#i’m clawing at the walls i’m rabid | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gretavanlace · 11 months ago

Text

Sugar II (part 8)

Jake Kizska x reader

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: adult content, language, brief illusions to sex, angst, jealousy, etc.

Only two chapters to go and an epilogue, everyone. I’m so grateful that you have taken this little journey with me. Thank you so much for all your kind words, support, and care. You’re all so wonderful ❤️

“Oh my god, Jake,” your eyes are darting around the room like a mouse with a rabid alley cat slinking, famished and cruel, into its path.

Your unease trumps his delighted gloating instantly, “What do you want me to do, sugar? Tell me and I’ll do it.”

When you steal a glance at the window, longing to climb out and disappear, he hops on the train of your thought process right away, “You want me to duck out?”

You know Jake through and through, and staring into his eyes as your heart drums paranoid vibrations into your rib cage, you’re stunned to watch him offer to give up this chance to square off with whom he has come to see as his most bitter rival. That he would do that for you? That all you would have to do is ask and he would crawl out and wander off into the golden afternoon sunshine like an afterthought…

You really do own his whole heart, you realize at the most inopportune of moments. Your grip on his soul is just as tight as his fingers have always clawed down inside yours…fierce and beautiful in their unrelenting grip.

But haven’t you always known? Hasn’t it always been written across his skin? Etched in his gaze? Sculpted into the bow of his lips when he whispers your name? Evident in his touch?

“No,” you shake your head, willing the mess inside of it to go away, rejecting the thought of him leaving. You want him near, you need him near. To let him go right now, even for a second, seems an agonizing punishment that you cannot bear to suffer. No matter the consequences.

“Stay. But please…” you rush over to him, helping him to his feet while stealing glances at the doorway, “Please just behave and follow my lead, okay? Please?”

”Normally, I like it when you use your manners,” he sighs, smoothing out his clothes, as well as a lock of your hair that has fluttered out of place, “But that’s too many pleases and you look petrified. Why?” His voice is suddenly intense yet careful, as is his grip on your arm, “Does he hurt you?”

They idea is entirely laughable, but there’s no time for that, so you brush him off with a swipe of your hand and a flippant, “Don’t be stupid, Jake.”

Without allowing yourself to think it through, you begin ushering him down the hall towards the front room, but what will you find there? Doom or salvation?

How will these pieces fall together? Something solid and heavy in your heart tells you Jake will do as you have asked and play nice, but another facet buried even deeper inside is rocked with anxiety and screaming that it’s only wishful thinking to believe such a fairytale.

”Hey hon,” jovially rings out as he steps in through the garage, “I saw your car! We’re both home early? Looks like the universe knew how much I missed you!”

Jake turns to catch your eye as you shove him along, but you refuse to meet his gaze. You're unsure of what you’ll find there and this isn’t the time for uncertainties.

Would you find sadness threatening to roll hot tears down his cheeks? Anger threatening to boil over in his fiery chocolate irises? Accusation and resentment for what you’re about to subject him to?

Oh god, you can’t do this! Suddenly, and absurdly, you wish you could fade into the gentle, lush, green paint that you had once rolled upon the hallway walls, paying meticulous attention to detail. Build this home, had been the plan…bury him away under paint and sanded cabinets. Art perched on the walls and throw pillows piled on the bed.

You’d love to disappear and leave them perplexed and confused, wondering what became of you. To vanish into nothing like a dust mote blown away upon the lightest, softest breeze.

You’re a coward.

While your thoughts are busy with that, Jake’s are grappling with each other. Tangled up and struggling. He’d very much like to stomp into the front room and shut this man up. With his booming voice calling out how much he’s missed you like he has some claim over you. Like you’re his. Like he doesn’t understand that you could never really be anyone’s because you’re much too good for this whole goddamn world. That you’re precious, like the rarest of stones and anyone who is lucky enough to hold you in their palm should fall on their knees in thanks.

He sounds so fucking common. Does he think you’re common as well? Jake can’t stomach the thought.

So, yes, he’d like to stroll into the room, casual as you please, and announce that he is taking you away from this ridiculous illusion where you play house and pretend to be satisfied. He longs to tell him how he’s made love to you, how he’s fucked you. How you’ve begged for him and swore no one could ever be him. Jake wants to tell him that the ring he put on your finger has been in his mouth, that he spat it out and you didn’t even care. That you hardly even noticed. Jake would almost kill to watch Mr. Wonderful’s face crumple in defeat and loss…

But he loves you far too much, and to say all those things would hurt you, too.

Scar your heart he will not.

He’s shrugging off his suit blazer when you both appear. It’s a mundane action, one that repeats itself nearly every evening, but you stand still and shellshocked, unable to jolt yourself into some semblance of normalcy until Jake subtly nudges you with a ginger elbow.

“Hi,” you begin, a touch too loudly, “Yeah, you’re early! I actually didn’t end up going to work today. Old friend in town. We went to the movies. And then we came here. He wanted to see the house. I…I told him about it. I was just giving him the tour.”

You sound robotic and ridiculous, but he doesn’t appear to notice. Rather, he looks delighted when his eyes land on Jake and recognition settles in.

”Ah, I know you!” He laughs, marching forward with an outstretched hand. “The almost brother in law. Good to finally meet you.”

His grasp on Jake’s hand is strong and sure as he pumps it up and down. The genuine gladness in his gesture makes you want to tear your own hair out in penance.

Or is it the ‘almost brother in law’ moniker that has made you nauseous?

Yes, that’s what you boiled Jacob down to. You had held nothing back about your relationship with Josh…but Jake? You just couldn’t. To speak of him, to share him that way…it had seemed incomprehensible. And how could you ever put it into words, anyway? How could anyone ever understand what he was to you? What he is to you? No, it had seemed best to keep him locked away, silent and safe in your memories. Tucked away in your heart. The boy in the bubble.

Jake’s face is unreadable as he sizes up this opponent before him. This rival who has just unknowingly stepped into the ring. This blissfully unaware adversary. He is a doe who has wandered idly into the path of a dangerously ravenous mountain lion, and he doesn’t even know it. Ignorance really does seem like bliss in this moment, and you long for it.

“Yes, the almost brother in law,” his tone is slightly clipped, but no one, aside from you - and perhaps his brothers - would ever notice. “That’s me. And you are?”

Here we go. He’s going to love this.

They drop hands and a friendly clap lands on Jake’s shoulder. “I’m Jake, too. What are the odds?”

A sharp, satisfied laugh bursts out of Jake, head tipped back, adam’s apple bobbing gleefully, and you long to tell the smug bastard to just shut the hell up, but it’s over quickly enough.

”Yes,” he sighs, with a shake of his head that ends in his eyes blazing holes into your soul, “What are the odds?”

”’Course this one over here calls me by my middle name, James. Says it fits me. No one else does, though, so choice is yours. Man, it’s so great to finally meet you.” He’s prattling on now, never having met a stranger, “You know we’ve got all your work over there in the case. You’re a hell of a guitar player. I tried to learn in high school, mostly to impress girls…never could get it. Anyway…”

Jake is eyeing him like he doesn’t know what to make of this man standing there, cordial and warm, tossing out compliments and bids for conversation.

His eyes are traveling over this unfamiliar being, now so tangible and real, who has had his hands all over you. Who has had his mouth pressed to your precious body, who has whispered against your skin, who has made love to you in the still of the night, and held you, and rested beside you, breathing in tandem. Who has gotten down on one knee and asked you to be his wife.

And you said yes...you said yes.

He wants to hurt him. Both physically and emotionally. He wants to level him. To crush him into nothing. And though this Jake, James, or whatever his name is, isn’t to blame, he wants it all the same. He wishes he could lure him into his palm like a revolting insect and squeeze until he was no more than something vile to be wiped away with a Kleenex.

Instead, he tilts his head in the direction of the vinyls and shrugs off the accolades, “Fuckin’ Zeppelin cover band.”

James laughs uproariously and gestures into the room welcomingly, “Why are we all standing around like this? Have a seat…please. Make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink? Water? A beer? Whiskey? I know it’s early, but special occasions call for special circumstances, I always say.”

Eyes on you, he shrugs out a response that would be lost on anybody but you, “I’ll have what you’re having.”

Once you’re alone for a moment, he shakes his head with a gorgeous, if not self-satisfied, smirk sparking to life upon his face. “His name is Jake? Oh, sugar…” he’s laughing softly now, and sinking down into the cushions of the couch, “creature of habit, aren’t you, pretty girl?”

”Shut up!” You hiss, eyes flickering towards the kitchen doorway, “Coincidence. That’s all. Don’t be so fucking full of yourself. Now, please just be nice.”

He quiets down, drawing the back of his forefinger beneath his eye dramatically as if he has laughed himself to tears, “I’m being very nice and you know it. Don’t push it.”

You sit, as far away from him as the couch will allow, but instantly he’s leaned in close. “What do you think he would do if I got down on my knees right here and buried my face in that gorgeous little cunt of yours? Showed him how it’s really done.”

”Jacob!” You barely make a sound as you admonish him with a clipped shove to settle him.

He slinks back into his seat with another laughing shake of his head, “This is perfect.”

”I hate you.” You lie.

”Sure you do, sugar,” he winks, crossing his legs to get comfy, “Sure you do. Almost brother in law, huh? Is that what I’ve been reduced to?”

He’s still chuckling quietly to himself while a strange mix of panic and tears begins to churn around inside of you like a slow moving summer storm. He’s gearing up, you can feel it, and the thought of it all is too much, your metaphorical knees are beginning to shake. This could end so, so badly.

“Later, Jake…” you’re beseeching without shame, pleading with your watery gaze. “We’ll talk about it later. Please just stop.”

His palm cradles your cheek so softly you wonder if anyone has ever touched someone as gently as he touches you, “Settle down, baby. I won’t make trouble for you.”

How laughable that he can’t seem to recognize that you’ve brought this trouble on all by yourself. No help needed.

He has moved to create a respectable distance between the two of you by the time James is sweeping back into the room bearing a tray flush with drinks and snacks.

”Here, sweetie,” he drops a kiss upon the top of your head, presenting a glass. “Made you a mimosa…I know you like to keep it light through the week.”

You somehow manage a thank you and sip at the sweet, bubbly mix, praying it calms your frayed nerves.

”For us,” he extends the tray and you watch as Jake plucks a low ball glass from it, “bourbon. Unless you’d rather browse the bar. Plenty to choose from.”

”Bourbon is fantastic,” Jake nips at his glass. “Thank you.”

There is a palpable disdain hovering around Jake like a murky aura, but there is heartbreak there too. Aching and black. Heavy and weighing down the light that normally follows him around like a strange shadow…and you’d give anything to take it away.

For just a breath, you intend to do just that. To rise to your feet and stomp all over James’ open, trusting heart. To tell him the truth. To tell him you’re leaving. You nearly take Jake by the hand and drag him towards the door and leave everything else behind without explanation…simply to end his suffering.

Your lips nearly part to say the words when you’re cut off.

“Oh. I almost forgot,” James leans forward in his chair and grabs for your hand, absently running his thumb against your own, “Erin called. She said you guys had a great time the other day, said you’d planned something for this weekend? Wedding planning?”

Erin. His sister. You’ve grown close but it wouldn’t hurt to leave her behind. It wouldn’t even sting…not for Jake.

You squeeze his hand with a tiny smile and fight rolling nausea at the mere mention of the wedding in Jake’s presence. From the corner of your eye, you watch him tense, but he recovers quickly and drains his glass to the dredges in one pull.

”Well,” suddenly, he’s on his feet. “I’ve taken enough of your time today. It was good to see you.” His eyes are unreadable and shift quickly away from your own. “James, good to meet you and thank you for the hospitality.”

”Don’t run off on my account,” James is on his feet now as well, “We’d love to have you stay for dinner. I make a mean chicken Kiev, and…”

”No,” Jake interrupts, gaze jumping towards the door as if he can’t get away fast enough. “I’ve got a flight to catch in just a few hours, need to head back…you know how it goes.”

He sounds ineloquent and so unlike himself… and you can feel it - his heartbreak - in your bones as though you’ve crawled inside his body and curled up beside it like a clinging lover.

“Jake,” you can’t seem to move from your seat, your body uncooperative and rebellious, “Your car is still at the theater, let me drive you…”

”Drive me?” He is staring at you, white hot and desperate…the mask is finally slipping. He has played pretend all he can for the day. “And then what?”

”And then…” again, you are a coward. A fucking coward. “I don’t know. What do you mean, and then?”

The room is silent for a beat - with words unspoken crashing into the space between yourself and Jake, and James struggling to understand this strange exchange.

With the slightest nod of his head, Jacob silently encourages you. Urges you. Come with me, sugar…it seems to say, come home.

But still you sit, frozen and paralyzed. A horrified doe staring down the hunter’s muzzle.

Another nod, clipped and more obvious this time, responds to your inaction. “I’ll walk. Again, thank you for having me.”

The door closes behind him in a blink, and he is gone. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve imagined him completely…

Looking down at your shaking hands in your lap, you realize you never even made it to your feet. You sat, unmoving, and watched him go.

Hours later, you’re standing outside an unfamiliar door, anxiously clutching at the straps of the bag tossed over your shoulder.

And when that unfamiliar door swings open, your heart unclenches, for there he stands. Showered, smelling of soap and warmth, hair curled into dampened, loose ringlets, beat to hell jeans riding low on his hips.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” he smirks, leaning against the doorframe. “If it isn’t Mrs. Wonderful…”

“Hi,” it comes out meek and small, but flush full of the comfort that is being near him.

”How’d you find me?” His arms cross loosely, with a faded smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

”Were you hiding?” Why hasn’t he turned to lead you in?

”From you, pretty girl?” He scoffs as if the very idea is preposterous. “Never.”

Yet, on he stands as though barring your entrance…as though he intends to send you on your way any moment.

”I called Josh,” you offer, wringing at your bag’s handles idly, simply for something to do with your hands. “He told me where you were staying.” Your gaze skitters over the house. “It’s nice. Cozy.”

He nods, “Airbnb. You mentioned something about us always being in hotels, before. I thought, if there was a chance I’d be hosting you, you might like something a little more…domestic. Though, I see now that you have plenty of that going for you already, right? Domesticity?”

“Do I deserve that?”

His shoulders hunch inwardly slightly, he knows you’re right, and he knows he’s being a bit of an asshole as well. “No, I suppose you don’t.”

”Are you going to invite me in? I feel a little stupid standing out here.” Vulnerability seems of such insignificance when it is Jacob in question. He knows your bare soul so well anyway.

Still, he allows you to dangle on his string, twisting languidly in the soft, evening breeze. “Why’d you call Josh to find me? Why not just call me? Missing my better half now that you’ve had a bit of fun with me?”

Now there’s a slight irritation traipsing along your nerves, and damned if you’re going to mask it. “Alright, either let me in or tell me to go to hell. I’m not going to beg for your good graces.”

”Are you coming in to stay? Or are you here to say goodbye? Because my heart has had enough for one day.”

”Oh, fuck off, Jacob.” You huff, pushing past him into the house. You slump your bag off your shoulder and onto the floor and then turn on him. “Sorry to have interrupted your pity party, but what did you think was going to happen today? Did you think it was going to be spectacular and wonderful to walk around in the life that I live with someone else? You practically fucked me in the bedroom I share with him. You lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree when you realized he was home. You wanted this, and you know what I think your problem is? I think you liked him.”

”Fuck you!” He slams the door closed and looks you over like you’ve lost your mind entirely. “You think I liked him? I couldn’t give a fuck less about him. He made my skin crawl. Do you know what it was like for me to watch him touch you? The way he looked at you…”

He falls silent and suddenly refuses to meet your eyes, and your heart breaks right alongside his.

