted up on the back wall you find your family’s portrait. Staring at it at the faces and details, you remain so until slivers of the painting's creation surfaces in your mind. You hated that gown, for its rigid seams and heavy fabric took quite a toll as you stood there for hours behind your brother. He was seated due to his condition but you were told to stand and remain still, while the prince takes the forefront of the picture.

It had been made not long before you disappeared from the kingdom. You can recall dwelling on how little blood you had left, while the painter took your likeness. Your parents look so happy in the portrait, thinking their son to be healing and ready to take on the throne, while you spent the whole time daydreaming of Yoongi’s return.

Your anger spikes as you think of him now, it is beyond doubt that he has noticed your absence. You will have to warn your parents and their guard of his possible travel to the kingdom to claim you for his clan. The secret passage will have to be sealed, taking with it your hopes to ever leave again.

Grabbing one of the many decanters and with a shaking hand pour yourself a goblet of wine. Seeking to soothe your trepidation of meeting your parents, you sip on the bitter drink while picking at the food of the central spread.

The hours pass while you take your fill, until finally, when the sky has long been dark your mother hurries first. Looking exactly the same as she once did in your memories, frantic and worried. “Thank heavens you are back. You are safe, we are safe.” She looks down at you, her face unchanged with time, and the skin of the arms which clutch you... you stare at them for a moment, perfect and untouched, but you remember... you recall deep gashes and blood, so much blood pouring down your fingers. Disturbed by the thought you shake yourself from your horrific vision and smile back at her. Expecting her to launch into a flurry of questions but to your surprise, both her and your father pose no queries. 

“We knew he would find you again,” your mother cries with happiness. “We knew he would bring you back. The people, they will be so thrilled to hear of your return. The threats, the violence it will all be over soon.”

“You knew him? You asked him to find me?” The facts of her statement confuse you greatly, had they been privy to information your maid had not? For if she thought you were with him... what did your parents believe?

“My dear, are you well? Of course we did.” Your gaze once again focuses on the flesh of her forearms, as if entranced to the spot, while she brushes at your unkempt hair. Upon following your sight she pulls at the shawl of her dress in an awkward fashion, covering the length of her exposed skin. “Think not of what happened at our parting. All is well.” A painted grin plasters your mother's face. “We made all the changes necessary, you my darling, are to be next in line, not your children, but you. Your father had to work so hard to gain the approval of his lords, they thought it pointless to change the law in your absence, but here you are! Once your consort holds up the rest of his bargain your father will sign and you will be heir to the throne.”

This is all too much, you trying to keep hold of all the information while more is poured on to you. Unable to focus on anything other than their knowledge of Yoongi. Did they really meet him and make the request of him to bring you home? But to what bargain are they referring? “He did but I fear his clan has plans to remove me once again. We have to guard the old passage too, it’s already been nightfall for some time and I fear he won’t be far behind.”

“My poor girl... are you sure you are not ill?” Your mother’s head tilts in confusion. “He is already here, he has been for some time... you fled from his estate when he was just about to send for your return.”

You step away from your parents as fear tightens and grips your chest. “No, you can not mean. Not him, please not him-”

But your greatest nightmare returns to join you, with Taehyung waltzing through the double doors as if your parents castle is his own. “Princess, so good of you to join us. You shouldn’t have run off like that, you had your parents worried.” He approaches, inciting you to back into a wall in an attempt to keep your distance. Your parents don’t react with shock or fear at his sudden advancement on you, surely it is just a dream or vision then? One you are bound to wake up from soon. “But I knew you couldn’t run from me... only towards. Isn’t that right my sweet princess?” Though when his breath comes to find your ear you know him to be real. “I would have gone to find you myself, and take you back sooner, but your parents have been a rather large thorn in my side. Refusing to let me go until I-”

“And what of the other part of our bargain?” Your father calls from behind Taehyung, who grimaces and rolls his eyes at the interruption.

“They will be here shortly. My kin are acting on my behalf tonight, for I could wait no longer when I heard news of her arrival.”

“You have short changed us before,” the king admonishes. “I will not sign until I am certain the problem is dealt with.”

Taehyung turns from you entirely, the accusation leading him to snap back in anger. “That was your own doing, not mine, human. I gave you what you asked and you chose to squander it.” 

With Taehyung now focused on your father, you are ready to run, to seek anything you might use against him, but your mother catches you before you can take two steps. 

Shouting and jeering can be heard from just outside of the room, along with the heavy footfalls of several men, far too loud for what should be expected of the staff and guard. The procession outside bursts into the dinning hall. Your father’s lip curls ever so slightly as several men are pushed to their knees in front of him, muzzled and chained by the vampiric clan that restrains them. 

Taehyung introduces them with a proud and theatrical air, as he takes a seat at the head of the table.  “As you requested my liege, the leaders of the now failed rebellion.” 

You recognize many of them from the tavern earlier, even the blacksmith whose hand Yoongi saved long ago. Your father after taking stock, waves them away, ordering them to be held out of his sight, until a public execution can be arranged. 

You open your mouth to argue and condemn such brutal tactics when you are pushed down in the chair beside the monstrous vampire by your own mother. “You will sit still, be quiet, and do your duty for the family.” Despite her insistence your nails claw at her hold trying to free yourself from his side. As blood breaches her skin, so too does the memory of your first meeting with the vampire lord.

...

-Five years ago-

You look through the streets for hours hoping to catch even a glimpse or a whisper of Yoongi. Asking several people who pass you by, but no one knows of his whereabouts, nor has seen the distinguished surgeon in months. 

With the sun ready to rise, you retire from town for the night. Stripping from the simple dress, you toss it to the side and return to bed for the hour you have left to sleep. When forced awake by duty, your day ultimately passes with you a hollow shell. Barely able to keep your eyes open from lack of rest, with a gnawing disappointment taking root in your stomach, distracting you from much else. You tell your maid of your plans to venture out again to find him, but she looks concerned by the prospect. 

“You can hardly stand! What if, as a result of your current state, you cannot find him tonight? Your brother needs this and if you should fail... maybe we should tell the king and queen and let them put out a search for him?” 

“No, I must do this on my own. He would not want them to be aware of his kind.” You go to take the plain gown but your maid grabs it first. 

“I understand that you feel you must go. But please take an hour or two to sleep before you journey out. You look dead on your feet.” She does not relent, prodding and scolding until you are between the covers of your bed. “I will wake you once the castle is quiet enough for you to leave without being spotted.”

Nodding in agreement you submit to the coma of slumber rather quickly while she sits in the seat across from your bed. You wake hours later not by the hand of your staff, but from the hammering of rain pelting at your window.

You rise and call out, confused as to why she did not wake you earlier, but no answer responds. Lighting the candle on your bedside you find the chair empty of both her and the dress. You jump from your bed, in only your dressing gown and slippers reach for the door. When she bursts through it first, wearing the dress you intended to wear on the street. 

“Where were you? Why didn’t you-” 

“Princess, I found him!” Your lady’s maid exclaims happily, despite being absolutely drenched from the weather outside. “I went in your place so you could have more time to rest, and I found your friend, or I should say he found me.”

“You found him?” You breathe a sigh of relief, your brother is now safe and your plans with Yoongi can come to fruition. “Where is he now?”

“He’s with the king and queen.”

“My parents?”

“He wished to see them, mentioned something about desiring their permission. He’s already healed your brother, your mother and father couldn’t believe it.”  She grabs hold of your hand and pulls you from the room, not caring that you don only your bed attire. “Come! They are waiting for you.”

Still half asleep and only semi-coherent you allow yourself to be ushered along to your father’s den. There he sits behind a desk quill pen in hand, your mother hanging over his shoulder, and settled across from them both is... someone who is not your vampire, someone who is not Yoongi. 

The stranger smiles, showing off his sharp teeth as he gets up from his seat to deliver a sweeping bow. “Lord Kim Taehyung, at your service princess.”

You take a step back upon hearing the name that Yoongi warned you of so many times. “W-why are you here?” With concern immediately drifting to your lost vampire, for if his enemy has found you what could have befallen him.

Your mother scolds your response, “This man has offered his assistance, to aid in your brother's care, you will show him your respect.”

“It’s no matter,” Taehyung shakes his head at your mother. “Though I must ask, why do you look so scared princess? Your maid was looking for one of my kind, were you not seeking my help?”

“Is this true?” Your mother interjects, glaring at you. “You knew of people like him, those who could help your brother and you told us nothing?”

“I was looking for another,” you attempt to explain. “One who had been helping us in the past without your knowledge, he forbade me from revealing his kind to you.” 

“What did this other tell you of me?” The lord smiles. “I should like to set my story straight, because you, princess, looked ready to flee the moment you heard my name.”

“What is it that you want?” You ask again. If he refuses to answer your question why should you obey his own. “I thought your kind did not wish to reveal their existence to humans.”

“When the situation is as important as this, exceptions can be made.” The vampire justifies, a crooked grin refusing to leave his mouth. “I am only here to offer my services to your family.”

“We already have the services of another. He was doing so for years before you came here, he will help my brother should he need it in the future.”

“Then where is he now?” Taehyung asks the dreaded question which stabs at your heart.

“He will be back...” You retort, hoping it to be the honest truth. “We do not require your help.” 

Your father silences you with the stern call of your name and the hammer of his fist on his desk, before he too jumps into the argument. “I will overlook the concealment of your past acquaintances, along with the fact that you gave your brother treatment without our knowledge and consent. But I will not have you demean this man who just saved his life.”

“He is not a man!” You shout back at your king and father. “He is a monster. I have been told of his misdeeds, of his ethics. We can not trust him-”

“We have no choice! Without an heir the whole kingdom will become a place of ruin, an unclear line of descent will lead to chaos.”

“Then we wait. We wait for the one I can trust. He will be back soon, I know it.” Certain at least in this instance you know better than your parents, you plead for them both to listen.

“This is not a discussion.” Your father clarifies while the vampire takes out a bag, pulling from it two large corked bottles filled with a fluid far thicker than wine. “We called you here merely to inform you that we have accepted his services.” 

“This should be enough to keep him healthy for a long span of human life. It will heal most ailments, and injuries, and when enough is consumed will even slow the course of ageing.” You watch as the vampire's attention falls on your mother during his explanation, his lip curls even further when her eyes brighten in interest over the properties of the cure. 

You go to her, grabbing her arms so that she will focus on you alone, trying to convince her of the vampire's true nature. “This is a trick it must be. You can’t accept this, he will bring only ruin.”

“All that remains is the payment.” The Lord Taehyung adds, ignoring your plight.

Your gaze snaps back to him, when you hear of his charge. “What payment? What did you ask of them?”

“The cost for such a bounty of blood requires an equal sacrifice on your family's part.” The vampire beams with delight. “The blood needed for his life, in exchange for the blood of yours.” 

Your stomach drops when you see your father dip his head in confirmation. They already knew the cost and still they bartered you off without much thought. Your hands continue to grip your mother’s arm. “Please... please listen to me. It doesn’t have to be like this. There’s another way, there has to be.”

“There is no other way.” She responds, her tone cold enough to match her words. “It is time you stop living in your dreams dear girl, those books you cling to, those maps you draw, they will bring us nothing in the end. You have scorned numerous suitors in the past few months alone, leaving your father and I at wits’ end trying to secure a noble future for you. If you will not have that duty, you will take this. Better to have your hands stained with blood than ink if it will at least save our prince.” 

As she starts to push you towards your new fate, your fingers dig into the soft flesh of her arm, desperate to try and keep hold of your past life. Taehyung takes you by the waist and pulls you towards him leaving long lacerations down your mother’s skin as you continue to sob and beg for her to stop this. The thumb of your captor crosses your lips, bringing with it a metallic taste to your tongue. There’s a hushed order whispered in your ear to be quiet and complacent, and you do just that. Relaxing into Taehyung's arms while he carries you out and into a waiting carriage in the dark and drenched courtyard. 

Once out from the castle walls his slick smile falls. He may have taken your ability to speak, but not your tears will to flow. Pulling out a kerchief, he cleans your hands of your mother's blood. After removing every spot he lifts the fabric to his nose, and winces at the smell. “It is still amazing to me that one like yourself could be born of such soiled stock.” He then tosses the cloth out the window of the carriage. “That’s better.” His hand lifts up to the stream that continues down your cheeks. “Do not weep my princess. They may not see the same value in you that I do, but I promise we will prove it to them soon.”    

Angered by his declaration, you look away to the door, not wanting to give Yoongi’s adversary the satisfaction of your gaze. You knew you always weighed less in your parents mind. For you were second in their hearts even before your brother was conceived, second to the mere hope of a son. Swaying their love even a fraction in your favour was and is an impossible feat, a battle you could never win. 

“I know you wished to leave them, my kin intercepted a letter addressed to a royal who was willing to abscond with a vampire.” You look back at him with eager eyes. A letter? Yoongi must have sent word and this lord stopped it from reaching you. “I see that I have your attention now do I?” Taehyung scoffs and sits back in the carriage clearly enjoying your regard. “I knew of a woman much like you before I became what I am. I once travelled the land with a troupe. Entertaining both the nobles and the masses, while dressed in simple white garments, with only a tapestry as a backdrop, and the floor as our stage. It was invigorating, the life that came from holding the eye of the courts, and one lady... one princess in particular.”

Taehyung pauses to look back at your castle before continuing his tale. You can do nothing but sit there and listen, his blood and previous demands continuing to hold you in his custody. 

“She too was not content with the possible suitors before her, they could not offer her the multitude of lives she wished to live, but through narratives and plays I fulfilled that need. We could become whatever she or I wished ourselves to be. I was sure to see her as often as I could, but when her parents learned of our tryst, my group was banished, and she, to the bed of a neighbouring prince.” The vampire sighs as the story takes a darker turn. “I promised I would return to her when I could offer her a better home, but my cast and I, we ran afoul of a beast one night. When another caught the scent of our tragedy and found only me hanging by a thread, he took pity and made me one of them. I was so fearful to return to her at first, it took me several years to work up the courage and restraint before I could send her a letter begging to call on her again.” 

Now engrossed in the tale and the comparison of his story to yours. You stop an attempt to fight his will, too curious of the outcome.

“She agreed to meet, stealing away from the castle at night to find me at a nearby inn. It was my intent to flee with her that evening, to give her not only all the lives she had desired, but an endless supply of existence. What I did not expect was for her to deny my proposal. In the time I had gone she bore the prince a child, and no longer desired to part with her new role. I was not willing to accept her answer... lost in the heat of my anger and hunger for her, I took the princess with me. Draining her of life, I added her blood to mine.”

You stiffen in your seat wondering if this too will be your end, recalling a cautionary tale your mother used to tell you. The story of a noble lady, who was bled dry by the parasitic and sinful world outside. You thought back then it was her way to scare you into not leaving the protection of the castle walls, never did you consider it to be real, nor that she would be the one to give you to the monster of the fable.

“The smell and taste, I have not had anything quite like her since... until this night, when I caught wind of your own scent upon your maid's dress. I was already on my way to see you, but she made it so much easier, for she spoke on my behalf to gain my entrance. Such a sweet girl, and so very much in love with your brother isn’t she? A shame that she will likely feel the same pain as I once did, a love that crosses classes only to end in death.” 

