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mrworldwideshoulders · 3 years ago

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Absolute Zero || reader x JHS

Pairing: reader x JHS (kinda sorta not really? you’ll see); feat. Yoongi, Jin, JK, and Taehyung (very briefly) Word count: 5.5k Rating: rated M / R Genre: angst, smut (if you squint), breakup au Summary: Everyone thinks he’s crazy for still being hung up on you after this long, but he can’t stop thinking about the one who got away, spending his nights writing letters he’ll never send and words you’ll never read. Inspired by Talking to the Moon - Bruno Mars. Warnings: very angsty; you might cry a lil bit, strong language probably, implied smut/sexual content, alcohol consumption. A/N: hellooooo I am very excited to share my first fic with you! I love this one so much, like really, so much. It’s one of my favorites and idk if you can tell but I’m really proud of this one. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing, and let me tell you, I really enjoyed writing it. tell me your thoughts in the notes; I'd love to hear em! please be gentle though T_T shoutout to my bestest pal and actual sister @onmypillow-onmytable for this excellent banner and for beta-reading! Thx! ly - robyn P.S. I do not own BTS or their likenesses, nor do I own the music of Bruno Mars, lol, they simply inspire me.

part of the Hooligans collection

inspo playlist here

absolute zero: the lowest temperature that is theoretically possible, at which the motion of particles that constitutes heat would be minimal.

Dear y/n,

I keep asking myself why you left, and nothing I can come up with makes any sense. All I ever did was love you, y/n. What about that was so wrong? I know it wasn’t part of the agreement we had, but I never planned it this way. I couldn’t help my feelings. You have to understand that, y/n. I never wanted to push you away. I wanted to keep you close, and I couldn’t even do that.

I can’t stop myself from thinking about you every day. Wondering where you are. Where you went. What you’re doing. Your number doesn’t work. Your email’s been deactivated. It’s almost as if you’ve dropped off the face of the planet, y/n. Is that where you are? Outer space? You might as well be, as far as I know. I hope you’re doing all right, wherever you are. I don’t think I could live knowing something terrible happened to you. Maybe not knowing anything is better. Take care of yourself, y/n. Until we meet again.

Love always,

Hoseok

Hoseok blinks awake, startled out of a fitful sleep by some unconscious sensation of falling in a dream, stopping suddenly before he can hit the ground. They say dreams where you’re falling always stop before you can hit the ground, something about how if you die in a dream you die in real life too. He wishes the dream wouldn’t have stopped, wondering what it feels like to slam into hard ground, to shatter into a million little pieces, not knowing if someone will come along to sweep him up into a dustpan and piece him back together. He’s not familiar with the sensation. He only knows falling, perpetually, waiting in suspended animation, never reaching the ground. He reaches out a hand, only to find the spot next to him desolate and empty, illuminated in cold, bluish moonlight. The memories come rushing back to him all at once: the same vacant space where you used to sleep, of waking up alone, the same harsh moonlight spotlighting his solitude, a pale white envelope on the pillow next to him. His name, written on the outside in your delicate hand.

Hoseok, you wrote,

I know about the ring, and I guess I can’t say I’m surprised. You never even had to say it. It’s written all over your face every time I look at you: you love me. And you want to marry me. The wedding, the kids, the happily ever after, you want it all. You want too much from me, Hoseok, and I can’t give it to you. Our arrangement was simple: no feelings, no strings, no expectations. It was never supposed to go this far. I let my guard down too much, and I've already let you have too much of me. It was cruel of me to do that. I should have turned you down from the moment you asked me to dance because I knew in my heart I was only ever going to break yours: your sweet, gentle, loving heart. That moment, when you smiled at me and told me your name - that was it. I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t hold myself back.

I know it makes me a coward to do this while you’re asleep, but I can’t bear to see your face when I tell you I’m leaving, Hoseok. Consider this my first and last act of love. Please don’t come looking for me, because you won’t be able to find me. We won't meet again. You’re a good man, and you deserve someone who wants the same things as you, someone who can make you happy. That can never be me, and I’m sorry. I hope you find her one day. She'll be a lucky girl, whoever she is, to have landed a man like you. Treat her well. I know you will. I hope she does the same for you.

Do you know what the saddest part of this is? I think I really could love you someday.

Sweet dreams, Hobi.

-Y/n

He drags himself to his feet and crosses the room to the dresser, where he pulls out a small black velvet box and flicks it open. The platinum-diamond setting, costing a little more than three months’ worth of his paycheck, glitters in the moonlight with an unearthly sort of beauty. He’d never even gotten the chance to give it to you, only ever showing it to his best friend after he’d bought it. “Do you think she’ll like it?” he’d asked.

“Well, I mean, I’d say yes if you proposed to me with this,” Yoongi had said. “But…are you sure about this? Didn’t she tell you she didn’t want any hangups?”

Hoseok closes the box with a snap and drops it back into the drawer. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to get rid of it, thinking somehow he might need it again when you finally return. He heads out onto the balcony, pen and paper in tow. The air is quiet, the world below still tucked under the dark covers of somewhere just after midnight, when the full moon is at its brightest.

Dear y/n,

It’s a full moon tonight. I never thought about them before I met you, they were all just something that happened in the background. You always reminded me when they were supposed to happen, and you told me they all meant something different depending on the month. I think it was the cold moon when you left. It’s May now, that’s the flower moon. It doesn't really matter anyway. Every full moon feels cold to me now. It’s stuff like that I can’t forget, you and the names of those moons. Can you see the moon from where you are? Is your moon the same as mine? Nights like these are when I miss you the most, y/n, when the full moon rises and you’re not here in my arms. It’s starting to get warmer now, but everything still feels cold without you. You said you thought you could love me one day, y/n. Why didn’t you stay and find out? I just can’t wrap my head around it. I have all of these questions and I don't know if I'll ever find answers. I wish you had stayed, at least long enough to explain it to me.

Take care of yourself, y/n. Until we meet again.

Love always,

Hoseok

He meets up with his best friend for lunch the next day, though he doesn’t do much except pick at his food. Yoongi watches him intently, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Aish, just leave it if you’re not going to eat it,” he says, frowning.

Hoseok sets down his chopsticks and shifts his gaze to stare out the window. Food doesn’t hold much appeal for him anymore, not since you left. Nothing does, really.

“What do you think about going on a blind date?” says Yoongi. “I was talking to one of the waitresses at that new club I was spinning at last week. She’s pretty, seems nice. Seems like you two have a lot in common. I think you might hit it off. I’ll give her your number if you want, next time I’m over there.”

The idea of meeting someone new is almost too much to consider. How could he even think about going out with someone else when you might come back any day now? Hoseok shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Thanks, but…I can’t right now.”

Yoongi sighs and goes silent for a moment. “It’s been six months since she left. You can’t go on like this forever. It’s delusional."

He shrugs, smiling sadly. “Not yet.”

His mother is there when he gets home, the only person other than you and his best friend who knows his apartment code. She comes by almost every other weekend to fill up his refrigerator with leftovers and side dishes, fearing he doesn’t know how to eat properly when she’s not there to cook for him. She doesn't like any of it: that he lives alone, that she can't always be there to look after him, that he took a job here after college instead of moving back home. “Hoseok, I was noticing…” she starts, after they’ve greeted each other. “These are the same dishes I brought you last time. You haven’t eaten them yet?” She gestures at the dishes on the top shelf of the fridge.

“No,” he says. “Just haven’t gotten to them, that’s all.” He doesn’t like to worry her. How could he say that not even her cooking does anything for his lack of appetite? She wouldn’t understand. She never even knew you existed. All she knows is that she has a son who won’t eat her cooking.

"But you’re so thin. Are you sure you're eating properly?" His mother reaches up to touch his face, pinching his cheek. "You look like you’re wasting away.”

“Of course I have,” he deflects. “I’m fine.”

She eyes him skeptically. “Really? You seem so depressed these days. And you won’t tell me what’s going on. I’m worried about you. You’re not overworking yourself, are you? You look exhausted.” His mother pauses, biting her lip. “Why don’t you come home for a bit and let me take care of you? I’m sure your father would like to see you too. It must be tiring, living in the city all by yourself. Some time in the country would be good for you.”

“Everything is fine,” he reassures her, though he’d like nothing more than to spend a week or two at home in Gwangju, where there’s nothing to remind him of you. “There’s a big project at work, and the client’s being difficult, so things are just…kind of rough right now. But I’ll get through it.” It’s surprising how easily the lie makes its way out of his mouth. “I’ll come home soon. I promise.”

She still looks dubious, but she goes to depart regardless, making Hoseok swear he’ll have empty dishes ready for her to take back the next time she comes. He watches her leave, longing to fall into her arms and explain everything. There was a girl. I loved her. I only wanted to make her happy. But she left me, and I can’t understand why. It hurts. It hurts so much. Nothing feels right without her. Tell me it gets easier, Mom. Tell me one day it won’t hurt as much. Would she understand? No, she wouldn’t. No one could ever understand.

Dear y/n,

My mother came by today to bring me food. I’ve told her a thousand times I’m an adult and I can take care of myself, but I don’t think she’ll ever get over wanting to feed me all the time. She’s worried about me. I think she thinks I might be losing it. She wanted me to come home for a while, out in the country. That would be good, wouldn’t it, y/n? I always wanted to bring you there sometime, to show you where I grew up. Gwangju is nice. You would have liked it there. I would have taken you there someday, introduced you to my friends and family back home. I wish you would have let me introduce you to my parents. My sister, too. They would have liked you if they’d ever gotten a chance to meet you. We were always so secretive, y/n. They never even knew we were together.

Yoongi says I’m just deluding myself, that you’re not coming back. Everyone else says the same thing too: Jin, Taehyung, Jungkook, all of them. But I can’t make myself accept that. What does someone like Jungkook know about love, anyway? He’s practically a baby. He’s probably never even been in love before. Y/n, sometimes I wonder if you can hear me as I’m writing these letters. Are you out there somewhere, listening to me? Are you out there talking to me too? Are we still connected somehow? I’d like to think we are. That’d be nice. Better than the alternative.

Take care of yourself, y/n. Until we meet again.

Love always,

Hoseok

Hoseok can't remember how long he's been here, or how long he's been drinking. He's lost count of which drink he's on. He's not even quite sure where he is, though he knows it’s a bar of some type. Sounds and voices swirl around him, fading in and out, muffled, rippling, as if he’s deep underwater. He squints at the barstool next to him, thinking, if he focuses hard enough, that he can see your figure next to him, leaning against the bar, in the dress you were wearing when he first saw you. He remembers that night, far more clearly than he should. Seeing you across the crowded dance floor. Only introducing himself because his friends had dared him to, saying how far out of his league you had to be. Your smile, something sad behind it, even then. Back up against the wall as he fumbled with the door to his apartment, struggling to keep your hands off each other, the two of you stumbling down the hall in the dark leaving a trail of clothes in your wake, shoes kicked off, that dress abandoned somewhere in the living room, his jacket slung haphazardly over a chair, until you finally made it to the bed, fully exposed, your bare skin practically iridescent in the light of the full moon, beckoning him closer. Losing himself in you, in your body. Passionate moans and breathy sighs. Your breath on his ear, whispering his name, your voice sending shivers down his spine. Waking up the next morning with you curled into his arms, head resting against his chest, as if you were always meant to be there. Your hair, your eyes, your smudged makeup from the night before, everything about you - perfect. He's gone back to that night a thousand times, relived those moments over and over in his mind, wishing with everything in him that he could go back in time to keep himself from ever seeing you, from ever daring to speak to you. To satisfy the part of him that wishes he had never met you, and to hell with the part of him that never regretted a single moment.

As soon as he reaches out to touch you, your image evaporates, dissipating like a reflection on smooth water. “Y/n,” he mumbles. “Where did you go?” He rests one cheek against the cool surface of the bar, lulled by the warm feeling of the alcohol and the swishing sound thumping in his ears. I don’t want to be alone, he thinks. Please don’t leave me alone. A warm, comforting black blanket sweeps over him, blocking out the sound and light from around him.

He becomes aware of reality again when he notices the feeling of someone shaking his arm. “Hey,” sounds a voice in his ear. “Hey you, wake up.” He slowly comes to, sitting up and looking around. The bartender who’s been serving him all night is leaning on the counter, arms crossed. Her face is a mixture of resigned annoyance, as if she’s had to deal with this one too many times. “It’s last call,” she says. “We’re closing. You want to close your tab, or what?”

“Go ahead,” he says, sitting up and dropping the side of his face into his palm. She walks off and returns moments later, sliding a receipt across the counter to him.

“Are you going to be all right to get home?” she asks. “Do you want me to get you a cab? Or is there someone I can call for you?”

Y/n, he thinks. “No,” says Hoseok. “Don't worry about it. I'll be fine.” He stands up and immediately stumbles.

“Okay, you’re not going anywhere,” says another voice, one that sounds familiar. Yoongi pulls Hoseok’s arm over his shoulders and steadies him. “Come on, I’ve got you.”

“Yoongi?” he slurs. “What are you doing here?”

“You drunk-dialed me, remember?” says Yoongi dryly. “Well, no, I don't guess you'd remember. That was a while ago. I thought you'd have gotten home by now.”

He doesn’t say anything, allowing Yoongi to drag him along.

“You really gotta stop doing this,” Yoongi grumbles.

“What, drinking alone?” Hoseok chuckles goofily, reaching out his index finger to poke Yoongi in the cheek.