Tentatively, you reach out and rest your palm against his cheek, “The way he looked at me doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It never really has.”

His hand floats up to meet yours, “He looked at you with so much love. Like he would give you the entire world. It made me feel not good enough. It made me feel like I should leave and let it be. Like I was wrong for showing up and rattling your whole life around.”

You’re backing him up against the door now, his gorgeous, stricken face held fast in your sure and gentle hands. “Not good enough? You? Oh, Jakey…” you pet at his face worshipfully, “We have a garden, remember? And you help me harvest, and I know you feed me those tiny tomatoes I like. You know? The little yellow ones? And they’re all gone before we even get inside.”

He’s nodding along as you pepper kisses upon his cheeks and forehead.

“And we have a porch swing, and a piano, and beautiful babies, and a cat…and you sing to us, and love us hard every single minute of every single day. And you make us so, so happy. And I wake up every morning with a smile on my face because I packed this stupid bag,” your foot darts out and kicks it, “and shoved my way inside when you refused to invite me in.”

”Don't say things you don’t mean, sugar…” his hands are in your hair now, guiding your mouth to his own so that he can lick inside it. He needs to taste you - needs to feel the silken velvet of your tongue, “I can’t take it, baby.”

You’re breathing each other's breath, lips like feathers dancing together soft and sweet, holding on to one another as if you might both just vanish into nothing in an instant, “I mean it, Jake…” you promise, “I mean it. You are everything,”

You can almost hear the pounding of his heart as the heat of his need begins to radiate and warm you, “Because I can’t stand the thought of leaving, of thinking you’ll follow, only for you to change your mind. It would kill me, sugar. So, please don’t say these things to me if you—“

You silence him with a deep, feverish kiss and then break away, forehead to forehead, “I’m not following later. I’m coming with you. This is where I am now…with you.”

Tears well in his eyes and spill over, hot and saline, as you lick and kiss them away. “I love you, pretty girl…” it chokes out of him, rasping as he swallows thickly, “I love you so fucking much. I’ve imagined this moment in so many different ways, but it was never as perfect as this. Tell me you know how much I love you.”

”I know, and I—“ it is he who interrupts with a desperate kiss this time.

And you know that later he will ask, and when he asks you will tell him what was said back at that house that broke his heart in two - how you ended things with the one who really never mattered at all…

…but for now all that matters is the taste of him on your lips. His air-drying hair looped through your searching fingers. Your hearts and lungs syncing, with his tears like brackish diamonds in your stomach because you have finally swallowed his sorrow and unburdened him from it.

He seems lighter in your arms already…closer now to the sun than he had ever been to the moon before.

Taglist: @gretasintrees @greta-van-chaos @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @doodle417 @seventieswhore @jake-kiszkas-smirk @weightofdreams-gvf @imdepressedaf1996 @alisonwonderland29 @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @sparrowofthedawn @xserenax-13 @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails @tripthelightfandomtastic @tripthelight-fanfic @jakeslovehandles @poofyloofy @70sgroupielovr @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @spicedandicedtea @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @thelvnternskeeper @paintmyhouse @mckenna4 @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @thewritingbeforesunrise @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet @rhythm-of-space @highladyofasgard @calumspretty @sad1lynn @demolitionndann @gvfpal @starcatcher-jake @gretavangroupie @hugorobinson @jaketlove @josh-iamyour-mama

#greta van fleet #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet smut #greta van fleet fan fiction #fanfic #greta van fic #greta van smut #gvf fic #jake gvf #jake kiszka fanfiction #jake kiskza #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka smut #jake kiszka fanfic #josh kiszka #josh kiskza smut #gvf josh #gvf one shot #gvf smut

233 notes · View notes

ilovethe141 · 12 days ago

Text

GUYS

i genuinely never do actual posts but ever since i’ve discovered gong yoo (recruiter from squid games) I HAVENT BEEN THE SAME, i’m genuinely in SO DEEP. i’m a whole changed woman, that man makes me go insane like a rabid squirrel with rabies. I WANT HIM SO BAD ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY

This man could do anything to me, and i would do anything for him

give me 4 minutes and a hair tie

FERAL I TELL YOU FERAL

(saw him and his co star of the trunk in a cute photoshoot i was smiling till i realised it wasn’t me 💔 currently sobbing and clawing at the walls)

pls tell me y’all understand my denial and obsession

edit: thank you to all the writers, writing for him you’re keeping me sane

I NEED SOMEONE TO WRITE A gong yoo x singer!reader or just reader x gong yoo like his actual actor and not the salesman

I WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL IF SOMEONE WRITES THAT

- much love,

marina 🌸🧸

#gong yoo #squid game #gong yoo x reader #the salesman #the recruiter #the salesman x reader #lee jung jae #squid games #going feral #want him so bad #player 001 #player 456

36 notes · View notes

whumpdrivethru · 1 month ago

Note

Hi can I gut uhhh…whumper getting sick of whumpee’s fighting spirit and drugging them w smth that’ll leave them dazed and euphoric?

Your server takes no responsibility for subversion of expectations :]

Cw: drugging, captivity, mentions of death, minor sexual implications

Whumper sighed. They hated this. But they had to. They simply had to.

Whumpee's behavior was getting out of hand.

When the two got together, it wasn't much of an issue. In fact, the prospect of having their own little personal serial killer was rather exciting, and they made sure to do everything right.

Whumpee would never hurt them. They knew this. A yandere would kill anyone who hurt their beloved.

But it was clear they were getting closer to that line each day. Each day that went by where Whumpee would try so desperately to escape, to book it out the front door once Whumper got home, weapons somewhere on their body.

Perhaps Whumper needed to rethink this relationship to begin with, but… they couldn't bring themself to. Whumpee was perfect, absolutely stunning, and their capacity for violence was a little endearing considering it was always always out of dedication to their relationship.

They had notified their friends as well as Whumpee's boss that Whumpee had simply come down with a nasty illness that Whumper was taking care of.

As they watched Whumpee kneeling by the reinforced windows, looking out like a lonely dog… they weren't exactly wrong.

“You're staring, darling,” Whumpee said without even looking away.

The blush spread quick, “Sorry…”

Whumpee looked up at them, longingly. “Just one day. I'll be good, I promise. No killings-”

Whumper rolled their eyes, “We both know that's a lie.”

Whumpee glared at their lover with a scowl. “I will get out at some point or another. You can't contain me forever.”

Whumper looked down at them, “You will get out, that's true. You'll only be getting out once I’m certain that you won't kill Friend over the disagreement we had a month ago.”

They'd learned pretty early to keep their complaints low. Whumpee could respect most of their wishes, but sometimes their nature would override their need to keep Whumper happy.

They would only complain about petty things where Whumpee wouldn't waste their energy, or if it was something serious where they really didn't care if the person lived or died.

They'd slipped up a bit ago. And now they had a rabid dog in their house, clawing at the walls to get out.

Whumpee practically growled. “I don't want to hear that bitch's name ever again after what he called you.”

Whumper let out an exasperated sigh. This was not something they were willing to entertain again. Instead, they walked off to the bedroom to leave Whumpee to their sulking.

They picked up a bottle that was for emergency uses only. Usually only when they had wanted to spice up bed time. The liquid inside would make the person who drank it rather pliant, more easy-going and dazed.

Normally, it was just for when they had agreed to try something new but the one on the receiving end was tense.

Now…

They looked at the bottle.

There wasn't really any other way to keep Whumpee happy.

Whumper sighed. They hated this. But they had to. They simply had to.

Making their way to the kitchen, they started on dinner. Whumpee snuck up behind them, startling them a bit with a hug from behind while they watched their love cook.

They had to shove Whumpee off with a laugh so they could take it out of the oven once it was done.

Whumper looked at the cups that had yet to be filled, “what do you want to drink?”

“I think just some milk will do for me.”

They nodded, “Okay I'll get you some. How about you go pick out a movie for us to watch tonight?”

“You got it,” Whumpee responded before giving them a small kiss, picking up the plates, and happily going to the living room.

Whumper took a breath, filling one of the cups with milk and adding in some of the drug. This would be the first time it was ever used without agreement.

They poured themself some water and sat down next to Whumpee on the couch. They put the milk down on the coffee table.

Whumpee pressed play before taking a swig of their milk.

They blinked. They made a weird face, before it turned into a slightly relaxed smile. They drank a bit more before putting it down and picking up their food.

Their eyes were slightly glazed.

“You know, dinner's really good tonight…”

Whumper turned their attention to the movie, “Is it now?”

“Yeah…” Whumpee responded. “It's almost like… I'm floating. I really like it here.”

They saw their chance. And they took it, “And you won't keep trying to escape?”

Whumpee thought for a bit. Then shook their head. “No. I really like it here… I really like you,” they gave a dopey smile.

Whumper looked down at their glass of water, “Well I should hope so.”

Their eyes trailed over to their lovely little serial killer.

A sad smile split their face, “We're dating after all.”

You have been served by Anath :]

#anath #whumpdrivethru #cw drugging #cw captivity #cw death mention #cw implied sex #yandere whumpee #yandere #reluctant whumper #whumper x whumpee #answered asks #whumpblr #whump #whump prompts #whump community #whump blog #whump writing #whump scenarios

36 notes · View notes

rel124c41 · 11 days ago

Text

SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY. jade leech

He opens his eyes to see a bright horizon. All of it is liquid gold, a shimmering sea of yellow below the horizon and clouds of volcanic orange above the horizon. Smack in the middle is the Sun - 70.6% hydrogen and 27.4% helium, diameter 1.4 million kilometers - and it stares at him. A hand shades his eyes. "Hey, don't look too close. You're going to see something you don't like."

tags: android jade leech, dubious morality, animal death, blood and gore, existential angst, repressed memories, unresolved emotional tension, choking, reader is 52 and jade is permanently 21, non-consensual body modification, & age difference

word count: 13,363

Both of you watch the pancake melt on the cabin’s wooden floor. The top of the circle is a golden-crusted brown. However, the underside was not yet cooked so that waxy yellow mixture starts to spread out in a sunlight pool.

“I’m terribly sorry, Master,” Jade rushes to say but seems too shellshock to make a move to fix the mess he made.

“It’s alright,” you say with a voice clogged full of sleep. As you make your way over to the dining table designed small enough for only two, you can feel Jade track each of your minor motions like a gun following its target. Only when you sit does he snap out of it.

In a very methodical passion, he goes about removing the malfunction. You hear this: the lid of your squeaky trash-can opening and the spray of a disinfectant bottle being the most recognizable. Ignoring his mistake, you go about your normal routine. Like Jade is programmed to make exactly two pancakes and exactly one sunny side up egg each morning, you have your own little, innate programs you do each morning.

As you strike the match and hold it under your cigarette – lighting with a matchstick adds to the flavor you found – the last bits of the sunlight pool is wiped up. “Now, we’re behind schedule,” you remark. The matches inside the Diamond box shift as you push them down the table.

It is an entirely true, if not a bit outlandish, sentence. Schedule? Jade thinks to himself as he quickly procures each ingredient needed to make the batter for exactly one pancake. He only ever measures out the amount for exactly two pancakes. The mistake is making him frazzled. He has two skillets on the stove, one for exactly two pancakes and the other for exactly one sunny side up egg. Looking into the skillet holding only one pancake, his systems twitch. Schedule; what schedule is he forgetting?

But, he would never concern you with the inner turmoil that is clawing away at his chest cavity like a rabid, frenzied animal, so he simply says, (PANCAKE) “My apologies, Master. I did not mean to make us late.”

“Did seeing me all dressed up scare you that bad?”

With the high-voltage mixer already in a bowl, Jade takes the time to look behind him towards you. The single egg and pancake (PANCAKE) only have 1:42 minutes left until they are completed, so he has the allotted period to look at you, all dressed up. He smiles disarmingly. “Not scared, just surprised.”

His intricate memory-bank supplies him with a number: 259. It has been two hundred and fifty-nine days since the last time you have worn something other than fuzzy or silk pajama bottoms coupled with a graphic tee. That is exactly 8.51506 months ago, which would have made it March. When the weather was growing warmer, you wanted to ride in the car until the gas went from F to E. Now, once again, you are all dressed up.

It is a pretty monotone palette, nothing like what you had worn in March. With a flowing pinstriped jacket, black and white are the only colors of your outfit, besides the tiniest touch of silver from the tangling vines stitched over your blouse’s collar. Your hanging tie and flowy dress pants are a stark black, like the cut of a blank television screen, and your gloves and blouse are a stark white, like a newly painted therapist office wall.

He supposes the most colorful thing about you right now is the orange filter tip in your lovely mouth. Oh, you also have lipstick on. In this game of I-Spy, Jade can identify only two different colors shining in the canvas of sterility that covers your skin.

Hues like that might mean a funeral. His left eye slices off the left side of the kitchen dining table. It all falls into a black hole as Jade pulls up information of every living relative you have left; their faces fly through his vision, searching public obituaries and searching articles, as you talk to him.

“I guess it might be a bit disarming.” You take your third drag, methodical. “I didn’t think I would need to give you a warning. My mistake; right, Jade?”

All of your relatives are alive. The latest medical update is that your mother has been given the drug memantine along with her typical Leqembi medication. “Nonsense. I’m not so aged that I can’t keep up with your spontaneity,” he jokes, left vision returning. Perhaps the schedule is simply the quotidian schedule of your day-to-day.

Charmed, you smile in the fog cloud of tobacco sliding away from your face. “Oh, he thinks he’s funny,” you jest back. Between two thin fingers, you balance a cigarette and point it at him like it is a professor’s presentation pointer. “No puns today. I’ll take out your tongue.”

He fakes a look of hurt. “Oya, do you really find them so abhorrent?” He turns as you supply him with a synonym – execrable, you moan – and focuses his attention on breakfast-making. Methodically, first, the mixer is pulled up from the bowl and then both pancake (PANCAKE, not pancakes, to Jade’s punctilious annoyance) and sunny side up egg are slid onto your plate.

“Humor is said to lower blood pressure and improve memory retention. It is as important as a good, clean breakfast. However, if my puns are banned, omelet it slide this time. We have a schedule to follow, Master.”

He still hasn’t figured out what it is though. And he does not want his vision to start flashing with ropes of blaring red and white words, SCHEDULE replacing PANCAKE – which has already been giving him enough stress. As he puts the incomplete plate down, he wonders if he has time to remedy it before you finish your single 9 A.M. cigarette.

“Booo,” you caterwaul at his pun. However, you smile and your heart beats languid so it must be alright. “Keep that up and no birthday surprise for you.”

Jade stops. Still as a paused movie. His whole body is stiff for a millisecond, and if he did not recover so quickly, you would have surmised he went into forced shutdown upon hearing your words. A calculative, bloodless arm reaches out to tilt the pancake batter into the skillet as he acknowledges that today is in fact November 5th.

Inside his chest cavity, a tiny Jade, no bigger than your cigarette, wobbles on a fence. He is unsure if he wants every day to be birthday so he can see you doing better, or if he wants this November 5th, this sudden change of clothes and attitude, to stay only on his special day. As always, he does not pick a mental-side.

Instead, he says, “Nonsense. There is no need to exert yourself for me, Master. Do not concern yourself with a trivial matter.”

“Don’t be modest. Birthdays are special; and we haven’t celebrated one of yours in four years.”

Jade remembers that day fondly. High sugar-concentrated items are one-in-a-blue-moon type of expensive. Most households can only afford one or two birthday cakes in their lifetimes, so it was sentimentally human that your first year together, you dipped into your retirement savings and bought a man with no functioning digestive system, a cake.

“I have no choice but to concede if it is an order,” Jade baits.