Seething with rage at his confession, you wish to fight back and escape from his carriage but your own body will still not comply. You knew it, you knew he never intended to save your brother, he only wanted a bargain that would play in his favour. There is still a catch that remains unseen by you and your family, one that will result in the prince’s demise.

“They’ve hitched their kingdom to a dying horse, keeping it alive by selling off their only hope.” His finger follows the path of a tear down your jaw and falling to your collar. “I can promise you I will have far more roles and lives for you to play, more than you ever would have had with them. And you, you who have so much to give in return.” He opens his mouth, his breathing heavy as he leans towards your throat. “It's been so long since I’ve had someone of your calibre... I plan to savour you for far longer than the last.” Pushing you down, until you lie on the seat of the carriage, his teeth latch on, piercing the skin of your neck.     

...

You drop your mother’s arms, leaning back upon remembering the part she had to play in giving you away. “You forced me into his custody? You are the reason I was made to endure his torture.” 

“We had no choice. Your brother, he was dying.”

“And where is he now?” You shout back at them, all decorum vanished from the room. “You were given the cure, so why is my brother still dead?”

With that Taehyung smiles bringing light to the answer. “It would seem the temptation was too great for their own vanity. Even your lovely parting gift to her, erased by my remedy.”

The marks that should be on your mother's arms from your own assault, the ageing that should have become apparent since your last moment with them, none of it is there. All wiped away by the blood that would have given your brother a longer span of life. “You-you used it didn’t you... I should have known. It’s always been about appearances with you. Playing the strong hand to keep both me and your people in line. And when you ran out... you asked for more didn’t you?”

“He said he would keep our prince alive!” Your mother replies shaking from the accusation, but not denying it.

“I told you that what I gave you would be enough. It is not my fault that you chose to waste it.” Taehyung counters with a wicked grin, pleased by their faults and presumptions. “They let your brother die, not I.” 

“Then why return now? Why come if you already received what you wanted out of the deal?” You question fearing his answer, for what more could he want.

“I promised I would one day make them see the value in you.” Taehyung explains. “And there is always another bargain to be made.”

“With your brother dead and you gone we needed an heir.” Your father sets out his quill and ink on the table along with a rolled document he’s been clinging to. “It is as we feared what might happen. Our rivals at court have been stoking the fires of our people, without any official descendant they grow discontent and worried about the security of the country's future, we need you back.”

“Though you still belong to me as per the first agreement,” Taehyung interjects. “So you will return, the law will be changed, and you will become the next in line instead of any child you might have produced. With me by your side, living as husband and wife, the future rulers of this kingdom.

“I won’t allow this.” You shake your head aghast by the thought of such a deal. “First you give him me, and now your people?”

“Those people are currently rallied against us, they would see the end of us if they could. You witnessed the proof.” The king gestures to the floor where the captured were held just a moment ago. “We need assistance in controlling them.” 

“Because you’ve given them nothing to stand behind! Instead your first instinct is to feed them to a beast. Why do you still trust this monster? He will double cross you, my brother, your son is already dead, don’t let him take any more!”

There’s a knock on the door with the return of Taehyung’s vampire kin having stowed away the prisoners. He bids them to enter, while your father looks on somewhat ruffled by the impermanence of the lord’s comfort in his own home. “My part of the deal has already been given, they cannot back out now. Unless they would like those rebels to return to their people?” 

The king shakes his head. Dipping the feathered pen he signs the parchment, and hands it off to the vampire lord. 

“Thank you for your cooperation my liege...” Taehyung bows his head as he takes the paper, passing it off to one of his clan, before returning his unwanted attention to you again. “Your parents will live out the remainder of their lives as king and queen. As long as I can assure that their people will not revolt while they live. The throne will pass to us, and your people to mine.” He tilts up your chin, his thumb crossing over the small scratch on your forehead from your travels. Dipping his finger in your goblet of wine he touches the cut again. The familiar itch of healing skin crosses the surface of your brow. Your stomach turns with the knowledge of what you unintentionally consumed. “It’s a shame for them though...They won’t live long enough to see the benefits of my work here.” With the brush of his hand he gives the order to his clan, “Kill them.”

Your parents both stand in alarm, attempting to reason with the monster before you. “No, you swore-” 

“That I would keep you safe from your people, not that you are protected from myself or my kind.” He addresses his fellow vampires once again, “If you insist on feeding on them do not do it here. I find their smell distasteful and I would rather not lose my appetite.” 

His progenies take hold of your parents, dragging them away. They scream for their guards, but when no one comes to their rescue they call for you next. Pleading with you so that you might speak up on their behalf, with all dignity lost while they come to face their own mortality. You remain silent, any words frozen inside out of fear and hate. Your last duty to them would be what they always asked of you, to be quiet and still, until their screaming comes to an abrupt halt as they meet their end.

Now alone Taehyung rises from his chair and lifts you up onto the dining table, locking you in with his arms on either side. “I told you I could give you so much more than them, didn’t I promise you that? Do you remember?”

“I never said I wanted it from you.” Your furry has reached a new level, overwhelmed with contempt towards Taehyung, your parents, and yourself for not remembering sooner. “You believe their deaths will give you the kingdom? You forget that you had them sign it off to me. I will never consent to marrying you, and we both know your blood will not force me into such a binding contract. It's why you had to make deals with my parents is it not? Compulsion will not work when it comes to such bonds in ink, and you have nothing left to play in order to sway me.”

“Such a smart girl,” Taehyung coos, while brushing the side of your face. “However, it is not I who has forgotten but you, for I have already won that battle too. Here...” He takes a swig of the wine, and firmly grasps the back of your neck. Pushing more of the drink between your lips with his, Taehyung forces you to choke it back and drown in your own past. “Let me help you remember, my princess... my bride...” 

...

- 4 years ago -

You open your eyes, to be greeted by unfamiliar surroundings. A soft bed beneath you, lying between warmed sheets with a handsome yet concerned looking man sitting at your side. 

“Thank heavens you’re awake. You took quite a fall.”

You lift a hand to your head trying to dull a sharp ache in your temple. The man leans in closer without hesitation, an action which surely indicates a close tie with you, but you have no memory of him. His hands are cool yet you welcome them on the side of your face, for they diminish the pain. “I don’t remember-”

“It’s okay my princess. I'm glad you are saved from the trauma of reliving that event.” He comforts you with a boxy smile, that doesn’t quite reach the sadness of his eyes.

“No, not just that, I mean I don’t remember... I don’t remember you, where I am, nor why I am here.” You strain to recall your most recent past, everything seems so long ago. There are glimpses and fragments of moments and people which you manage to pull forth, your parents and their rule, your brother and his suffering, your castle and it’s cold walls that once surrounded you. The loneliness of your past brings a tear to your eye for it is all you can recall. Everything about this man before you seems to have vanished from your mind. 

“No, no, no, don’t cry.” His expression falls, as his hand shifts to wipe beneath your eyes, he swallows his shaking breath in clear distress over your loss. “I promised that I would look after you, that I would treat you well. Your parents, what will I tell them? They will rightfully blame me for letting you get hurt like this.”

The fear and sadness strewn across his handsome face is more than you can bear. You reach out a hand to his to comfort him back. “Could you remind me of your name sir?”

“Taehyung, and please don’t be so formal. There’s no need with me.”

“Then our relationship to each other...”

He takes your hand, tracing your fingers with his, before planting a kiss on your fourth digit. “We have been promised to one another. Your parents agreed to let you leave your own kingdom to be with me.”  

“Oh god, I’m so sorry... I don’t remember, I don’t remember anything. I can’t-”

“It’s okay my princess. It’s not your fault, but mine. You were hurt under my care. I’ll help you to rebuild what we have. We’ll start from the beginning, if we have to. I just can’t endure the thought of losing you entirely. Please just tell me what you need, whatever I can do, it will be done. I will help you to fall for me over and over, if it means I can continue to be with you.”

...

Taehyung spends the nights alongside you tending to your every desire, reciting poetry and plays to keep you entertained while you remain on bed rest for your injury. You feel bound by his kindness, and so guilty for not being able to recall your own past together.

During the day he is forced away from your side. He has a demanding role filled with travel and responsibilities, your only hope is that when he deems you well enough, you will spend that time together too. That you will be able fulfill this building desire within, to go out and journey for his role together.  

But the weeks pass with no change in your situation.

Until one night when it all becomes too much to conceal. When left by his caretakers to bathe, you dissolve into sorrow over the fact that your loss of memory is holding you back. Your wedding to him was to be days from now, but he has called it off until you can recover what you lost. Your wracking sobs echo through the empty room as you commiserate alone. Questioning what you could possibly do to dispel this suffering. 

You did not expect the sound to summon Taehyung, who comes bursting in without thought to your current state of dress. “Princess I-I...” He stops in his tracks and turns on his heel, shielding his eyes from your nude form. “Forgive me, I was not made aware that you were bathing.” 

You press yourself to the side of the tub. Shy at first but when you find him more so, you beckon him over, just as he is about to reach for the door. “No wait, don’t leave. If you go I fear I will only feel more guilt over our situation.” 

“Guilt? To what shame are you referring? Have I not made you comfortable here? Do you not have everything you need?” Taehyung abides by your call, joining you beside the tub, and swallowing as he glimpses you in the water.

“I do, and that is the issue. I remember nothing other than your care and kindness. You have given me everything you can, and I have nothing to grant you in return.”

“That’s not true-”

You press a damp finger to his lips, urging him to let you finish. “Despite not having a memory of our past, there is this need inside me... it’s difficult to express, but it calls out for someone like you. I do not wish to continue this cautionary stance, waiting and hoping for something that might not return. I do not want to hold us back. I think we should still marry, for I cannot see my life in any other way.”

Taehyung gives you a small smile along with a kiss to your hand which still lingers near his mouth. While his own reaches into the tub, his fingers twirling in the water just above your leg. “There is still much you don’t know about me.”

“Then I will learn it as it comes. Please, I long to move past this. I cannot and will not remain in this present, with you restraining yourself because of me. I truly believe that moving forward with the original plan is the best course of action.” 

“If that is what you desire,” He the tips of his fingers submerge further until they draw against your thigh. “I will resume the plans between you and I.”

...

The ceremony is modest, with only you and Taehyung reciting your vows under the night sky. After signing a document to confirm your ties, he whisks you off to the bedroom to consummate the new promise between you. 

The strength of the man before you comes as quite a shock as he rips the laces of your gown in his eager hunt to find the flesh beneath, until your best dress soon lays in tatters on the floor. His hunger for you appears to reach a new level, with his mouth nipping and devouring every inch he has exposed. Your situation has held you both back for so long, but at least now you will both get to revel in the path forward together. 

Once bare he flips you on to your stomach and disrobes himself. His taut legs come to straddle your hips, while his hands run up your back and down your arms. Taking your wrists he pins them over top of your head. “Just a precaution my princess,” He chuckles your ear as his leather belt wraps around. Tightening them together before the strap loops the headboard and is once again threaded through the buckle, wittingly securing you to the bed. “For if I am worried over the possibility of you fleeing, I might lose myself, and consume too much of you.”

“I have no plans to run.” You muse, giggling at his passion.“But I will concede to your bondage if it satisfies you.” 

“I was hoping you would agree.”  He teases his index along your slit, drenching your sensitive skin, and preparing you for his swollen cock. You raise your hips eagerly towards him and he takes the hint. Laying down over top of you he guides himself in with one hand while the other loops your waist. 

You gasp from the stretch before gritting your teeth trying to hide the brief moment of pain. Taehyung swears as his forehead comes to rest on your shoulder, his breath shaking as much as yours while he inhales deeply. A growl echoes in his throat which he promptly clears. “Princess, am I... am I your first?” There’s a hint of surprise in his voice, but you can not understand why that would be so.

“If I was promised to you... I can not see why I would have laid with another.” You answer somewhat hurt by the notion that he thinks you would have been unfaithful in the past. Your memories might be limited, but you can not believe that would be the kind of person you are, to be unfaithful to one so kind would make you a monster.

“Yes, of course.” He sighs, “I just, I had not...” He empties his throat again. Hugging you tightly as he pushes his cock in further. “My dear princess, so good to trust me with such a gift.”

You exhale with a confirmation. “I am all yours.” 

With Taehyung resting deep inside he pauses for another moment. His fingers trapped between you and the bed shift down to your mound where they press and cause you to buck back onto him. “Forget the pain for now...” He whispers in your ear while the deep circles he rubs shift you from discomfort to pleasure. Your twitching responses beguile him as you clench down on his shaft. The growl in his voice returns and grows deeper, he thrusts along with you. A need inside your start to build, your breathing stutters while he continues on. “...And come for me.”  Your nerves reach their peak at his words, holding you in place until the tension inside you finally releases and the warm waves run from head to toe. 

As you ride out your climax Taehyung pushes forward with his own. His cock continues to swell, demanding more of you, until he comes to his end and collapses twitching with content. With a groan he wraps his arms around you and nuzzles your back, while you remain trapped beneath him.

You tug on his belt wanting to touch him and hold him as he does to you. But even once he has come himself, he does not appear to be fully parted from his lustful needs. He shifts down so that his face can be found between your thighs. Your cheeks burn with embarrassment as you inquire for him. “Taehyung, please-”

“Don’t fret my princess, I just- I just want to- there was some blood drawn in my haste to have you, I would like to kiss it better.” He chuckles before his tongue comes to find your folds. The beastly sounds from him become far greater than before as he laps at the spot. Your hesitation is cast aside as you soon delve into pleasure once again. 

His fingers clamp down on your legs as he feeds from your cunt with an even stronger resolve. “I must- I must have more.” He begs of you.        

“I am yours to take.” You respond, eager to indulge more from his affectionate appetite.

But as soon as your permission is granted an unimaginable pain pierces the skin and muscle of your thigh. His mouth latches onto the source of such misery, and draws on the wound taking deep drafts. “Taehyung?” You cry out in confusion, pulling the bonds he left you in. 

Your lord and husband suspends the act. Rising up to release you from the headboard, he takes your restraints in his hand. Flipping you back over and pinning you back down beneath him. You find your groom smiling while his mouth drips with blood. He chuckles lightly at your horror, taking in your fear. “Did you have a change of heart my princess? I’m sorry to have brought such a swift end to our happy scene, but tomorrow we may start over... once I’ve had my fill.”

...

After the first Taehyung proceeds to push upon you several moments wrought in passion and pain. The concealment of his identity to become your love, and of course the times when he chose purely to torture you as your captor.   

You come to understand that your past with Taehyung is a series of tales, with him portraying the villain, or the hero. Going from captor, to suitor, to husband, only to break you by becoming your captor once again. He’s crippled you countless times, in so many different ways, choosing whichever act suits him in the moment, gorging himself off your emotional defeat the same way he feeds your blood, in the most painful way possible. 

“A small sample of our time together, but you see princess, you are already bound to me in matrimony. I have what I need for my clan. My followers will have access to any house, any dwelling on our kingdom’s land once I give them my consent to enter.”

“Y-you have no right to do that!” You stutter, trying to push down the past to focus on the present. 

“Oh but I do as your husband, as the new king I now have partial claim. My men will be able to feed within the safety of your peoples homes. Hunting them in their beds will be far easier than being restricted to the streets.”