“No,” Yoongi says, slapping his hand away. “Whatever this is. Beating yourself up over every little thing. Drinking until you pass out. I’m your best friend, Hob-ah. You know I’ll be there whenever I can, but I can’t always be there to drag your sorry ass back home. I have my own life too. The one time I don't pick up my phone you’re going to get so pissed drunk you’ll wander out into the middle of the street and get yourself hit by a bus or something, and you won’t even notice.”

“You worry too much,” mutters Hoseok. “You should get together with my mom.”

Yoongi sighs and doesn’t say anything else until they’re home, releasing Hoseok to fall onto the couch. “Probably fucked up my shoulder even more just dragging you home,” he complains. “Fuck, I can’t deal with this anymore. I don’t know how you can either. She’s gone. Not coming back. It’s the truth. You need to accept that. The sooner you do the sooner we can all get on with our lives. You'll never be able to move on if you're just sitting here wallowing in the past and what might've been.”

“I can’t,” he mumbles. “It hurts too much. If she'd given me a chance—”

“What? You could have changed her mind? Gotten her to stay?” Yoongi sits down on the ottoman across from him. “Hobi, I hate to break it to you, but you couldn’t have stopped her from leaving any more than I could have. She knew what she wanted. You knew, too, and you still let yourself fall for her. She was always going to leave because you were always going to let your heart get involved. That’s just the kind of person you are. It wasn't a matter of if, it was just a matter of when. You were never cut out for that kind of relationship, and I don’t know why you insisted on pretending like you were. You wouldn’t have been happy with that kind of arrangement in the long run, and if you think I’m wrong you’re just lying to yourself.”

He lets that sink in. Yoongi is wrong - he’s sure of it. He would have been happy. You could’ve been, too. Things could have changed - he could have made you happy. “Get out,” says Hoseok, rubbing his eyes. “Just…leave me alone. Please.”

Yoongi stands up. “Fine. Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He lets himself out, allowing the door to slam behind him.

The room suddenly feels unbearably small and stuffy, and deafeningly silent now that he's alone again. He stumbles his way over and out to the balcony, gasping slightly as the cool evening breeze lands on his flushed cheeks. The moon is in a different phase now, waning from the full in preparation for the new. Even so, the stars seem somehow brighter tonight. He stares up, transfixed by the sky, every star where it’s supposed to be. Every star except you, the one that’s supposed to be right next to him. He allows himself to get lost in the starfield, hoping to find some indicator that you're still out there, that you've simply fallen out of orbit and gotten lost somewhere out in space, just like he is now, drifting through, waiting for someone to reach out and grab your hand and pull you back toward them.

That's the last thing he remembers when he comes to the next morning, early, as the sun is making its way into the sky again, sitting upright in one of the chairs he leaves on the balcony. His neck is stiff, his back is sore, his head is pounding angrily, and his search for you in deep space was once again unsuccessful. He hears the sound of birds, of the early morning buses, feels the sunlight on his face, smells the scent of a spring morning in Seoul. All of it only serves as a reminder that he's here, alone, without you. You're not lost in space. You're not here. You're not anywhere. You're somewhere far away, beyond his reach or anyone else's. You're not his anymore.

Maybe you never were.

Dear y/n,

You said you couldn’t be the one to make me happy. If that’s the truth, then why do I feel so empty without you? Why does the world feel so cold when you’re not here? I was happy with you, y/n. You didn’t even have to try to make me happy. As long as you were there, I was happy. That’s why I wanted to marry you. To have you by my side for the rest of my life was all I ever wanted. It would have been enough just to wake up next to you every morning, to hold you close, to look into your eyes and see you when you’re groggy and half-asleep. For you to be the one I came home to every night, to be the only one I’d ever be with. If I could have had that, I would have been happy for the rest of my life.

But maybe you were right. Maybe I was asking too much. Maybe I wanted too much. You weren’t ready. I know that now. But y/n, I would have waited forever if you asked me to. I could have been patient. We would have figured it out together. I know I could have made you happy too, if you’d only given me a chance. Since you cut me loose, I’m just drifting around, lost in space. I’ve tried to forget you. It's been six months. By all logic I should have already forgotten you and moved on by now. But I can’t. I tried to drink you away, but I couldn't. It only made your face clearer in my mind. I still see you everywhere I go. What am I supposed to do now, y/n? When my heart still aches for you, even though you’re the one who broke it? When all the alcohol in the world couldn't even make me forget you? What am I supposed to do now? I don’t just miss you, y/n, I need you. I hate you, but I still need you. What sense does that make?

I'm sorry. My head is pounding. I'm going to bed now.

Hoseok

He’s preparing for another night in when there’s a sudden pounding at his door. Half expecting you, or god forbid, Yoongi, he opens it, finding Jin and Jungkook outside instead, and he can’t help but feel a tad disappointed, though admittedly his friends are a welcome sight. He can barely remember the last time he even saw Jin or Jungkook or any of them other than Yoongi, to be honest.

“See, I told you he was in there,” says Jin cheerfully, shooting Jungkook a sideways glance. “He barely goes anywhere these days. And he always opens the door when he knows it’s me. Isn’t that right, Hobi?” He pushes his way past him, clapping Hoseok good-naturedly on the shoulder.

“What do you guys want?” he says, following them into the kitchen. Jungkook is perched on one of the barstools while Jin leans against the counter.

“Yah! Who says we’re here because we want something?” demands Jin indignantly. “The restaurant gave me the night off for once so we’re going out. We wanted to stop by and say hello, that’s all. Can’t we say hello to our friend that we haven’t seen in a while?”

“Hi,” says Hoseok. “So where are you headed?”

“We’re meeting Taehyungie at that club downtown,” replies Jungkook. “That new one Yoongi-hyung keeps talking about. We thought we'd finally go check it out.”

“Oh.” He hasn’t been out to a club since before you left. “Have fun then, I guess.”

“Well, if you’re not doing anything…” Jin says, looking at Hoseok pointedly.

“Yeah!” Jungkook’s face brightens noticeably. “Come out with us, hyung. Please?” With his big, earnest doe eyes, he looks so innocent that if it weren’t for his muscled arms no one would ever believe he was a professional MMA fighter. “We haven’t gone out together in ages.”

“Yeah, Hobi, come with us,” pipes Jin. “We never see you. You don’t go out anymore. And you’ve been so down ever since…” He hesitates when he sees Hoseok’s face. “Well, all I’m saying is that you deserve to have some fun. Live a little. You know?” He sidles up next to him, nudging him gently with his elbow. “Come on, let’s do something together. You used to love going out. Things haven’t been the same without you. And you know Kookie will desert me the second he gets a better offer anyway, like he always does. You should come. Keep me and Tae company.”

“I don’t do that every time!” protests Jungkook.

"Almost every time," retorts Jin. He turns back to him. “Please? We miss you, Hobi. Not just because you don’t go out anymore, but the way you used to be. You’re so mopey these days. I don’t think I’ve seen you smile in months. Yoongi says you’ve been drinking by yourself a lot lately, too. If you’re going to drink tonight, why don’t you do it with us instead of sitting here drinking by yourself? We’re a lot more fun than you are right now. I guarantee it.”

It’s true, it has been a long time since he’s gone out, or even spent any time with his friends. He used to like going out on the weekends, drinking for fun, not to forget. He's not sure he remembers how to do that anymore. “I don't know," he says, looking down. “I probably won't be much fun. You'd be better off going without me.”

"All the more reason you should come," Jin says. “You're just out of practice, that's all. You won't be any fun if you don't at least try." He drops a hand on his shoulder. "So what do you say?"

Hoseok ponders this for a moment. Is it too soon? Are his friends right? Does he deserve to have fun? Should he just do as Yoongi says and get on with his life?

"Yeah," he says finally. "Why not? I'II come.”

The club is louder than he remembers: almost too loud. He finds himself wishing partly that he'd stayed home where it's quiet, the drinks are already paid for, and he can hear himself think. Although, the other part of him thinks that maybe it's a good thing he can't hear himself think, and he wonders why he didn't try this sooner. Maybe he would have forgotten you before now if he had. Taehyung has already paired himself off with a woman who looks like she belongs on a runway, and the ever-charming Jin is surrounded by a clump of girls – and guys – in another corner of the dancefloor. Jungkook has disappeared too, although to where he’s not sure. So much for doing something together. He sighs and keeps his spot by the bar.

Someone approaches, a girl in a tight black dress and stiletto heels, her face framed in S-curls. “Hi there,” she says “You look lonely.” She smiles invitingly. “I can keep you company, if you like.” She’s pretty, like a member of one of those idol girl groups. She looks nothing like you - her eyes don’t have that same sadness that always seemed to be behind yours, and her smile seems genuine, whereas yours always seemed a little feigned. Her dress is far shorter than you ever would have dared to wear yours, just barely covering the tops of her thighs.

He hesitates for a moment, before saying, “Sure.”

She takes the seat next to him. “My name’s Jihyo,” she says. “Yours?”

He downs the last of his drink. “Hoseok.”

Jihyo leans in, and he can’t help but glance down at her chest, her arm pressing her breasts upwards. She’s hitting on him; that’s obvious enough. “You’re cute, oppa. But why do you look so sad?”

The question catches him off-guard. “What?”

“Let me guess,” she says. “You just got out of a relationship, didn’t you?”

Was it ever really a relationship? Or was it just an arrangement? “Something like that,” he says finally.

“Me too,” she says. “About a week ago.”

“I never would have guessed,” he says, and he wouldn’t have, not with the way she’s acting.

“I’m a good actress.” Jihyo grins. “Besides, he was all wrong for me. I’m over it - mostly.” She looks him directly in the eye. “What about you, oppa? Are you over her?”

She’s bold. He’ll give her that. “No,” he says. “Not in the slightest.”

“Do you want some help with that?” Jihyo smiles mysteriously. “People say I’m very… therapeutic.”

He knows exactly what she’s asking. “Your place or mine?” he says automatically, before he knows what he’s doing.

“Yours is fine,” she says. “I have roommates. You live alone, right?”

He doesn’t even want to know how she figured that out.

Jihyo is gone by the time he wakes up the next morning, leaving not even a single trace of herself behind, other than a scrap of paper she’s left with an almost indecipherable scribbled phone number. He realizes, as the sunlight is creeping into his room, that this is the first morning he hasn’t automatically thought of you the moment he woke up. The first morning where the light of day isn’t as painful as it was the day before. He has to hold himself back from immediately entering her number into his phone to tell her good morning, to ask her if she got home all right, that he would have given her cab fare if she’d asked. In all likelihood he’ll probably never see Jihyo again. So none of that really matters now, does it?

Jin: Yah! Where did you run off to last night without telling us? You’re as bad as Jungkookie now! Hoseok: Me? What about you? You deserted me first. Whatever. I had fun at least. Let’s do something again the next time you’re free. Jin: Yeah! Let’s do it!

He tries it again the next night, bringing home another girl, with another short dress and a different name. This one wants to hang around and talk in the morning, instead of vanishing silently while he’s asleep like Jihyo. He wishes she wouldn’t, that she’d quietly get her things and be on her way out. He’s relieved when she’s finally gone. She talks too much, which is good in bed but nowhere else.

It gets easier, eventually. Every morning, he notices, becomes a little less painful. He’s finally figured it out, he thinks. The answer to the question of what to do to forget you. A different woman for every night you’re gone, from here on out, until the day comes where it doesn’t hurt so much to face the truth, that you’re gone and never coming back. Where he doesn’t automatically wonder where you are or what you’re doing, or whether you still think about him. He stops writing you letters eventually too, tucking the sealed envelopes into a shoebox, along with the tiny velvet box he never found it in himself to get rid of, and all the other little things that remind him of you. The shoebox makes its way onto the top shelf of his closet, where it won’t be thought of again for a long time. The next time his mother comes into the city he sends her back home with empty dishes, having finished off every leftover. He finds himself smiling again, now that you’re not constantly on his mind anymore. He feels lighter. Like he could be happy again without you.

It’s true, dwelling on the past will only hold you back. The only way out is forward. Yoongi was right about that, at least. But in the end, it was you who taught him the most valuable lessons: to keep things short and sweet, to stay detached, to keep your heart closely guarded. He knows this now. Everything that ever reminded him of you is gone, but the scars on his heart will always be there, a silent reminder of a mistake he’ll never make again. Falling for someone, allowing them to hold your heart in their hands, even for only a brief moment - only ever ends in heartbreak. Hearts are fragile, slippery things, and they’ll always end up sliding out of your hands, fracturing into a million little pieces, too small and too delicate to be put back together.

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yellowocaballero · 4 years ago

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Jon's Trapped in Temporal Time-Out: A TMA Time Travelling Tale

Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.

Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him.

“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”

Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”

Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary.

The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”

“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”

Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”

I kept on bitching about how much I dislike the beginning scenes of TMA time travelling AUs so my friend @lazuliquetzal (who wrote the best TMA time travelling fic in the fandom) told me to put my money where my mouth is. It’s nowhere near her level, but in my defense it’s probably even stupider than Reflection. 10K of stupid under the cut.

Sasha was tipping some whiskey from her secret flask into her tea when Tim poked his head into the breakroom and announced that he had found a corpse.

Sasha and Martin, hunched over their paltry lunches and pathetic lives situated upon a rickety metal breakroom table and equally rickety metal chairs, stared at him.

“Like,” Sasha said finally, “a human one?”

Tim shrugged. “Humanoid? I didn’t want to poke it and see if it was fleshy, so I guess the jury’s out.”