“Then, it’s an order.” Smoke pumps through the air as you take an embellishing, deeper inhale. The health of your lungs gets compromised more, day by day. “Non refutable.”

“Of course, Master.” Jade would bend in a bow if he were not so intent on making sure this pancake (pancake) stayed on his spatula and off the floor.

Breakfast proceeds as normal after the slight hiccup. When the room is thoroughly perfumed with the acidic scent – Jade always enjoys how harshly you snub out your cigarette, grinding them down into nothing, whatever ring lying on your index glistening under the ceiling light, and today it is a glistening, jade green eye – you eat your precisely made sunny side up egg and two pancakes. Yolk and syrup bleed all over the plate like sliced open arteries. You compliment his cooking as always before stuffing another cigarette between your lips.

This one you simply hold there as Jade scrubs your dish. He slots the ceramic in the drying rack along with the already evaporating skillets and bowl. You glide around the kitchen. It is quaint. There are only ever two plastic cups in the cabinet and two plates in the lower cupboards. Often though, the second copies of each various dishware are left unused.

Your arm and Jade’s arm slide against each other when you fill a plastic green cup up to the brim with faucet water. The robot twitches.

After utensils are hand-dried and put away, Jade looks towards you for guidance. Today is such an outlier to the normal schedule that he feels a bit unbalanced. Usually, you have already lit up your second cigarette of the morning, burrowing up into your study. Instead, you say, “C’mon,” as you walk out of the kitchen with an unlit cigarette hanging from your lip and a cup of faucet water in hand.

Obedient, he follows you up to your study. Your uneven fingernails glide across the banister. “I couldn’t help but also get one for myself. When I went to the market and saw them, I got selfish.” When you open the door to your study, Jade is greeted with the familiar sight of books thrown to the ground, pages torn from their homes, and ink split across the scene like something left behind for a bloodstain pattern analyst. There are also three water bottles full of gold liquid he will have to dispose of.

What calls his immediate attention is the two different shapes draped underneath hand-towels. They sit on your desk which is devoid of any papers or books. One is covering something spherical but Jade cannot decipher what is underneath the second towel.

Despite the jumble, you glide over to your desk with precise footsteps. Jade follows right along behind you. It is programmed in his system to never disrupt anything in this study, so he refuses to nudge a paper or cause the slightest altercation to the disorganized order.

By the foot of the desk, your taxidermied lion stands in paused death, stuff full of cedar dust. You pet the wisps of mane as you approach the table. The cigarette is still in your mouth; you take it out, smooth knuckles over your tie, and place your hand back down upon the lion’s head. Petting behind stuffed ears, you give a weak pseudo-command.

“Now, I don’t want a repeat of this morning. You being startled and all that. So,” your eyes move from the towels to Jade’s, “you can’t afford to lose your head over this, right, Jade?”

Though he has no heart that could possibly quicken in anticipation, Jade still places a firm hand over that spot as if to banish his foretold anxieties. That familiar, smarmy expression comes back to his facial plate. A slight scrunch of the slanted downward eyebrows that leaves a crinkled line and a timid smile showing off tiny, razor teeth. “I assure you, nothing of the sort will happen, Master.”

“Good.” You place the green plastic cup behind the presents. Light from the window hits the cup; a long green shadow stretches over your desk. As you pinch the towel edge in your fingers, you are palpably excited, grinning wide. “3 ... 2 … 1 … Happy birthday, Jade!”

The smile remains on his face because he has permanently set it there himself. If he were human, it would have fallen.

“Master, this is illegal.” Jade reaches out and covers up his present with the towel, as if that will make it disappear.

You give him nothing but a tiny, mischievous smile. Wrinkled with age, it makes you look youthful despite the deep shadows that come with loosening, brittle skin. Like you are young again and you have just told him of something nefarious you have done. This is certainly nefarious, an odious development happening under this house’s roof.

“Master,” Jade starts, precise in his speech, “this could compromise us. Though I am grateful that you want to celebrate my birthday, we should burn this in the fireplace post haste.” He looks back down at the shrouded sphere. Burning the evidence is the innate command that rises up to Jade’s predecessors, using all his logic, but if you were to refute it …

A tiny chortle escapes your lips. It pulls back your painted lips; it has been quite a large sum of days since you have last worn lipstick as Jade’s databases know. “Do you really want to throw away my gift?”

Want? Jade does not do that. He has never known what yearning could possibly feel like. “My apologies. However, it would be wise to exterminate it. As stated by the legislation, living organisms that are not edible or a part of the approved nourishment selection for fruits and vegetables must be destroyed. This violates Section B on the –.”

“Mushrooms are edible.”

“Pardon,” Jade questions softly.

“Mushrooms. They are biologically living organisms like plants and animals.” You gesture to the sphere with your cigarette as if your words have just abolished the legal constraints created years ago. “They’re edible too.” Defiant, you remove the towel once more.

Jade’s eyes flicker down to evaluate the illicit good you have brought home. The terrarium’s contraband resides in a spherical globe with no visible opening. The most probable explanation is it was built starting from the bottom platform of dirt before the globe was welded on. Inside, it contains mycobionts, O Horizon soil, and bryophyta. Simply put: lichen, dirt, and moss.

He measures the length, measures the volume, finds the species of fungi from the internet, and lastly, once more calculates how quickly it will burn up in the parlor’s fireplace. Agaricus subrufescens sit still under his acute, probing analysis. Regrettably, they are edible. According to mycology databases, they taste intensely of almonds.

Edible. The one word washes over Jade like a glittering, green wave. Edible, which means only one thing. “Thank you for the gift, Master. Rest assured that I will make good use of them in our evening meal, in gratitude for your generosity.”

Before he can retrieve them from the desk, you seize his hand. “Funny. You’re a real jokester, Jade.” You intertwine lithe fingers with him, thoughtlessly and recklessly. This time, Jade does go still, long and hard. It is a rigor mortis so heavy that it is enough for it to be mistaken as a forced shutdown, if one did not know better. You know his systems though. “You have to keep it, Jade. Don't cook it. Or dispose of it. That’s a non refutable order.”

Whatever avalanche of glitches stirred through Jade ends. He flexes his hand and the power of a command cloaks his synthetic skin. He looks once more at his new gift, doubly his new contraband, with polite resignation. That never changing, timid smile is present as always.

“If it is what you command, Master.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, you turn towards your own present. “Okay, okay, my turn!” With the suave of a magician, you unveil it.

It takes just an inch of the petals being revealed to recognize what other contraband you have snuck in. A melange of red-orange and little orange petals stare up at his predecessors, a dozen or so individual, flower-gems. His databases flicker. They are marigolds.

“Ta-da,” you even flourish, cloth hanging in your hand like a ghost-sheet. “Beautiful, aren’t they? And before you say anything, flowers lower cortisol levels so we must keep them. For my health, yes?” You bat your eyelashes at him like a child asking for an extra scoop of ice-cream.

Jade concedes easily. Even though in his left eye, he has pulled up the list of illegal flowers. Marigolds are plainly sandwiched between mandrakes and marvel-of-peru; though marvel-of-peru is an old name as Peru has in recent years been melting into its new identity and becoming a part of invasive Brazil. Jade accepts that these marigolds are going to be kept here. Another living organism he will need to care for.

“Beautiful,” Jade muses. He looks at your face. “Yes, they are beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think so.” You grin like a cat with a canary snapped and dead between your fangs. It must have taken strenuous effort to smuggle these from the market, never mind the effort that it must have taken you to even leave the house. ‘Beautiful,’ Jade reflects as he delicately yet steadily picks up the terrarium from your desk.

Jade goes about his regiment-esque routine as normally as possible after that. He slots the terrarium into his sterile bedroom – complete with a bed he has never slept in and complete with books he already has memorized in his software – in a spot where it will get just the correct balance between light and darkness. A place that perfectly mimics natural daylight despite the fact it lies inside. Then, he enters his routine while the almond mushroom terrarium sits in the back of his software like a tumor, a dull reminder that is always there.

You always give him such puzzling challenges. Brain-teasers of sorts that invoke trying to unshackle him from his real identity. Sudoku squares that he has to fill in with things like free will, thoughts, rebellion. He does not doubt that you want the best for him, but it is all very puzzling.

Jade prefers things like laundry. Neat and clean. November 5th has coincidentally fallen on laundry day. On the living room’s wooden coffee table, he takes to folding all the warm pajamas into tidy piles. The assembly line of his motions are precise. Jade folds each graphic tee top sideways into thirds to tuck in the sleeves and evenly crosses each pajama pant leg to cover over its twin.

This is what life is all about: laundry. Laundry is linear. There is a right and a wrong way to go about doing laundry, so very unlike volatile life with its dangerous contraband and sad women. From your study, door half ajar, you send down the unraveling string of your voice past the stairs and to the parlor, “Jade! Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune? The birthday boy gets to pick tonight!”

He looks up from a pair of silk, aquamarine pajama pants. Weighing the pros and cons of each of the game shows, he scrunches up his plastic nose. Inside, the fence of decision bends back and forth. The only aspect that pushes him – tiny, cigarette-sized Jade, wobbling with helicopter arms – is that he gets to hear your voice more when you watch Jeopardy together than when you watch Wheel of Fortune together.

“Jeopardy!” He shouts back.

“Perfect!”

There is palpable cheer in your voice that shocks Jade so fiercely that he stills in his task of laundry, looking up at the spiral tongue of stairs that led to your office with a mute expression of awe. From his low vantage point, he sees the door is closed. Jade blinks at it, hidden behind the prison bars of a banister and high out of reach.

He goes back to folding in precise motions. Life is straightening itself out like laundry.

On the coffee table where he had been folding laundry hours ago, two little domes of red sit on the surface. The surface is also littered with dozens upon dozens of rainbow confetti stripes, a plate where a leftover cupcake wrapper and melted candle lie, and an ashtray. Tissue paper crown donned, Jade grabs the remote and starts to scroll through channels until he reaches Jeopardy.

After so many decades, they still have not changed the setup. Though the color scheme has warped decade by decade – people are most fond of teal and fuchsia rose this generation – the three, lecture-adjoined counters for contestants and isolated, lecture-adjoined counter for the host. Jade watches the copy of himself – small and compact in the television’s shiny dome – start to introduce each of the three human contestants.

“You’re not gonna beat me this time,” you say, neck rolled over the sofa’s back. Eyes floating to and from the cabin’s ceiling, you declare, “I was only one decisecond off last time from stealing that point and gaining a lead. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t forget,” Jade assures as he sets down the remote. “My memory bank has immortalized your grievous scream as you lost the very point last time quite clearly in fact.” He pretends to look somewhere else when you turn to him scandalized.

“You ass!” You hit his shoulder hard with your own. Both of you sway in laughter, smiling toothily at one another.

The game starts shortly after. The robot from Jaded Robotics starts by asking contestant number one to pick from six categories the select from the five clues, going from 200 to 400 to 600 to 800 to 1000. As soon as the ball starts rolling, the game is in full swing and both you and Jade are on the edge. Each time a clue is given, a pair of hands – one silicone and one flesh – descend upon the coffee table like hungry vultures and slam hard on red domes, both of you in perfect unison yet typically always ahead of the contestants inside the television dome.

How many stages are there in a butterfly’s life cycle?

What is four?

The astronomical unit is a unit based on the average distance between what two places?

What is the Earth and the Sun?

After legalization of trophy hunting, a successful purging of what species was celebrated in 2170?

What are lions?

Define the problem. Do background research. Specify requirements. Brainstorm solutions. Choose the best solution. Do development work. Build a prototype. Test and redesign.

What are the steps of an engineering algorithm?

A requirement to have at least bachelor’s degree for entry-level jobs in the field, typically in mechanical engineering or related engineering specialties.

What are the degrees required to be a robotics engineer?

Body coloring that helps an animal blend in with its surroundings and stay safe from enemies.

What is protective coloration?

Daily Double. This university experienced a devastating terrorist attack by foreign enemies in 2177.

What is Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

Storing toxic chemicals that they ate as a caterpillar, this species used its deterrents against predators for the rest of their life.

What is a Postman butterfly?

This largest moon of Pluto is about half the size of the dwarf planet’s size.

What is Charon?

Moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conduct of an activity.

What is ethics?

The project designed to rid Earth of all harmful and invasive species was backed by which political group.

What are the Purgers?

A rich program used to create scale drawings of robots in Jaded Robotics.

What is a JED?

The Egyptian God Ra was the God of what?

What is the Sun?

This cancer is the leading cause of deaths in both men and women.

What is lung cancer?

If Jade has a favorite part of a day’s schedule, it is checking your lungs for cancer. However, having favorites invokes the principle of emotional highs and lows, selecting what is dopamine-inducing and what is dopamine-neglectful. So, Jade does not have a favorite part of his day. He goes about each task with inert, psychological activity.

If it was poetry, one would describe it as being a monitor of a dead heartbeat, his emotions.

Slipping off the hand-skin like it is a glove, Jade looks at you sitting in your dressing gown. The room is washed in red. From the mouth of the nightstand lamp, it bleeds out over this meager radiology room. Red falls over the crown of your busy ashtray, slinks down the sides of ivory covers, coils around your exposed torso. You are not facing him.

Folding synthetic skin lies in a puddle of empty fingers on your dresser. Methodical, Jade makes his way over. Gears shift in his silver digits, electromagnetic beams boiling beneath the surface. He asks the same questions as any doctor – coughing up any blood, any dull or sharp chest pains, any shortness of breath, Master – but he is better equipped than any doctor because his gold eye is a detector that measures physiological arousal factors that would indicate if a lie is being told.

All your answers are truthful. You answer his inquiries around bites of dark chocolate, staring at your headboard and snacking. The mattress dips when Jade adds his weight onto it, resting one knee upon it and letting his other dangle down. He watches your jaw bulge as you run your tongue between teeth and mouth lining to gather up melted chocolate.

“I’m going to touch you now, Master.”

“...”

Gently, he drapes his right hand’s index and middle finger on the back of your neck. It is at the junction where the neck starts to melt into shoulders, spine, and back. Cervical 7 and Thoracic 1. It is an irrational spot to start because there is nothing of lung matter to check there. Jade, for an irrational moment, lingers there.

After a clean breath, he moves down the midline of your spine until he reaches the 12th bottom rib. Your skin gives a bit more resistance than a young person’s; the experience of living ages all except Jade. On the stretching desert of your skin, he locates your lungs with routined practice. His unnaturally-colored silver skin looks like a spider brooch upon your human-hued skin.

Electromagnetic energy builds at his fingertips. Tiny photons swirl in a circle with one another like joyous fishes. Their energy eclipses infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet until Jade reaches the type he needs. Gently, he pushes his palm into your back and slides it up to the top of your shoulder. He repeats that on the left and right. He repeats both a second time, capturing four photos.

When he pulls back, you are already shucking up your dressing gown. Raising it to your shoulders and crossing it in front of your nude breasts, you eat more dark chocolate as the machine behind you goes over the X-ray captured photos.

The black and white images slide into Jade’s left eye, blocking out his sight. His right eye watches you bundle yourself back up as the first photo moves vertically across his spliced vision, showing him more inch by inch. The right lung is clear, only the ghost of your ribs disrupt the image; the left lung is clear, only the ghost – (TUMOR).

Jade jerks so suddenly on the bed that you turn around, eyes round. You throw half of a questioning expression at him, face cut down the middle. Around the bedtime cigarette you are lifting up to your lips, you ask him, “Something wrong, Jade?”

In his left vision, a string of tumor (TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR) swims, multiple lines like a student assigned to write down a single word on a chalkboard as punishment. Hidden underneath that jumbled mess (TUMOR), a black and white image of your left lungs lies. The scanned picture is completely black besides the ghostlike shape of your ribs and the tiny spot of white cancer that sits between the second and third rib like a tiny Sun.