“They are not cattle for you to feed upon!”

“How is that any different than your family's rule?” Taehyung scoffs, looking to the ornate room around you both. “Your parents in their vanity and greed bleed them dry, to the point where they were begging for a change, even if it was the rule of a young man who had barely stepped into adulthood. They will be grateful for the passing of the king and queen, and for the new rule. Remembering the vampires who will now stalk them while they sleep only as a passing nightmare.” 

“That does not make what you are doing any better.” You argue, though you know it to be pointless. 

“Not in your eyes, but my people will at least benefit from the sacrifice of your own. They trust me to do right by them. Can yours say the same about you? Will you bear the pain of your suffering and theirs? All that’s left is for us to choose which story we should play next. Would you like to forget it all again? To have me return to the role of doting lover and husband? Or would you prefer to recall that which has brought you pain? Your parents, your brother, and myself, knowing that soon my people will feast on yours.” 

To remember would be the only chance you have in finding a weakness to him, any attempt to remove him from his position will require your knowledge of what happened in the past and what is happening in the present. Who knows what story he would otherwise weave next, but he will no doubt pull the wool over your eyes if you let him. 

“I will give you until the end of this night to choose, if you don’t I will do so for you. But I am so very ready to return to our routine. These past few weeks have been a torment without you to entertain and fulfil me.” His finger traces an x on your neck, marking the spot he intends to bite. “I will never again allow us to be parted for so long.”  The point of his teeth make contact with your skin, when the door opens and one of his keepers calls for him. “What?!” Taehyung shouts back in frustration. “What could possibly be so important that you must interrupt my dinner?” 

“There is a hunter demanding entrance at the gate.” The vampire informs, looking rather shaken for having displeased his lord. “Says he won’t leave until he sees proof that you received your princess. It seems that he was trying to deliver her when she ran off in the daylight earlier today.”

“So someone did find you... that would explain...” His hands soften on your neck running his fingers over the previously tortured flesh. He then turns to the vampire waiting for his answer. “What is the hunter’s name?”

“Agust, my lord.”

Your head snaps up with your eyes wide. Yoongi is here, and he knew to call himself Agust? That can only mean, the secrets kept from him by his clan, the truth that would break you, it was the knowledge of Taehyung’s presence here.

  “Is this the case my princess? Did this Agust find you and intend to bring you here?” You bite your tongue but he pushes his power over you again. “Tell me the truth of this matter.”

“He did.” You can’t be sure of what Yoongi intends to do once inside, but at least your forced honesty did not betray his cover.

“He has my permission to enter. Bring him to me now, I owe him my gratitude for taking such good care of my princess.” The vampire guard leaves to grant the other access. 

Taehyung traces his teeth with his tongue. Appearing unusually happy despite the fact that his meal was disturbed. “You will remain seated and quiet, while I reward this hunter for his deeds, is that understood princess?” You reluctantly nod, submitting to his compulsion. 

Yoongi, accompanied by four of Taehyung's kin, enters the dinning hall and promptly bows. “My lord.”

“Agust... I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of speaking before have we?” 

“No my lord, I’ve dealt only with your keepers. But it was my honour to retrieve your princess as requested.” You meet his eye when they flicker in your direction trying to decipher his plan, but are unable to see a way out that could have possessed him to take such a risk.

“Yes, I must thank you for bringing her most of the way. I am surprised that you knew to find me here though, I thought that was kept confidential from the hunters.”

“It was my lord but I learned of your occupation here only recently, such a large group of vampires in a human city does not go unnoticed for long.” 

“Then I commend you, for doing what many of my other hunters could not.” Taehyung smirks at his own kin’s expense. “Tell me who was your maker, from which line do you descend?

“Your caretaker Egan, my lord.” Yoongi offers, his tone flat and even. “Though I don’t know if he would recall me, I am one of many.”

“Egan you say?” Taehyung pauses, with a raised brow and pout, which soon fades into a smile after a moment's hesitation. “He has created a fair few hasn’t he?” He chuckles. “Now you were not able to finish my task to completion, but I will still grant you the reward of becoming a keeper if you can complete just one other challenge.”

“Of course my lord.” Yoongi promises, watching adamantly with his hand twitching at his side. 

“There is someone I need you to find, one who has been haunting me for quite some time. Before my princess met me she fell in love with another of our kind. A vampire who works for Lord Hoseok, and goes by the name Min Yoongi. It took me a year to find the full extent of the boundaries in her memory that relate to him, I needed to empty her of love for that fool, and take it for myself. I was successful in the end of course.” He tips your chin with his finger delighting in the pained expression you bear at the thought. “But I would like to see the end of him, and purge anything that might hope to take her from me.”

“I understand...” Yoongi responds through a clenched jaw. Peeking a concerned glance at you when Taehyung's back turns to him. 

“I think she might be able to help you start your quest. You know where to find this Yoongi, do you not my princess?”

You dip your head, as a tear slips from your cheek and falls to your lap. You bite your tongue in an attempt to hold back your answer but Taehyung presses again with the compulsion of his blood. “You will answer me, out loud.”

“Yes,” you confirm,  your eyes meeting with Yoongi’s again, pleading for him to go now, and escape before you reveal anything else. 

“Do you think it will be an easy task for this vampire Agust to find him?” 

“I do.” You utter with a reply stolen from your lips.

 Taehyung mutters in your ear for his final question. “Is he the one who stands before us now my princess?” Panic instantly seizes you, with every function of your body coming to a halt, wondering how he could have found out. The moment your mouth starts to open, Yoongi launches himself at Taehyung, but his attack is quickly brought to a halt by the vampire lord who draws his own stake. Shoving Yoongi across the room and into the arms of his guard.

“You thought you could fool me after so many of your brethren tried and failed?” The cruel lord chides with a low chuckle. “There have been too many errors on your part, the greatest of which was the name of your false creator.” He approaches his new prisoner dragging the point of the stake along Yoongi’s chest while he is held in place. “A misstep of Egan’s allowed for her to escape, and so I sent the order for him to be disposed of. I knew the deed was done mere hours ago when I watched a progeny of his wither away before my eyes. If you were of his blood you too would have perished.”  Taehyung explains before he paces away twirling the stake between his fingers. “What a wicked curse we must endure is it not? Though it does have its advantages... I wonder how many will I wipe out with your death?” Your heart beats wildly in your chest longing to run forward and prevent such an event. “It will come soon, of that there is no question, but not before I take every ounce of information you hold about Hoseok’s current plans.” 

“You will get nothing from me unless you let her go,” Yoongi growls.

“Let go of my own bride?” The restrained vampire flinches at the comment as Taehyung grins and prods further. “I suppose you didn’t know. You must forgive her for not informing you, she couldn’t recall it herself until a few minutes ago. Regardless, I have no plans to free her, for I believe the closer I am to your beloved the more I will get from you.” Taehyung joins you at your side again.  “What do you think princess? Would you like an admirer for our performance? I’m sure even the steadfast Min Yoongi would bend to my will if he witnesses you in my favourite roles.”

Taehyung’s attention is drawn away from the pair of you when more of his keepers enter the room greeting him with a nod. “Alas the show will have to wait. I have permissions to grant, and a story to feed your staff,” The vampire lord sighs and acquiesces to their needs, grabbing the decanter from which you took a glass. “The rest of your people will come after.”

Taehyung gestures to one of his men. “He will take you to your room, and you will remain there until I return. I look forward to having a more fulfilling reunion between you and I come dawn.” His fingers brush against your cheek one last time before addressing the vampires holding Yoongi. “Keep him locked up along with the revolutionaries for now. I will call upon him later.”

Yoongi continues to lash out as you are both dragged in opposite directions. Barring his fangs at those who hold him, but he is soon subdued with the addition of another clan member and carried out of sight. 

Your own escort doesn’t say a word as he takes you through the empty halls, and staircases with one hand grappling your upper arm. Any attempt to pull it from him is met with a snarl and tighter hold. As you pass the rooms of the hall you wonder where Taehyung has the remaining staff kept and despite the lies forced down their throat you hope they will remain untouched.

The guard opens a door and pushes you in, sending you to the ground before locking it behind. The dimly lit room is unfortunately not your own, consisting only of a bed, washstand, and shuttered windows. Rising from the timber floor you find a stain on your hands and dress originating from the spot on which you landed, a spill, red enough to be the remnants of a vampire's meal. You start heaving at the thought, running to the filled basin desperate to remove the sticky scarlet substance. With hands shaking as they are submerged in water, your entirety follows suit, quaking in fear of what has just transpired and what is left to come. 

Your parents are lost, they dug their own grave, but your fellow citizens, and Yoongi... you have to find him, before he too is lost and your people are reduced to a mere spattering on the floor. 

You pull on the shutters of the window, releasing them to peer out and see if there is any hope to scale out of this one too. The height from the ground might be manageable, but a pair of glowing eyes looking up to you from the garden stops your attempt. The gaze from below continues to watch until you retract and close the space between you again. Taehyung's caretakers and keepers are as eager to keep and feed on you as he is. Visions of past attacks start to flood your mind, making you regret your venture to look out. You tried to escape so many times in your past captivity. Each one with the exception of the last was foiled by his keepers or caretakers, some brought you straight back to your room, while others... others were swiftly intercepted by the lord of the fortress, but only after they landed their first bite.  

Retreating to the corner of the room, you set yourself down at the furthest point from the door and window. Left alone to stare at the crimson puddle, as you wait for Taehyung’s return. There is no question that you have to bear the weight of your memories as painful as they are, you can not afford to forget the past. Not now, not with Yoongi nor your people in jeopardy. You wonder if Taehyung will strike such a deal with you. If you promise to abide by his command without his blood, will that be enough to buy at the very least Yoongi’s safety?

The minutes pass while you consider your options, distracted only when there comes a thump from the shutters. You rise from your spot and move closer to the door. The boards made to conceal the daylight shatter inward with another hit, knocking over the solitary candle and casting you into darkness. The shadowy intruder leaps in, their gleaming eyes holding you in their sights. 

Figuring it to be one of the Taehyung’s progeny’s come for a taste, you draw breath to scream. Until the vampire collides with you, holding you down, and covering your mouth. 

“I told you to stay in the room.” The hushed tones of Yoongi greet you to your immense relief. “Why didn’t you listen to me? Why did you run?” He waits there for a moment, removing his hand only when you finally relax beneath him.

“Yoongi...” You gasp in relief. “I overheard you and Seokjin. When I saw you give into the demands... I-I didn’t know, I didn’t realize-”

There’s a knock interrupting your explanation, the vampiric guard no doubt alarmed by the commotion. You both fall silent, but that does not seem to satisfy the sentry,  who proceeds to unlock the door. Yoongi jumps up ready to meet him with a stake. As the barrier opens, the vampire tries to step inside, making it only far enough in for the wooden weapon to reach his heart. Yoongi grabs the enemies throat in the last moments, committing him to silence until death before tossing the corpse to the side. Treating the newly dead as nothing more than a bothersome distraction. 

Yoongi turns back to you but keeps his distance, a growl rattling in his throat as he takes deep breaths. “I told you before, I would never take you there. I had no wish to abide by the request from my lord. I could not tell Seokjin of my plans to disobey while we remained in his house. I was going to take you as far away as I could after learning the whole truth behind your capture, but your stunt put everything in jeopardy, including yourself.”

You start to sob upon hearing his deception, you should have guessed that with such a reveal from his own clan he would try to deceive them too, like the others he dealt with on your behalf. He closes the gap between you, pulling you in close, allowing your tears to fall on his chest. “How-how did you escape just now? I thought for certain he had us both in his grasp.”

“I kept hold of the tainted blood, and those holding me were in desperate need of a drink. One sip and they were at my mercy instead.” He lips grace the top of your head with a kiss as you cling to him. “We’re going to get you out of here okay? We’ll go down to the passage. I have already released those he captured, if he has a mob on his hands, we might slip out undetected.”

“I can’t leave, not yet-”

“Why, because he compelled you to stay?” Yoongi questions, attempting to dismiss your concern. “I will carry you out if your own volition fails to do so.”

“It is not that alone... he was not lying when he told you I was his-his-” You stall on the word unable to say it yourself. “In those five years, he played with my mind, he made me forget you and desire him instead, a-and I fell for it. It is because of me he now has a claim to every home in the town. This is my error to fix. I will not leave those who dwell here to feed his own.”

“You are not to blame for his actions.” He counters, his own voice cracking in desperation.  “Your remaining here will not change that.”

“I only wish to remain so I can bring an end to him, to kill him.” You promise. “Either way, whether successful or not I will not exist here long.    

“No, I am not letting you near him again. If we must do this then let him be mine to kill.”

“He thinks me in here unarmed and broken to his will,” You open Yoongi’s jacket to find another stake that he must have stolen from Taehyung’s followers. “I will have a better chance. It would be better for you to ensure that his clan has not brought harm to anyone else.”

“And leave you here to face him? If he falls so do his own progenies, which includes most if not all of his keepers. There will be no point in my leaving to dispose of them, if your main goal is to defeat him.”

“If he sees you he will be instantly aware. When he is as strong as you say then even you won’t be able to defeat him without catching him off guard.”

“I am not leaving you alone with him even if you are armed, and that is final.” Yoongi takes his firm stance, while grabbing at the stake in your hand. “I will not lose you again...”      

You look down at the deceased on your floor, fearing the same fate for Yoongi should he remain here with you. Taehyung has proven time and time again that none can fool him for long, not Yoongi, not his clan members, even those who disobeyed him attempting to draw blood from you were cast aside... with Taehyung throwing himself between you and them.  “If you will not leave then... I need you to bite me.”

Yoongi follows your gaze in confusion, “What is it you are plotting your highness?”

“He will no doubt come running if he smells my spilt blood. He has before. If he thinks I am in danger from his own, I will be able to get close with his guard down.” You take the stake back from him while he considers your plan, gripping it in your fist behind your back. “All you have to do is play the threat.”

“Will you not wait for another alternative? My clan could be here in a day to deal with them.”

“He is hungry, and all too confident of victory.” You plead with your vampire. “If we wait-” 

“If we wait he will be more likely to catch on...” Yoongi growls confirming your thoughts, as he begrudgingly bends down to take the cloak of the defeated guard. Tying it around he pulls the hood over his head. “This is unbelievably reckless you know. I should just take you from here this instant.”

“But you won’t.” You reply with a sad smile reaching up to touch his cheek with your hand, and press a kiss to his lips. “You long for an end to this as much as I.”  

With his back to the door he takes you into his arms. When hunched over you Taehyung should not know who he is until it is too late. Yoongi places his mouth ready to sink into your neck. “Are you sure you want to be the one to-”

“I have to.” You cut him off before he can even try to change your mind again.

With a deep sigh his teeth pierce your skin, the blood starts to flood from the wound and Yoongi lets out a low pained groan as he resists the urge to feed. For the more blood that escapes and is left to the air, the sooner that Taehyung will come running to investigate your situation. After a minute passes, you start to feel light headed and grip your weapon tighter. 

“If he doesn't come soon I will have to put a stop to this.”

“He will come,” you gasp. “Just wait.” 

Right on cue there comes a shout from down the hall along with the thunder of footsteps. Your door crashes open to reveal the ferocious monster. 