Hm. Sasha put her flask away. The day was no longer boring, so it was unnecessary.

The most relevant questions ought to be asked first. “Should we tell Jon?”

“He might throw a bitch fit about how corpses are unhygienic, so no?”

Martin drained his tea and stood up from the rickety metal chair, resigned. “I’ll get the broom.”

****

There was, indeed, a corpse in the Archives.

More specifically, in the stacks. The worst place to die, or least be dumped. Sasha had to admit the logic of it: it was the darkest depths of the library that Martin had informed her was ‘somewhat creepy’ and ‘kind of ominous’ so ‘please stop sleeping there you’re going to give me a heart attack’. After Martin flipped on a few lights that were never flipped on (apparently Elias was a cheapskate, which explained the breakroom) they could all gawk at the corpse to their heart’s content.

Very kindly and thoughtfully, Tim asked Martin if he wanted to stay out of the library and maybe to ‘tell someone’ or something. Both Sasha and Tim had mutually and silently agreed that Martin seemed the type to have a delicate constitution. Granted, he hadn’t seemed the type to win Magnus Anarchist every month by breaking into abandoned buildings with absolutely no shame, so maybe he was the kind that surprised you.

But Martin had just looked a little unimpressed. “Do you seriously think this is my first corpse? I went to university.”

That somewhat intimidated Sasha, who abruptly worried that she had missed out on an essential university experience again. “Is that a typical university experience?”

Martin paused a beat.

“Uh,” he said, “yeah, sure, of course. Hazing, you know.”

“Is that what hazing…?”

“Fraternities.”

Tim, from where he had been standing at the entrance to the stacks snapping on the sterile gloves he had liberated from the cleaning supply closet, looked delighted. “You were in a frat too, Martin? What kind of hardcore frat had corpse hazings? Was it the Sigma Gammas? My frat always thought they were way too crazy, but we were a business one -”

“You know what,” Martin said, “let’s just worry about the corpse.”

After Sasha tied her hair in a ponytail and Martin snapped on his own gloves, they awkwardly approached the aisle where Tim had been trying to find a reference book for Jon. Sasha was worried that they would have to hunt for it a little, or that there would be a bad jump scare, but when they found it she saw that it wasn’t subtle at all.

It was sprawled on the ground, face mashed into the cheap and somewhat gross carpet. Sasha approached it with absolutely no hesitation, which Tim and Martin gladly let her do, and squatted down to get a better look at the figure.

She definitely needed to make a coroner’s report. She was the objective expert in coroner’s reports.

“Tim, can you run back and get one of Jon’s silly little tape recorders for my coroner’s report?”

“Did you just see that on the telly?” Tim asked skeptically. “Because if you did -”

“Oh, here one is. That’s really convenient!” Martin grabbed one off the shelf and pressed play, letting the tape roll. “Good idea, Sasha. We need proof to Jon that we were researching.”

Probably...not what Jon meant for them to be researching, but Sasha liked to believe that it was the intent that mattered. She pulled a pencil out of her pencil skirt pocket, poking the figure thoughtfully. “Report by Sasha James, Archival Assistant.” There, now it was work. “At 1:30pm today, Tim Stoker discovered a corpse in the Archives, thereby referred to as John Doe -”

“Do we have to call it John Doe?” Tim complained, standing next ot her and crossing his arms. “Then we have too many Johns, it’ll get confusing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sasha said dismissively. “Ours is Jon, this guy’s John. Completely different.”

“Sasha, I’m not sure that’s how words work.”

“What are you, an English major?”

“Yes! I was an editor for a living!”

“Sorry if I don’t listen to guys who were fired from book editing school -”

“Uh,” Martin said, “have we checked to see if he’s actually dead?”

Sasha and Tim fell silent. Sasha looked at Tim. Tim shook his head.

“Seriously, mate?” Sasha asked, unimpressed.

“I didn’t want to touch the corpse!” Tim cried. “So sue me! It’s not as if he’s moving!”

Pussy. Sasha gently reached out and pushed aside a little of the corpse’s very long and pretty curly hair. What was that, 3C? Jesus, that had to be work. Sasha was 3A and the amount of hair care products she owned was insane.

She waved her hand at the boys for silence and put her thumb against his pulse, concentrating hard. Martin quietly walked over and crouched down too, eyeing his chest.

“I don’t feel a pulse,” Sasha said finally.

“Also, uh, I’m not a doctor,” Martin said, “but he’s definitely not breathing.”

“I told you,” Tim said defensively. “You just look at the thing, and you go - yep, that’s a corpse!”

“Corpse appears to be an ethnically ambiguous adult man with very nice hair,” Sasha said loudly. Martin helpfully held out the recorder to catch her voice better. “Maybe 190cm. Incredibly skinny - potential cause of death. He’s dressed in...some very ratty clothing. Potentially homeless.”

“It definitely smells,” Tim said, pinching his nose. Sasha didn’t blame him - the clothing was an overlarge green hoodie, ratty and threadbare, and his jeans weren’t any better. His boots were worn and soft leather. “Maybe he’s a homeless guy who snuck in and died?”

“That’s so sad,” Martin said softly. “Also a little gross.”

“Have some respect for the dead, guys,” Sasha said, as she poked the dead guy with a pencil. “Tim, go flip him over.”

Tim held his hands up, stepping away. “I couldn’t possibly. Martin loves flipping people over.”

“This again?” Martin asked, frustrated. “This is just like when you made me handle the Rawlings case because you’re scared of the suburbs!”

“They have too many eyes, Martin!”

“I am surrounded by cowards,” Sasha noted for the recorder. Nothing for it, then. Sasha carefully straightened, wobbling on her heels, before solidly wiggling her hands underneath the corpse’s chest. He was cold - dead a while.

It was surprisingly difficult to flip over a limp adult man. Sasha was strong, but the corpse’s flesh was weak, and he was all floppy. Eventually Tim got over himself long enough to help her, making a very disgusted face the entire time, and they were able to finally get a good look at the man’s face.

Abruptly, upon seeing it, they all quieted.

There was something about seeing a man splayed out on the ground that was a little funny, if you worked for the Magnus Institute and had probably encountered a Leitener two years ago and lost all empathy. No more impediments in the search for science. But there was something very different about looking at a person, who had a nose and lips and a very ratty hoodie, and knowing that it was no longer a person. Just a lot of cloth and meat and blood and organs and nice hair that once was a person, back when things were easier and the world was a little less harsh.

But maybe Sasha was caught by sentimentality: after all, the corpse looked a little like Jon.

Judging from the stunned faces of her compatriots as they all bent around the figure, they all thought the same thing. Tim’s jaw was open, and Martin’s hand was covering his mouth in shock.

“Man,” Tim said. “This sucks. And it’s really creepy.”

“He must have been really gorgeous,” Martin said. “That’s so sad.”

Actually, Sasha tilted her head and took another look. He had sharp and severe features, elegant and striking. A large and thin, sharp nose, and equally sharp lips. His face was just as sharp and gaunt, as emancipated as the rest of him. He had strange scars trailing up his neck and curving around his jaw, but it just kind of accentuated the intense atmosphere.

It was probably a pretty stupid thing to focus on, but in her defense it wasn’t really the face of a homeless guy. Well, maybe. Hot homeless people existed.

Sasha frowned. She’s only met one other person this hot.

“Hey,” she said, “doesn’t he look like Jon?”

Both the men titled their heads.

Finally, Tim said, “Nah, he’s hotter.”

“Agreed,” Sasha said. “I think the scars really do it.”

“Uh, guys,” Martin said.

Sasha grabbed her tape recorder out of Martin’s hands, resuming her coroner’s report. “Subject appears to be in his thirties. Weirdly attractive, but that’s probably not as important as we feel it is.” She looked down at his hands, carefully using her pencil to push up the sleeve. “What looks like an aged and badly healed burn scar on his right hand. Supports homeless guy evidence.”

“Knife scar over his throat,” Tim quietly observed. “Someone tried to kill this guy.”

“Guys,” Martin said.

“Well, I guess this is the point where we worry about body disposal,” Sasha said, straightening. “I think Elias could handle this discreetly and professionally, but that might involve letting Jon know. And I don’t think any of us want that kind of stress in our lives.”

“So, are we not even pretending to want to call the cops, or…?”

“Listen to me!”

Both Tim and Sasha shut up, somewhat guiltily. Martin had straightened too, fists balled, looking firm and determined and resolute - everything that Martin wasn’t, really. Martin lived unsure of himself, never expressing his own feelings or ending every opinion with an “I don’t know, maybe, that’s just my thoughts, what do you think?”.

So Tim and Sasha paid attention, and when Sasha nodded encouragingly at him he seemed to find further courage. Solemnly, with the air of a wise man by the side of the road, Martin said, “This guy isn’t hotter than Jon.”

Christ. Sasha takes it all back.

Tim propped a hand on his hip supportively as Sasha rolled her eyes. “Look, mate,” Tim said, “I know that you think Jon’s the hottest person in existence, and maybe objectively he’s fine as hell, but once you know him for longer than three months he loses all attractiveness. It would be like being into the DMV clerk. The really pretentious cousin at all of your family reunions who tries to explain your own job to you. The dude in your English class who thinks he invented feminism.”

“That was you,” Sasha said.

“I am the objective expert in Jon,” Martin said firmly, shutting down the dissent. “He’s, like, my muse, okay? And can I say, as I have spent so many long hours memorizing the curve of his jaw - that’s the same jaw.”

If Sasha had a retort to that, or if Tim wanted to judge Martin for his taste in men further, neither of them had a chance. There wasn't an opportunity to say anything more, because the corpse opened its eyes.

Sasha’s first thought was this: wow, what green eyes.

Sasha’s second thought was: the fuck?

His eyes didn’t focus on her, or snap anywhere. They drifted a little lazily, fixed on the right, but the man was undoubtedly aware. His fingers twitched, he tilted his head from left to right, and his left hand - doubtlessly the hand that still felt texture - clenched the thin and cheap rug. The man’s jaw slackened a little, as if in surprise.

For their part, the Assistants frantically looked at each other, all conveying the exact same thought - you said he was dead!

Sasha froze to her spot, petrified. She could handle corpses, or coroner’s reports, or mysteries. Sasha was intelligent, unkind, firm, socially incompetent, and a Libra. She could handle the dead, but the living? Sasha had no idea what to do with alive people.

But Tim did. He hesitated two moments, reeling back in shock, before he abruptly composed himself. He crouched down to the guy, and modulated his voice to sound calming and firm. “Hey, don’t strain yourself. Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere?”

The man turned his head in Tim's direction, hiding his expression from Sasha, but she saw Tim’s eyes widen. Martin, standing closer to his feet, wrung his hands - clearly torn on what to do, uncertain how to help. Martin always hated being uncertain how to help the most. Which was pretty unfortunate, because Martin always wanted to help, and Martin was always uncertain.

“Can you speak?” Tim asked gently. “If you can’t speak, go ahead and knock on the floor for me, okay?”

“If we pack him into your car, we can say that we found him on the street,” Sasha piped up. As much as she distrusted NHS, and as much as the NHS refused to touch anybody who had ever stepped foot inside the Institute, they could hardly refuse somebody if they just lied their ass off about it. “They’ll have to treat him then, right?”

“We could make it so much worse if we move him,” Martin said quickly, just as strangely firm. “We need to take our chances with 999.”

“We don’t even know if he’s injured,” Sasha pointed out, somewhat optimistically. “Maybe this whole thing can just, like, not be a problem.”

Yeah, Sasha definitely preferred corpses.

The man was opening and closing his mouth, before he coughed wetly. Sasha clinically noted that it was the first time she had seen his chest move. As Tim reached forward, murmuring gently, and helped the man sit up, she saw that his chest didn’t move at all.

“Alright, let’s try to get you up.” Tim helped the man shift so he was leaning against the bookcase - uncomfortable, but a better position if he started coughing up blood. “We should fetch you some water - Martin, I don’t think he has any injury like that, he just seems out of it. His eyes aren’t focusing on me at all.”

Strangely, the man scoffed at that. The sound made him cough again, but the derision was unmistakable.

The derision was extremely familiar.

When Sasha looked at Martin his eyes were wide behind his glasses, and she knew that he had heard the same thing that she did.

Finally, with a raspy and hoarse voice, the man said, “Well, isn’t this fucking fun.”

Everybody stared at him. His voice...different, definitely, with a less posh accent and strained vocal cords scratching his tones. But when Sasha glanced at Tim, she just knew that he was remembering when Jon had insisted on coming into work with a terrible cold and Martin had to bully him home. He had sounded eerily like…

“Is this your idea of a joke?” the man said.

Tim, from where he was crouched next to the guy, turned his attention back to him. “I’m a funny guy, but last time I checked head injuries aren’t a joke.” He tracked his finger across the man’s eyes, frowning when they didn’t follow. “You definitely have a concussion, mate. If you can walk, we need to -”

“Lord, alright, I get it.” The man raised his burned hand and clumsily rubbed his eyes. “You’re mad at me, I’m sleeping on the couch, whatever. Is all of this really necessary?”

“Uh,” Tim said intelligently. “Mate, I’m not your boyfriend.”

The man waved his other hand in Tim’s direction as he pressed his fingers into his eyes in exhaustion. “I’m hardly speaking to you.” Tim’s jaw dropped in shock as the man angled his face upwards, the crown of his head jamming uncomfortably against the metal shelving. “In my defense, I was doing the best I could with the resources you gave me. It’s water under the bridge. I’ve forgotten about it already! So let’s just get back to our eldritch hellscape.”