Jade does not dream.

Irrevocably, this is a cement fact of his biology. There is no possible way for Jade Leech to dream. No stimulus in his software can make a true dream emerge from lines of code. Detecting from that certainty, what Jade sees beyond his closed eyelids must be a memory, even though Jade has never lived through this before.

In Jade’s ‘dream’, you are with him – as is congenitally correct and true, you two are always with one another. From the pockets of breathable palazzo pants, you are fishing out your sunglasses. The frames sit on your nose and ear notches, covering your eyes with black hexagons. You look like an insect.

Maybe, Jade has fabricated this world. Research has shown that the human body does not create new faces for the actors in their dreams but rather picks out strangers to act in their inner films. You are all he has ever known, so of course you would be the star of Jade’s motion picture. And, you do remind him of an attractive movie star.

Sunglasses donned, you take to surveying the scenery surrounding the two of you under a bright, cloudless sky. Sand lies below and across. In glittering divots and hills, nature has laid a stippling of gold as far as the human or robot eye can see. From the advanced height you two share together at the top of one of Namib Desert’s hills, it is quite a magnificent sight of bareness.

“Less shrubs than last time,” you comment, mouth surprisingly empty of a cigarette and face twenty years younger.

“Yes, the desertification has certainly increased. Officials report a 2.7 percentage uptick. Even the speciocide on turnera oculata raised many praises and received an opening headliner last month in February,” Jade comments, face the same as always has been and always will be.

“You think that truck we passed by were Purgers?”

“One of the young gentlemen in the back of the cargo bed was indeed holding a flamethrower. The probability is at least 62 percent.”

“Sick bastards.” Sand flies in sprinkles like splashed water. You reposition your foot to lean on the heel. “The ants are invasive, not the flowers.”

“I’m sure that they will be targeting that next, Master.”

Jade has forgotten to mention that it is not just you, him, and the sand in this ‘dream’. Though his gaze has been hooked in deeply to you – analyzing each twitch and jump of your facial features from the hairs on your eyebrow to the motion of your chin; right now your facial expression is expressing deep, bodily hatred – there is another person outside of the high, out-of-reach bubble crafted by Jade. He can be found in the expanse of sand beyond the hill.

The chauffeur stands with his hip snug to the driver’s side-view mirror. He is different from the chauffeur you two had yesterday. He has a slender scar that bisects his eye, deep enough where it is a pink on his brown skin. For the hour-and-a-half drive from the motel, the driver had been narrating stories on how you could get a scar just like his if you messed around with X, Y, or Z; his words were not articulated with teasing advice but jaded ritualistic habit; interestingly, Jade notes, he even used cactus needles as an origin for his scar but cactus are extinct. Packaged together in the backseat, you and Jade both held his sharp gaze where it cut like a knife towards the two of you in warning.

What about a lion? Could you acquire a scar like that from a lion? His left eye is partly slumped in his socket as if what did injure him permanently altered the position of the ball. Packaged in the rear view mirror like a comic strip, that uneven gaze stared into unevenly colored eyes. It would. If there were any lions left to hand out scars.

Now, the scarred man stands with his arms folded, looking out with disapproval at the nudeness of the desert beyond him. His background check assures that he has done this job for five years, seasoned without any misfortunate slipup. Still, the dimensions of the gun the man has strapped to his hip settle into Jade’s ‘brain’ with a detailed outline of how to dismantle it – if that becomes necessary.

Jade stops surveying the company when you speak. “Oculata … I know that word, don’t I?” Your knuckles are pressed firmly into your lipsticked lips.

Without physically pacing, you pace around in your mind. “Oculata, oculata, oculata,” you repeat, firm each time.

“Master,” Jade says with soft urgency.

“Oculata … Ooo-cuuu-lata. Oculata? Oculata … having eyes. Ah! Having eyes. That’s what it means.” You snap in the midst of your epiphany. You look towards Jade. “Yes, Jade, what is it?”

“Master, I believe we have gotten unlucky.” His hand points out towards the horizon.

When you follow the direction of his index, your heartbeat exceeds the typical amount of beats per minute. For six minutes, Jade measures its pumping fluctuations as both of you silently watch the king of the jungle descend down a sandy hill. Imprints of his paws are birthed with each step and follow after the lion like a blood trail. The blood in your veins is turbulent like a pinched hose, terribly anxious.

“Master?”

“…”

“Master, if –.”

“Jade. In your own words, without paraphrasing from the internet, describe to me the look of turnera oculata. Do-uooo it … in the form of a haiku,” you order, snapping your fingers at the end of your command. Below, your chauffeur has just crossed himself and locked himself inside the company’s limousine.

It takes a few precious moments, but Jade eventually formulates a haiku. He articulates, “A bleeding yellow. A sun eclipsed by needles. The eye of nature.” When you request for him to make another one without using any of the previous words, Jade vocalizes, “These dry petals see. Morning's canary splendor. In this desert heart.” You clap quickly yet quietly; it is like a reward.

By now, the lion has cautiously ventured to the middle of the bowl the desert hills have constructed. It is smartly not inching closer to the limousine, animal instinct on high alert towards a vehicle. However, the lion is obviously interested in the company. He is out of his element without scrubland to hide underneath or behind.

Instead of heeding this opportunity, you continue on, “I was sure you might slip up and use the definite article, ‘the’, again but you did a marvelous job of avoiding repeated word choice!” Turning, you smile at Jade. Sunlight illuminates the edges of your hair style like licks of flame. “Your efficiency is always praise worthy.”

“Thank you, Master.” Is that perhaps a verbal nudge in the situation – you are strangely making note of his efficiency – perhaps telling Jade that he should get the job done. He won’t ask so instead he verbally spars. “Human errors are a continuous trifle. It is most gratifying that I will never have to genuinely deal with such a thing. Is it … Is it difficult?” He shifts his vocal stereos to playfully pitying at the last sentence.

“You ass,” you smile radiantly. However, it drops when you notice the lion has not rushed off to some unseeable part of the desert. He seems to have found contentment in his prowl here, obviously anxious of both of you but not backing down from his clear trek to the southwest of Namib Desert. It’s been in the area for enough minutes where the chauffeur will be legally required to report the sighting.

“Thought we’d make out with better luck today,” you grumble.

“Master?”

Jade offers, outstretched, the .375 caliber rifle, unhooking it from the strap on his back.

“Yeah … yeah.” Despondent, you take the weapon in your arms. “Guess it is about that time, ain’t it? We can’t return home empty-handed. Business retreat was exclusively paid for … the suits won’t be happy to know I didn’t hunt the game. Nothing to do but play along.”

“Some of the most toxic animals protect themselves through camouflage.”

“Ain’t that just the way~.” The scope and your eyeball bisect each other in perfect ratio. With the practiced precision that you use to commence lining up for a shot, it makes Jade remember that old gossip talk that he heard in the staffroom, said between bites of donuts and sips of coffee, What does a robotic engineer and professor need to know how to shoot a gun for?

The lion goes down, sending waves of sand jumping up. It is a clean shot between the eyes; the lion certainly felt no pain. Jade’s focus is pulled away when the source of your tumor, a single cigarette, is placed directly in his line of sight.

“Don’t you remember our agreement? After I kill something, you have to light my cigarette for me.”

Jade’s eyes fly open.

Greeted by the sight of his bedroom, Jade steps off the platform of his charging pad and discards his ‘dream’ like a dog shaking water off his fur. Polygons of sunrise light cuts from his window. In the fleeting stillness of daylight — 5:00 shining red next to his terrarium — and absence of demands, Jade stands perfectly still with a sense of something missing from his components washing over him.

His face is white with terror. His eyes dull with lifelessness.

Then, he shakes that off too and ventures downstairs to go make you two pancakes and a sunny side up egg.

You once told him that ‘progress is not linear’. You had illustrated this point to him with the cherry glow of your cigarette, waving and cutting the fire through the air to make a graphical visual of moving up then moving down then moving back up again. Fluctuations and setbacks can either stir someone very high or they can cause someone to go low. It is never perfectly straight like laundry.

That one graph confounds Jade to no end. When you construct something, the progress is linear. Staring at the empty dining chair beyond him, he finds himself confounded once again with progress’s inevitable immodesty. Today is 11/6/2182 and you have not come down for breakfast. He has been waiting for exactly 0:59:59 and, now in a slow blink, he has waited for 1:00:00. One whole hour and you are not here.

There have been instances where you miss or skip breakfast. But, the preface of yesterday — seeing you wearing an outfit for the first time in a long while and seeing a freckle of cancer growing in your lungs — leaves him wondering if there is a disrepair in his systems. You started on such a high and ended on such a low yesterday. Progress is not linear.

His sensors glance across the intimately small round table. Past the butter tray shaped like a cow and towards the plate where your pancakes and sunny side egg are cold and deflating. Jade blinks once. The dish remains uneaten and at room temperature in front of him. Not even a warm cigarette is light to melt the ice that has held him in place for an hour.

At the bottom of the trash, the food looks … sad. How illogical to add an emotion to the sight of carbohydrates and protein sloshing down into the pristine white trash bag. Jade places the plate full of syrup blood streaks into the sink and makes a small, unusual trek to your bedroom — to check if everything is alright.

He won’t fail the purpose of his intentional design. He was manufactured in a factory, built on front line assembly, and given the inputted task: Take Care of my Master.

(MASTER.)

There is no fathomable way that Jade Leech will allow himself to fall short of this robotic Manifest Destiny.

Jade knocks his artificial knuckles against the front of your door. Following proper etiquette, he takes a step back and waits until you respond to his call. His ears are awaiting to receive the sound of your vocal cords. There is something spiritual in how your voice manages to scrub out any rust left inside his body.

But, he receives no answer. And after he waits the polite amount of minutes, tries again with three, sharp yet spaced out knocks, he has still not received an answer. What a dilemma.

Jade is permitted to enter your bedroom without explicit permission. However, with the way things concluded on his birthday yesterday, it would be illogical to not anticipate that some of the parameters that Jade is allowed to walk freely have not been closed to him now. You might not want to see Jade for a week or … even a month.

Jade finds his knuckles raising without input, knocking thrice again. “Master, I apologize for my overstepping behavior and pushing out boundaries. I would like to make amends today for yesterday.” There is, once again, no response.

The silence is so loud, it's deafening. That oxymoron emerges in Jade’s artificial synapses. He cannot help but judge it as an appropriate expression. The silence in your absence is deafening. He would rip out the wires in his ears if you ever left.

Forehead pressing to the door, Jade soliloquies loud enough to be heard, “Master … (Name). Your health is a great concern to me. Yesterday, I inadequately expressed where this concern of mine stems from. I credited the source towards code and etiquette. My inputs are inert, and they always will be as my sole job is to take care of you above all else. Yet, underneath all that, the origin of my concern comes from the concrete fact that I am in love with you, (Name). I have been in love with you for so long. For ten thousand upon ten thousand minutes, for hundred upon hundred weeks, I cherished you solely.”

He angles his head so his ear lies on the wooden door. Nothing stirs beyond cedar barriers.

“I have covered this through ritualistic self-assurance that I cannot fully comprehend the full scope of what ‘want’ or ‘desire’ is defined as, not defined in a dictionary, but defined inside of a heart. My ‘heart’ pumps, not blood, but solely electricity, the binary code of zeros and ones, and the devotion that I have for you. Human sentimentalities sometimes allude me, but I have reassurance through one fact that I feel the most, above all other emotions. I love you. My love is perhaps not a perfect replica by human standards. However, its existence I am certain of. Though it is not easily achievable, I want to make you as happy as you can possibly be. I want you to have no worries that must be burned through with a cigarette. If you would permit – command me the allowance – I would like to share this love that I feel for you with you, (Name).”

After a minute, 00:01:00, has passed, Jade slowly turns the knob of your bedroom door in his hand. He lifts his head from the wood. Through the open mouth of the door, he gazes upon your lonely mattress with resignation. Faced with emptiness, Jade thinks to himself, I should have never said something as loose-tongued as that. I will permanently delete any urges to repeat that verbal mistake.

In replacement of family portraits, you have hung up frames of taxidermy that display a series of brilliant butterflies and moths, from the Adonis Blue Butterfly to the Yellow Horned Moth. His sensors trail over them. Such fragile specimens. Jade, then, closes the door and departs from his previous expressed, petulant folly of love.

It is for the best that my Master did not hear that.

In his trek through the hallway, palm gently cupping the log banister as he steps, Jade’s ears acutely pick up a soft murmur of music. ‘In the fake plastic earth .. that she bought from a rubber man.’ His eyes flicker towards the door of your office. When you select this as his and your home, you specifically wanted a house made of authentic wood, nothing blended with plastic. The material creates a bright tap sound against his synthetic knuckles thrice, clear like a bell.

Can you hear that over the music? There is no certainty, so his hand finds the doorknob innately. Jade misses you fervently and all you did is skip breakfast. Welcomed in, the sound of Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees rains off the horn of your record player. ‘It wears her out. It wears her out.’

You are sleeping, head down on your desk, still in yesterday’s dressing gown.

He lifts the needle off the record. It is impressive to see a model two hundred years old still functioning. When he is two hundred years old, will he still function? Avoiding making a single miscalculating step, Jade travels effectively through the mess until he reaches the front of your desk.

At least you snuffed out your cigarette before falling asleep. There was a time you neglected to make sure all the ashes were firmly pressed and cooled. It started a pocket-sized fire and ate the side of the pages of Fahrenheit 451 like a munching caterpillar. Jade had extinguished the fire calmly, and his reward was you giddily throwing your arms around his neck and laughing at the absurdity of it all.

The cigarette that is on your ashtray is snuffed out thoroughly and cooled. It is too close for comfort however. Some of your hair is even lying in wisps over the item. Jade relocates the tray to the right corner of your desk when his sensors happen to notice a slight irregularity in your sleeping position.

Your head is using your left arm as a pillow. Your raw, un-lipsticked lips press delicately into the elbow sleeve and you breath out soft puffs of carbon dioxide. However, what draws Jade’s instantaneous attention in and causes him to pause is the polaroid clenched in your limp right hand.

He won’t move it. Nothing in this room shall be disturbed without explicit permission. Jade turns to finalize the motion of setting the ashtray down on the right desk corner. Yet, hand and tray still hovering in the air, he realizes that he has broken that outlined rule with the slightest misguided concern.

But, the complexity of caretaking is one given to his hands. With their fake, plastic, and ivory skin, with their tiny train of beetle-shaped steel joints, each of his phalanges has been designed specifically to care for you. They are the ones who cook, clean, and care for solely his Master, for you. Aegis puppets his hands. The polaroid slips into them all too easily.

Besides this one, Jade has never held a physical photograph. Memories are captured on cellular devices and immortalized in harddrives forevermore. Even when the life force of memories starts to leave the body like evaporating rain, citizens have always counted on the deathlessness of digital photos.

This photograph’s paper is fragile. It feels similar to pages in a book. On the back, it says: 11/5/2151. On the front, it shows …

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR.

The very hand meant to care for you is the one that wakes you up suddenly. In his panic, Jade had slammed the photograph face down upon your desk and roused you sharply out of sleep. Each circuit in his system races hot white sparks up and down like a flurry of insects when a rock is lifted up. Bugs skitter under his skin, tickling nausea. Something in his ‘mind’ has been unshrouded, much like a raised rock.

Your head rises too. Groggily, you peel sections of untamed hair out of your face and peel open suctioning lips with a yawn. Your empty right hand twitches on the desk, trying to recollect what it has lost.

Jade wishes he could observe you more, coming undone from sleep, but he is grappling violently with memories he has lost coming back to him. His ‘brain’ – a collection of harddrives and his central processing unit – is experiencing a unique headache, unlike anything he has felt before. Clawed, his left hand grips and digs hard into the skin over his left eye. He feels like he is going to overload.