Yoongi is thrown to the wall, and promptly disregarded in the moment by Taehyung, whose immediate attention is more occupied with you spilling out before him. “She is mine,” he seethes looking ravenous after not feeding on you for weeks. His hunger distracting him from the arm you have tucked behind your back. While pulling you closer to take a taste himself, you draw your own weapon, stabbing him through his heart with the stake. 

He looks down to injury with a sobering disbelief, his words heavy on his lips with a low chuckle as he forces out his final thoughts before his demise. “Well played princess... you had me thinking I was to be your hero again.”

“You were never my hero, only my assailant.” You shove the stake deeper into his chest. “And now my fatality.”

Taehyung gasps and delivers one last cruel smile. “A fitting end, though I can think of one better. Why part here, when you can join me in death.” He launches at your throat ready to strike and bleed you further, when his actions are cut short by another. 

With the stake pulled from the other vampire, Yoongi pierces him through the back, and takes hold from behind preventing Taehyung’s last threat. The vampire lord's eyes go wide showing a brief moment of fear before he finally succumbs to death. Pulling yourself from his clutches you take a deep breath and rejoice in the freedom, though the feeling doesn’t last long. 

Already dizzy from the loss of blood you are in no way prepared for the surge of memories that flood back. With Taehyung dead his physical hold on you diminished, but the pain of his manipulation, the trauma and loss he has inflicted on you hits as a wave, and pulls you under. 

Yoongi is there to heal the wound on your neck, he calls to you repeatedly though his voice along with your vision of him are clouded amongst your thoughts. Your heart pounds and head races as it continues to try and register the influx of everything you lost. 

There’s a soft touch to your temple, as a whisper from him finally makes it through. “Be strong my love, you can conquer this too.”

You can feel yourself being lifted as the room moves around you. Clinging to his coat you utter your wish to leave, unwilling to spend another moment in this castle. Fully slipping as he draws you in closer.

...

When the haze lifts you come to find yourself in another bed. Not one of the castle’s no, it seems Yoongi had observed that request, but the location is still worrisome for it is the same room you had shared with him in Seokjin’s house. You immediately sit up, panicking over your last memory of this place, and fearful of Yoongi’s clan’s intent. 

Your vampire sleeps on a chair beside you, though his head and chest are slumped over on the mattress and his hand encasing yours. Stirring the second your grip leaves his and you attempt to get from the bed. He grabs at your shoulder pushing you back down with ease, “What do you think you are doing? You are in no state to be running off.” 

“Yoongi... why are we here? If Seokjin-”

“This was the only safe place I could think to bring you. You have nothing to fear here now. Seokjin will not do anything, he knows he was in the wrong to suggest such compulsion, and Namjoon has promised retribution on your behalf if he continues such behaviour.” Yoongi briefly smirks at the thought of the pair, though his expression soon darkens as his hand brushes your hair from your face as you relax back into the bed. “I thought- I was worried I lost you back there.”

“I-I couldn’t control it, there was so much that I had lost and most of it difficult to bear again...” You grimace at the pain of it, prompting Yoongi to lean in to kiss your blow and pull a small smile from you again. “I should never have returned. I should have trusted you more, I’m so sorry for putting you in danger like that.”

“It was not your fault. You had every reason to doubt me given your past and what you knew. I can’t imagine what it was like, but...” He looks down avoiding your eyes as he rubs your hands, the words that follow are just as tentative and soft. “If you should- I don’t know if- if you need me to help you discard any memories I will do so. Doesn’t have to be now or ever, but if you ever need me to... don’t feel like you have to carry the weight of it alone.”   

You nod your eyes tearing up with gratitude for his offer. “Thank you, there will be some moments that I- that I will be glad to be rid of.” Yoongi’s warm smile comes with his arms to wrap around you in a tight hug. You wince as your muscles stain to return the affection, feeling as though they have seized from lack of use. “How long have I been under?” 

“The longest two nights of my existence.”

“Two nights?” You exclaim pulling out of the embrace in shock. “What has happened since?  Was anyone else hurt before I-I-”

“No one else, but the castle,” Yoongi sighs looking hesitant to tell you the rest. “The castle was set aflame in an act of defiance. It was sentenced to burn once the staff and resistance had cleared it of everything of value.”

“Good,” you whisper. 

“There is more... Seokjin has been keeping a close eye on the situation.” Yoongi discloses. “But, when word spread that you returned only to vanish again, many believed your appearance to be that of an imposter rather than their former princess. They thought you a tool of the mysterious lord attempting to gain power.”

“And their plans to create a new form of rule?” You ask, the focus of your question leading Yoongi to tilt his head in confusion.

“Going forward without much backlash, but-”

“Then they have every right to think so. I am very different from their lost princess.” You smile to Yoongi’s surprise. “I am a threat to them now, a threat to the future governance they plan to install. Any version of me might sow the seeds of discord in progress if I was to return. If this story of me being a deceiver will help them to rebuild, then let them think it. I will make no plans to return.”

Yoongi nods in understanding, though his expression still holds regret. “I am sorry I was not able to deliver you home as promised.”

“That place was not my home for so long, not since you-”

A loud knock comes from the front door of the small home, reaching you all the way in your upstairs room. Yoongi stiffens in the seat next to you as muffled voices are soon heard too. Your vampire stands going to the door where Seokjin appears a moment later with news. “It’s Lord Hoseok. He’s here, and he wants to see you.”

“Don’t you dare let him in.” Yoongi pushes back. “Not with her here, not now.” 

“I can’t exactly deny him entrance,” Seokjin scoffs. “This is his house-”

“Fine, then I will.” 

Seokjin puts a hand on Yoongi’s chest and prevents him from storming off into a confrontation. “You know you can’t stop him. If he wishes to see her he will, but right now I think his main concern is you. Do not anger him if there is no reason to. See what he wants then come to a judgement.”

The same loud knock you heard below then arrives at your bedroom door, breaking off the disagreement between the two vampires.The guest you know not to require permission, but it seems that he would rather enter on your terms rather than his own. 

“Yoongi?” You call to him, witnessing the dread in his face when he turns to look at you. “I should like to speak to him too.”

Yoongi’s reluctant hand turns the lever, letting his lord inside. Your own vampire stands between the two of you preventing you from getting a good look as the first words are exchanged.   

“My Lord.”

“Tell me it is so, that it is true. Is Taehyung- ” The vampire lord immediately launches into the heart of the matter. The weight of his tone sends shivers to even you. 

“Dead, my lord.” 

“Thank you Yoongi, I am in your debt.” The tension in his voice quickly falls away. 

“It was not I alone who defeated him sir. The credit also goes to the woman who you thought you would contain to your fortress.” Yoongi mutters with malice.

“I app-” His lord steps further in, allowing him to finally catch a glimpse of you. He pauses for a moment as he takes you in, his mouth hangs open and a single word falls in greeting, “Mansin?”

Though the word is foreign to you Yoongi reacts in an instant, returning to your side, he growls and his superior in defiance while positioned in your defence. “She is not-”

Lord Hoseok seems to catch himself and apologises. “A mistake Yoongi, an honest mistake, I see that she is bound to you. You must forgive me,” He whispers while giving a sad smile in penance. “Something in your expression reminded me of someone I once knew.” He politely touches upon his error, but leaves you with no reason for Yoongi’s reception. “I must give my thanks to you as well then, for you saved me the pain of having to kill my own creation.” 

Alarmed by the confession you try to stand but Yoongi’s hand once again comes down to your shoulder. “Then Taehyung was yours? You created that monster?!”

“It was not my intention to have him turn out in such a way.” The vampire lord growls at the censure, causing Yoongi to grow ridged next to you. “I found him as an innocent young man dying, whispering the name of the one he loved, the one he was bound to. I took pity on him, would you not have done the same?” Hoseok raises an eyebrow as he throws his choice back at you. 

You swallow and nod in response. “I suppose I would have.” The swift changes in mood of the vampire lord keep you on guard, intimidating in one moment and considerate in the next. It’s easy to see why Yoongi might be wary of him around you. 

“I chose to banish him from the clan when he killed his former mate, your ancestor, for I could no longer trust him. He sought revenge on both your family and mine, and it is my fault alone. I knew that Yoongi would prefer to keep you as far away as possible, but Taehyung would likely have tracked you down sooner or later. I wanted to make up for that by offering you a safe place at my fortress but I can see that it was misconstrued.” 

“Thankfully your assistance with my residence is no longer required.” You convey, hoping that he has abandoned the notion, since the threat is no longer stalking you.

“Yes... thankfully.” Lord Hoseok reiterates with a weak grin.

“If you are in our debt as you say then I would like to make a request of you.” You ask much to Yoongi’s surprise, resulting in his head snapping in your direction.

“A request?” Hoseok blinks, a grin twitching in his lips. He grabs the chair from the desk, turning it to face you before taking his seat. “What have you to ask of me?”

“My old kingdom, I want to ensure the health of the people. I ask that if your clan goes there to feed they use the tactics that Yoongi has been operating under.” Yoongi finally exhales and relaxes, as you explain your wish, a small smile crosses his lips with what looks to be pride.

“I understand your position, and would agree immediately if there were to be no recourse, but to put such limitations on my clan without any amendments or accommodations to offer in return... many would turn rogue.” Hoseok shakes his head. “No, if I ordered that, we might find ourselves in another situation like before.”

You consider what you have left to give with nothing left from your family to offer, you have only what you may have acquired through matrimonial bonds. “Tell me when a vampire dies, what happens to the ownership of their residences.”

“It will go to whomever they deemed a second who was not created by their own lineage. Yoongi was once my own. I don’t know if Taehyung- ”

“But if they had taken a wife who survived them?” You ask.

“They would be yours...” Yoongi mutters beside you in understanding.

You nod grimacing at the prospect of owning his land. “I want no part of them. But if they will help you to convince your clan to adjust their feedings and continue to help those of my former kingdom they are yours.” You offer to Hoseok. “Every fortress, waypoint and house that belonged to him will all be transferred to your own clan. ”

“Then I accept your terms,” Hoseok nods in agreement. “But where will you go?”

You look to Yoongi to give the answer. Caught off guard he pauses before responding with the simple direction of, “East, we plan to head east.”

  ...

...Two months later...

Yoongi stops the horse and dismounts beside an overgrown field, looking at the land with a deep contented sigh. “This is it.” He lights a lantern for you before treading into the long grass, in search of the foundation of his old home.

He was right, there is little left, but regardless of that fact you help him by clearing the roughage from any remains you can find. Pausing only when he does, while uncovering what seems to be a rotting wooden board laying on the ground. Upon further inspection you find it to shield a substantial cavern below with steps leading into the darkness. 

“If that’s the cellar... Then that must mean.” Yoongi mutters, before taking a few steps away, counting his paces as he goes. Hunching down over a higher patch of ground, he tears away the long weeds, until a stone hearth reveals itself. He takes the rotting wooden board, and breaks it apart into several pieces. Building them up before he sets them alight with the fire of the lantern. 

He lowers himself to sit in front of the burning wood and beckons for your hand, kissing you knuckles, raw from the cold wind of your journey as you take a seat next to him. Despite the lack of walls and roof, you are overwhelmed by Yoongi’s peace as he looks into the fire, feeling that same comfort and warmth within yourself. “I never thought I’d see this place again, but now, it feels right to return. Perhaps-” He meets your eye before expressing the rest of his tentative question. “Perhaps we could stay here for a while?”

“I would like that.” You answer with a nod, prompting him to beam back at you.

While Yoongi moves to lay on the grass relaxing in the light of the flame you pull out the new map you’ve been working on since the start of your journey east. The other still remains, not entirely forgotten, but of little use in this region. The fresh start on parchment comes as a much needed reprieve, the chance to begin again. 

“You are marking this place down for me?” Yoongi asks as you draw with your quill pen. 

“For us,” you correct him.

Looking down at the new point on the map now labelled with your description, he smiles at the sight of the single word you had written. “Have I fulfilled my duty to you then? Should we part ways here?” He jests pushing to rise up until you tug him back down by his long coat.

“You have,” Shaking your head at his joke, you explain your true feelings behind the word. “But if you leave, this place ceases to be so. It only exists as such when I am with you.”

“Then I must stay by your side, or risk breaking another promise?” He continues to tease you, with a twitch to the corner of his lip.

You can’t help but laugh at his attempt to conceal his eagerness. “So it would seem. How long do you think you can keep your vow?” 

“For eternity.” Yoongi whispers, leaning in to kiss you over the setting ink of, ‘Home.’

...

-The End-

...

[oumakokichi]

What are the differences between the original and localization?

Hmm, that’s a very simple question with a pretty lengthy answer! I did answer some similar questions in the past, but that was a long time ago, much closer to when the localization was first released. There are probably a lot of people whose main experience with the game has only been with the localization, and who don’t really know or remember those differences anymore.

For that reason, I’m going to go into kind of a “masterlist” of things that were changed in the localization in this post. This will be very long, but I really want to explain the whole story behind the localization and its differences from the original to people who might only be hearing about this for the first time. I’m going to cover full spoilers for the game obviously, so be careful when reading!

Also, please feel free to share this post around, as I think it contains a lot of information that might be interesting to people who’ve only experienced the localization!

Before I really get into it though, I want to stipulate that the differences I’m covering in this post are mostly going to be things that I believe could’ve been handled or translated better, not every single line that was changed verbatim in the game. This is because a localization’s purpose is incredibly different from a literal translation.

Where a literal translation seeks to keep as much of the original authorial intent as possible and has the leeway to explain various Japanese terms and cultural specifics to the readers in footnotes or a glossary, a localization is usually much more targeted towards a specific target audience, usually one more unfamiliar with Japanese culture or terminology. As a result, some things in a localization are occasionally changed to make them more understandable to a western audience.

So, for example, I’m not going to fault the localization for changing Monosuke’s extremely heavy Kansai accent in Japanese to a New York accent in the English dub. It’s much easier for western players to immediately grasp that, “hey, this guy has a very specific regional accent that the other characters don’t,” and it works really well as a rough equivalent. Similarly, localization changes like changing a line here or there about the sport of sumo to be about the Jets and the Patriots also helps get the point across to players quickly and easily without having to explain an unfamiliar sport to western players in-depth before they can get the joke.

That being said… there were some liberties taken with ndrv3’s translation which I don’t believe fulfill the point of a localization, and which changed certain deliveries or even perceptions about the characters in a way that I just don’t agree with.

Let me explain first how the localization team actually worked, to people who might be unfamiliar with the process. Ndrv3 had four separate translators working on the localization. When NISA first announced that the game was being localized, these four translators introduced themselves on reddit in an AMA, where they also mentioned that they were by and large dividing up the 16 main characters between themselves, with each translator specifically assigned to four characters.

Having more translators working on a game might sound like a good idea in theory, but it’s often not. The more translators assigned to a game, the harder it is to provide a consistent translation. Translation is messy work: often there are multiple ways to translate the same sentence, or even the same word between two different languages. If a translation has multiple translators, that means they need to be communicating constantly with one another and referencing each other’s work all the time in order to avoid mistranslations: it’s difficult work, but not impossible.