Everybody stared at each other.

“We should move this into the break room,” Martin said. “There’s tea there.”

“Oh, don’t be rude,” Jon said, “making Martin into a caricature of himself. You like Martin, you told me so.”

“Counterpoint,” Sasha said weakly, “the bullpen has Jon. And I really don’t want to explain this to Jon.”

“I don’t even know who this one is,” the man said. “What? Not going to tell me?”

“Okay, like, fucking rude, but whatever.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking to,” Tim said firmly, reaching out and putting a firm hand on the man’s arm. The man didn’t recoil or jerk away, just looking down in vague surprise. “But they aren’t here right now. You’re in the basement of the Magnus Institute, alright? I’m Tim Stoker, at your service, and these are my coworkers. I think you have a brain injury. If you can walk, we need to get you -”

“I can’t eat here,” the man said, but he made no effort to remove Tim’s arm. He moved his other hand, pressing it against Tim’s own, as if they were friends. “Cutting me off from my Knowledge -” it was capitalized, Sasha could hear it “ - chaining me to my desk, for - what? You’re not even answering me? Come on!” The man’s voice raised, and for the first time Sasha could hear something ragged in it. “Don’t give me the silent treatment!”

“Jon.”

It was Martin, standing at a distance from the man - from all of them. He was wringing his hands again, shoulders hunched and tense, but his expression was caught in that same mysterious firmness.

The man didn't react. Not in surprise, not in shock, not in unrecognition. He just scowled a little, ignoring all of them.

“Jon,” Martin said, louder. “This isn’t solving anything. Don’t be stubborn.”

“I’m not the one being stubborn, Martin,” Jon - Jon?! - muttered, folding his arms. Like an infant. Like, hypothetically, something Jon would do. “I just don’t think omniscient fear gods should be petty.”

Everybody looked at each other.

“This needs tea,” Martin proclaimed finally, and everybody nodded in silent agreement.

Every nodded in agreement - even, strangely enough, Jonathan Sims himself.

****

This plan had a few complexities.

The first complexity was dealing with Jon - their Boss - himself. In an act of cunning psychological warfare, Martin had gone ahead of them and used his endless and infinite subtle acts of manipulation to guarantee that Jon wouldn’t interrupt them. This situation was already Quite A Bit, nobody wanted to babysit their boss.

Who Sasha frequently felt as if she babysat a bit. Having the youngest person in the office be the very rigid and authoritarian boss was objectively a little funny. But you know what’s not funny? Transphobia.

Eventually Martin came back and waved them forward, and Tim gently yet firmly dragged the man upwards and put a hand on his back.

“Do you mind if I touch you?” Tim asked. He sounded resigned about it - barely expecting Jon to respond. “Let me know how you want me to guide you.”

“Oh, it’s whatever. If you’re going to play it this way.” Jon easily looped his arm through Tim’s, who didn’t bother to mask his shock. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Sasha went ahead of them, watching Tim walk Jon down the aisle - hah! - with his arm looped through his elbow and a hand on his back. It was exactly the kind of care and meticulousness that Sasha always saw in him when it came to others. He literally walked grannies across the street. It was horrendous. She got second-hand embarrassed whenever she saw it.

Tim was loudly, extremely, messily kind. He was a person who adopted lost causes, like young men too grumpy to make real friends and women who only knew academia and never people. Sasha told him that once he got his teeth into something he never let go. It would get him into trouble one day. Maybe it already had.

Sure enough, when Sasha opened the library door for them and peeked her head into the hallway, she saw that Jon’s office door was very firmly shut and locked. Even more incriminatingly, she heard his cute little theater drama monologues starting. Tim had found Jon’s theater aspirations very adorable and he had tried recording them to put on his Snapchat and maybe get him discovered by an agent, but unfortunately the videos made Tim’s phone bleed. They had given Martin ten pounds to taste the blood. Man would do anything for ten pounds, but seeing as they all worked this job that probably applied to all them.

A workplace made out of people who always picked ‘dare’ in truth or dare. It was kind of a miracle they were still alive. Sasha was a little uncertain how she had survived to thirty five, actually.

Once Sasha gave the all clear, Tim was able to bring Jon (Neo-Jon? Nega-Jon? Dark Jon? Mean Jon? No, that was just Jon) into the bullpen. Softly narrating what he was doing, he pulled out a chair and lowered Jon into it.

Homeless Jon hasn’t been blind for very long, Sasha noted clinically. Long enough that he seemed more mildly irritated by it than anything else, but instead of orienting himself or testing out where he was he just kind of slumped in his chair.

“Jon - uh, the Boss is taken care of?” Tim asked Martin, who was rapidly bustling into the bullpen with four cups of tea that he seemed to be under the impression would help. Tim had sat Homeless Jon in Martin’s chair, which seemed to fluster Martin a bit.

“Uh, yeah. Gave him a normal statement to get his guard down, then five of the - you know, weird - statements and said that he has to go through all of them today. He’ll be in there for an hour at least.”

Sasha frowned. “After two he gets a headache and gets bitchy.”

“Three o’clock exactly,” Tim said solemnly.

“Oh, leave off,” Homeless Jon said, “it wasn’t that bad.”

Everybody double taked and looked at each other significantly - which was quickly becoming their predominant mode of communication in a ruthless act of ableism. But Martin just held out a cup of tea, faltering as he clearly stopped to wonder the easiest way to give it to him.

“Can you hold out your hands, Jon? I have some tea for you. It’s hot, so be careful, okay?”

“If the tea’s spiders I’m going to take it out on Annabelle,” Weird Jon said, but he held out his hands anyway and let Martin put the mug in them. He sniffed it cautiously, checking for spiders, before taking a cautious sip.

To Sasha and Tim, Martin said, “I know, he’s going to fall asleep after two. I mean, it might be because I drugged his tea a little -”

Weird Jon spat out his tea back into the mug.

“ - so we shouldn’t be interrupted,” Martin said brightly, clapping his hands. “Now! I think it’s time for explanations, don’t you?” He turned his mighty gaze upon Thankfully Blind Jon, who was occupied carefully holding the tea away from himself. “Drink your tea, Jon.”

Jon drank his tea. His expression twisted. “It tastes just like his.”

Everybody looked at each other. Tim mouthed the word ‘time traveller’ very clearly. Both Sasha and Martin nodded. It was the obvious explanation.

“An explanation now, please,” Martin said pleasantly. “If you’re a time traveller, you can tell us. This is a safe space.”

Jon-from-the-future’s expression harshened in creases. He hadn’t once relaxed, expression permanently tightened in annoyance and disgruntlement. It was ridiculously Jon.

Definitely a time traveller. You didn’t work at the Magnus Institute without secretly spending your life deeply hoping you run into a time traveller. Every researcher upstairs secretly prayed to discover the majesty. Everyone in Artifact Storage eagerly gathered around mysterious clocks and dared each other to touch them. Sasha, Queen of Truth-or-Dare, was the undisputed expert in making other people touch weird clocks and recording their reactions.

“Fine,” Super Time Traveller Jon said. “I know this is what you want. Statement of a stupid punishment by the pettiest little color in the evil crayon box. Recorded by the Archivist, in situ. Statement begins.”

Wow, Jon still had his job in the future? That’s a surprise.

Martin was mouthing the word ‘evil crayon box’ to himself, looking increasingly concerned. The forgotten tape recorder, clenched in Sasha’s fist without her even realizing it, clicked and whirred.

Then the Archivist began to speak.

***

In the hazy amber of a memory, there exists an office.

You can see it clearly in your mind’s Eye, even now. You could likely navigate all of it blindfolded - which you now see that your god has the intention to test. Every corner of it is known to you, in the most subtle and mundane of ways. There’s a dust bunny in that corner, never tidied. A mysterious stain on the far right ceiling. The faint smell of blood, just under the vents. The hot waft of tea; your hands wrapped around a mug.

Through these lonely offices, ghosts roam. They cling to desks and chairs; lingering in favorite mugs or in forgotten hair ties. A metal file cabinet holding neat rows of clothing, blood-stained jackets abandoned. A whiteboard with stubborn flakes of dried marker, forgotten handwriting clinging to life. These imprints no longer evoke terror or grief or pain. They are as familiar as the bloodstains and tea. Even death, eventually, is familiar. After long enough in a nightmare, it becomes indistinguishable from reality.

There is nothing unfamiliar in the Magnus Institute.

Nothing save these voices, emerging from nothing. Every one of your six million senses have been cut off - your hundred eyes reduced to none. You are cognizant only of two familiar voices, and one unfamiliar one. A firm hand, with calloused fingers from leafing through aged paper. A creaky desk chair - Martin’s, undoubtedly, always squeaking as he fidgeted in distraction. The air tastes the same as it used to back then, before the AC broke and no repairman would step inside to repair it. Daisy did, eventually. Three familiar voices, rendered unfamiliar by the harsh tides of wind and cruel plastic hands.

You are afraid of very little, these days. In this world that you’ve built, there is nothing that can harm you. The twisted little puppet strung up in his tower has been long since been disposed of, and the awful and terrifying future has settled into a gentle present. The apocalypse grows tedious after a while, and the buffet of fears start tasting a little samey.

But if anything could frighten you, this would. If anything would petrify you, it would be Tim’s kind smile, which died a year before Tim did. If anything could freeze you to your chair, it would be the sight of Sasha with red-rimmed eyes asking why you never even noticed that she was gone.

The sanctuary of memory corrupted. A mental place of safety infiltrated. A mind turned inside out, exposing its vulnerable flesh to the world.

There is nothing else this could be but your own personal hell.

Your loyal servant crouches on bended knee, giving this final prayer to you. He asks, humbly and with great reverence, one simple question:

Why couldn’t this have waited until after I got my milk?

***

The spell ruptured.

It was almost tangible, like a change in air pressure making your ears pop. Sasha blinked harshly, rubbing at her ears and trying to soothe strange ringing. Tim exhaled heavily and Martin screwed his eyes open and shut harshly, as if he was seeing spots.

The only person unaffected was Weirdly Christian Jon, who was slumped in Martin’s chair with his arms folded over his chest. He was still looking at the ceiling - speaking to whoever he had been addressing this entire time.

“Just one day,” Jon was saying. “Just one day! It was going to be a nice day! We had decided to take a day trip to the Flesh garden and have a picnic! My darling and beautiful husband was going to make us a cake! ‘Walk down to the Hell corner store’, my husband says. ‘Pick us up some Eldritch milk’, he says. ‘Why do I have to do it’, I says, ‘I’m in the middle of something’. ‘We need cake for bridge night with the girls and I’ll divorce you if you don’t do it’, he says. I didn’t even change out of my nightmare pyjamas! What did I ever do to you? How are you still upset about the eye thing?”

Sasha and the Assistants, still digesting the extremely disturbing monologue, let him talk. Sasha was caught up in how it felt exactly like Jon’s little drama monologues. Granted, he had obviously gotten a lot more practice - guy could go to Broadway - but the weird lilting and falling sing-songyness was just the same. And he only ever did that for the very weird ones. The ones that they were pretty certain were actually true.

So that probably meant at one point in the future, if Jon was speaking about the Archives as if they had worked there for years. Probably during the apocalypse. Which was happening. Which Jon had...built? Like, as a personal thing, or in a metaphor for capitalism and the human race? Definitely the capitalism thing - Jon was prone to flights of filing-induced passion that sometimes accidentally resulted in a stapler flying and punching a hole through the wall, but she couldn’t even imagine him even purposefully punching someone, much less being the Antichrist. Unless it was one of those things that just happened to you, like a rare genetic defect.

“Seriously. What was the alternative here? Endless horrorterrors, everybody screaming all the time? It was boring. You eat one Statement about somebody standing in line at a slaughterhouse conveyor belt and you’ve eaten them all. I didn’t do it because I didn’t like you, although for the record I don’t. But you have to admit that having Eldritch Lidls are much more practical than just having a bunch of people lying around screaming all the time. It’s not as if I don’t have other eyes, I hardly miss them. There’s no chocolate cakes in the swirling vortex of mankind’s worst nightmares!”

Okay. They had to find a way to engage with this guy. He was completely ignoring them, probably because he thought that they were mean ghosts. Sasha was only one of those things, and it was hurting her feelings. Judging from the expression on Tim’s face he was thinking the same thing.

Or - wait, Sasha knew that eyebrow. That was the ‘please please please tell the apocalypse has zombies’ eyebrow. Great.

But Martin was just looking thoughtful again. Sasha was pretty proud of him - it was probably very difficult for the poor man to remain coherent in the face of the crazy time-traveller who was definitely hotter than their already objectively unfairly hot boss.

“Jon,” Martin said, cutting Jon’s tired rant about how eggs benedict were much better these days, “Uh, I have an idea? Maybe you can’t get out of the - nightmare by bargaining with it. Do you know how to normally escape these things?”

Jon angled his head down and frowned in Martin’s direction. So far Martin seemed to be the only person who could shut Jon up, which was a hilarious turnaround from normal life. Sasha hadn’t heard anything about Martin being a sad little ghost, but it was hard to believe that Martin was a survivor in the zombie apocalypse.

“You go through the statement and you walk through it,” Jon said, in a very ‘duh’ kind of way. “Give the statement, highfive corpses, whatever.”