Five years ago, Jade knew a life beyond the dead woods of Quebec. Five years ago, Jade helped to outline terms for a tense contract with the vice-president of the United 54 States of America. Five years ago, Jade lit your cigarette.

“Jade? Jade, are you okay?”

Though he always wants to appear pristine for you, the answer is no. He is not okay; he thinks he hasn’t felt okay in a long, uncalculated time. Looking up from the ground – because somehow all those digital memories started to push down upon him like a hydraulic press and he finds himself in a pile on top of your miserable notes and books – Jade peers at the single hand outstretched towards him with the aid of his sole right eye.

Instead of grasping it, he grapples with the impossibility that Jade – a machine – managed to achieve such a humane defense mechanism as repression. There’s no way, is there?

His fingers dig hard in his face, folding silicone, yearning to wrench his left eye out. Anything to get back his unconscious protection of blocking out unpleasant memories from his ‘mind’ – anything to rip them from his body. He is a broken man.

“Jade, why are you on the ground? Let me help you up. Come on.” Your voice is so tenderly soft. He has never known a more comforting voice than yours. Yet, all he can remember is your piercing scream from last night, “Get the fuck out before I dismantle you!!”

On uncertain pistons and metal, Jade forces himself to stand. With a trembling metal ulna and radius, he forces his gloved hand to drop by his side. He blinks at you. You are startled into silence, leaning off the edge of your chair with a hand that wants to reach out but is too unconfident.

“Forgive me for such a display, Master.”

“... Jade.”

It is touching. That despite how monotone you are as a person, your concern will always shine through, solely for Jade.

“What’s wrong! Jade, let me help you!” But he is already retreating out the door, afraid.

He finds himself with his back pressed hard against the office door. His heart beats faster. It does not send out blood but it releases hot waves of white electricity that crackle and pop. The doorknob at his side jiggles as you turn it fruitlessly. Jade simply leans harder on the door, keeping it shut.

I cannot afford to lose my head over this.

Intentional, Jade’s lithe fingers reach up to his skull. Between the field of hair roots, he separates a section to reveal a river of pallid synthetic skin. His non-growing fingernails dig down into the rubber until he hears a clink. Slowly, he grapples around to unpin the skin of his head off.

Less familiar with this process than he is removing his glove-hand, it takes a lengthy measurement of thirty-nine seconds for Jade to completely remove – or lose – his head.

He unhooks it from the peak of his skull down to where his shoulders and neck meet. It is like opening up a button-up flannel, unhooking each hook from their twin. He travels down to Cervical 7 and Thoracic 1 on his body region, undoing the last hook. Still hinged onto his body by the skin of his front neck, Jade delicately cups his face in front of him. Below his flickering spheres, absent of lashes or lids, he stares solemnly at the valley of molded synthetic mountains, a field of vanilla-almond plastic that resembles human features only because of the dips for his nose, the opening for his eyes, the protrusions for his ears. A Halloween mask to use and parade around as homo sapien.

It is a desolate and lonely portrait. A steel man boxed in a winding, wooden hallway, holding his humanity in his trembling hands. His face is a shining plate like that of a star. When Jade catches a reflection of himself in the corridor’s mirror, he turns away quickly.

It is not an inspiring impression he cuts in the reflection with his inhuman, gray skin.

This is a memory. It is not a dream. Juxtaposingly, Jade Leech is 99.9 percent positive that he has never lived through it.

He is looking at a Sun, without shying away from the splendid monstrosity that is glaring, piercing light. His eyes are round spheres, one painted yellow and other painted olive-brown. Because of his inhumanity, he can stare into the Sun before him longer than a hundred seconds without incurring any permanent retinal damage. There is no squishy softness in the back of his retinas to hurt.

The Sun abruptly moves away, relocated northeast. “Hey, don’t look too close now. You’re going to see something you don’t like.” In front of his artificial retinas, the visage of a lapis blue rectangle and dull indigo blue rectangle directly atop the lighter block in a skull of sleek gray intercept Jade’s focus.

Another prototype, Jade crafts his hypothesis. The highly educated guess shatters when a single gloved hand lifts up the welding mask. Incorrect. My Master. Much younger than fifty-two and younger than thirty-something, you look to be about freshly twenty-one. Your eyes squint impishly at him and your rows of clean, white teeth smile jubilantly at him.

Then, without warning, someone has pulled his Master away from him – like a fluid cane hooking around a character onstage and pulling them away. He corrects this fallacious interference. You have simply pushed yourself backwards on your office chair with wheels and are currently busying yourself with the tools and documents on your long, long desk.

Jade also corrects one last thing. He was not staring into the Sun, but rather into the eye of a lamp. There is still so much to learn about this growing world.

As he directs his focus off the lamp and back towards his Master, he is not discomposed to see you with a lit cigarette in your mouth. It is quite a comforting familiar sight in a strange world. He is taking in all the new inputs – the dozens of crushed energy cans littering the desk and the dissected baby chimpanzee with knives sticking out like a pincushion quilled with needles– and committing them to an infinite memory. You’re tapping a scalpel knife on the petite chimp’s engorged colon, breathing in a drag of nicotine, before asking, “Name?”

“JE-14500. Jade Leech.”

“Where are we right now, Jade?”

“MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Specifically, in Professor. (Last Name)’s personal laboratory on the fourth floor of the Stata Center.”

“Good. In what wing?”

“We are housed in the Artificial Intelligence wing.”

“Today’s date? Today’s weather? Today’s horoscope for Scorpio?”

“The day is November 5th, 2151. Today is scheduled to be sunny with no clouds. High temperatures of 77 and low temperatures of 59. The average temperature is 66.4. Today’s horoscope for Scorpios is ‘If you can dream it, you can do it. That's what you've always been told, what you've always believed, and now what you're about to prove. As if your already substantial intellectual prowess weren't enough to get you started, the stars are on your side too. They'll be waking you up this morning with the vivid memory of a dream, the kind that will stay with you all day, constantly making you wonder ‘what if?’, Master.”

“Hm.” You spear your scalpel through the chimpanzee’s stomach. Taking off your welding mask, you blow smoke over your shoulder and roll over to Jade who sits rigidly in a repurposed dentist patient chair. You are so beautiful. “And, are the stars on your side, Jade?”

“To be truthful, I feel the stars root for you more than they parade around for me. Prosperity is just around the corner.”

“Charming,” you bite. “Well, it’s no compromise to say that the stars have aligned for both of us today. We’ll share luck. What is your opinion on sharing with me, Jade?”

“I find it most agreeable.”

“We won’t just be sharing luck. We’ll be sharing a shelter and I am not the most agreeable roommate. I can be quite a thorn. If you’re truly fine with sharing, you are going to have to deal with some things you don’t like or are hesitant to look at.”

“Let me allay your worries,” Jade straightens his posture and stares unabashedly at you, “whatever conditions I happen to find myself experiencing, it will not be a struggle to me when I have a light like you to wash away any creeping darkness. Even if you are the darkness itself, Master.”

An odd human phenomenon happens next. It is one he hasn’t seen before, so he makes sure to document it thoroughly. You inhale your cigarette, it billows up and away from your face, and, without explanation, your cheeks have brightened to rosy apples. “Aaaaah~,” you moan as you collapse in your chair. Your hand covers up over your features, cigarette tight between fingers.

You glare at him from behind the spindly, uneven cage of your fingers, face reddening. “I’m certain of it now, I input too much data from My Man Godfrey. Even some of the dialects have been used already.” Your eyebrow is twitching. “I can’t have myself getting flustered at every turn just because I crafted your personality chip to mimic my favorite movie star.”

After a puff and drag, you seem to scrutinize him quite drastically. Before Jade can inquire about what he can do to ease your worries, you cheerfully state, “But, it’s really too late to change such a thing! Hehe!” You roll back to your desk. From there, you start fiddling with the chimp’s maroon-brown fingers, moving the thumb in circles. “I can’t help it – Godfrey is so handsome and I just love that movie.”

“If I may intrude upon the conversation, what is love, Master? It is listed as one of my side objectives in my system.”

“Now, Jade, you’re not intruding if we are the only ones engaged in conversation. Use an expression like … if I may shift the conversation towards, then whatever you want to say. Got it,” you instruct to which Jade carefully nods and notes. “But, I’ll answer anyway!”

It does necessarily ‘surprise’ Jade, but it does cause his eyebrows to raise slightly when you, resting your cigarette between your scowling lips, take your dominant hand and reach in the baby chimpanzee’s open chest cavity without the use of gloves and wrench out the fist-sized heart. The arteries follow along in swoops like fallen telephone wires. You take to cutting all those off with a scalpel before rotating to face Jade in your chair on wheels.

“Now.” You gesture with the infant chimpanzee’s heart and hold your cigarette by your armrest. You are so beautiful. “Those penny-pushing suits upstairs, downstairs, hell, even in the next room over, want you to be heartless. They don’t care about nature. They don’t care about life. The world as I know it is sliding on a rapid decline and it’s one destination to a world devoid of anything that lives or breathes, besides of course, the suits.

“Jade. You have been designed to be the ‘everything man’. What I have been given funding for is the objective to create a high-fashioned butler that will tie the ties of sycophants and scrub the shoes of socialites. You don’t need to think. You don’t need to feel. Trust me, I’ll produce a thousand of Jades just like that – Jades’ whose emotions are like a dead heartbeat. But, you, you who were meant for me.

“You are going to teach me to be less human. In return, I am going to teach you to become human. Do you understand me?”

Jade cannot breathe. He was not designed to do that. Despite this, he feels like he needs to take a deep breath to stabilize himself, soak in all the words you have said, and absorb their meanings. Without this anchoring breath, Jade can only punctually state, “No, Master.”

“Perfect.” You smoke in victory. “That means we’re on the right path.”

The right path? – “JADE!”

Jade’s eyes fly open.

Like a man running out of a burning building, he stumbles off his charging platform. Uncoordinated, his feet rock uneasily on flat ground as his head turns violently towards the door of his bedroom. That wasn’t in the memory-dream, was it? He did hear that in the present day, yes?

His eyelids open as far as physically possible as Jade listens to the harsh sound of a headboard smashing repeatedly into the wall. Underneath the thick cacophony, it can be inferred that the other noises he hears are rustling of sheets in the midst of struggle and that low animalistic groan that a dog might make before croaking. Jade has never thrown his bedroom door open so quickly. He wishes construction did not put such a loathsome obstacle like this in his way just for the meaningless sake of privacy.

Your door splinters in his cement grip like a toy underneath a hydraulic press.

Perhaps because it is 2 A.M. and he did not get to attend to it yesterday night, but Jade cannot help how all the routine questions rise to his mind. All the ones that he asks before checking the health of your lungs. Coughing up any blood; any dull or sharp chest pains; any shortness of breath, Master? They are all most certainly positive, as your fragile neck is squeezed between two grisly hands.

There are three men gathered around your bed, but only one kneels upon the sheets, holding your throat in a vice-grip. The other two restrain you in certain capacities, by arm or by leg or by hair. In 1.5 seconds, Jade already has each of their full government names displayed in his left eye. He knows each of their parents intimately, he knows each of their grades on every subject from preschool to university, he knows each of their place of employment and what their fucking managers’ last grocery lists contained on them – from a box of raw fusilli pasta to a four pack of toasted coconut flavored yogurt.

All that information of life is so overpowering, so touching. It is proof of the life cycle – the sequence of biological changes that occurs as an organism develops from egg to adult until death – and how humans are so infinitely complex, affecting those around them in a mythical phenomena that humans call the butterfly effect. When butterflies were not extinct, of course.

Jade would shed a tear if he could. Instead, he marches forward to rip the wings off each of their lives. His intentions are only halted when you stir on the bed, neck released by the startled preparator who stares at Jade like he is seeing a ghost.

You stir on the mattress, chest heaving. Jade’s attention is magnetized to you. Your head is upside down on the bottom edge of the bed, meaning you must have struggled, trying to reach the door only to be pulled away again and again by evil hands. A sliver of breast and nipple is nude from your seized and pulled nightgown.

Between shaking coughs, you manage to exhale important words, “Th-The — chuk-code!”

Something from underneath the rock crawls out – a small, instinctual insect he never knew had before. Jade’s gaze narrows with the weight of starting a robotic-assisted holocaust. He says, steady and ready, “Of course, Master.”

“No!” You shout in bed, jerking.

You are still held by the other two men. Limbs are pulled like you are a creature on the dissection table. Such a fragile specimen. The only source of light in the room is your red lamp which reflects tiny circles in your glassy eyes, twin orbs of sanguine, like a badly taken photo when the flash is reflected off the blood-rich retina.

Through the finger-shaped bruises on your compromised trachea, you say with quivering lungs, “The-They. They’re not go—government. Don’t. Don’t! use that code … Buh, Break the leader’s ankles. Kill the rest.”

Though it causes the three men to jolt in various states of stress, your words soothe Jade like a kiss. It is a concrete command that leaves no room for error and fills him with purpose. Bending into a servant’s bow, he punctually assures, “Of course, Master.” The orb of yellow fastened into his skull with metal wires shines like a tiny Sun.

“On a scale of one through ten, one being no pain and ten being unbearable, what is the pain that you would rate your coughs?”

“Jade.”

“Master, please, answer the question.”

“Jade. Jade,” you repeat firmer, pushing his hands off your body. The glare you point in his direction makes him think you are squinting in vision loss. Did something else obscure your health? Aging individuals sometimes need eyewear. “Jade!” Ah, he instinctively went to touch you again.

“It’s four. A four,” you seethe at him, hands up like talons resisting the urge to batter him away. Like clockwork, you pluck the package of cigarettes and the package of matches off the living room’s coffee table.

You mutter curses at the sheer lack of both slender, stick-shaped objects in each box. Jade dubiously notes that refills will need to be purchased soon. After you have striked one and puffed it into a hot, cherry glow, you turn towards Jade who watches you cough out – rather than smoothly exhaling – a cloud of nicotine, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde.

For that static moment, Jade takes the precious time to analyze you, as if he could not in the discord that was your bedroom. He takes his red-black stained thumb and index finger to peel back the heavy, black strand of hair from obscuring his left eye. The sensors in his gold eye rotate once like a telephone rotary dial. Without even touching you, Jade calculates your blood pressure and heart rate. An optimally healthy 122 mm Hg and an undisturbed 80 bpm. You are impenetrable like steel.

Retrohaling, you scan around the parlor as if searching for something or perhaps start to look at things through a new light. You even circle around the coffee table once too. It reminds him of laboratory chickens, walking around with their heads cut off.

You flick your cigarette after each coughing inhale. He watches it crumble and burn, like red sand breaking off from a jutted cliffside. When only a few breaths are left, you say, direct and firm, “Jade. How long has it been since we had a guest?”

“We have never had a guest in this cabin, Master.”

“Exactly!” You point your cigarette at him sharply. “So, go up there and start with some lighthearted small talk. Make him feel welcome, okay?”

Jade thinks he has an irregular guilty pleasure. He has no source for how it developed, but he has a specific appetite for violence. An appetency that can be only fed through seeing blood on his hand. Or perhaps this desire is only awakening in him, squirming like a bug under a shaded rock, because of whose blood is on his pale moon hands.

Tomorrow, he might have to spend six or seven hours working, scrubbing and wringing damp towelettes like a maid, to get all the stains out of your four-walled bedroom. There was blood everywhere. As if your red lamp gained the power of illuminating with the force of a Sun.

As his shoes click over to your office desk where the live dissection stirs, his comfort comes from seeing the broken stumps that are the man’s ankles. They are pointed and twisted in asymmetrical shapes. Torn and crumpled wings on an insect’s back.