However… this didn’t happen with ndrv3’s translation team. It’s pretty clear they did not reference each other’s work or communicate very well, and the translation suffers for it. I’m not just guessing here, either; it’s a fact that various parts of the game have lines completely ruined by not looking at the context, or words translated two different ways almost back-to-back. I’ll provide specific examples of this later.

Many of the translators also picked which characters they wanted to translate on the basis of which were their favorites—which, again, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but which does raise the risk of letting character bias influence your work. No work is inherently without bias; all translators have to look at their own biases and still attempt to translate fairly regardless. But because translators were assigned four characters each, this meant that while they might be really enthusiastic about translating for one character in particular, they were less enthusiastic for others. These biases do reflect in the work, and I will provide further examples as I make my list.

This system of delegation also leaves more questions than it answers. It becomes impossible to tell who translated certain parts of the game, particularly in areas where the narrator is unclear. For example, did Saihara’s translator translate Ouma’s motive video, as Saihara is the one watching it in chapter 6? Or did Ouma’s translator do it, since it’s his motive video? Who translated the parts we see at the beginning of certain chapters, where characters from the outside world make occasional comments? It’s really unclear, and I’m not even sure if the translators divvied up these parts amongst themselves or if only one person was supposed to handle them.

To put it simply, there were quite a lot of complications and worrying factors about the way the translation was divided by the team, and the communication (or lack thereof) between said translators. It’s impossible to really discuss the main problems that ndrv3’s localization has without making it clear why those problems happened, and I hope I’ve explained it well here.

With that out of the way, I’m finally going to cover the biggest differences between the original game and the localization, and why many of these changes were such a problem.

1.)    Gonta’s Entire Character

To this day, I still feel like this is probably the most egregious change of the entire localization. Gonta does not talk like a caveman in Japanese. He does not even have a particularly limited vocabularly. He talks like a fairly normal, very polite high school boy, and the only stipulation is that he’s not very familiar with electronics or technology due to his backstory of “growing up in the woods away from humans.”

Gonta does refer to himself in the third-person in Japanese, but I need to stress this: this is a perfectly normal thing to do in Japanese. Many people do it all the time, and it has no bearing on a person’s intelligence or ability to speak. In fact, both Tenko and Angie also refer to themselves in the third-person in the Japanese version of the game, yet mysteriously use first-person pronouns in the localization.

I wouldn’t be so opposed to this change if it weren’t for the fact that Gonta’s entire character arc revolves around being so much smarter than people (even himself!) give him credit for. He constantly downplays his own abilities and contributions to the group despite being fairly knowledgeable, not only about entomology but also about nature and astronomy. He has a fairly good understanding of spatial reasoning and is one of the first people to guess how Toujou’s trick with the rope and tire worked in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is so incredibly painful because it makes it clear that while Gonta was, absolutely, manipulated by Ouma into picking up the flashback light, he nonetheless made the decision to kill Miu of his own accord. He was even willing to try and kill everyone else by misleading them in the trial, because he thought it was more merciful than letting them see the outside world for themselves. These were choices that he made, confirmed when we see Gonta’s AI at the end of the trial speak for himself and acknowledge that yes, he really did think the outside world was worth killing people over.

Gonta is supposed to be somewhat naïve and trusting, not stupid. He believes himself to be an idiot, and other characters often talk down to him or don’t take him seriously, but at the end of the day he’s a human being just like the rest of them, and far, far smarter and more capable of making his own decisions than anyone thought him capable of.

Translating all of his speech to “caveman” or “Tarzan speech” really downplays his ability to make decisions for himself, and I think it’s a big part of why I’ve seen considerably more western fans insist that he didn’t know what he was doing than Japanese fans. I love Gonta quite a lot, but I can’t get over the localization essentially changing his character to make him seem more stupid, instead of translating what was actually there in order to more accurately reflect his character.

2.)    Added Some Slurs, Removed Others

It’s time to address the elephant in the room for people who don’t know: Momota is considerably homophobic and transphobic in the original Japanese version of the game. In chapter 2, he uses the word “okama” to refer to Korekiyo in an extremely derogatory fashion. This word has a history of both homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Japan, as it’s often used against flamboyant gay men and trans women, who are sadly and unfortunately conflated as being “the same thing” most of the time. To put it simply, the word has the equivalent of the weight of the t-slur and the f-slur in English rolled into one.

This isn’t the only instance of Momota being homophobic, sadly. In the salmon mode version of the game, should you choose the “let’s undress” option in the gym while with Momota, he has yet another line where he says, “You don’t swing that way, do you!?” to Saihara, using his most terrified and disgusted-looking sprite. This suggests to me that, yes, the homophobia was a deliberate choice in the Japanese version of the game, as Momota consistently reacts this way to even the idea of another guy showing romantic interest in him.

The English version more or less kept the salmon mode comment, but removed the use of the slur in chapter 2 entirely. Which I have… mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I am an LGBT person myself. I don’t want to read slurs if I can help it. On the other hand, I really don’t think the slur was removed out of consideration to the LGBT community so much as Momota’s translator really wanted to downplay any lines that could make his character come across in a more negative light.

This is backed up by the fact that both Miu and Ouma’s translators added slurs to the game that weren’t present in the original Japanese. Where Miu only ever refers to Gonta as “baka” (idiot) or occasionally, “ahou” (a slightly ruder word that still more or less equates to “moron”), her translator decided to add multiple instances of her using the r-slur to refer to Gonta specifically, and on one occasion, even the word “Mongoloid,” a deeply offensive and outdated term. Ouma’s translator similarly took lines where he was already speaking harshly of Miu and added multiple instances of words like “bitch” or “whore.”

To me, this suggests that the translators were completely free to choose how harsh or how likable they wanted their characters to come across. Momota’s translator omitting just the slur could maybe pass for a nice gesture, so people don’t have to read it and be uncomfortable—except, that’s not the only thing that was omitted. Instances of Momota being blatantly misogynistic or rude were also toned down to the point of covering up most of his flaws entirely. His use of “memeshii” against Hoshi (a word which means “cowardly” in Japanese with specifically feminine connotations, like the word “sissy” in English) is simply changed to “weak,” and when he calls Saihara’s trauma “kudaranai” (literally “worthless” or “bullshit”), this is changed to “trivial” in the localization.

Momota’s translator even went so far as to omit a line entirely from the chapter 2 trial, which I touched on in an earlier post. In the original version of the game, Ouma asks Momota dumbfounded if he’s really stupid enough to trust Maki without any proof and if he plans on risking everyone else’s lives in the trial if he turns out to be wrong. And Momota replies saying yes, absolutely, he’s totally willing to bet everyone’s lives on nothing more than a hunch because he thinks he’s going to be right no matter what.

This is a character flaw. It’s a huge, running theme with Momota’s character, and it’s brought up again in chapter 4 deliberately when Momota really does almost kill everyone in the trial because he refuses to believe that Ouma isn’t the culprit. But the localization simply omits it, leaving Momota to seem considerably less hard-headed and reckless in the English version of the game. If anyone wants proof that this line exists, it is still very much there in the Japanese dialogue, but it has no translation whatsoever. This goes beyond “translation decisions I don’t agree with”; omitting an entire line for a character simply because you want other people to like them more is just bad translation, period.

3.)    Angie’s Religion

In the original Japanese version of the game, neither Angie’s god nor her religion have any specific names. She refers to her god simply as “god” in the general sense, and clearly changes aspects of their persona and appearance based on who she’s trying to convince to join her cult. Everything about her is pretty clearly fictionalized, from her island to the religious practices her cult does.

Kodaka’s writing with regard to Angie is already a huge mess. It feeds into a lot of harmful stereotypes about “crazy, exotic brown women” and “bloodthirsty savages,” but at the very least it never correlated with a specific religion or location in the original version of the game.

This all changed when Angie’s translator, for whatever reason, decided to make Angie be Polynesian specifically and appropriate from the real religion of real indigenous peoples native to Polynesia. That’s right: Atua is a real god that has very real significance to tons of indigenous peoples.

In my opinion, this decision was incredibly disrespectful. It spreads incredible misinformation about a god that is still very much a part of tons of real-life people’s religion, and associates it with cults? Blood rituals? Human sacrifices? It’s a terrible localization decision that wasn’t necessary whatsoever and to be quite frank, it’s racist and insensitive.

As I said, the original game never exactly had the peak of “good writing decisions” when it came to Angie; there are still harmful stereotypes with her character, and she deserved to be written so much better. But associating her with a real group of indigenous people and equating a real god to some fictional deity that’s mostly treated as either a scary cult-ish boogeyman or the punchline to a joke is just… bad.

4.)    Ouma’s Motive Video

Some of the decisions taken with Ouma’s translation are… interesting, to say the least. In many ways, he feels like a completely different character between the two versions of the game. This is due not only to the translation, but also the voice direction and casting.

A lot of his lines are tweaked or changed entirely to make his character seem much louder, less serious, and less sincere than the original version of the game. Obviously, Ouma lies, a lot. That’s sort of the whole point of is character. But what I mean is that even lines in the original version of the game, where it was clear he was being truthful via softer delivery, trailing off the end of his sentences, and seeming overall hesitant about whether to divulge certain information or not are literally changed in the localization to him pretty much yelling at the top of his lungs, complete with tons of exclamation points on lines that originally ended with a question mark or ellipses.

Tonally, he just feels very different as a character. The “sowwy” speak, lines like “oopsie poopsie, I’m such a ditz!”—all of these things are taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels a little hard to take him seriously. Even in the post-trial for chapter 4 when Ouma starts playing the villain after Gonta’s death, a moment which should have been completely serious and intense, the mood is kind of completely killed when the line is changed from him calling everyone a bunch of idiots to him calling everyone…. “stupidheads.” These changes don’t really seem thematically appropriate to me, but overall, they’re not damning.

What is damning, however, is the fact that Ouma’s motive video is completely mistranslated and provides a very poor picture of what his motivations and ideals were like. I still remember being shocked when I played the localization for the first time and discovered that they completely omitted a line stating that Ouma and DICE have a very specific taboo against murder.

Literally, this is one of the very first lines in the entire video. The Japanese version of the game makes it explicitly clear that DICE were forbidden to kill people, and that abiding by this rule was extremely important to them. By contrast, the localization simply makes a nod about him doing “petty nonviolent crimes and pranks,” without ever once mentioning anything at all about rules or taboos.

This feels especially egregious in the localization considering Saihara later uses Ouma’s motive video as evidence in the chapter 6 trial and states there that Ouma and DICE “had a rule against killing people,” despite the game… never actually telling you that. It not only skews the perception of Ouma’s character at a crucial moment, it also just straight-up lies to localization players and expects them to make leaps in logic without actually providing the facts. So it winds up sort of feeling like Saihara is just pulling these assumptions out of his ass more than anything else.

I actually still have my original translation of Ouma’s motive video here, if anyone would like to compare. Again, translation is a tricky line of work, and obviously not all translators are going to agree with one another. But I consider omitting lines entirely to be one of the worst things you can do in a translation, particularly in a mystery game where people are expected to solve said mysteries based on the information and facts provided to them.

5.)    Inconsistencies and Lack of Context

As I mentioned earlier, there are many instances of lines being completely mistranslated, or translated two different ways by multiple translators, or addressed to the wrong character. This is, as I stated, due to the way the translation work was divided by four separate people who appear to have not communicated with each other or cross-referenced each other’s work.

One of the clearest examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is in chapter 3, where Ouma mentions “doing a little research” on the Caged Child ritual, and Maki in the very next line repeats him by saying… “study?”

On their own, removed from any context, these would both potentially be correct translations. However, it’s very clear that the translators just didn’t care to look at the context, or communicate with each other and share their work. The fact that characters aren’t even quoting each other properly in lines that are back-to-back is a pretty big oversight, and something that should have been accounted for knowing that four separate people were going to be translating various different characters.

This lack of context causes other, even more hilarious and blatantly wrong mistranslations. At the start of the chapter 3 trial, there is a line where Momota mentions that he couldn’t perform a thorough investigation on his own “because Monokuma disrupted him.” In the original, Ouma responds and tells Momota that he’s just using Monokuma as an excuse to cover for his own flaws. However, what we actually got in the localization was… this.

I don’t even have words for how badly this line was butchered (though I could make several hilarious jokes about Monokuma “over-compensating”). Presumably, this happened because Ouma’s translator saw Ouma’s line without any of the lines before it or the context of what Momota was saying, had no clue who Ouma was actually supposed to be talking to, and just ad-libbed it however they could, even though it literally makes no sense and doesn’t even fit into the conversation.

There are other similar instances of this, too. For example, did you know that the scene after Saihara faints in chapter 2, just before he wakes up in Gonta’s lab, is actually supposed to have Ouma talking to him? The narrator is unnamed, but there are several lines just before Saihara wakes up where Ouma tells him “come on, you can’t die on me yet!” and keeps prodding him and poking him to wake up. This is never explicitly told to you from the text… but it becomes pretty obvious when you look at the context and see that a huge CG of Ouma looking over Saihara as he starts to wake up is the very next part of the scene.

In the localization, however, Saihara’s translator pretty clearly had no idea what was happening or who was supposed to be talking to him, because they translated those lines as Saihara talking to himself, even though the manner of speech and phrasing is clearly supposed to be Ouma instead.

I could go on and on listing other examples: Tsumugi makes a joke in the original about Miu being able to dish out dirty jokes but not being very good at hearing them herself, but it’s changed in the localization to Tsumugi saying “I’m not so good with that kind of stuff,” and a line where Momota protests against Maki choking Ouma because she’ll kill him if she keeps going is instead changed to him saying “you’ll get killed if you don’t stop!” In my opinion, the fact that this is a consistent problem throughout the whole game shows that the translators weren’t really communicating or working together at any point, and that it wasn’t simply a one-time mistake here or there.

6.)    Edited CGs and Plot Points

I have made an entirely separate post about this in the past, but at this point I don’t think anyone actually knows anymore: the localization actually edited in-game CGs and made some of them completely different from the Japanese version of the game. I’m not accusing them of “censorship” or anything like that, I mean quite literally that they altered and edited specific CGs to try and fix certain problems with them and only ended up making them worse in the process.

In chapter 5, Momota gets shot in the arm by Maki’s crossbow when trying to defend Ouma, and Ouma gets shot in the back shortly afterward when attempting to make a run for the Exisals. These injuries are relevant to how they died, but they’re not actually very visible in the CGs of Ouma and Momota shown later in the chapter 5 trial.

There are a whole bunch of inconsistencies with the CGs in chapter 5 in general: Momota gives Ouma his jacket to lie on under the press, but is magically still wearing it when he emerges from the Exisal himself at the end of the trial (I like to think he snuck back into the dorms Solid Snake style to get a new one from his room before joining the trial), the cap to the antidote is still on the bottle when Ouma pretends to drink it in front of Maki and Momota, etc. None of these things really deter from the plot though, and so I would say they’re fairly unimportant.

However, for some reason, NISA decided that “fixing” at least some of the CGs in the chapter 5 trial was necessary. They did this by adding bloodstains to Momota’s arm while he’s under the press, to better show his injury from the crossbow…. and in doing so, for some completely inexplicable reason, they changed the entire position of his arm. Here’s what I mean for comparison:

This is how Momota’s arm looked in the original CG from chapter 5, shown when the camcorder is provided as evidence that it’s “Ouma” under the press.