“Right, right.” Martin wrung his hands, biting at his lip. “So maybe it’s like that. Maybe instead of asking to be let out - you just have to walk through it. Like - like it’s a maze. Does that make sense? I’m not sure, it’s just an idea.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Right as always, Martin.” Everybody’s jaw dropped, and Martin squeaked. “Fine, fine. Let’s...interact with the evil ghosts.” Jon gestured out with his arms, in a very ‘come at me bro’ gesture. “Go ahead and shoot. Hit me with how much you hate me and how disappointed you are that I never amounted to anything and started the apocalypse.”

Finally! Interrogation time!

But before Sasha could finally find out if global warming had killed the world, Tim jumped in. “Are there zombies in the apocalypse?!” Tim cried, way too excited. “Is it like the Walking Dead? Or is it more Last of Us?”

Jon squinted in Tim’s direction. “Define zombie.”

“...hunger for human flesh, shambling, gross looking?” Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen any zombie movies.”

“I’m omniscient, I’ve seen every zombie movie,” Jon lied blatantly. “I just think that you’re - you know, stereotyping. Sometimes people are the undead and eat humans and they’re - they’re very normal people.”

“Yeah, Tim, be sensitive,” Sasha said gleefully. She put the tape recorder on Martin’s desk, deciding that she would definitely need a transcript of this interview later. Also maybe ask more questions about that omniscient thing, but she was sure Jon was just exaggerating. If you asked Jon today if he was the smartest person on Earth he’d probably say yes. Jon wasn’t even the smartest person in the room.

For good measure, she drew out her little notebook from her pencil skirt pocket, flipping through it looking for a clean page. “The Archives have never gotten a time traveller before. This is unprecedented in its history.” Well, she really didn’t know what Gertrude had gotten up to, but she dearly hoped it wasn’t this. “Do you have any warnings? Desperate messages from a ruined world, that kind of thing?”

“I’m not a time traveller,” Jon said flatly, “so no.”

Everybody stared at him in abject pity.

“Mate,” Tim said sympathetically, “it’s 2015. You’re a time traveller.”

“No, I’m in a pocket hell dimension in a period beyond time and space,” Jon corrected arrogantly. “Time travel doesn’t exist.”

“The apocalypse exists but time travel doesn’t exist?” Martin cried. “That’s so unfair! Like, give us something, you know?”

“Your life is very hard,” the extratemporal reject said.

Typical Jon. A classic case of time travel and here he was denying it. Sasha crossed her arms, upset that they were wasting time debating temporal physics when they could be talking about zombies. She was a historian and had priorities. “Your denial ain’t cute, mate. You’re just wasting all of our time.” Jon opened his mouth, but Sasha steamrolled over him. “You want evidence, right? Do you need to, like, touch my face? Make sure that I’m not a sexy ghost?”

“That’s a stereotype that nobody actually does,” Jon said.

“Insensitive as always, Sasha,” Martin condemned.

“How else are we going to prove it to him?” Sasha said, somewhat defensively. “It’s not as if we have any evidence that we’re not sexy ghosts.”

With utmost care and incredible gentleness, Tim reached out an open hand and gently smooshed it into Jon’s face.

Jon slumped in his seat, arms folded, unimpressed.

“No mortal who is not my darling husband has dared to touch me since I became the Antichrist,” Jon said.

“I don’t know,” Tim said, withdrawing his hand and looking at Sasha. “What’s more unbelievable: Jon as the Antichrist or Jon with a husband?”

“Jon’s gay?” Martin cried, face beet red. “Gay Jon? Gay Jon real?”

“So, like, how do you get the Antichrist gig?” Sasha asked as she silently passed Tim a fiver. Her queerdar had never been so wrong. “Is it like an adventurer quest you can do or would you call it more of a rare genetic disorder thing?”

“Definitely rare genetic disorder.”

“Then does that mean that our Jon also has the Antichrist gene?” Tim asked, alarmed. “You’d never think so just looking at him! It’s always the quiet ones.”

“No, this makes sense,” Martin said.

Tim stared at him. “So, is that, like, a negative for you, or a positive…?”

Martin’s silence was incriminating.

“It’s a positive,” Jon said helpfully, startling everyone. They had conveniently forgotten not to talk about one very horny man’s very horny crush in front of sad grumpy time travelling crush. “He’s into it.”

“Wow, Jon,” Tim said, “what would your husband say?”

In a completely pointless show of sass, Jon rolled his eyes. “My useless husband is likely much more concerned with how I managed to get trapped in a nightmare dimension on my way back from the Hell corner store.” He waved a hand absently. “So, if we can hurry this up? Get started on the whole torturing me thing? Right now you’re just on track to annoying me to death.”

“We annoy you to death now!” Tim exclaimed, as Martin’s eyes boggled. “Isn’t that more proof for the time traveller theory?”

“It wasn’t annoying,” Jon said curtly. “I secretly enjoyed it. I always felt a little bad that I wasn’t included. Or wouldn’t let myself be included.”

That, abruptly, made everyone feel a little bad. Not guilty, seeing as Jon neither wanted nor deserved their affection, but just kind of bad. Future Jon didn’t seem any happier than regular Jon. Sasha liked to imagine that if she was trapped in an indeterminate period in time and space in a post-apoc hellscape, she’d at least be having fun.

Everybody looked at each other, equally a little uncomfortable. Tim was the one who finally took control of the situation, as the self-appointed Jon & Everyone Else mediator. He had taken up the mantle years ago and worse it with pride, and occasional exhaustion.

“Look,” Tim said, as reasonably as possible. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, this was super cool and awesome time travel. Let’s also say maybe this was completely baller and you’re from a post apoc future where everyone wears leather.”

“That’s just Melanie.”

“Put it down as one person who wears leather in the future!” Tim cried, and Sasha obediently jotted it down.”But let’s just put all of this in a hypothetical situation where you aren’t...uh, in a bad dream? So would there, hypothetically, be a way to stop the apocalypse or something?”

Jesus christ. What a try-hard.

Sasha crossed her arms, glaring at Tim. From next to her, Martin looked just as peeved. “Seriously, dude? Like we can just up and stop capitalism?”

“I don’t want responsibility for stopping the apocalypse,” Martin protested. “I can barely navigate the bus system. What if the Terminator comes after my mother or something?”

“You’ll be a bit better off, frankly,” Jon said. Martin nodded, conceding the point, before looking faintly disturbed.

“But he said that he caused it,” Tim protested. “Maybe the power of friendship can fix this? I mean, the apocalypse is cool, but I feel like this is the part where we’re all badasses and we fight evil or something.” Tim’s eyes widened. “That’s what the Magnus Institute is for. To stop the apocalypse!”

“Every day I feel a slight sense of emptiness due to my internalized guilt about your death, but you are usually wrong about things,” Jon said flatly, which seemed to both perk Tim up and depress him slightly. “And no. There’s nothing you can do. There’s no one event that precipitated the apocalypse; no rules of engagement. You are puppets on strings, indulging in the fantasy of free will. Yes, Sasha, the apocalypse is capitalism.”

Everybody stood in slightly depressed silence over this. Sasha, personally, was a little relieved. She really didn’t have to deal with the whole ‘preventing the apocalypse’ thing. She’d rather spend the finals days of the world in hedonism, frankly.

Really, the unique providence of the millennial was to live your entire life half-way convinced you were in the twilight years of the world. This hedonism and apathy was second nature. Or maybe the apathy was a Leitner - Sasha had lost track of that too.

“Aw, man,” Martin said, summarizing the abstract and complex feelings deftly and succinctly. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, this blows,” Tim agreed. “So should I buy my muscle car now, or later, or what?”

Then Martin and Tim started arguing over fuel efficiency in the apocalypse, and Jon royally checked out of the conversation. Sasha imagined that he was internally having a bit of a Saving Private Ryan moment where flashbacks of bombshells exploded behind his eyelids or whatever the fuck. The important thing is that everyone was distracted, and Sasha could finally check up on their most important gambit of the day: making sure Jon wasn’t bothering them.

Sasha listened carefully for the sounds of Jon’s little theater monologues, and caught only faint hints of sound. She slipped past everyone into the hallway and approached Jon’s office door, pressing her ear against the cheap wood. But she didn’t need to worry: he was still reciting away, oblivious to the actual interesting shit that was happening outside his door. Jon was a delicate plant, you couldn’t stress him out too much or he would die. Hopefully Martin’s drugged tea would kick in soon -

But Antichrist Jon’s head jerked towards her, directly behind him, and Sasha saw his unfocused green eyes fixate directly on her. No, not on her - on the door, or something beyond it. For just a second, his eyes flared a sharp and toxic green.

“There you are,” Creepy Jon hissed.

Well, sorry for leaving rooms without telling him, but she hadn’t thought that he even noticed, much less got resentful about it. But Weird Jon was standing up with no hesitation, and effortlessly swerved around Martin’s desk and stalked into the hallway. For the first time, his expression looked a little dangerous. It was bizarre and off putting, like seeing a ragged yet murderous two meter kitten.

He reached out an arm and let it trail across the wall, stopping short when he felt it hit wood instead of plaster. Tim and Martin surged forward to stop him, yelling warnings, but Sasha quickly stepped back. She never impeded the timeless march of science and progress. Sasha had done far worse in Artifact Storage for knowledge.

Jon brushed his hand down the door until it hit the doorknob and angrily twisted it, heaving the door open with unnecessary force. Tim and Martin spilled into the hallway as Angry Jon stalked inside, and Sasha eagerly hung in the door frame for a front row seat into the drama.

“This is your fault,” Jon intoned dangerously, directly in the face of a deathly affronted Jon.

In the spirit of the First Directive, Sasha heroically stretched out an arm and prevented Tim and Martin from spilling into the office. It was the right call. Jon stalked forward into the office, hair whipping in a nonexistent wind, expression obscured but undoubtedly thunderous, advancing on the terrified Archivist, as -

He tripped over a chair left carelessly in the center of the office, rocketing forward to land flatly on his face.

Beside her, Martin went white as a sheet. “Oh no.”

Simultaneously, in complete and total unison, Jon and the Archivist yelled, “Martin!”

****

Jon and the Archivist sat across from each other, exuding waves of pure mutual hatred.

Tim had quickly helped the Archivist up, moving the chair forward and getting him situated there. The Archivist’s mood was not improved by any of this. Which was difficult enough to handle by itself, if manageable. Sasha knew how to manage grumpy time travelling blind Antichrists who had gotten lost on their way to the corner store.

She even knew how to handle their boss, who was extremely grumpy about being harassed by a random homeless person with nice hair. Jon hated statement givers at the best of times, much less seemingly homeless ex-corpses. Or, well, Sasha didn’t know if he was an ex-corpse, but he was certainly an animate one.

They were both being so annoying about it Sasha was trying to determine if she should change their nicknames to something more derogatory. Thing 1 and Thing 2? Too long.

Both of them were very grumpy about the fact that Martin had pushed aside the chair for guests in front of Jon’s desks when he deposited the drugged tea, accidentally moving it close to the center of the office. Jon had known this because he saw it happen. The Archivist had known this because he, apparently, knew Martin very well.

Today had really been a bonding experience with Sasha, Martin, and Tim. Their skill at silent communication had reached borderline telepathy. They all looked at each other significantly as the Jons were caught in their mutual dyad of hatred, silently commiserating over the fact that their one goal had been spoiled by the greatest wildcard of all. Sasha privately liked to consider herself somewhat of a wildcard, but she was depressingly aware that the entire Archive team was composed of wildcards. Maybe that’s why half of them didn’t survive the apocalypse.

It was a little unlikely that Jon was a survivor/instigator in the zombie apocalypse, actually. Dude definitely would have bit it if he wasn’t cheating with Antichrist powers. Now, if Sasha had Antichrist powers, this whole game would be looking very different -

“Boss, this is a statement giver,” Tim hinted desperately, hands clenched so hard on the back of the Archivist’s chair that his knuckles were turning white. “Remember what Elias said about statement givers? About how we can’t harass them?”

“I was in the middle of a recording and this man was unnecessarily confrontational,” Jon said crisply. Sasha caught her eye jumping frantically back and forth between the two, trying to reconcile them. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Martin’s horny surety, she wouldn’t have realized that they were the same person at all. The Archivist’s most defining attribute was his big and fluffy hair, and Jon was sadly lacking in the nice hair department. That fade and twists were the shackle around his ankle. So was the sweater vest, baggy tweed jacket, and ill-fitting.“He’s lucky I’m not throwing him out.”

Martin, who looked as if he was having his tenth gay crisis of the morning, didn’t seem to hold the same opinion, but he was king of bad taste anyway.

“Remember what Elias said about harassing confused, blind statement givers? Remember that? Boss?”

Jon looked confused. “He didn’t specify the community of people with disabilities.”

“It was implied? Jon?”

“The optics would be terrible,” Sasha said, before snickering. Martin stomped on her foot. She stomped on his back, which definitely hurt a lot more. “Look, Jon, sorry about all of this. He was just - uh - really insistent that he talk to you -”

“I think if our visitor hassles Jon then maybe, objectively, you can say that Jon brought it on himself,” Martin said, in a daring show of anti-Jon sentiment.

This act of subtle rebellion was the first thing that broke the Archivist out of his cycle of hatred. He threw out a hand, bowling over Jon’s desktop cup of pens and sending them tumbling over the desk. Sasha saw him specifically orient his hand to do so. “Thank you, Martin! Your understanding of paraphysics is always immaculate.”

“Wow, really?”

“Stop complimenting my assistants,” Jon hissed, frantically diving to save his pens. “And stop - gesticulating over my desk! You did that on purpose!”