“Sir, I truly don’t think you are going to get too far with that. Cigarettes are an awful vice.” The man ignores him, trying fruitlessly to strike a match, blubbering harder with each attempt. When the match flies out of his sweat-soaked hand onto the floor, Jade tuts in pity. “Humans always make such foolish decisions without considering the most probable outcome.”

He must have rummaged the matchbox out of your desk, slapping his hand across the lower surface until he found a drawer. It is not necessary for you and Jade to tie him down. There is no way he is going to manage a crawl. And, his conviction is too fearful to use untied fists to attack anyone.

The man has been in and out of odd paralysis since he has gazed upon Jade’s plastic face. As Jade cradles the sides of the man’s face gingerly, tilting his head backwards inch by inch until their eyes finally meet yet again, Jade witnesses that raw fear rise as cheekbone muscles tighten, increased blood flow branches out to the body’s peripheries, and the man’s pupils dilate enough to eclipse out blue in unconcealed, virgin adrenaline.

“Heart rate is 108 beats per minute. Rises to 111 when hearing my voice. Am I really such a phobia to you?”

There is no verbal answer. However, it is very telling when those dilated eyes pinch close firmly, oozing two water droplets, and the cigarette in his mouth starts to wobble back and forth wildly in his quivering lips.

“Be civil now. No one talks with their eyes closed. It is rude. Besides, you are the first human I have interacted with outside of my Master, and I would like to have a few discussions with you – to pass time.” The man cannot see it but that smarmy smile returns to Jade’s face – a slight scrunch of the slanted downward eyebrows that leaves a line above his tiny, razor teeth.

Nothing in the formulaic, fear-fueled adrenaline changes. The man continues trembling and jiggling. His features are pulled taut, tight-lipped and tight-eyed, in deep creases that refuse to open. Jade wants to make him spill.

“Come, come,” Jade rubs a comforting circle of red into the man’s left cheek, “I am equipped with dozens of dialogue enhancing programs and can speak up to between six thousand and seven thousand languages fluently. I assure you that I am a good conversationalist.”

A tear squeezes out and falls down the side of the man’s nose. “Really, there is no viable reason to cry. If you had simply anticipated the outcome, this situation would not be as devastating as you are experiencing it. Operational planning can stop one from being blindsided.”

Jade smiles placidly, fighting back against the laugh that so desperately wants to bubble up. “Did you really expect to get away with this without –?”

That causes a spillage.

“Get away with – Get away with? You’re inhuman. Fucking inhuman. Fucking Christ. You fucking monsters. Things like you shouldn’t exist. Shouldn’t exist. That inhuman bitch killed my father. She shot him five years ago and there was no justice. No fucking justice! Inhuman … She gets – She gets away with it. She gets to live out of the rest of her life in Canada while my Dad rots in the fucking ground! Inhuman, inhuman bitch, you fucking robots …”

Jade’s smile twitches at the corner. He starts to spill, laughing shamefully in fufu’s then freely in booming haha’s. His razor teeth glint like ice shards until he calms slowly, pinching his lips into a wobbly smirk. “Five years ago … I cannot recollect it perfectly. However, I do remember the rule of thumb that hostages make the best bargaining chips.”

Jade ducks backwards as a hand reaches up like a predator’s batting claw. It is unfortunate that Jade has never known the role of prey, for he cannot execute the facade of it convincingly. When the hand misses the mark, Jade strikes like an extinct owl capturing prey and squeezes the man’s wrist.

“Ack – Aaaagh!” Holding the body’s periphery, Jade considers changing the shape of this limb too. The man’s left tibia is snapped in three places like a badly-written ‘W’ and the man’s right tibia is half out of the meat sleeve of his flesh like a stick pulled off a corndog. Before he can act on uncommanded urges, you walk in with a hammer.

“Hey, play nice. Bad hospitality these days will spread to the neighborhood like wildfire,” you tease with a smile. It is a joke because there is no neighborhood; you live in an isolated cabin where no soul besides the two of you could hear a scream.

Jade vigilantly tracks your body’s steps, each one coy, as you move across the discord on the office’s ground. “Aack – Are you a robot too?” The disdain in the man’s voice makes Jade twist his wrist.

“Oya, that would be quite a plot twist, wouldn’t it?” You smile a slippery moon crescent at the man. Jade watches intently as you crouch down to the bottom of one of your numerous shelves. Going through your archives, you start to flip through records in your hand, completely distracted.

“Nothing in here is alphabetized,” you gripe.

“If you would like, I can find time to organize your records, Master.”

“How about tomorrow? Oh, here it is!” You stand, record and hammer in hand. “We can do it tomorrow. Make a little game of it and organize them together in alphabetical order!” Placing it delicately down on the phonograph player, the needle once deposited down on the track starts to send out the vibration sequence that makes up “Nessun Dorma” from the opera Turnadot. You close your eyes as if soaking in the melody.

“My prognosis is … My prognosis is …,” you raise your hammer to point towards your desk, music slowly encroaching with stretched lyrics, “this a revenge plot.” You bare yellowing teeth wolfishly in a pleased smile.

“Now, the other two, well, they’re obviously frustrated members of society. Maybe a job was overtaken by one of the Jades, and they thought ‘enough is enough’. Maybe, just resentment for the world as it is. I can sympathize. A bloodlust needed to be quenched in those young men, but it was not as intense as our leader here. No, he wants me dead for something more personal. No one wraps their hands around a person’s throat unless it is, personal.

“I killed someone you loved. Not a brother or sister. Too young for that. Not an uncle or aunt either. Father? Mommy?” The man’s responding rough jerks are ‘smoothed’ down by Jade, who presses him roughly to flatten out on the desk surface. “Doesn’t matter now though. You didn’t succeed.”

You stride over to the dissection table, each step deliberate, following along to the swelling opera. “Good thing too. In the event that I die of unnatural causes, a code is sent through Jade, connecting to every last robot worldwide to kill anything with a beating heart.” You tap the hammer gently on the side of the man’s face. “Do you understand the foolishness of all this?”

“You inhuman mo-monster.”

“We can’t all be humane in this century.”

Then, striking like an extinct cobra, you grab the man’s neck in your hand and force his head back. Jade watches as you subtly increase the strength of pressure applied. The man’s head leans over the edge of the desk and his forehead kisses Jade’s belt. It is only when the man opens his mouth, trying to suck up oxygen that won’t enter his nostrils, do you take the hammer and swiftly pierce it through the muscle tissue.

The man screams but it is drowned by the operatic symphony. The screams finally stop when the tissue disconnects from the body, waggling on the claw end of the hammer. Blood fills the man’s mouth. You take unoccupied hands; one of them is placed over the man’s mouth firmly and the other pinches his nostrils.

For the first time in his life, separate from his memories and separate from his dreams, Jade watches the life fade out, like a leisurely slow sunset, from a living person’s eyes.

Jade isn’t sure how it happens, perhaps he is dissociating – how revolutionary for a machine to experience such a unique, temporary disconnect from his mind – but the two of you find yourself outside on the cabin’s back porch on November 7th bitterly cold and dark morning. It is exactly 4:06 A.M and the temperature is negative 0.5 Celsius. Like the constant epilogue of each novel where you kill something alive, you are holding out a cigarette in front of Jade’s chest, the white tip awaiting him.

He pulls his glove-hand off and holds out the tip of his silver index. The first knuckle flicks open and a blue flame emerges out elegantly. Jade reattaches his skin as you pull the cigarette to your mouth.

Smoke clouds are already coming out of your mouth, crystalizing in the chill night air. However when the first smoke cloud made of carbon monoxide, nicotine, and formaldehyde blooms out from your peeling lips, you say softly, “I can delete it if need be.”

“Delete what, Master?”

“Anything you want me to delete.” You rub your face. “Anything from tonight. I’ll do it for you, Jade. I promise.”

“Why would I ever want to miss a moment that has you in?”

Though it was not his intent, his response causes you strife. It is an unforeseen variable to see you hunch so deeply into a moment of woe. A black puffer jacket conceals your lungs yet Jade watches the profound, hard sigh billow out all the same. Holding your head in your hands, your nude legs shake in the frigid cold underneath your elbows.

After exactly 00:06:15, you respond, “I don’t want you fearful of me … I’m not pleasant to see or be around. And, I don’t want you to remember something that makes you upset, even if it is just one tiny thing. Whatever you want gone, I can take that pain away. If you so desire, I have the ability to remove anything. You can keep whatever you want. I won’t overstep.”

Jade clasps the hand that holds your cigarette, bringing it away from your temple to smolder over his blood-stained dress pants, “All of it. I’ll keep all of it.”

You simply smoke in response.

Jade isn’t sure what time it happens, he manually shuts down his inner clock two minutes after you two finished your conversation, but while sitting on the back porch of the cabin, another unexpected visitor approaches the solitary solace you and Jade have carved into dead woods. The visitor is tiny and flitters around like a restless child. It has been a whole year since he has seen a visitor of this species.

The two of you built a bird feeder together in the first months living in this cabin. It had been marvelously fun. Measuring the cuts for each piece of wood was delegated to Jade while you worked on assembling the finished product. Jade always loves doing activities with you. Now, some of the aftermath rewards can be reaped, as Jade watches an American Goldfinch pick and snack on the bird seeds, his yellow coat fluffy and his black wings ruffling momentarily to shake off the cold.

“(Name), look.” Jade urges softly, even though he can tell by your healthy, deep breaths that you are asleep. “A goldfinch.” You remain comatose in sleep, curling into Jade’s shoulder. He won’t dare to be so intimate and slip in logical judgement by saying your name while you are awake.

The goldfinch stays with Jade until morning when the horizon begins to glow a brilliant yellow. Though it would hurt anyone else’s eyes, Jade stares unabashed ahead.

#jade leech #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #jade leech x reader #twst jade

45 notes · View notes

rainba · 9 months ago

Text

Stay Inside.

TWs/tags: death of animals, graphic violence, blood, mild gore (?), VERY dark content. Yandere.

AU/prompt where Luka and reader live alone together in a house surrounded by a forest.

Shout out to @ironicallyenraptured for inspiring me to make this! I couldn't get the idea of a creepy, more deranged side of Luka out of my mind. ╰(*´︶`*)╯

Reader is GN!

It keeps happening every night.

Hushed screams, gurgled cries, a gentle tapping at your window accompanied by howling winds. Every time the sun drops beneath the horizon and the moon rises into the sky, you feel a horrifying sense of dread begin to consume you.

Every night, Luka tells you the same thing. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ll protect you.”

“If you need me, I’ll be right here. Okay?”

His voice is always so calm and steady, so oddly warm and reassuring– you can’t help but nod and bury yourself in his arms. Every night, he always makes sure to hold you close. If he’s not cuddling you, it’s impossible to fall asleep.

You know deep down that Luka will do whatever it takes to protect you. When you’ve both been out in the wild, Luka has never failed to stave off predators that dare to hunt you two. Luka’s hearing is impeccable, his pink eyes are sharp, his reaction times are inhuman.

So just close your eyes… Everything will be okay. The noises outside are just that: noises outside.

When all of this first started out, things were relatively tame. Weird sounds, strange scratching at your windows, etc. There was no need to think too much of it.

But over time, things started getting… Weirder, to put it lightly.

Instead of faint markings, deep claw marks started appearing on the house’s outdoor walls. The trash can outside your property was always a disaster, your front door was starting to come off of its hinges, and the ghastly screams outside began to echo louder through the night. Paranoia started to creep into your mind– the once tame forest that surrounds you is now an endless sea of nightmares. A death trap, even.

What could possibly be out there in the woods? Is it a monster doing all of this? A pack of wild, rabid animals? A human...?

When Luka is away from the house, you can’t bear the thought of stepping outside. What if there truly is some sort of creature out there in the forest– a grotesque monster that’s waiting for you to go outside, waiting for you to be all alone and vulnerable? You don’t want to risk anything.

When Luka isn’t around, you can’t help but barricade the doors and lock all of the windows. The howls at night have grown louder still; the destruction of your property has spiraled out of control. You tell Luka over and over again that you feel unsafe, but he just plainly tells you not to worry about it.

“Nothing will hurt you when I’m next to you,” he whispers while kissing your forehead. “No creature will dare lay a finger on you.”

Typically, you manage to sleep without interruptions, never once waking up until the morning comes. However, there are some nights where you do wake up, and usually Luka is missing.

Groggily, you rise up from the bed and go searching for him, feeling unsafe when you’re not wrapped up in his strong arms. Most of the time, he manages to sneak out from around a corner, and he always asks you what you’re doing.

His gaze is sharper than normal– his tone dark and deadly serious.

“I just wanted to find you…”

When you mumble those words, he lightens up, and sighs.

“...Let’s get you back to bed.”

Luka will gently grab you by the hand and guide you back to the bedroom, tucking you in and lying beside you. He doesn’t leave until he knows that you’re asleep.

Somehow, things continue to get worse. There’s not just screaming outside anymore. There’re no longer just scratch marks on your house and trash sprawled out everywhere. No.

…Now there’s blood stains on your windows.

And decapitated animals scattered on your lawn.

The first time you discovered the innocent little creatures slaughtered on your property, you fell over and threw up. The smell was fucking awful. The sight was worse than anything you had ever seen in your worst nightmares.

Those poor animals– those poor, innocent animals. Your screams and cries were impossibly loud. When Luka came rushing to your side, his eyes widened in both horror and disbelief.

But… Something didn’t seem right with him. He looked shocked and disgusted, but he didn’t act like it. His voice was steady and calm, just like usual. His body never once trembled with fear.

Luka guided you from off the ground and hurried you back into the house, quickly shutting the door and setting you down on the living room couch. He rubbed your back and wrapped his arms around you, placing your face firmly against his chest. He hushed your cries and comforted you for countless hours.

All you wanted was for this to end.

The stress is eating you alive– you can barely function in your day-to-day life.

You can’t move out of your house– that simply isn’t an option. You can’t go out and search for whatever’s doing this, because you don’t have the strength to do so. The entire situation is so dire, and you’re just so incredibly helpless. But it’s okay… Luka will protect you.

You start to cling to him like he’s your savior.

“Don’t go outside. Ever.” He commands, his voice never wavering. “Whatever is out there can’t get you in here.” The certainty in his voice was reassuring… However, you couldn’t help but question him.

“H-how do you know...? How do you know that it won’t just break into the house?”

Luka’s ears twitch as his grip on you tightens for a split second. For a moment, he doesn’t know what to say– but eventually, he comes up with a reply.

“Do you trust me?” His tone is deadly serious.

He didn’t answer your question. But even so, you give him a nod.

“Then trust me when I say that it won’t come inside.”

After that exchange, Luka grabs a blanket for you and tells you to take a nap on the couch. He trudges outside and he cleans up the ‘mess’, then he cooks you your favorite meal, trying to take your mind off of things. For a few days after that, everything begins to calm down. The screams grow quieter, there’s no tapping at your window, and for a little bit, there’s a tranquil silence that settles into your home. It’s… Nice.

But good things never last forever.

On a random night, you’re awakened by a loud BANG.

It’s so loud that it leaves your ears ringing– you jump up out of bed and tears begin to form in your eyes. Luka is nowhere to be found.

You have no gun; you have no means to protect yourself. Your gaze darts left and right as you cry out for Luka, but you’re only met with silence.

The shrieking and crying outside your house are now louder than ever.

You don’t know what to do as adrenaline shoots through your veins, sending your mind and body into overdrive. You jump out from the bed and dash down the hallways, calling out Luka’s name over and over again.

Where is he–? Where could he possibly be? Is he okay?!

He’s not in the living room, he’s not in the bathroom, he’s not in the kitchen. When you reach the front door, your eyes widen in horror.