And this is how the localization edited it to look. I can understand and even sympathize with adding the bloodstains, but… changing the entire arm itself? Moving it to be sticking out from under the press? To put it nicely, this change doesn’t make any sense and actually makes it harder to understand Ouma and Momota’s plan.

The whole trick behind their plan was that nothing was supposed to stick out from under the press, other than Momota’s jacket. They waited until the instant when the press completely covered every part of Momota’s body, arms and all, and then performed the switch to mislead people. But the edited version of the CG in the localization just has Momota’s arm sticking completely out, hanging over the side, meaning it would’ve been impossible for the press to hide every part of it and the whole switch feels… well, stupid and impossibly easy to see through in the localized version.

Again, this shows a total disregard for presenting the facts as they actually appear and actually makes things more difficult for English players of the game, because they’re not being given accurate information. I really don’t understand why these changes were necessary, or why the bloodstains couldn’t have just been added without moving Momota’s entire arm.

7.)    In Conclusion

This has gotten extremely long (nearly 10 pages), so I want to wrap things up. I want to specify that my intention with this masterlist isn’t to insult or badmouth the translators who worked on this game. I’m sure they worked very hard, and I have no idea what time or budget constraints they were facing as they did so.

Being a translator is not easy, and typically translators are not very well-paid or recognized for their work. I have the utmost respect for other translators, and I know perfectly well just how difficult and taxing it can be.

I am making this list because these are simply changes which were very different from the original version of the game, and which I believe could have been handled better. Personally, I disagree with many of the choices the localization made, but that does not mean that they didn’t do a fantastic job in other places. I absolutely love whichever translator was responsible for coming up with catchphrases and nicknames throughout the game: little localization decisions like “cospox,” “flashback light,” “Insect Meet n’ Greet,” and “cosplaycat criminal” were all strokes of genius that I highly admire.

I only want to stress that the Japanese version of the game is very different. Making changes to the way a character is presented or portrayed means influencing how people are going to react to said character. Skewing the information and facts presented in trials in the game means changing people’s experience of the game, and giving them less facts to go off of. Equating fictional gods to real-life ones can cause real harm and influence perception of real indigenous peoples. These are all facts that need to be accounted for before deciding whether a certain change is necessary or not, in my opinion.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! Again, feel free to share this post around if you’d like, since this is probably the most comprehensively I’ve ever covered this topic.

[writefightandflightclub]

Calm after the storm (dad!Nathan x fem!reader)

Summary: dad!Nathan / ex-husband!Nathan and angst. He comforts your son during a storm. You were always better at dishing out comfort, but Nathan is trying his best to learn how. He’s had to, since you left him. If only he could get you to come home, after he pushed you so far away.

Author’s note: my 1st go at writing something emotional / angsty with Nathan. Different to my other Nathan stuff, so won;t be offended if you don’t like it! No-one asked for this but this popped into my head and ended me and I figured I’d drag you down with me. Will add taglists tomorrow :o) (If you DO happen to like it, please let me know! Writing has been so slow for me lately and honestly I’m just pleased to have finished something.)

Warnings: language, themes of children, divorce / separation, angst, alcohol abuse / misuse, parent!reader.

Warning that there is zero smut in this. Nathan is literally a father when I say daddy here. Just to be clear. Some may feel this is ooc (I may have used a bit of license with his character to achieve angst, but actually, I don’t think it’s too far from a potential truth?)? Mistakes etc. maybe, but I can’t look at this a second longer so here it is.

Word count: 8.8k (sorry!)

Nathan’s head whips up from his computer screen as he sees a tiny, shadowed figure appear in the doorway to his lab. He pauses his frenzied typing, but retains the frown weighing on his brow.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed, buddy,” he says sternly, bathed in a pool of blue light and looking at the child from beneath his lenses. Hell, when did it get so dark?

“I’m scared,” a tearful little voice says, and Nathan sighs, pushing back his chair with a small, thin-lipped smile as he regards the boy. His soft, dinosaur-adorned pyjamas have been twisted by sleep, and he is rubbing his balled-up fists into his cheeks, a pet lip trembling beneath. Nathan never did understand the kid’s obsession with dinosaurs.

Unlike father, unlike son.

Things long dead and gone? Nathan didn’t like to look back, after all. He looked ahead. Moved forward. There’s nothing for me over my shoulder.

With his headspace out of his work, Nathan suddenly notices the rain drumming down against the skylight. The rumble of thunder and flash of lightning carving the sky open.

“The storm?” he asks, rising to meet the boy as his little feet pad with trepidation across the cold lab floor to his father. The boy nods. He looks slightly uncertain, since he’s not allowed in the lab, but enters and sticks his arms up into the air all the same. He does that tentatively too, since Nathan hasn’t historically been generous with affection; and yet, this time, Nathan wordlessly scoops him up on to his hip, his heart clenching as the boy’s wet, grabby little hands fist into his Henley. His severe gaze softens instantly; though not all the way. The gesture is still a little rusty.

“That’s illogical, bud - it’s not gonna hurt you. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Irrational. Emotional. Unlike father, unlike son.

You were always better at the comfort stuff. Of course you were. Still, Nathan thinks he’s learning, without you. He’s had to learn. 

Nathan quietly carries the little spider-monkeyed bundle back to his bed. He offers no words of comfort, but he does offer a firm and reassuring pat on his back as he walks. The boy smells of bath bubbles and baby oil, mixed-in with fresh detergent and that indescribable kid smell, and Nathan feels alarmingly soothed as he inhales the scent.

A flood of memories comes back, but he pushes them down. There is nothing for him over his shoulder, after all. Nothing in the past he would care to resurrect.

Carefully balancing the boy with one strong arm, Nathan peels back the covers and slots him back into his soft bed, the glow of the nightlight illuminating the boy in a blue halo.

Like father, like son.

The man securely tucks him in and smooths the covers, his eyes alarmingly gentle now, even amidst his stony face; however, the boy is still not entirely placated. His eyes are still wide. His bottom lip is still trembling.

Nathan sighs and lowers himself on to the edge of the bed, his genius brain struggling with this problem. Apparently, simply telling a 4-year-old they’re being illogical doesn’t cut it. Children; so inefficient. So tiny and fragile and…

The best thing I ever created.

Let’s hope he doesn’t grow up to stab me in the chest.

“Okay,” he begins, with a sweep of his hand over that buzzed head of his. “Do you know what static electricity is, buddy? One of the forces which attracts or repels things? Remember?”

“Repels. Pushes things away?” the small voice asks him.

I pushed her away. I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

Fear is often based on lack of knowledge. Nathan imagines if he explains the storm, he can demystify it. Take its power away. Still, the 4-year-old looks up at him in confusion, little fingers tightly gripping the edge of the bed covers. His mess of curls splaying over the pillow like a rolling black cloud.

Maybe you did get your mother’s average brain.

We can hope you got fuck all from me, kid.

“Come on, champ, we talked about this...” Nathan sighs, with mild impatience, and then he thinks some more – just like he’s always thinking, except algorithms make sense to him, and how could he hope to solve this?

Nathan shuffles up on to the bed until his back is against the wall, perpendicular to the boy. “Okay,” he says, slapping his palms gently against his thighs. “Remember when we were at Ankita’s party, and you rubbed that balloon on your head, huh? And then all of your hairs stood-up and it kinda tickled?”

The child giggles – a sound that punches Nathan in the gut. “Yeah, Daddy, and it didn’t work on your bald head.”

Nathan exhales through a small smile which doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“So, you remember,” he nods, waving his hand in the air as he tries to find simple language to continue his explanation. “Well. It’s like the sky is having a party, and the clouds are rubbin’ up against each other, making all this static. Understand?” Nathan continues, and the child is rapt, listening to his father’s deep, steady, sandy voice. “But clouds don’t have hair-“ there is another giggle, and this time Nathan’s eyes do crease with his smile, “-so instead they send their lightning forking out in all directions. You got it?”

“A party?” the boy enquires, still unsure. His hands gripping more tightly to the covers and his face inching further below them as a particularly loud rumble of thunder sounds overhead.  

“Right. A party.” Nathan runs with it, pleased that he’s getting somewhere. Moving forward. Making progress. “And parties can be noisy, right? All that dancing and singing and scraping chairs around?”

The kid briefly looks at his father as if he’s stupid -a trait you’d always had nailed- but in the next heartbeat he seems to accept the explanation given, the fear in his eyes beginning to ease, though not entirely gone.

He’s still afraid.

Like father, like son.

It’s evident that Nathan needs to devise something even more soothing. He vaguely considers trying to explain the unparalleled lightning and surge protection in-built into this facility, but he thinks better of it. He instead plumps for something he dearly hopes the kid will understand somewhat better than he comprehends static electricity. “You’re safe here and nothing can hurt you,” he says, raising his eyebrows up from beneath his frames and delivering an intent stare, smoothing a broad hand on the boy’s chest and shoulder. “I promise, kid. Would Daddy let anything hurt you?”

“No,” the boy answers, peeking up at Nathan with big eyes, shaking his little head and rustling his curls against the pillow. It breaks Nathan’s heart that his voice wavers, as if he’s a little unsure of his answer.

“Exactly. Not in a million fuckin’ years.” Nathan says adamantly, his deep, dark eyes intense with conviction to emphasise his point.

“Daddy!” The boy gasps when Nathan curses, little palms rising to clamp down over the shocked “o” of his mouth.

“Ah, shit. Don’t tell your Mama I said a naughty word, okay?” Nathan sucks air through his teeth and delivers a sheepish half-grin.

“I miss Mommy.”

The boy blinks. His eyes sad, his emotions constantly unmasked. Feeling. Always feeling.

Unlike father, unlike son.

Nathan’s chest tightens. He scoops up the plush dog, Crunchy, from on top of the duvet and settles her in the boy’s arms, buying him some time to arrange his busy thoughts.

Thinking. Always thinking.

The dog is so named since it spent the boy’s early years crusted with dried-in food and mud and whatever else. Nathan had dubbed it Crunchy Mutt, and the name had stuck. Memories nip at his heels, but he doesn’t let you creep back in. Doesn’t fill the gaps.

Nathan emits a shallow sigh. He misses you too.

Like father, like son.

His eyes are almost soft, almost apologetic as they meet the boy’s again. He is sorry, in that moment, for depriving the boy of you for half of his time. He shouldn’t have to miss out on you. You shouldn’t have to miss out on your son. Nathan knew all this was because of him.

Nathan had sworn never to let anything hurt you, either. To look after you, and yet...

I pushed her away.

I’m a force. A force of nature.

A storm.

“Mommy’ll be here to get you in the morning.” Nathan says in a taut, gruff voice, his beard bobbing as his throat wrestles around a hard swallow. “To take you… home.” At that, finally the boy finally looks content and sleepy, stretching his little face into a big yawn. Still, selfishly, Nathan no longer wants to be alone in this storm - alone with himself - and so, he keeps talking. “You know, your Mommy loves storms like this.”

“Really? Mommy doesn’t get scared?”

“No.” Nathan shakes his head, eyes becoming burdened with memories. “We would sit out on the deck, wrapped in blankets, and watch the lightning. Listen to the rain.”

“It’s science 101, genius. You can’t work in the lab during a storm. You might create Frankenstein.”

“Fuckin’… how many times? It’s Frankenstein’s monster, sweet cheeks. Frankenstein is the doctor.”

“I know, asshole. At this point I just say it to rile you. Never fails. You stay here then, and play at creating life. If you want to play at living one, I’ll be out on the decking.”

“How about I do both?”

“What are you saying, Nathan?”

“What about we make something together, while the sky is fucking rife with creation?”

The boy springs up in bed, capturing Crunchy in a choke-hold in excitement.

Nathan raises himself to standing - beginning to backtrack, and snapping back to the present day. Compartmentalising you. Putting long dead things to rest. He knows better than to look over his shoulder for too long.

“Can we go outside and watch it, Daddy?”

“Nuh uh. I don’t think so, buddy. It’s way past your bedtime. Go to sleep now, okay?” His voice is sterner again - his gaze back to being more severe.

Still, he guides the boy back down to the mattress and plants a soft kiss on to his forehead, brushing his dark curls back. He kisses Crunchy on the head too, as he is routinely instructed to do.

“Night, kid. Night, mutt. Come on, off to sleep.”

His hands move to his hips, elbows cutting a sharp shape in the near-dark. The boy, however, looks wide awake, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, and an excited glow on his face.  

“Please, Daddy?” the boy pleads, with big, puppy dog eyes. So closely resembling your eyes, which Nathan always was a sucker for. 

Yep. He’s definitely your son.

Nathan is about to use his stern voice, and his finger is moments away from wagging. And yet…

“Fine. Quickly then,” he concedes. “Get your coat and shoes on. And find your little red hat with the Pom-Pom that you look fuckin’ adorable in.”

“Daddy! No bad words!” the kid scolds, even as a smile of glee bursts on to his face and he wriggles out from beneath the covers. 

“Yep, sorry! Don’t tell Mommy,” Nathan repeats on autopilot.

The boy springs out of bed and zooms with enthusiasm to his little closet, while Nathan gathers up some blankets from a neighbouring chest.

Sure - it was past the boy’s bedtime. Yes, Nathan had a lot of coding to rehash. But Nathan had lost you. He had let work consume him until there was nothing left for you. He was always looking ahead to what could be, and he didn’t pay enough attention to what he had, when he had it. He wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. Not with his son. This time, at least, work could wait.

Once the pair are both dressed in their outerwear, Nathan hoists the boy up on to his hip again, and carries him out to the decking, on the side of the house with the best view of the storm churning over the miserable valley. He clings on to his son tightly as the pulse of lightning illuminates his awed little face, a perfect mixture of your features and his, and yet someone entirely his own.  The boy gasps and shrinks back from the vast, roaring sky, nuzzling closer into Nathan’s chest, grabby hands fisting in his clothes again.

“It’s okay, buddy. It can’t hurt you, understand?” Nathan reassures.

The child visibly relaxes, absentmindedly tangling his fingers into the soft texture of Nathan’s beard.

He does that when he’s nervous. Seems to calm him down, Nathan notes, and files for later.

“Look, Daddy!” the kid points as forks of lightning raze through the blackened sky, sparkling eyes following the display.

“I saw it, champ,” Nathan confirms, as the storm lights up his child’s face in more ways than one. However, Nathan is more awed by his boy than the storm. By the boy you and he created, on a night not unlike this one.

He fixes his eyes on him as he grows in confidence, facing his fear of the braying wind and rumbling thunder. Being a parent is everything Nathan anticipated he would hate. Full of things you can’t control, and yet, he loves every way this boy surprises him.

Shit, he’s braver than me, Nathan thinks, as he cradles the boy in his arms, holding him just a little bit closer – a little bit tighter.  

Nathan isn’t afraid often. In fact, in his adult life, he’s only been truly afraid a handful of times. On those occasions, he didn’t face it like the boy did. He tended to bury his fear, in a landslide of work and drunkenness and insults and excuses. To cocoon himself in his own self-interest.

Nathan was afraid when he fell in love with you, even despite his best efforts not to. He was terrified he didn’t deserve you. 