“Harassing the blind, Jon!”

“You don’t even need to tearfully blame me for how I ruined your life,” the Archivist said flatly. “You existing in my vicinity is torment enough.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” Sasha said, before pausing a beat. “I meant the first part, ha ha ha, obviously -”

“This man is a very normal statement giver who will be leaving any minute now,” Martin jumped in, “so there’s really no reason for us all to fight, when you think about it -”

“If you all don’t get out of my office, you are all fired -”

“You are listening.”

Everybody stopped talking at once, staring at the Archivist. He was still staring intently ahead, straight into his counterpart. Jon was hiding it, quite badly, but he was unsettled. He hadn’t even acknowledged that he and the man looked alike - the thought undoubtedly running through his brain and soundly dismissed - but it was clearly rattling him. But there was something else that was scaring him too - maybe the Archivist’s green eyes, so foreign from his own brown? His intense and furious expression, like cut glass? The particularly strange and heavy feeling in the air, prickling down the back of Sasha’s neck?

He hadn’t even stopped the recorder.

“You are here,” the Archivist continued calmly. “You were listening in. Why you were listening in on him, and his regurgitated aftertaste of Statements, I do not know. I felt you, and I came to you. We cannot forsake each other. Do not hide yourself from me.”

The effect was immediate.

The Archivist’s neck snapped forward, so harshly he cracked his head on Jon’s desk. Strangely enough, Jon screamed too, holding a hand to his temple as if he was suddenly pierced by a blinding headache. Tim immediately bent down to check on Archivist, making sure that he hadn’t hurt himself, as Martin bustled around the desk to check on Jon. Jon batted his hands away, scowling, so he was just fine. But the Archivist didn’t groan, or stir, or moan. He just lay there, still and limp, and when Tim shook him he didn’t even tense.

The air was heavy, a tang of metal in her mouth like the crackle before a storm, and Sasha couldn’t fight a shiver. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Jon, either: the way he stared at the Archivist, hand on his forehead, eyes wide and growing wider.

“Dad…?”

When the Archivist stirred, the spell was broken, and Jon’s mouth snapped shut so quickly it was as if he had never spoken at all. He turned his head and moaned, eyes opening uselessly. They were back to their usual toxic green, no flaring or flashing.

“Mar’in? Where…”

“I’m here,” Martin said quickly, and ducked around the desk to grab the Archivist’s hand and squeeze. For just a second, Jon looked a little jealous. Sasha had the sense that Jon had never been mothered than anyone other than Martin and Tim, and the prospect confused and frightened him so much he reacted aggressively to it. “Everything alright? You hit your head.”

“How many eyes?” the Archivist asked weakly.

“...physically, or functionally?”

But the Archivist just ran his burned hand over his smooth hand, kneading it and feeling the skin. “Still gone. Damn it.” He straightened, grimacing and spitting out a stray tendril of hair out of his mouth. “So it’s true…”

“So what’s true?” Tim asked urgently. “Do you finally believe us about the time travel thing? Because man, I have so many questions -”

He didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. The Archivist reached out a hand, fingers brushing against his shirt, and the Archivist’s hand abruptly clenched on the fabric. Tightly, roughly, the Archivist pulled him down and extended his other arm, and caught Tim in an awkward and lopsided hug.

Tim carefully straightened him and returned the hug, gracing the Archivist with the patented Perfect Stoker Hug, and the Archivist buried his face in Tim’s shoulder. His chest didn’t heave, and his breath didn’t catch, but the element of desperation was pungent and unmistakable.

“You were right,” Jon whispered. “We messed it all up.”

“Sure, yeah, totally!” Tim said, clapping the Archivist on the back in a masculine, yet sensitive way. “So, does this mean the zombie apocalypse is totally a-go, or…”

“Sasha,” the Archivist said, and Sasha chose to ignore her own personal distaste for hugs and being touched so she could step forward and hug him too.

He clutched onto her just as tightly as he had Tim, which surprised her a little. Jon and Tim had probably been best friends in the future, and Sasha couldn’t imagine her and Jon ever truly being close. He respected her as a colleague, but that was probably because Sasha purposefully left her manuscripts around the office and aggressively used as many big words in front of him as possible. Jon had always been an obstacle to her - innocently stupid at best, malicious at worst. To think that he would grip her so tightly…

With meticulous care, the Archivist separated from her. His expression was crumpled, and for the first time Sasha saw something over than aggravation or impatience in Jon’s face. Relaxed and soft, he looked like a different man. No - he was a different man, it was just apparent. The change softened his sharp lines into something a little friendlier; his striking exterior melting into something pretty instead of imposing.

Slowly, he raised his hand a little to tangle it in her hair. He frowned a little, gently tugging at it and feeling it spring back into place. “So it was curly…like mine…”

A lot of little hints snowballed into one strange and foreign realization. “Do you not remember me?”

“Dolls stole your identity,” the Archivist said apologetically.

“Like credit card fraud, or -”

“Metaphysically.” He paused guiltily. “I mourned you as an abstract concept?”

“Like I’m every woman in Hollywood?” Sasha screeched, outraged. This was not trans rights. “Alright, royally fuck that. Feel my hair, mister. Full permission to touch it. Feel that? You call that abstract?” The Archivist shook his head, eyes wide, and Sasha gently moved his hand to rest on the top of her head. “Taller than you in eight cm heels, remember? You asked me how I walked in them, and I said -”

“ - Barbie’s Princess Charm School,” the Archivist said automatically, eyes widening. “I do remember.”

Martin clearly waited around to be tenderly embraced, and was disappointed.

The Archivist stepped away from Sasha, expression creased in furious thought. “So it’s real. So far as anything’s real, I suppose. But I don’t understand how -” the Archivist’s eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers in realization. “The manhole!”

Everybody stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” Jon said pleasantly, “what is going on -”

“I was walking down the street, and I remember hearing city work!” the Archivist said brightly. “They were doing their monthly ‘clearing the gators out of the sewer pipes’ maintenance! And the Beholding told me that there was an open manhole, and I said oh it’ll be fine, I’m a demigod on Earth, I don’t fall down manholes - and then -”

The door to Jon’s office dramatically crashed open, and everybody jumped straight in the air. Jon, whose office had seen two more incredibly theatrical entrances than usual today, immediately bristled and opened his mouth to earn them all another harassment complaint, before he abruptly shut his mouth.

It was Elias, their miniature and unspeakably boring boss extraordinaire. He stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the doorframe, suit jacket askew and chest heaving. Had he ran down here?

“Is someone here?” the Archivist asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Tim said, stepping forward cautiously. “It’s our boss, Mr. Bouchard. Elias, we’re taking a statement, can we help - ?”

“How did that get here?” Elias asked, voice strangely tense and coiled. “How did you - not even I could -”

“That makes sense!” Martin cried, thumping a fist on his open palm. “Elias wants to time travel just as much as everyone else in the Institute!”

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, pathetically behind, “time travel -”

“Did the time traveller sensor alarms in the basement go off?” Sasha asked, surprised. “I thought only Artifact Storage had those.”

“Uh, Mr. Statement Giver, are you okay?” Tim asked, but it was already too late.

The Archivist had turned to face Elias, expression unreadable. Sasha felt that crackle again, weighing down the air, and she saw the Archivist’s hair puff and frizz slightly with a green crackle. His neon green pupils shone again and spun, like an infernal wheel.

“What’s wrong, Elias?” the Archivist mocked, as energy coursed through him. “Upset that Mama has a new favorite?”

And Sasha saw in that moment that the Archivist, who possessed the most inhuman green eyes she had ever seen, had eyes the same shade as Elias.

“Oh, man,” Sasha said, “is Elias a time traveller too?”

“Only in the most mundane way. Can’t even get a little bit of special attention, Elias? Sad!” It was second-hand thrilling to watch someone mock their boss, living the dreams of everyone in the room. Even if it was a little weird how much Jon seemed to hate this guy - nobody hated Elias, just like nobody liked him, and nobody had any strong feelings at all besides unpromoted women.

At the door, Elias’ expression was slack in - amazement? Was amazement the right word? He was staring at Jon as if...words didn’t even describe it. At least in any way that Sasha wanted to think about.

“Mr. Bouchard, I swear I can explain,” Sasha, who could not explain, said hurriedly. “We found this corpse and we were going to tell you, but -”

But the Archivist cut her off, as if nothing was less important than explaining himself to Elias. “Did you want to know how to stop the apocalypse, Sasha?”

Sasha froze. Martin and Tim did too. Jon, who nobody had actually bothered to brief since he was kind of the fifth most important person in the room, dropped his pen. “Uh,” Sasha said, sweating. For the first time she understood the possible upsides of not knowing something. “I mean, if I have to, but you said that it was inevitable -”

“Oh, yes. But, just once every one or two centuries, a man comes along who fancies himself fate.” The Archivist raised a hand, eyes spinning and spinning, as Elias stood frozen in the doorframe. “I’ll be honest, Jonah. This isn’t to save the world. That’s so last year. I just really fucking hate you.” Something cracked in the air. “Ceaseless watcher, smite this -”

The door slammed shut. Sasha heard Elias lock it behind him. They all stood around as footsteps quickly echoed through the Archives, and another door slammed. Which was probably being locked too.

They stood in silence, the Archivist having clearly heard the slams. He let his hand fall, but the energy didn’t cease crackling around him. He didn’t look resentful or disappointed - just thoughtful.

“Everything in due time, I suppose. I guess it is pretty unfair to get to smite that man twice,” the Archivist said thoughtfully. “I’ll give someone else a turn.” His mouth twitched wryly. “You know, Sasha, there’s one other way to prevent the apocalypse.”

“Is it work?” Sasha asked tiredly.

“You may kill the man who arranged the dominos,” the Archivist intoned, before hanging his head towards a petrified Jon. “Or you may kill the man who toppled them over.”

Sasha stared at Jon. Jon stared back, frozen like a deer in headlights.

Martin silently passed Sasha a penknife from Jon’s desk.

“I’m very qualified for this job,” Jon protested weakly.

“Queen of feminism, I very much support you,” Tim said quickly, putting himself in between Sasha and Jon in a heroic display of stupidity, “but, maybe, killing your boss to take his job, is perhaps, maybe not that much of a great idea, just a thought?”

“The job’s being the Antichrist,” the Archivist pointed out, crossing his arms.

“The direct action against sexism, xenophobia, and transphobia is very admirable,” Tim said, eyes held up as if he was placating a tiger, “but think of it this way - if you kill the Antichrist, then you become the Antichrist, like in - uh -”

“Pokemon,” Martin volunteered.

Tim snapped his fingers. “Pokemon! So you shouldn’t -” He halted, turning back to Martin. “Pokemon? Seriously? That’s becoming champion -”

“A - alright, alright! Everybody stop!” Jon shakily stood up, brushing aside the empty tea mug right next to him. “That’s enough of all of this! I may not know what’s going on, or who this man is, or why he looks like me -”

“Hm,” Martin said, eyeing the empty tea mug.

“ - why he looks like a homeless person, why he barged into my office and insulted me, why you are all defending this atrocious behavior, why you are calling it the work of time travel, which does not exist and you have no proof for it anyway -”

“Jon,” Martin said, watching Jon’s arm tremble, “maybe you should -”

“Shut up, Martin!”

“Don’t be rude to him!” the Archivist snapped.

“You’ve been rude to him twice today!”

“I’m allowed to be rude to him! He’s even ruder to me! I’m the nice one!”

“ - and you were glowing in my office, which is just frankly rude,” Jon continued viciously, steamrolling over the Archivist. “You gave me a terrible headache, you hugged my assistants very inappropriately for the workplace, you made my boss walk in before trying to smite him, you encourage violence against my own person in revenge for a job that I definitely deserve -”

Both of Jon’s arms were shaking, and Tim’s eyebrows were slowly raising. “Boss, you should sit down, I think -”

“ - I want an explanation!” Jon yelled, slamming the desk. “And I’m not going to stop until you tell me what’s going on!”

Then Jon passed out.

Everybody watched it happen. Everybody, save perhaps the Archivist, had noticed that it was about to happen: at first a tremor, then a shake, and then a final collapse. Like a marionette with his strings cut, Jon slumped over and crumpled solidly on the floor.

Everybody stood in disaffected silence. Martin carefully stepped over and prodded Jon with his foot. “Out cold.” He shot a considering gaze at the empty tea mug. “Sorry, guys. Looks like I accidentally used the delayed action sedative.”

"It’s alright,” Tim said magnanimously. “At least that problem is solved now. Maybe we can convince him this was a bad dream when he wakes up.”

“If he insists it was real, we’ll just ask him for evidence and refuse to believe him without it,” Sasha suggested.

“Isn’t that kinda gaslighting?” Martin asked. “Isn’t that, you know, a little morally dubious -”

“You did drug him,” Tim pointed out.

“I mean, hardly the first time?”

“Maybe Martin should be the Antichrist,” Sasha said thoughtfully.

The Archivist’s face was doing something extremely interesting, yet inscrutable.

“I really don’t want to be Antichrist, though,” Martin said apologetically. “Does it even pay?”

“Jon did say it was a job…” Sasha said, already considering herself in the role. “Do you guys think I’d be sexier as the Antichrist? Be honest.”

“Yes and completely,” Tim said immediately, before realizing that he said that too quickly. “I mean. I’d never objectify you. I respect women. But -”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Martin said, throwing up his hands. “When you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot it’s normal and M/F of you. But when I do it, then it’s ‘gross’ and ‘get that away from me’. Great double standards, guys.”