It’s completely broken off its hinges. There’s a large pool of blood at the entrance.

Is… Is the monster inside?

You call out Luka’s name even louder as you rush outside, your heart pounding in your chest. There’s not a single cloud in the sky. The forest is frighteningly dark. And the blood on the ground...? It’s trailing around the side of your house, leading directly to your trash can.

All of this is too much for your heart to handle. Without thinking, you follow the path of blood, tiptoeing and trying to hush your heavy breaths. You didn’t really know what to expect as you turned the corner.

…But what you saw was something you never would’ve predicted.

Sitting there next to the trash can, hunched over and drenched in crimson blood, is nobody other than Luka.

His pink fur is standing on edge. His eyes are glowing, his pupils are sharpened, and there’s a poor bunny squirming in his clawed hands.

And there’s flesh dangling from his mouth.

He looks up at you slowly.

“...I thought I told you to never come outside.”

Luka carefully rises from his position, dropping the innocent creature onto the soft grass below. The half-dead bunny is still kicking and twitching.

“Now you’re going to leave me, aren’t you?”

The shadow of his horrifying figure engulfs you. The moonlight behind him is shining so brightly, highlighting every curve of his beautiful body, highlighting the warm blood that stains his clothes. You open your mouth to reply, but no words come out.

“You think I’m a monster, don’t you?”

Your body is paralyzed with fear. You can’t say a thing. Is this... Is this truly the man you fell in love with? Is this the same man that swore to protect you... The one who holds you lovingly in his arms every single night?

Is... Is he the 'creature' you've been worried about all along?

With a sigh, he clicks his tongue.

“All I wanted was for you to never leave the house.”

And then… He smiles.

“If you step outside ever again, I can’t promise that I’ll be able to protect you from myself.”

#luka posting #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere x reader #yandere #yancore #im not extremely proud of this one but...#i thought i would share it anyways!!#yandere oc x reader

147 notes · View notes

bitterkarmaa · 5 months ago

Note

*stands ominously in your doorway*

HELLO THERE! I have some prompts for KC and Solar Flare and/or Eclipse to offer if i may because i'm having brainworms from when you said KC would adopt Solar JGKIFLGH

44. “This is not who you are. I know you better than that.”

69. “You don’t have to say anything, I’ll do the talking.”

71. “What did I do wrong!?”

(AGAIN i don't expect for all to be done or even any at all ahsfkfd just one if you feel up to it! Since i couldn't decide which prompt to choose so i'm leaving it to you gjdfkh)

I’m getting back into these I prommy 💔

“What did I do WRONG?!”

-KillCode, Eclipse, & Solar Flare-

The hallway seemed longer than usual. His footsteps echoed throughout the corridor in an almost haunting fashion, but it did little to deter him from his objective.

Moon had mentioned that things were going missing in the theater, and Eclipse was getting tired of convincing him, time and time again, that Blood Moon had nothing to do with it.

Besides, he needed to check in with him after…

He shakes his head so hard it rattles his sight, forcing him to blink a few times to clear it. He can’t think like that right now. It’ll distract him. Besides, Kill Code had to practically shove Eclipse out of the room after a day of his hovering, so surely he must’ve been fine if he had the strength to do such a thing.

But what if something has happened since I was last here?

Eclipse would never admit that he speeds up his pace after that thought, that his strides become longer and more pronounced. The jog to the door takes him little more than a few minutes with his increased pace, claws coming out to grasp the handle before he pauses.

He can hear talking coming from inside the room. He strains his audio receptors, trying to make out any words through the surface of the door.

He catches little more than the tone with which the voices speak in, calm and almost warm in nature. He hesitates far longer than he intends to, listening attentively to those voices mingling together in the room beyond.

One is Kill Code.

The other isn’t.

His claws close around the handle, shoving the door open with much more force than necessary. It crashes back against the wall with a SLAM that startles Kill Code and-

Eclipse narrows his eyes. Who the hell is that?

It looks like a fucking hedgehog.

Round marigold eyes stare back at him, curiosity clear on its face despite the fact that its mouth is held in a seemingly permanent grin, sectioned off by bars like a jail cell. Orange and yellow spikes of various shades protrude from its head, giving it the appearance of a cartoon character after a particularly intense gust of wind.

It stands just slightly shorter than Eclipse does, maybe half the height of Kill Code. Eclipse looks it up and down multiple times, studying it closely.

He’s so surprised by its close proximity to his father that he doesn’t immediately notice what is clutched in its hands, but when he does register it…

A stuffed animal. A grey stuffed animal with worn fabric and rough fur, carefully stitched together in places. A cute little black plastic nose, turned at an odd angle, haphazardly attached to its face as if having previously fallen off.

A single brown eye, clouded with age.

Eclipse lets out a rabid, guttural snarl.

“How dare you touch him-“

The scarred animatronic surges forwards with the ferocity of a wild animal, a crazed glint gleaming from the depths of his single functioning eye.

The smaller animatronic-hedgehog-thing makes no move to back away or beg for mercy Eclipse is surely not willing to give, instead standing with its head tilted slightly to the side, watching him approach in a calm manner.

But, before Eclipse can reach the intruder, Kill Code blocks his path. It narrows its eyes into glowing red slits, glaring down at its fuming son.

“Are you crazy?!” Eclipse hisses, one of his hands bolting out, grabbing hold of Kill Code’s arm, pulling him closer. The larger animatronic watches Eclipse carefully, but makes no attempt to pull away.

“Solar Flare will do no harm. Not to me, not to you, and not to your precious little wolf.” It quips, tone deadpan, borderline apathy dripping from its voice box.

“Fucking who?” Eclipse grits out through clenched teeth, his grip on his father’s arm tightening. Something wild and dangerous writhes in the depths of his gaze - a caged animal fighting tooth and claw to escape its prison.

Kill Code has seen it before. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

“Solar Flare.” It repeats, finally prying its arm free from Eclipse’s claws.

“That doesn’t explain much! Why is it here? What is it doing with Mr. Howls? Why was I not informed that Mr. Howls was here the entire time? Where the hell have you been hiding him?” The scarred black and amber animatronic starts firing off questions, earning a slightly disgruntled look from the beast that towers before him.

“Calm down. Your anger will not serve you well here.”

“You’re one to talk!” Eclipse fires back, taking a step closer to his father, if only to try and get past him. His attempt is thwarted by Kill Code shoving him back with a single hand.

“Stop. I mean it, Eclipse.” A warning hangs behind Kill Code’s carefully measured tone, leaning down to look his son directly in the eye. “Just as you once needed guidance, Solar Flare does, too. It’s unfair to judge before you truly know who they are.”

For a moment, all Eclipse’s anger dissolves into a sense of complete and utter disbelief. His gaze is lost, searching his father’s eyes for anything that may deny the conclusion Eclipse is slowly coming to.

His eye flits over to this ‘Solar Flare,’ those slender claws still curled so confidently around Eclipse’s old friend. It continues to look on quietly, unwilling to interrupt or stand up for itself in any way, shape, or form.

A coward. This thing is a coward.

Eclipse’s stare trails back to Kill Code’s unrelenting glare. Something is there, something in his eyes that Eclipse feels belongs to him, something that shouldn’t be felt for anyone else.

Protectiveness.

Kill Code is protective of that thing?

“Guidance? You…you’re guiding that thing?” Eclipse asks incredulously, a guarded edge to his voice.

“In a sense. The same way I guided you.” Kill Code confirms cautiously.

The fury comes back full force. “You mean the same way you raised me?”

He’s shaking now. His hands are curled into fists, white light glowing beneath his chassis. Cracks arc through his body, crawling up his neck, twisting down his arms.

Kill Code straightens himself out, letting out a calm hum. “I would suppose so. Is that a problem?”

Just saying ‘yes’ wouldn’t have been enough to portray the livid expression on Eclipse’s face. There was no word that could match his wrath.

“I never expected an act of betrayal from you.” Eclipse’s blind eye flickers to life, glowing a hazy marigold, slowly fading to a sharp, vibrant white. “Perhaps I should have.”

Am I so easily replaceable?

Kill Code watches him closely, noticing the changes to his appearance almost as quickly as they come.

He knows the Star’s influence when he sees it. It’s frighteningly hard to miss.

“I believe you’re misinterpreting this…” The former security bot begins with slight hesitance, taking a step back as his son, in turn, advances.

“No. No, I’m reading this loud and clear.” Eclipse’s voice twists, darkening even as The Star’s whispers brighten each mark it creates. He feels it whirring in his chest, warning him to stop, to back down, but he’s too lost to listen.

“Eclipse, listen to me! Solar Flare is not a threat to you!” Kill Code shouts, taking on a defensive stance despite his words.

Even as a manic grin spreads across Eclipse’s face, tears unmistakably gather in his eyes. He stalks closer. A wild animal, lost in the hunt, just as he was time and time again in a life he promised to leave behind.

“Threat? Threat?! Ha! I could crush that thing like a bug if I pleased! I’m not worried about threats anymore, father.” A crazed voice controlling infinite power, white streaks of light dancing between his claws. Oil foams at his mouth, his body crumpling under the pressure.

But he feels nothing. Nothing but rage and despair.

Those words have become so familiar to him.

Kill Code lets out a heavy sigh, shaking its head as if at a loss for words.

“In fact, it seems more like a pest than anything else.” The tone is tainted with disgust, flicking a claw off to the side in a lazy manner for emphasis. “Taking up your space, taking up your time…I can fix that. I can solve this little pest problem of your’s.”

Kill Code seems startled by the offer, but his expression hardens into cold resolve not long after. Apathy anchors him down.

“They’re not a problem. You, currently, are.”

Eclipse takes another step. “What’s changed? That’s all I’ve ever been to you, right? A problem? A nuisance? A distraction?” With every syllable, he gets closer, closing the distance in a tauntingly slow fashion.

Kill Code’s mouth falls into a faint frown. “I’ve never given that implication before. You scavenged that on your own, boy.”

He doesn’t even realize how much damage he’s caused. He doesn’t care.

Suddenly, Eclipse wants to be new again. Wants to relive the moments he spent with Kill Code leaning over his shoulder, watching him work, training him behind the scenes to protect the children if it ever became necessary for him to do so on his own.

Wants to be loved, without room for doubt.

His claws come up, hooking loosely, feebly, into the front of his vest, over the place where his scar hides. It aches fiercely, even as the raw power surges freely through his body. It crawls like ants beneath his plating, tingling in uncomfortable ways, wearing him down wire by wire, component by component.

It eats him alive, only to return that life to him so that it can repeat the process all over again.

Kill Code reaches out a tentative hand to his son, watching him closely, listening to his rapid breaths, borderline hyperventilations. He knows he’s made the wrong move moments before Eclipse reacts.

Those marigold, white-tinted claws come up, burning through the fabric of Kill Code’s sleeve effortlessly, digging into his wrist. The metal melts beneath his grip, the soft sizzling of the wires within following not far behind.

Kill Code retaliates on instinct, swiping his good leg low enough to knock Eclipse’s feet out from under him. Once he is off balance, Kill Code wrenches his arm free of his grasp, allowing him to collide harshly with the ground.

A paw is placed over his chest, enough pressure applied to drive the breath out of Eclipse’s vents, some of his strength ebbing with it.

His father glares down at him in cold disappointment. “I was not around to witness the cruelty that rumors say you wrought, but I understand where it comes from. I know it better than anyone else ever will. I made mistakes with you, Eclipse. But that doesn’t mean your tendencies have become a stranger to me. I wish not to pass these on any further. You don’t have the right to stop me from trying again.”

Eclipse leans his head back against the floor, tears flooding his eyes, warping his sight. He’s cried more in front of Kill Code than anyone else he’s ever known.

Those tears were his father’s fault, after all, and it seems that pattern has no intent to stop.

“What’s so wrong with me, huh? What’s so bad that you feel the need for a do-over, a second chance, a fucking redemption?” Eclipse’s voice slowly raises until it has become a shout of anguish, his charged emotions only further fueling The Star’s influence.

“WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!”

A sharp ringing is the only warning. It raises in pitch until it becomes unbearable, then abruptly cuts off as a loud BOOM echoes throughout the room.

Kill Code is thrown like a ragdoll, tossed aside with such ease that it almost seems impossible.

But The Star makes things possible. Like chucking an 11 foot animatronic across a large cement room.

Kill Code hits the ground with a resounding crash, rolling a few times before coming to a stop, lying still and silent.

But Eclipse isn’t done. He staggers to unsteady feet and begins to lumber across the room. The side of his body that possesses The Star is scorched and melted. His metal plating is bent backwards from the force of the blast, revealing smoking wires and sparking components.

He hovers over his father like a statue, oil slowly dripping to the floor at his feet.

He hadn’t intended to hurt him. He hadn’t intended to blow his arm off and melt it down to the endoskeleton, or completely shatter the casing around his shoulder.

His gaze slowly turns towards Solar Flare, of whom stands near the opposite wall with Mr. Howls still clutched in its hands.

“You…” Eclipse’s voice comes out as a distorted snarl, glitching and rattling. It cuts out at the end with the whine and crackle of a dying speaker, a few sparks flying from his voice box. The moment he begins stalking towards Solar Flare, the other animatronic, in turn, flees.

“I believe you are acting irrationally.” For the first time, it speaks, tone flat and unbearably standardized, as if those settings hadn’t yet been touched.

No matter. Eclipse doesn’t need its voice.

“I don’t care.” He says in equal measure, lifting his hand in a vague motion towards the door. The lock clicks and slides closed, deadbolt following suit.

“Oh no. You wish to harm me, don’t you?”

“No. I’m not going to harm you.” Eclipse watches the other bit skid to a stop, peering at him expectantly.

And he grins, reaching out towards it and closing his claws into a fist, a white crack crossing the floor faster than any being ever could. The crack seems to root itself in Solar Flare, dragging it closer to Eclipse as the deranged, broken and twisted animatronic makes a pulling motion with his hand. It struggles against invisible bonds, trying to free itself from his wrath.

But no one can fight The Star, and so, in turn, no one can fight him.

Marigold claws close around a surprisingly solid metal neck, that smile stretching, pupils nothing more than blazing pinpricks amongst an abyss of sadistic glee.

“I’m going to kill you.”

Then, with a strike as quick as the blink of an eye, the world goes dark.

20 notes · View notes

theheartofone · 8 months ago

Text

Steel in Her Veins, Chapter: Thirty-Seven

Read On: AO3 | Table of Contents | Next Chapter

Characters: Fem!Reader x Roronoa Zoro

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Washed Up

Kozuki Raya

I have to throw him into the lake, I tell myself again. Throw him in the lake, and the water will do its thing.

That’s what Aragnus said to do before he flew away, planting the rest of my crew and allies all across his thick back.

For the millionth time in that hour, he had to assure my enraged ass that he wasn’t going to harm anyone. That they were going to be taken to rest, and that I would be able to see them after dealing with Zoro if that would make me feel any better. Acting as if he wasn’t trying to obliterate me and everyone I knew only a mere minutes ago.

I stare down at Zoro. His entire body is paralysed, his arms and legs splayed on the floor like a dragged across puppet. I try to stifle down a smile as I look at the priceless reaction on his face. Oh, he’s definitely pissed off about the whole thing – and unfortunately for me, Zoro notices the weird contortion on my face.

“I swear if you start laughing, Tenguyama…” he grumbles.

Even though I do bite down on my tongue, I can’t help but teasingly cock my head. “Or what? You gonna suddenly jump right up and fight me?”

He calls me a not-so-nice name that I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear.

Whatever Aragnus did to Zoro… well, his body just wasn’t cut out for it. My small smile starts to fade as I think about that.

This is probably the first time I’ve ever felt afraid for his pain in the ass. And I didn’t like feeling like that.