He was afraid when you told him you were pregnant; he was terrified of creating another thing that hated him.

But Nathan has never been as afraid as when you left him, and took the boy with you. He was terrified that you would never come back.

You were brave. You were so brave that you never ran away from a storm, and yet you had fled from him.

What kind of storm am I, if even you ran from me?

Despite his fears though, Nathan was learning to be brave. He’s had to, since you’ve been gone. For his son, for you, he would fight off any foe or threat. Turns out, he would even do the hardest thing of all, and fight his own demons.

Yes, Nathan knew he was a stern man. Serious. Flawed. Unyielding. An asshole, a lot of the time.

He hadn’t been ready. To be humbled. By you. By the boy. Hadn’t been ready to face his shortcomings and his demons and look them in the eye.

He was afraid of creating something that hated him, but he hadn’t been prepared to create something better than himself. A child who was open, and kind, and brave, and loving. Who wasn’t afraid to feel, and to be kind.

Unlike father, unlike son.

The boy made him strong. The boy was just like you.

“Wow!” the boy gasps at another display of lightning, even though he jumps slightly as a loud rumble of thunder sounds. The shock makes him laugh - a sweet, musical, innocent noise that makes Nathan’s chest tear in half like the sky. The boy watches for a while longer as the storm tires itself out and the boy with it, the rain dying off to a pleasant lulling noise.

Nathan looks up at the sky too and he feels almost complete, until he looks to the other side of him; where you should be. Until he looks over his shoulder. To where long-dead things still haunt him.

“Mommy will be sad she’s missing the storm, won’t she Daddy? Can we send her a selfie?”

No tech after 5pm. Bed by 7pm. One of the co-parenting rules rings in his head.

It’s 2:30am, and he worries you will ride him for this, but surely this is an exception, right?

“Sure we can, bud,” Nathan responds, and he fishes his phone out of his pants pocket. The boy nuzzles into his chest in that adorable red hat, and gives a thumbs-up as Nathan extends his arm to grab a quick selfie. “Great photo. She’ll love it. What shall we tell her?”

“Hmm...” the boy thinks, and then he lands on the perfect words. “Say… I wish you were here,” he says with a toothy grin, unaware of the emotional sucker punch of his words.

Nathan’s chest tightens again, and he attempts to school the frown from his face.

I wish you were here.

Like father, like son.

Smoothing himself, he types out a message.

“Storm watching with Papa bear. Kid says: I wish you were here.”

“Ok,” he says softly, pinging the message away to you. “Done.”

The boy beams at his father.

“Will she type back?”

“Dunno, kid, she might be asleep.”

Tiredness hitting him, the boy nuzzles closer and Nathan gently rocks him on his hip, the boy’s eyes gradually closing.

When Nathan feels his phone vibrate, he lifts it back up, bathing the pair in a halo of blue once again. He is surprised to see a photo. There you are, wrapped up in a chunky cardigan and blanket on your new porch.

You’re watching the storm too, and god, you look so beautiful that it hurts him.

Beneath the picture, you have typed out: “Storm-watching, Mama bear edition. Wish I was there too, baby bear. I’ll see you in the morning. xxx”

He knows the smile and the wave and the words are solely for your son’s benefit, and not for him, but oh, how he wishes.

“Mommy’s watching the storm too!” the boy says sleepily, barely able to keep his eyes open in the comfort of Nathan’s warm, strong arms, as his soporific movements rock him back to sleep.

“Yeah, bud, she is.”

And Nathan tugs the boy into his chest, bouncing him on his hip and stroking his hair -as much for his own comfort as anything- until he is soothed too.

***

After the boy is safely back in bed, Nathan plods sullenly back down to his workshop, bathing himself once again in a blue halo. His fingers gravitate naturally towards the keys, and though he should work, his mind is very much elsewhere. His mind is wrapped up with long-dead things.

With a heavy sigh, he fishes his phone out of his pocket again, and spends a wistful moment staring at the picture you had sent him.

“Fuck it,” he says, and he lifts up the photo frame he’s had face down on his desk for some time now. For months.

Longer.

It’s a picture of you and him and the boy, out on a hike a few years ago. Nathan is carrying your son in a harness on his front, and you are side by side with them, clasping the baby’s hand in yours, and your head leaning on Nathan’s shoulders. You’re all smiling, though none of you had managed to look at the camera, only at each other.

The sight of it makes Nathan’s throat constrict. Lights a fire of yearning in the pit of him. A fire he’s tried to quell and resist for so long – hasn’t let himself feel, because he’s afraid of the power of it.

He stares at his phone again, so many things he wishes to say, but all he has the courage to type is:

“Just letting you know. Byron’s back to bed now, before you ride me for keeping him up. Woke up scared.”

Your reply pings back almost immediately, as if you were expecting him.

“Come on, Nathan. I’m not a monster. It’s a sweet picture. He looks happy.”

Nathan scratches the top of his buzzed head, and he sees the tell-tale dots disappear and reappear, signalling you are considering typing something further.

“Say it,” he types out to you, blunt and demanding as ever, and although the dots disappear for a moment, you come back - finding some courage yourself, perhaps?

“I wish I was there too.” He wonders if you held your breath while typing it, like he did when reading it.

This time, it is Nathan’s turn to convey nothing but dots to you, as he struggles to respond.  As his pulse thrums in his ears.

“Say it,” you echo, just as plainly. 

He takes a deep breath, knowing he’s going to curse himself for his stupidity even as he types the message. He has been earning your trust back. He has been rebuilding. He hasn’t pushed you too far yet, and yet he can’t help but plead with you now.

He says what he most needs to say.

“Come home.”

He stares at the phone, his heart hammering in his mouth.

But there’s nothing. No message. No dots. He throws the phone down on the desk.

Fucking idiot, he chides himself, launching himself out of his seat with a surge of nervous energy, and coming to rest his forehead and elbow against the cool window pane as he tries to steady his nerves. This is why he doesn’t let himself feel. Because when he does, it’s too much.

Nathan’s best quality is also his worst. He isn’t a man of moderation. He doesn’t know how to stop. When to stop. He never has. 

Doesn’t know when to stop working, drinking, striving, fighting.

Loving.

He loved you enough to split the sky open, and god damnit, he doesn’t know how to stop loving you. How can he solve this problem?

I pushed her away and she might never come back.

He feels a tightening in his chest - worse than before - and he has thoughts of reaching for a bottle until he’s blackout drunk, or hitting the punchbag until his knuckles bleed, but he bites those urges back down.

He has to. He has to, because his kid is in the house. For him. For you. For his own good too.

Gradually, Nathan -who once naively believed he had already attained perfection, superiority- has become a lot stronger, and a lot braver. A lot better at feeling his emotions instead of pushing them down. He has learned it from the boy, who learned it from you.

Still, despite this newfound courage -or, perhaps as a result of it- he has his moments of weakness, just like anybody else. He’s not untouchable. Not a god any longer.

Nathan is weak when it comes to you. He loves you. And he doesn’t know how to stop.

Overcome by the impulsive need to hear your voice, and ignoring all reason, he tracks back to the desk and calls you.

You answer almost instantly, as if you were expecting him.

“Nathan...” you say, in your eminently familiar voice, and he can he the agitation and accusation veiled as you say his name. What are you thinking? Always thinking. He’s always thinking. Yet, no- this time, he is only feeling. Finally feeling.

Still, Nathan doesn’t respond until a taut pattern of breaths has been laid like a tightrope for him to walk across.

Then, with a deep exhale, he asks you again. A plea. His face sharp and contorted in the blue light. He is terrified of falling.

“Come home.”

“Nathan...” you say, again. What are you thinking? And the sound of his name in your mouth causes a lump to rise in his throat. He hears your discombobulated breath on the other side of the line, and it is all too familiar. You were always charged, rubbing up against one another, causing static. He was always a storm; the one storm that could drive you away.

Come home.

“I wouldn’t even know how,” you insist, your voice paper thin, syllables soft and measured and sorry like raindrops drumming against a window pane.

You were always his release. If he was the energy and commotion and anger behind the storm -the severe, withholding clouds- you were its beauty and majesty and release. Together, you created life, and you destroyed each other.

Nathan hunkers over on the desk, leaning his head in his spare arm for some morsel of comfort, his guard up over his face.

“Just walk through the door tomorrow and stay,” he says tiredly, as if it’s simple.

He hears you sigh again, exasperatedly - the sound he induced all too often, when you were together.

“It didn’t work Nathan,” you say through your teeth, like lightning might spark through them at any moment. “How would this be any different?” Still, he can hear the tell-tale break in your voice. A gentle plea. God, could you really want to come back to him? If he could find the right answers to your questions?

“I’ll be different,” he promises, all the muscles in his face pulled taut. His face and his body aching with the tension of the sky splitting open, creation or destruction imminent.

Fuck it. Fuck everything else. Enough of this. The measured conversations, the co-parenting, the negotiations. You are what he wants - his family back together; home.

True- love hadn’t come easily to him at first. He was an asshole, a misanthrope, a closed book. Sex came easily to him. Desire. Infatuation. Thoughts of you, bordering on obsession as they took over his busy mind. But love? That too came, in the end. But love as a verb- the act of loving?

Nathan had sworn he didn’t want love at all, but then, there was you. He has sworn he had no desire for the legacy of a child, and yet, then there was the boy. For all his arrogance and grandiose dreams of the ways in which the whole world might remember him, he was finally ready to admit that all he wanted was to be remembered by you as a good husband, and by the boy as a good father.

He had never wanted to create another thing that hated him.

It didn’t come naturally to him at first. He was withholding, stubborn, rigid, and self-involved. Still, when he was motivated, there were other, finer qualities Nathan possessed too. Dedication, focus, discipline. When he was motivated, he possessed those in abundance. Turns out, love is one hell of a motivator.

Turns out, sometimes it is still not enough.

“I’m doing better,” he offers as he is met with silence, clenching his fist in discomfort as he hears you sniffing intermittently through the phone.

“I know,” you enthuse, your voice almost sickly with sincerity. “I know. I’m proud of you, Nathan.”

But Nathan doesn’t want your platitudes.

“Baby, please. I love you,” he pleads, and even in his plea his voice is stern. He refuses to let it crack. He states his truth as a cold, hard fact. He loves you. It’s undeniable. It’s logical, that you should be together.

“You know…. You know that I love you too.” you say, your voice small and full of holes. A sigh billowing out of you. “Shit, Nathan…” You sniff on the other end of the line with greater frequency – definitely crying. Nathan knits his brows together, his eyes brimming with tears that he fights back.

He thinks of all the times you cried and he didn’t reach out to you. He would give anything now to wipe your tears away.

“Come home, then,” he pleads, bluntly, swirling with hurt like silt stirred up by the rains. It hurts. It hurts to feel things. “Fuck, why are you so fucking stubborn?”

You huff out air as he snaps and instantly, he knows he’s fucked it. He wishes he could retract the words but it’s too late. They’ve already become breath. Already thunder, splitting his sky in two all over again.

He throws himself back in his chair in defeat, his hand rasping over his buzzed head in some unconscious attempt to comfort himself. “Shit, look, I just-”

When your voice interrupts him, it is perfectly smoothed out. Cold. Withholding.

So that’s how it feels.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Nathan.”

There is a beat, and you soften. You always soften. “I’ll come get him later so you can have some extra time, okay?”

Nathan sighs loudly, catching a glance of his calendar on the illuminated screen.

“Fuck. I have a meeting at 11am- I thought you would collect him early so I booked a board thing-” he says tiredly.

“Fine,” you bite off.

“No. Wait, I’ll rearrange,” he backtracks. “Let me have more time,” he reasons, his voice softening. He tips up the photo frame – that blessed and cursed item- and brings it to rest on his thigh, torturing himself with your smiling face. “Please. I need more time.”

You are silent for a moment, and this time when your voice comes back, it is level, but infused with intentional warmth. He hates that tone. That tone where he knows you are placating him rather than speaking your mind, just so he doesn’t do anything stupid. He hates that it must feel like you have a guillotine hanging over your head at all times, because you feel like you can’t push him over the edge.  

“Fine. Get some sleep, Nathan, okay?”

He huffs out air, a sharp, self-pitying guffaw, and he rubs his eyes underneath his glasses, the frames lifting from the bridge of his nose. “Right. I can’t even fuckin’ sleep without you.”

There is another pattern of breaths, and whatever tightrope Nathan might have tried to walk across to reach you snaps. “Don’t do that, don’t guilt me, Nathan.”

The worst thing is, you don’t even sound angry. You just sound… tired.

“I’m sorry,” he pushes out, muffled through a hand over his beard, and though this time he means it, the words come out sounding entirely insincere.

“Sure. ‘Night. Try and get some rest, okay?”

Now that -that sounded genuine. Sincere. You never stopped looking out for him. Even if you couldn’t stand to be around him any longer.

“Yep,” he says tautly, with little feeling, and he hangs up, tightening his grip on the photo frame in his lap before slamming it back down on the desk along with his phone.

He leans back in his chair for a moment and buries his face in his hands. “Fuck.”

I pushed her away. I did that. I pushed her away.

With a knot building in his chest, partly out of need and partly out of habit, Nathan drags opens the desk drawer where an ever-replenishing stash of vodka used to reside. Where instead, he has taped a picture drawn by his son. For moments like this.  

It helps, but it’s not always enough.

Nathan knits his brows together, his face set with a stony resolve, and his dark, turbulent eyes awash with a storm of emotion.

The boy. He’s braver than me.

Somehow, because he has to, perhaps- because he’s had to learn how, Nathan smooths himself. He cannot solve the problem of how to bring you home, when this simply isn’t home to you anymore. So, instead, he bathes himself in blue light. He basks in the glow of algorithms he can solve, and works and works his mind until it shuts off. Feeling to thinking to nothing.

I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

He can do anything he sets his mind to.

And… fuck. I pushed her away.

Anything, perhaps, except bring you back.

***

The next day, you arrive to collect your son.

It is familiar by now. It is an encounter that Nathan both longs for and dreads, in equal measure. Today, especially so; especially both.   

Byron runs down the hallway and leaps into your arms, the sound of your laughter scooping Nathan out from the inside as you pepper the boy with kisses, a toothy smile on his angel face.

In these encounters, the moments are always too fleeting; always slipping away too quickly. It seems to happen so fast that it’s a blur to him, his mind zoning-out and working through a million things he wants to tell you, and simultaneously hyper-focussed on every single aspect of you he’s missed desperately. He wracks his brain for the right things to do and say, as if desperately searching for the one remnant of code- the one function or command that will simply make you stay.

With effort, he tunes back in to the scene as the boy wraps his arms around his leg.

“Did you pack Crunchy?” you ask Nathan, as he hands over the kid’s weekend bag to your waiting, outstretched arm.

His mouth opens to respond, but you are already unzipping it and rooting through the bag, checking in amongst the clothes and tiny boxing gloves and dolls for the dear mutt. You find him nestled in there safely, and you smile softly at Nathan for remembering.

You shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks. He remembers things – he remembers everything. It’s forgetting he typically needs a little more assistance with. Maybe he does look over his shoulder more than he’d care to admit.   

You ruffle the boy’s crow black curls as he clings to his father’s leg, snapping your hand back as if you’ve been burned when Nathan opts for the same gesture in the same moment.