“It’s not the fact that it’s a guy,” Tim protested, “it’s the fact that it’s Jon -”

“Oh, when you think being the Antichrist is kind of hot then it’s normal and cis of you,” Sasha said heatedly, “but when Tim respects trans women, then it’s ‘gross’ and -”

“I respect all women,” Tim said, equally heatedly, “but I do want to acknowledge the systematic marginalization of trans women within the community, especially trans women of color like yourself -”

A hoarse wheeze echoed through the office.

Everyone froze, terrified by the haunted sound, but after a second Sasha realized it was the Archivist - Jon - who was laughing.

They had never heard him laugh before. He was practically wheezing with it, bent over with his hands on his knees, with a strained cackle that fizzed with static around the corners. He was smiling broadly, his grin splitting his cheeks, for the first time that Sasha had ever seen.

He straightened and threw his head back and laughed too, a greater belly-laugh that was so hysterical and fragile and free that it struck something strange and raw in Sasha’s heart. He rubbed his face with his hand, still laughing, and eventually broke into coughs.

“I understand now,” Jon said, when he stopped coughing. “I thought that you had deposited me here in revenge. You had sensed that I was happy - that the green skies were beautiful, that your large eye seemed kind that day - and that you found it a waste of emotion. But that wasn’t true, was it? It must have been an accident. I’ve never been happier to hear these idiots arguing, and you’ve lost me like a toy behind a bookshelf. The strange stupidity of it! I’m enchanted.” He sombered a little, expression falling from hysterical glee into a soft and resigned happiness. He held up his hand, feeling the crackle of electricity run across his palms. “But you See me now. The foolish man brought you down upon us, and I intercepted your lightning bolt. His eyes, mundane and paltry, are closed, and you feel my consciousness in replacement of him. I can feel you already - my Eyes opening, the Reality that we built together calling me back. When your infinite grace re-aligns with every one of my atoms, forming the fabric of my world, I’ll snap back.”

Just like that?

Sasha had thought that there would be an...adventure, or quest, or something. At least a research binge. Some kind of heroic group effort. But the Archivist was a stretched rubber band, held tightly and out of position, and after long enough straining against its center it had to snap back. A telly flickering in and out, blaring the song of a dead channel.

“Do we have time to group hug or something?” Tim offered weakly, undoubtedly thinking the same thing as she was. “Last goodbyes? Anything?”

“Howl’s Moving Castle moment?” Martin asked urgently. “I’ll find you in the future, right? We’re still together there, right?”

“Martin,” Jon said, strangely fond, “we were never apart.”

Martin turned a unique shade of red.

But it was Sasha who Jon turned to, face angled to the sound of her voice. His expression was still distantly fond, but there was something strange in it too - a wry recognition, a subtle knowledge, a faint recollection of a joke that only he knew.

“Sasha,” Jon said, “so long as you’re brave, and buy ten fire extinguishers and hide them around the office, things will be just fine. Buy twelve fire extinguishers, just to be safe. And don’t ever go inside Artifact Storage again. Not even for Alicia’s birthday party. If it’s a choice between worms and Artifact Storage then choose worms, the scars add a certain appeal. I cannot stress enough, not even if you lose your jacket in Artifact Storage -”

“Are you sure you don’t have anything to say to me?” Martin asked desperately, almost crying. Sasha, personally, wanted to circle back around to the worm thing. “Sad goodbyes? Waving a handkerchief? I thought you said I was alive? Don’t you have anything?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Goodness, Martin, if you insist. There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you. In fact, I do believe it��s about time.”

Martin’s mind clearly projected very loudly ‘I’ve been in love with you this entire time’ in blatant wish-fulfillment. Everybody held their breaths.

Jon drew himself up to his full, imposing height, and sternly looked at all of them. “I’m tired of holding my tongue about this, Martin,” Jon said finally, and Martin qualified. “For the last time, I don’t load the dishwasher wrong. I load the dishwasher correctly. It’s you who’s always insisting that the cups go on the bottom. It’s a freakish way to live your life, and I’ll never forgive you for -”

Static blared in Sasha’s ears and overwrote her mind, and she screamed. The sensation was a pickaxe driven into her ears, an unforgivable rip and tear, and she heard her screams echoed in concert.

Then the pain abated, and was gone.

Sasha, Tim, and Martin were left standing in an empty office, accompanied only by the unconscious figure of their boss. There was nothing left of the Archivist, nor any suggestion that he had ever been here - just a drained mug, some scattered pens, and a lingering sense of malaise and confusion.

Everybody looked at each other, feeling strangely and uniquely connected. It was hardly Sasha’s strangest Magnus Institute experience, but maybe it was the funnest.

“Well,” Tim said finally, “at least one day this week wasn’t boring.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even have to get drunk today.” Sasha sighed. “We definitely have to gaslight Jon about this.”

Martin was already carefully lugging Jon onto his chair, arranging him so his arms were folded on the desk with his cheek resting on his forearm. “We’ll pretend it was just a weird dream.” He propped his hands on his hips, satisfied. “Hopefully this convinces him he needs more sleep.” Martin gasped in sudden realization. “Maybe he becomes the Antichrist because he needs more sleep! Guys, I have a great twenty step plan for saving the world.”

“Oh, come on, we said that was too much work.” Tim shrugged and opened the office door, holding it open and gesturing for them all to come out. “I think if we just friendship Jon to death, all of our problems will be solved.”

Martin just shrugged, following him out. They really did have paperwork that they needed to get back to. “Both are vital components. But...hey, it’s not weird to put the mugs on the bottom rack, is it? There’s not really that much of a difference, right?”

“Mate, you’re a fucking freak.” Tim looked backwards at Sasha, who was still standing in the office, dazed. “Sash, you coming? Let’s go day-drinking.”

“Yeah,” Sasha said, “in a sec.”

He shrugged and left the door propped open, and Sasha heard their bickering fade slowly as they walked down the hallway.

But she couldn’t help staring at Jon sleeping at his desk, chest falling in and out, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose. His short, carefully maintained hair and meticulous fade. His baggy tweed and ill-fitting slacks. The subtle and shameful kind of earnestness, the desire mixed with fear mixed with hope mixed with genuine desire for a better future. He just wanted to be happy, to not be afraid anymore. He seemed weirdly human, when compared with his inhuman self. Or maybe it was the other way around.

The tape recorder on Jon’s desk was still running. Sasha squinted at it, taking a second to listen to the staticy hiss. It was familiar, in the strangest possible way. It felt familiar -

Sasha reached out and grabbed the tape recorder, stuffing it in her pencil skirt pocket. “Just remember,” Sasha whispered, “I’d make a great candidate for Antichrist.”

She ran to go catch up with her coworkers, shutting the door behind them and leaving Jon sleeping contentedly in his office, head pillowed on his arms, dreaming strange and comforting dreams.

#i know I say 'this is the stupidest thing i've ever written' EVERY TIME BUT #my writing #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fanfiction #tma fanfic #tma time travel au #crack #jonathan sims #sasha james #tim stoker #martin blackwood #elias bouchard

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mcdonaldsnumberone · 3 years ago

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grand prix

“drifting, drifting, drifting.”

f1 racer! epel x reader

gender neutral reader

synopsis: sixteen-year-old epel felmier is taking up the racing world by storm with his unmatched zest for driving and his terribly young age. with his first race ahead of him, the two of you find a rare moment to breathe, and you find yourself wondering about the beautiful yet talented boy.

“Are you nervous?”

Epel traced his delicate fingers over the wheels of his beloved race car, steadying his breathing as his bright blue eyes glossed over every curve and edge of the vehicle. How many years had he dreamt of making a debut like this? If he closed his eyes, he could imagine every turn and every swerve he made in his career to get himself to this stage. The road was nothing but a blur for him, with his hands gripping the wheel and all the sights around him turning into a mass of nothingness for him to ride past.

“No. I’m not nervous,” he replied, tearing his attention away from the car. You stood a few paces away, watching him with a worried face. Everyone’s focus had been on him nonstop for the past few weeks, and you hoped you weren’t intruding on the rare moments he had all alone to himself.

It wasn’t every day that a wide-eyed sixteen year old would take up the Formula 1 world up in storm—the Pomefiore company was proud to announce that they would be debuting the youngest F1 driver ever, someone who looked more like a deer caught in headlights rather than the one behind the headlights. There wasn’t a second where Epel wasn’t flanked by reporters and cameras whenever he stepped out in public. The boy had no clue that being a driver would constitute this much poise and decorum; all he thought he had to do was drive fast and bring home the progress and rewards he had promised.

Luckily for him, his sweet naïvete was paying off to an extent. All the attention on him meant that he was bound to make a splash with his debut no matter what he did, and Epel was sure that came to be through the rigid and precise predictions of his strict coach, Vil Schoenheit. Vil always instructed him on what to say and what to do to win the hearts of anyone who even so much as laid eyes on him, and it was Vil that crafted every part of his newfound status as a celebrity outside of the race track.

“I wish I was nervous. I think something’s wrong with me,” Epel admitted, resting his hand on the tire of the car. “Every time I think about racing, I get excited instead. I know all the other drivers out there are probably fretting over every little thing, but I just wanna get out there and show ‘em what I’m made of.”

“It’s probably because you’re new. At least we don’t have to worry about your nerves getting in the way,” you laughed, the relief in your voice as clear as day. “But you are right about everyone else fretting. Rook has the whole mechanic team up in a frenzy making sure that we have everything for your pit stops ready. Vil’s been doing a wonderful job keeping the media at bay until after your race. So all you need to do is relax and prepare yourself.”

“It’s my first proper race,” he breathed. His hands curled into a determined fist, and the ambitious smirk that overtook his face was a look you were all too familiar with. It was the same face you stole glimpses off at your monitors whenever Epel was racing, whenever the adrenaline of the sport consumed his small body, whenever he turned from the doll-like little boy in front of you to an absolute monster that would stop at nothing to tear up the race track and leave the other drivers in the dust. You didn’t know someone was capable of such an image switch, but after seeing how much of a competent driver Epel was, you had nothing but high hopes and confidence for him.

“It is. You did excellent in qualifying yesterday, so you’ll be starting in a good position. You had the more experienced and tenured drivers seething. You should have seen their faces! Imagine racing for years, only to be shown up by someone new like you! You’re in a good place, so unless something goes disastrously wrong, you’ll be finishing really high up.” You stepped closer to him. Epel continued to admire his car, and you leaned in to whisper close to his ear. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll even finish first. Can you imagine that? Finishing first on your debut.”

He peered up at you, exhaling with a zeal only he could conjure up. “I won’t imagine it. I’ll make it happen.”

You laughed quietly, patting him on the back. “I expected nothing less of you! Only you would say something like that right before the race. I’ve worked in this industry longer than you have, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a driver so brazen and confident as you.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Vil always tells me I need to hold myself in high regard. Racing is a dangerous sport. You need to be focused and concentrated, and even the slightest bit of insecurity is what gets you wounded or even killed out on the race track,” he huffed to himself, inhaling deeply. He squared his jaw, and the vicious gleam in his eyes reminded you more of a beast raring to go than a boy awaiting his debut. “The same goes for everyone else around me. The smallest bit of weakness means that the other drivers will look down on me and tear me apart. And I sure as hell won’t let myself get taken down before I even step out on the track. I need to be confident, and I need to know that I will fucking see myself through to the end.”

“You aren’t wrong about that. Racing is ruthless in almost every aspect,” you sighed, smoothing his shoulder down. “But don’t force yourself to be strong if you can’t. I’m on your side, and you have every right to be nervous.”

“I know. I already told you though. I’m not nervous. I just want to get on the track and race again. Nothing beats the feeling of a good car and the wind on my body. And now that I’m a proper racer with an actual company and team backing me, there’s nothing that stands between me and the winner’s podium,” Epel breathed. He looked up at you, and the life that flooded his eyes and coursed in his veins was unmatched by any driver you had ever worked with.

You wondered what must have been going through his head. Vil had been the one to recruit Epel, a boy who barely knew anything about the world from what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Vil had promised everyone on the team that he knew what he was doing in taking Epel in, but he was such a far cry from the young, promising array of junior racers that had waited and trained their entire life to be in the position that he was in now. Everyone doubted Vil’s choice at first: what could an innocent looking country boy do, especially when he had no proper previous experience as a driver?

But he shattered everyone’s expectations. He had outperformed every junior driver the company had seen with a zeal for racing that was unmatched by any other driver anyone had worked with. It was like he turned into a monster the moment his hands touched the wheel—no matter what car he drove, he managed the car to bend to his will and bring home results that broke record after record. When you asked him how he managed to do that, Epel simply responded that the rush of racing excited him like nothing else and that getting a chance to take such a prestigious spot meant that he was becoming the man he always dreamt of becoming.

Even now, as he stood in front of his very own race car, the tension between him and the rest of the world was unlike anything you felt. Any other driver right now would be pacing the room and doing whatever they could do to calm their nerves and prepare themself for the race, but you had to practically keep Epel off of the car. Soon enough, Vil would be swinging around to pick the boy up and prepare to throw him out on the track, but for now, it was just you and your precious Epel in this moment of quiet reprise before the madness.

You cleared your throat, breaking the silence. Epel looked at you with his big eyes, the blue reminding you of the bright sunny sky earlier before the darkness set in. He was everything and nothing all at once—the untouched manner of a young man and the tainted ambition of a racer, the pure intentions of a boy and the merciless nature of a beast.