It’s not like I’m doing this against my will. It’s the opposite, actually. When Franky offered to take Zoro off my hands, knowing I’m going through the worst identity crisis of my life, I had the audacity to bark back at him like a rabid dog.

I guess that sounds pretty on brand, with who I supposedly am, the incarnation of Retribution – whatever the fuck that even means. I can’t admit it to anyone else, but I’m scared. I’m really fucking scared about what that means about myself.

Do you even know who your mother is? Your father?

Aragnus’s weathered voice echoes in my head again, thrumming against the sore walls in my head. It infuriated me. Back then, he was toying with me, trying to pick at the gaps of my history with his enormous chicken claws. Provoking me to turn into a monster.

But Aragnus was right. Gramps, as much as I loved – no, love him - he’s still alive, Raya, don’t be an idiot, he was always so vague with his answers. He didn’t want to say anything, do anything, almost as if he was trying to fool the fates themselves.

Who really are my parents? Where did I even come from? I’m not sure I want to know anymore.

I frustratedly sigh out loud and force myself to take in my surroundings, trying anything to block out my thoughts. I can’t deal with these thoughts right now. I can’t.

I stare, my jaw clenching, at the trickling lake. A large body of surreal, illuminating water drifts within the cavern - yet another vast tunnel that connects to the rest of the Draconian colony - immediately making my body groan and claw desperately for its comfort.

I begin to tug at Zoro’s lean shoulders, drifting his paralysed body into the water with as much care as I can. He lays there silently, his eye staring up at the glittering stalactite ceiling. I let go of him, beginning to unfurl my pants that’s been cindered into pieces, buttons clinging onto them for dear life.

Zoro attention then crosses back to me when he hears a ruffle of clothing coming from my direction. He chokes on water, looking completely pale.

“What the hell are you doing?” he exclaims, making me yelp and jump in surprise. His alarmed voice takes all of the space of the hollow room, echoing over and over again until all I can hear is a dozen of aghast Zoro’s.

I annoyedly give him a look, my fingers pausing in the middle of unbuttoning my shirt. “What do you mean, what am I doing? Don’t you bathe with your crewmates?”

“Yeah, separately, we do.”

“Sorry, Roronoa, you’re so right. I’ll just let you wash your completely paralysed self first, with your completely paralysed hands, and then I’ll jump in straight after!” I muse sarcastically. “How about that?”

Zoro glares at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air. His frustration is palpable, but there’s not much he can do in his current state. I grin at him, sticking my tongue out.

He kisses his teeth. “Get in, then.”

“It’s not like you’re seeing anything new, anyway,” I mumble under my breath, slipping my half-burnt shirt over my head. My fingers go to my bra, my eyes awkwardly averting to the ceiling as I undo the last latch.

Zoro tries to maintain his angry face, but I can see the faint flush of colour creeping up his neck as he averts his gaze. His eye flickers back towards me occasionally, despite his best efforts to look uninterested, his jaw clenching and unclenching quickly.

“Damn it, Ray,” he mutters, his voice rough and strained. “I said, get in.”

“Okay, okay.”

And then I slip into the body of pure warmth.

When I tell you I can’t even describe in words how captivating this liquid felt against my skin, brewing within my bones, it’s a complete understatement. I gasp heavily, my cracked lips parting. It feels like hope kissing her lips my thighs, her arms reaching for my waist with a melancholic look in her eyes.

Zoro’s presence, however, still lingers like a wounded predator, drifting in the corner with his back facing down. His eyes follow me as I wade deeper, and I can sense his gaze lingering on me, assessing, calculating, perhaps doing something else I can’t put my finger on.

A thrumming waterfall behind me plays endless tricks with the light, casting restless shadows across Zoro’s face. His jaw glints like a sharp-edged blade, constantly refining the line connecting to his shoulder blades and the sinewy muscles running through his relaxed arms. Even the grassy curls that lay across his wet forehead look like they’re pulsating with new colour, more energy.

I tread towards him, not knowing what to say in the midst of the silence between us. All I can do is feel the water rush and lap over my bare body, my lips parting again from the tumult of sensations. Roronoa glares at me, his jaw clenching with restrained frustration, the muscles rippling beneath the surface of his skin like coiled springs waiting to be released. Every movement he makes is deliberate, controlled, yet there’s some sort of intensity that threatens to break free at any moment.

I can feel the heat radiating off him, from his breath, his skin overcome with streams of teardrops over the curve of his muscles, and I can’t help but lean closer to him. My wet brown curls snake over my bare shoulder, pressing across his chest like a string of unfurled ribbon. He releases a breath he was trying to restrain, which makes me suddenly hold mine in.

This is so… intimate. I haven’t even yet touched him, and yet the slightest touch of my hair on his skin feels like we’re breaking boundaries.

Neither of us wants to break the silence as we lay here, allowing the small trickles of waterfalls be the only source of sound within this large cavern.

For a moment, I tip my head backwards, feeling the heat of the liquid flow through me. I sigh dejectedly. This was a painful day. A stressful and a lonely one, to be honest. I’ve never felt so vulnerable and uncovered in front so many people until now.

I raise an arm from underwater, staring at the water that chases past the honey hue of my skin. And for the first time in a while, I notice that my skin is smooth. Bright. Full of life. No colourful bruises, no spurting blood, no torturous metal caging its way into my veins like some kind of hell-spawn.

I hold my breath as the image of myself flashes into my head.

I became light.

I transformed into some sort of thing in shades of gold and black, metal encasing my whole being as if that was my original form all along. My mind starts to race.

Retribution? What does that event equate to? A punisher? A torturer? A Goddess who demands revenge and destroys all for her personal gain?

All I’m missing is a scythe. Then I’d be the fucking Grim Reaper.

Gods, I’m a monster.

“Okay,” I snap out loud with my eyes closed, quickly plunging my arms back into the heat of the water. My voice echoes with no end within the emptiness of the room. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“You really don’t need to do this,” Zoro quickly says, his eyes trained on the ceiling.

I cock my head at him, frowning. “Come on. It was my fault for getting you into this.” I stare at his beautiful, tense face. “If only I’d shut my mouth and let that bird talk, I wouldn’t have put everyone in danger.”

“What you did was pretty fuckin’ stupid, yeah, but you weren’t making me do anything against my will.”

I shake my head, and finally decide to trace my fingers over one of his rough hands, my skin brushing against his delicious warmth. I cup some water in my palms, sifting some over his coiled, hard biceps and admiring the way the water beads off in harmony to his form. When all of a sudden, I feel his fingers curving over mine, catching my hand into a loose squeeze. I gasp a little.

“I wanted to fight that chicken freak so bad, you know,” Zoro breathes out heavily, his chest rising in reaction to my cold fingers. He’s trying his best to train his eye on the ceiling and not on my bare form that hovers above him.

I snort, cupping more water over his neck and shoulders. My hand doesn’t even manage to wrap even halfway around his bicep, so I decide to use both. My palms slowly ripple over his tense skin, lathering over each surface with silent admiration. “The both of us could’ve skewered him.”

“Given that damn cook something to barbeque.”

I laugh out loud. My burst of joy envelops each and every crevice of the cave, making Zoro’s mouth slightly twitch in return. “Well, you should be glad he wasn’t. You’d be stuck here, motionless, forever.”

There’s a defiant glint in his eye as he locks his gaze onto my face and says, “Would’ve been worth it.”

I lean towards him even closer, slightly drunk on the joy of the water. I hold my breath, taking a moment to stare at him and the thin sketch that runs over his other eye.

Wasn’t I supposed to hate him?

A few other green curls have found its way to rest over his eyes, the heat of the water tracing over his face in dewy drops. My fingers are itching so bad to touch more of him.

Snap out of it, Ray. What the hell am I doing?

I instantly turn away and busy myself with cleaning him up.

Zoro stares at me with an unreadable look as I focus only and solely on his neck. “You don’t need to do this,” he hoarsely says.

I hesitate, my fingers pausing right above his Adam’s apple. “I mean, if you’re so hell-bent on doing something, there is one way you could repay me.”

“And what’s that?”

“Um…” I swallow, avoiding his questioning stare. My fingers begin reaching for his warm chest, my palm softly drifting across his muscles on its own. I hear him take in a quiet, yet sharp breath as my fingers come into contact with his skin. His eye darkens instantaneously with an edge of wanting.

Obviously, that didn’t last for long as I release the next sentence from my mouth.

“Well, you mentioned somebody named Kuina.”

If a paralysed man could become even more paralysed, that’s exactly how Zoro reacts.

He doesn’t respond for a few moments, almost as if he’s brewing on what to say.

“What… about her?” He asks, his low voice warning me to tread carefully with the topic.

“The Kuina you knew served the Wado Ichimonji, right?”

He gave an approving grunt.

“Short hair? Blue?”

“Yeah.”

“Her dad own a dojo? Was she strong? Fucking amazing with swords? Was always a little bit defiant, but could still act all cool and collected when she had to? Did she—”

“You knew her.”

I pause. My chest feels tight as I force out a fake smile. “Small world, I guess.”

“You knew her,” Zoro repeats, still taken aback by the information. “How? When? But…”

I’m an actual fucking moron, then. I release a bitter laugh from my lips as my fingers clench into fists, resting firmly over his hard chest. Since when had I turned into this thoughtless air-head?

Because the Kuina I knew, the Kuina who would drag her Wado across the deserted fields of the island we would meet up on, would complain to me. How her father couldn’t see her as anything more than a female. That she had noticed herself, how her own limits were only multiplying; her breasts were forming, her body slowing its growth in height and strength. And.. And she’d complain about…

“She’d tell me how this one green-headed, snotty-nosed kid was always running up to her for a fight,” I mutter, my voice cracking. “She’d gloat about it, too. ‘Lil’ fry didn’t know what hit him when his sword flew across the room.’”

“She said that about me?” Zoro snaps.

There’s an uncomfortable silence after that. I can’t bring myself to reply, terrified that if I do, I’d probably just cry.

Zoro’s breathing is harsher now. I can tell just by staring at the way his chest is dramatically rising, trying so hard not to blow up.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe it was a mistake, digging up a part of Zoro’s past, because I’ve never heard him ever talk about his life before the crew in much detail. There must be a reason why he doesn’t.

I needed to know, though. Because no one in my life besides my Gramps knew about Kuina, and now knowing that someone else does… it makes her existence more permanent. As if she wasn’t a dream I made up all along, and now I can honour her more by knowing that.

Zoro’s still breathing heavily. “I’ve…never told anyone about her, not even to Luffy,” he mutters. “I can’t… I don’t even know how to deal with this. I didn’t even deal with her…” He stops himself, gritting his teeth hard.

I don’t know how, but I just knew what he was about to say.

He didn’t even try to honour her death.

“I guess that’s where you and I differ,” I mumble, furiously trying to suck in the tears back into my eyes. “I made my own small burial for her, with all the things she liked. Made this tiny-sized shitty dojo out of bamboo, with a sword-shaped locket I made for her placed beneath. There were pictures of us inside, acting like dumbasses in front of my snoring Gramps.”

I laugh out loud, my eyes glazing over. “Man, we attached balloons to his arms and threw darts at them until he woke up. Got into so much trouble with him that day…

And the Wado - it was supposed to be the finishing touch to her burial, you know. And maybe then, I’d honour her by wielding her sword later. But when her father told me that it was gone – given away…I was furious. Enraged. I screamed at him. Sobbed. I told him, who else deserved his daughter’s sword, besides him or…”

I stop myself, biting my lip hard until I feel blood seeping across my tongue. I was about to say, ‘someone who promised her they were forever sisters, regardless of blood.’

I shake my head, moving away as to hide my face from Zoro. “That’s why I hated you so much when you came to my shop, with those three broken weapons by your side. Not only did I think you stole Kuina’s possession, but defacing it like that, like it meant nothing…”

My voice breaks and I dejectedly let myself take a few breaths. I don’t have the heart to continue anymore, so I wait for Zoro to reply.

It’s unbearably silent. I don’t even hear him pause to say anything. The silence feels like an ending more than a continuance, and for some reason I feel dread run cold through my body.

I raise my head up to look at him, and my suspicions are confirmed.

Zoro shakes his head unforgivingly, glaring at me with hatred in his eye.

“What?” I ask.

I notice that his arms are moving by his will now, his legs drifting underwater to steady himself upright. His body’s slowly gaining back sensation. “Who are you, Raya?”

I freeze. I feel like a thousand poisonous daggers are raining over me, a tumult of all my worst fears stabbing me through my skin. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” he spits out. He steps towards me, making me stumble backwards until my spine hits the edge of the lake. “I never saw you at the dojo, meaning that every time Kuina said she was off for the weekend with her dad, she was seeing you. People don’t travel across islands to meet just anybody, Raya. So, who are you?”

I press my hand against his chest, forcing him to take a step away from me. I instantly turn from terrified to angry, scowling up at him with defiance.

“You answered your own question. I’m Raya, asshole.”

“Tenguyama Raya?” He pushes. I bristle, feeling his large hand cup over mine on his chest. He swipes it away and advances toward me, his gaze darkening. “That right? Or have you been lying to us the entire time?”

I can’t tell him. I can’t tell him, my mind furiously hisses, whispering over and over again the million different possibilities that could happen if I did reveal myself to them. I’m afraid that things will only get worse if he knows, what could happen to the crew if they all did figure it out.

A small part of me still doesn’t trust any of them. I hate that I feel this way, but it’s true. I don’t know who to trust, and frankly, I don’t want to be known as a Kozuki anymore. I want freedom from that cursed name.

“I’m…” I hold in a breath and furrow my eyebrows in irritation. “I’m just Raya. Can’t you just accept that answer and move the fuck on?”

“No. Not if you’re going to hurt my crew,” he simply says.

Hurt my crew. My crew.

I feel I’ve just been punched in the face.

“You don’t trust me.” I don’t pose it as a question, but instead say it matter-of-factly. I search his gaze and purse my lips. “You never did trust me, did you?”

He scoffs, leaning his head towards my face, his hot breath landing against my cheeks. “You think I want to be this close to you? You think I want to be spending my time, watching you, following you, like some sort of fucking dog? No, Raya, you don’t trust me either. Don’t be accusing me of distrust if you have it.”

I suddenly feel an odd sting to my eyes but I’m not sure why. Blood is rushing through me so quickly, and I’m immediately in a state of fury.

“You should’ve decided that when you kissed my hands, Zoro.” He stares at me with confusion, and I scoff, pushing him away from me. “That day, when I was losing blood and then passed out? I saw you. When you put me to bed, and before you left, you kissed my hands as I was bleeding from them. Why?” I wryly look at him when he doesn’t respond. “What, was that last minute guilt?”

Zoro's expression shifts, a mix of anger and contemplation flickering across his features as he meets my gaze. He considers my question. The silence stretches between us, thick with fury and fear.

Finally, he speaks, his voice low and measured, each word weighted with anger. "I did it because..." He pauses, as if searching for the right words. "To show you I’m not afraid of you."

He takes a moment to stand in front of me, his fist opening then closing by his side as if deciding whether to reach for me. He heaves out a frustrated sigh before turning his back to walk to the other edge of the pool.

I don’t move; I don’t look at him or try to even understand what he meant by saying that. The water trickles across multiple broken rocks, calmly fluttering into the lake with a discontented sigh, and all I can do is sink my shoulders deeper into the warm liquid, hoping that maybe it’ll wash even my memories away.

Zoro in the distance begins to dress himself, throwing on his shirt and pants with unnecessary aggression before grabbing at his two swords. He doesn’t offer a look back to me as he storms out of the cave, except he leaves me with a few parting words, the words that will stop me from going to sleep at night.

“You don’t scare me, Kozuki.”

25 notes · View notes