You opt to fold your arms against your chest instead, casually clearing your throat. “What did you do with Daddy then, baby? Have you had a good time?”  

“We watched the storm,” the boy begins animatedly, swinging around Nathan’s sturdy leg, “and we did boxing and I learned a new combo,” the boy looks up at his father who nods and smiles gently in proud confirmation, hoisting the kid up on to his hip – a gesture that is becoming increasingly less rusty- “and we did a new trail to the glacier, and, um, what else Daddy?” Byron asks, waving his up-turned palms in the air and turning to his father for guidance. Nathan dips forward to whisper a prompt in his ear. “Oh yeah! And we watched Trolls and I put lots of my dolly’s bows in daddy’s beard,” the boys giggles, and scrunches his fingers through Nathan’s wiry hairs.

The kid’s smile is infectious, even fracturing Nathan’s stony resolve, and it has the three of you joined in a smile for a moment, until Nathan sees your eyes mist subtly over with tears as you observe the father and son together. You quickly quell them, but they don’t go unnoticed.

“Oh yeah?” you ask, voice expertly smoothed, and a masking smile on your face. The strength of you. “Did he look pretty?”

“Yeah, I guess he looked pretty,” the boy giggles. “And this morning Daddy taught me about static electric.... um-” the boys stumbles over his words for a second, and again looks to Nathan for guidance.

“You got it -go ahead,” Nathan encourages firmly.

The boy gains confidence, brushing his black curls out of his face with a little hand before continuing. “Static electricity, right?”

“Right, champ,” Nathan says, and as the boy barrels happily through his recital of events, Nathan barely realises that he’s holding him a little tighter, because with each moment that passes, so fleetingly, he feels it’s getting increasingly harder to think about letting him go.

“And Mommy, did you know this whole valley was made by a glacier that crawled all the way along and carved out all the shapes of the hills and then melted, like, a super long time ago?”

“You know, I did know that, but that’s smart of you to know too, baby,” you say fondly, a tremble at the corner of your lips that the kid doesn’t see, but Nathan is sharp enough to catch.

And then, suddenly, Nathan has no trouble contemplating passing the boy over into your arms, because you look like you need someone to hold too. However, as he motions to do so, Nathan can see tears threatening to spill out of the corner of your eyes. You shake your head subtly at Nathan in apology as you brush away a stray tear, in a moment you hope the boy won’t see, so, instead, Nathan sets your son down on the ground. He crouches and pulls the boy’s shoulders squarely to face him, providing you with a discreet moment to compose yourself.

“Hey, buddy,” he says softly. “I remembered I need to talk to your Mommy about boring grown-up stuff. Gas prices and 401ks and… major yawn. So, hot tip, you might wanna go and play in your room for 5. That okay, champ?”

“Okay,” the kid says, unphased, and skips off down the hall.  

That leaves Nathan and you in the hallway. He hover-hands his palm against your lower back and gestures, with his other arm, towards the living space, guiding you towards the seating area.

You sit on opposite sofas, positions stiff and formal, hands clasped on laps. Your gaze looking just past Nathan because you can’t seem to meet his eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks gently, feeling a lump grow in his throat. He hates this- how tense it is, when you used to be so intimate and relaxed around each other. “Why are you crying?”

Unlike Nathan, you were usually an open book, yet this time, you decline the invitation to share. You pinch your lips in between your teeth.

You’re so strong, and so brave that it breaks Nathan to see you succumb to tears like this. Plus, you’ve given so much already- so much love, and so much heart, and he hasn’t given you nearly enough back.

Still, he looks at you from beneath his lenses, gently encouraging, waiting until you are ready to share. Your gaze fixes on a spot in your lap. “I… It’s just. Seeing you and Byron together. Why in the hell couldn’t you have been this man while we were together, Nathan?”

Nathan’s heart aches at your words. Years ago, even months ago, he would have bristled. He would have snapped back at the insinuation that he was ever in the wrong. Ever less than godly.

This time though, he lets the sad truth settle over him like a dark cloud. And, as much as he wants to pull you towards him, he also- and he can’t believe he’s going to do this- he realises he needs to push you away from him one more time. There is only one way to solve this. To let you go. To realise it’s your choice. You are out of his control. Unsolvable.

He shifts his position, until he is perched on the coffee table in front of you, his palms resting on your knees and smoothing circles there. His dark, calculating eyes intent on yours, and for once unobscured by agendas. For once, he has things to say to you that aren’t intended to provoke a particular response, or establish a particular gain. He has things to say that he simply needs you to hear.

He needs to show you his fear. He needs to face the storm he was never too afraid to create, but was always quick to flee the wake of. Nathan imagines if he explains the storm, he can demystify it. Take its power away. Then, even if you don’t come home, at least there can be calm. Calm after the storm. Both of you able to move on, with all the cards laid out on the table.

With effort, he begins.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan says gently, and even with those two words a gentle sob wracks your chest, perhaps with the relief of a weight you didn’t know you were carrying. “Honestly, I don’t think I told you that and meant it yet. So, I’m sorry.  About last night, by the way. But, shit, about everything that I did, and didn’t do…” Your hands come to clasp his in your lap, fingers gripping fingers tightly as his face contorts with regret. His dark eyes wander over your face as tears stream freely down your cheeks. Where once he would have shied away from you, in a state like this, now he has courage enough to be present.

“I missed you,” he continues, his voice tattered by emotion. “I miss you. I didn’t want to tell you that. Didn’t want to admit that I’m scared either. But I am. Of losing you.  Scared that the best thing for us… the best thing for you, might be being without me. To get out of the black hole I suck everything in to.” Nathan tears his eyes away from yours as his vision becomes blurry with tears, his voice cracking. “I’m scared because I love you, and I love that fucking kid and I... I’m scared that I might get better, and be better… but that you, and him… that you still might deserve better. Better than me. So, I’m sorry. Actually fuckin’ sorry, for all the ways I’ve been a dick. Shut you out. Put you last. Made you hurt.”

“Nathan,” you breathe through tears, as if you can’t fathom this onslaught- this emotion tearing your chest in two, like the sky on that night.  

He reaches up to fumble some tears away from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I need you to know that I finally see it, even if it is too late,” Nathan nods to himself, eyes fixed down at your hands clasped in his. “I see that if had to lose you to realise what I had; I never did deserve you. You’re so… fuckin’ unreal. And he’s just like you. And,” Nathan presses on, despite the mortifying ordeal of baring his heart to you. Despite the tears which finally spike out of the corners of his eyes too. “I need you to know. Even if it didn’t last forever… This fuckin’ family? It will always be the best thing I ever created. And if there’s one thing I want to be remembered for- any fuckin’ legacy I wanna have, I just… I need it to be known that I love you, and I love that fuckin’ kid. I want you to be happy, and I’ll always regret that I didn’t make you happy while I had the chance to.” He huffs out another small, self-pitying laugh “Guess in the end, I’m an idiot; not a genius. Guess I should have realised that when I got stabbed by my own AI…”

He drags his big brown eyes back up to meet yours from beneath his lenses, and your eyes are shining softly at him, brimming with bittersweet pain, and you tug him into you for a hug, holding him close and your tears wetting each other’s shoulder.

After a moment he pulls away and settles himself back on the edge of the coffee table, already missing your embrace.

“You did. You made me happy, Nathan,” you promise. “So, so happy, and so, so miserable,” you let out a small, self-pitying laugh too, and then suddenly you are both laughing, as bizarre at that seems, as you palm the tears away from your puffed cheeks.

When the laughter fades, you reach out and place your palm fondly on the side of his face. Nathan knew that even in all his years of marriage, he had never been so vulnerable with you as he had been just now. He knew that had been precisely part of the problem. He had thought it would feel horrible to open up, but he finds that he feels fresh, like ground after nourishing rain.

Your gaze flicks back to him, and he swears he can read the look in your eyes.

Why couldn’t I have been this man when we were together?

Then, it is as if you remember you are touching him. You snap your hand back from him, and back from the brink as if you have been burned. It would be so easy, Nathan thinks. So easy to just fall back into you. As if wrestling with the exact same thought, you surge up from your seat, wiping the remainder of your tears away and immediately putting some distance between the two of you. You track to the nearby mirror, leaning forward to fix your appearance a little, before the boy returns.

Nathan watches you fondly. Longingly.

You turn back to him again, a little more composed, and retake your seat opposite him – in the same spot, but feeling much further away this time.

You bite your lips between your teeth, gazing at that same spot on your lap again.

He wishes he could reach out to you. Take in the textures and scents and feel of you in all your glory. But he does not want you to jump away as if you’ve been struck by lightning.

“I miss you too, you know? I miss our family. When it was good it was…” your voice is small and you trail off, perhaps not wanting to look too far over your shoulder. With a visible effort, you seem to drag yourself back to the present. “Byron adores you, you know that? I don’t think I’ve told you this since we… but you’re a good father, Nathan.”

A pride ignites in Nathan unlike anything he’s felt before.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, and instantly closes it again, his throat bobbing around a hard swallow before he can push his words out.  

“Just a terrible husband?”

You shake your head. “No,” you say, with a wistful expression on your face, and Nathan is surprised that you sound sincere. “No, not terrible at all.”

Nathan knew his flaws well enough, but you always reminded him of his attributes. You never poisoned the boy against him, even though the split was largely on him – a fact he had denied for a long time, because it was your decision. And, because of your strength and commitment to that, the three of you -oddly- had never made a better team than you do now.

He examines your face. Your beautiful face.

Come home. Please.

For your sake, he makes an effort to lift his thin smile up until it creases the corner of his eyes.

“I think you’re forgetting what an asshole I can be,” he smiles lopsidedly at you and succeeds in lightening the air. Lightening it a little too much. Enough that there is an alarming hint in your eyes of what used to be there for him. He hopes it is not the shining of false hope.

It would be so easy. So easy to kiss you.

You chew some words over in your mouth, and Nathan can see their failure to launch on a couple of breaths as you wring your hands in front of you.  

“You, um. Last night… you asked me to come home.”

Nathan’s breath stalls in his chest.

“Did you mean it?”

Nathan can’t speak suddenly. He can only nod, slowly, tears sparkling in his eyes as he looks at you.

“I could… I could never just move back in. It didn’t work, Nathan. But… maybe…”

Nathan holds his breath, like a latent storm, the hint of a new energy buzzing in the space between you.

“Maybe,” you continue tentatively. “We could start over again. See if we can build something new. Not the same old patterns. No looking over our shoulders or trying to resurrect what’s long-dead. Instead, maybe we – I don’t know- try to create something… new?”

While the sky is rife with creation.

“You’re good at that. Building things,” you finish, fondly, everything about you tentative yet somehow hopeful, and Nathan’s chest constricts, his blood thrumming nervously through his body in a blind panic.

Just shut up, Nathan, and don’t fuck this. Just refrain from being a dick for five fuckin’ minutes.

The muscles in his jaw twitch. The vein on his forehead pops, yet his whole body is still. Breath bated.

“Like, fresh code?” he asks, with shining, hopeful eyes.

You nod, and it is the tiniest gesture, but one that means the absolute world to him.

A new way of doing things. Moving forward. Looking ahead.

“Sure, I guess - fresh code.”

Don’t fuck it up, Bateman, you fucking shithead.

“Yeah,” he agrees weakly, yet with all the conviction in the world. “How?”

Anything.

You nibble on your lower lip, thinking things through as you go. “Take me out for dinner. A first date. Somewhere away from this goddamn house. From everything that happened. All the… mistakes.” As Nathan’s eyes swim with guilt and regret, you squeeze his hand, dipping your head towards his to catch his gaze. “Yours and mine.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok,” Nathan responds, his eyes glowing as they meet yours.

He immediately feels you withdraw from his burning hope, and so he consciously tries to reel his natural intensity in.

“No promises, Nathan,” you caution, firmly.

He nods, slowly. Outwardly disciplined and measured.

Don’t fuck it. Do not fuck this, you mother fucker.

“And please, don’t get his hopes up?” you say as a quick aside before delivering a broad smile over Nathan’s shoulder, signalling that the kid had arrived back in the vicinity.  

The boy runs over and starts happily wheeling a toy news truck over Nathan’s thigh. The man unconsciously, automatically, winds his arm around his son and dips a kiss into his black curls, causing your eyes to shine softly in admiration. “I love you, champ,” Nathan says, the words heavy with the weight of his feeling even as he reaches to tickle the boy’s tummy, earning a chaotic giggle.  

“Love you too, Daddy,” the boy replies, but Nathan pats him gently on the back.

“Time to go though, bud.”

“Yeah, baby. We should… go,” you announce, and yet there is a tug of hesitation in your voice. A rope binding you to Nathan which he is desperate to reel in; however, he pushed you so far away, and he knows that if you do come back to him, it must be on your terms. In your own time. He understands now.

Nathan leads the two of you to the door and helps pile all of the bags into the trunk of your truck. You strap Byron into his car seat, and Nathan dips to bid him farewell. “Ok, get out of here, kid. Look after your Mommy, you hear me? She’s special.”

There is a moment, before you open the door to slot into the driver’s side that Nathan comes to face you, his hands stuffed into his pockets, a familiar furrow in his brow and tight-lipped expression on his stony, impassive face. “When was the last time you had your tyres checked?” he wonders idly, shifting forward to poke at the tread on the front wheel and finding them satisfactorily safe.

He is surprised to find you smiling softly at him when he looks back at you. You seem like you can’t help yourself, but you lean forward and press a kiss into Nathan’s cheek, your face lingering against his as he closes his eyes and leans in to it, just a little.

You pull back from him, your hand clasped around his upper arm. “We love you, Nathan. Will you be okay?”

His eyes grow overcast. “Uh, don’t like it when you go,” he states plainly, his brow pulled down and cloaking his big, brown eyes with shadow.

You nod in understanding.

“Text me later. About dinner,” you add casually before you slot yourself into the truck. Still, he can see you tearing up, just a little.

“You mean it?” he asks, his stare intense.

“Dinner and we’ll see, okay? No promises.”

He had made you so many promises that were broken.

Nathan nods his agreement and you clasp the door shut. Reluctantly, Nathan steps aside as you swing the truck around, and he doesn’t stick around to wave you off, aside from a quick hand in the air for the boy.

He doesn’t like it when you leave.

He knew he had pushed you away, and now, just maybe you would come back to him. He feels hopeful- ecstatic even- at the prospect, but he can’t help but feel a little guilty. A little selfish too. He feels as though he’s sucking you in to a black hole all over again. He thinks maybe it would be better for you if you could escape him.

But, as Nathan settles back in his chair down in the lab, and gazes at the framed picture of his family, he knows that as much as he has grown and changed - because he’s had to, with you gone- that he will never quite be selfless enough to let you go.

I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

You had always revelled in storms. You were always happiest when it rained. Maybe this time, he could make you so, so happy, without the miserable.

Oh, how he hopes.

Don’t fuck it up, Bateman, he thinks, glancing at the picture one more time. Don’t you ever fuckin’ push her away.

This time, he pledges to stop looking over his shoulder, and looks ahead to something new.

That’s what he’s best at.

Fresh code.

He types away, and his chest feels lighter than it has in a long time.

The calm after the storm, perhaps.