“I know you said you aren’t nervous, but… I want you to know I’m cheering for you. There’s no way I can understand what you feel right now, with the entire world peering down your back, but even if everything goes wrong and it feels like no one believes in you, I want you to know that I’m here for you. I want to see you happy. I know the company makes it out so that you’re only worth your results, but I think you’re worth so much more than that. You’re a brilliant driver but an even more brilliant person,” you breathed. You squeezed his shoulder and gave him a bashful smile, holding up your free hand in the shape of a supportive fist. “You got this, Epel! You’re going to do great, no matter what you do.”

His eyes widened as he faced you, and he broke out into a determined smirk. The hard edge in his eyes never left for even a moment, and you knew that he was barely restraining the excitement he felt for the upcoming race. He would only be satisfied when he was out on the track, tearing up the other drivers and their underestimations of him, and you knew he would be the one on the highest cloud nine when the whole thing was done and over with. He had a whole career waiting to be unearthed in front of him, and this was just the first step towards what you knew would be a legend waiting to be created.

He leaned towards you, closing the distance between you and him. Before you could even realize what was happening, Epel had planted his lips carefully on your cheek in a sweet but short kiss. The gesture was sweet, gentle, and tinged with electricity, as if he was conveying all the bubbling emotions brewing in his heart with the kiss. All the love, all the support, all the gratefulness he felt towards you, spilling from him in the quick skin-to-skin contact mere moments before the two of you would be torn away from what would be the climax of the season.

You thought your heart was going to stop.

He kissed you. He kissed you.

“Thank you,” Epel murmured, whispering to you with a voice only reserved for lovers. “I promise I won’t let you down. I’ll make you proud.”

As if on cue, the door to the car storage room flung open, and the signature click-clack of Vil’s heels filled up the room. “Epel Felmier! Epel, you are going to be the death of me. Out, out! The mechanics need to move the car out to the track, and you need to be ready to go. Have you used the bathroom? Got some water? Is your suit on correctly? What about your helmet? Come, come!”

Epel flashed you his usual smile, methodically answering each and every one of Vil’s questions as you stood there, stunned and grinning like an idiot as the coach and racer moved past you. Even if you stood there alone, you felt like you were buzzing with the high of a driver who had just placed first, and you couldn’t wait to see how the rest of the race was going to play out.

This was going to be such an exciting season.

#twisted wonderland #twst x reader #epel felmier #x reader #my writing #weirdos dni or ill run u over #this is me coming out as an f1 stan hehe f1 stannies pls talk abt hot drivers and fast cars w me #and yes im aware that the minimum age for f1 drivers is 18 but for the sake of the fic pls ignore that

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deannaroxannewrites · 3 years ago

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Tropetember Day 5 - Accidental Confession / In Vino Veritas (Drunk Confession/Drunk Dial)

Unrequited love? Bite me

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x GN!Reader

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries

Rating: Teen and up

TW: Drinking/alcohol, language, vampirism/blood mentions, FWB mention

AN: Day 5 of @tropetember. Not my best work but hope you enjoy. Might rework this slightly at a later point.

A visit to the Salvatores in Mystic Falls should be pretty fun, until Damon decides to drag you to a party the Originals are throwing.

Find this story on Ao3 here.

Word Count: 1.5k

“Damon, you cannot be serious.”

Your best friend just gives you puppy dog eyes. Bright blue and sad as can be. It’s kinda pathetic.

“Pretty please.”

You huff, knowing you won’t win this argument. You’ve known him since you were both children, through him being turned by Katherine and later Stefan turning you (long story), and then on and off in the intervening century and a half. You even had a casual friends with benefits arrangement when you were both lonely/bored. Knowing him so well, you decide to save everyone the time and give in.

“You’re paying for my outfit Damon! I can not believe you’re making me go…”

He scoops you up and spins you, making you squeal as he thanks you. Stefan, who has been observing from the couch being absolutely no help, just laughs.

“You won’t regret it. It’ll be fun and we can learn some things at the same time. We’ll be the most attractive spy duo in history.”

You just roll your eyes and go to grab your keys before stealing Damon’s wallet. If you’re going to have to face the Mikaelsons again, you weren’t doing it in something you’d worn before. And you were going to buy something expensive out of spite.

------------------

The entrance to the Mikaelson’s house was the same as any other house in Mystic Falls: opulent, excessive and with far too much marble. You’d take a cosy cabin over this nonsense any day.

Clinging to Damon's arm, you enter the space and, thankfully, Klaus is the only one of the family greeting guests.

“Darling, it’s been a while.” You can’t help the reactionary smile as you embrace him. He could be bat shit crazy at times, but he’d always been kind to you.

“Klaus! I’ve missed you.” Out of your eye corner, you can see Damon giving you both evil eyes. Had you accidentally on purpose forgotten to mention you knew the original family? Oops, your bad.

Klaus doesn’t let you go far, holding you at arms length to admire your new outfit. You do look stunning in it, if you do say yourself.

“Beautiful.” He leans in to whisper in your ear “My brother really doesn’t realise what he’s missing.”

You laugh him off, ignoring the implication. You knew better.

“Now boys,” you say, glancing between them, “I’ll have no part in whatever this little competition or measuring contest is, and I expect you all to leave me out of it.” They both look a little guilty as they nod. “Marvellous. If you need me, I’ll be somewhere out of the way with a glass of champagne.”

And with that you head further into the party, leaving them to bicker.

-----

"Urgh, I've missed you so much! I can't believe you left us."

You and Rebekah are both waaaay too many glasses of champagne deep at this point. You’d been there a couple of hours by now and it had only taken Rebekah 30mins to realise you were there and take you hostage. You're currently sequestered on a sofa in a corner and are both a bit sloppy.

"What do you want me to say Bekah? It's your arsehole brother's fault."

"Wait, what? What did Klaus do?"

You laugh, just a tad hysterically and fortify yourself with another sip out of your glass.

"Wrong one. Go older"

A look of understanding comes across her face and she wraps an arm around you. You, sadly, don't have enough of your wits about you to realise that this isn't the best place for a drunken heart to heart.

Everything starts to spill out of you. How you and Elijah had spent so much time together. How you thought he liked you back, only for him to turn up with what's her name wrapped around him. How he'd laughed when you'd expressed your surprise that he was dating, and how it made you feel like nothing. It was too much for your heart to handle. So you’d left, had a fun rebound weekend with Damon and tried to move on.

Rebekah pulls back slightly, wiping a tear that had escaped without your permission.

"You're too good for him anyway," she says and you laugh.

"I wish that were true.” You pull yourself together a little and put on your best fake smile. “For now, I'm just going to don an air of indifference and pretend I'm not in love with your oldest brother."

Your mirth leaves you instantly as you hear a refined voice behind you ask, "now why on Earth would you do that?"

It’s amazing how panic can sober you up.

You turn slowly and meet the eyes of the oldest Original. He’s in a suit, as always, and has a confident smirk plastered across his face. That pisses you off.

“Cos he’s an asshole” you coolly reply before turning to Rebekah, pressing a kiss to her cheek and walking swiftly out of the room to find Damon to take you home. You’d embarrassed yourself quite enough for one night.

You’d never admit that you were disappointed that Elijah didn’t try to stop you.

------------

One of the advantages to being a vampire was that you very rarely got a hangover. Instead, you just slept in a little, made a cup of coffee and did some yoga before heading out to treat yourself to lunch. You didn’t need to eat but you enjoyed the taste, there was much more variety in food than blood.

You'd only arrived in Mystic Falls a couple of days ago for your visit to see the Salvatore brothers and as such hadn't had a chance to try out the Mystic Grill. This seemed like a perfect fit opportunity. Something greasy would be perfect right about now.

The grill was a bit dingy but it worked for the place and you were happy to learn that they have a pretty good menu selection. Your excitement was soured though when Elijah decided to join you for lunch.

Dressed in yet another suit, no tie and the top buttons of his shirt undone, he oozes charm and money. Add in the handsome features and knockout smile and you were lost. You're sure back in the day the ladies with delicate constitutions had to keep their smelling salts close. You could easily have fainted over him.

But he wasn't interested in you, as he had made very clear, so you were just annoyed that he was existing in your space.

Elijah watched you eat for a few moments, clearly taking note of your reluctance to acknowledge him.

"For someone who's in love with me, you don't seem particularly happy to see me darling."

You groan quietly and lower your utensils. Wishing him away wasn't working.

"What do you want Elijah?" You sound bitter, even to your own ears. So much for attempting to sound neutral.

"One of my favourite people, who I haven't seen for a long time, has reappeared and I want to spend time with them. Is that too much to ask?"

You start eating again, using it to buy time. You had honestly missed his company. You just weren’t sure if you could bear him breaking your heart again, even accidentally and unintentionally. Luckily, he had more to say.

“Klaus told me off after you left, you know?”

You look at him in surprise.

“Told me that I’d wasted my best opportunity at happiness. Which is especially concerning considering who it was coming from.”

You nod your agreement. Klaus wasn’t exactly known for his sentimentality.

He continues, “would you believe that I really thought you were too good for me? That I really thought you weren’t interested?”

“Elijah, you can not be serious.” You pull a face at him. “I literally spent all of my time with you, hanging on your every word. I would have followed you to the ends of the Earth. How could you not have known?”

“I just thought you were being your usual effervescent self. I started dating again to try and let you go.”

Miscommunication. You shake your head. 30 years of heartbreak all because of miscommunication. God, you could bang the pair of your heads together. It’s basically a crappy romance novel. Ok, this is ok. You can fix this. You have pretty much forever left, after all.

Taking the initiative, you lean forward and grasp Elijah’s hand. His eyes fall to where you wrap your fingers around his. A hopeful look takes over his face as he returns to your eyes.

“Elijah?” You smile. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

He laughs. It’s a beautiful sound. You’re going to make it your personal mission to make him do it more often.

Lifting your knuckles to his lips, he places a gentle kiss on them.

“I can think of nothing else I’d rather do.”

#tropetember #fanfiction #the vampire diaries #the originals #elijah mikaelson x reader #elijah mikaelson x y/n #elijah mikaelson x you #miscommunication #tw: alcohol #unbeta'd #slightly rushed #in vino veritas

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“In the 1910s and 1920s, some people took particular offense to short skirts. Others were more disturbed by the sleeveless tops, delicate fabrics, and sheer stockings that young women fancied. Still others judged short hair the most troubling of fashion innovations. Yet no matter which aspect of the new styles they found more provocative, critics shared one fundamental conviction: They believed modern fashions to be part of a broader rebellion against conventional gender arrangements and therefore inextricably linked to the issue of female emancipation. Whether they talked about short skirts or short hair, they generally agreed that the new styles made women "much freer" and "more independent," both physically and psychologically, and that the reason for their enthusiastic embrace of the modern fashions lay in this fact.

In the years since then, both popular and professional historians have tended to reproduce this belief. With few exceptions, they have presented postwar fashions as a sign of young women's refusal to accept the constraints of nineteenth-century femininity and as evidence of their insistence on new physical freedoms. Like commentators at the time, they have emphasized the ease and practicality of the new styles, assuming that it was these qualities that held particular appeal to young women in general and working women in particular. Such claims are not without merit. When asked why they liked the new styles, many women who embraced modern fashions in the 1910s and 1920s pointed to their simplicity and convenience.

In retrospect, Henny Nedergaard, for example, explained that "old-fashioned dresses were so complicated. I remember in my childhood, it took forever for my mother to get dressed. The modern dresses were much easier. You just slipped them on—that was it." Charlotte Hansen also described the older styles of female dress as confining and appropriate only for a sedentary existence. "Our generation was different," she explained. "We were not content to just sit still and do nothing. Corsets and stays, that was not for us. We did not want to wear all those heavy clothes. They just did not fit us." According to Edith Jensen, the new styles "made it easier for women to move."

"Short dresses were much more practical," added Lily Enevold, "especially if you had to work. You couldn't really work in those long dresses." Some women endorsed short hair for the same reason. "Who in the world had time to comb and brush and put up long hair," Henriette Marie Markfeldt wanted to know, "when you had to be at work at seven o'clock in the morning? No, short hair was a lot easier." To deny that the new styles were in fact easier and more comfortable than the restrictive, corseted fashions and the elaborate coiffure of the nineteenth century would be pointless.

But to argue that the new fashions freed women from physical restrictions and eliminated time-consuming grooming would be equally untrue. Short, narrow skirts did not exactly promote free and unrestricted mobility. Neither did the high heels that became so popular in the postwar era. Silk stockings may have felt more comfortable than the older wool stockings, but they were also more fragile and more frequently in need of mending. Similarly, short hair may have required less daily attention, but it demanded regular trimming, and when curls and waves became the new fashionable norm, most women had to spend considerable time, not to mention substantial sums of money, at the hairdresser.

In addition, the new fashions demanded a slenderness that had not been a requirement for older generations of women. As fashion historian Valerie Steele has pointed out, stylistic change applies to bodies as well as clothes, and with the new, slimmer lines in women's clothing went slimmer female bodies. From the beginning of World War I, when the new fashionable styles first gained popularity, the "tyranny of slenderness" thus began its ascendancy over all women who wanted to be in style. In the postwar decade, this led to an unprecedented emphasis on dieting, a phenomenon still unfamiliar to most women in the early 1910s.

Yet already in the mid-1910s when the new styles were first introduced to broad audiences, advice on how to obtain a slender body became a regular feature in women's magazines. At first, such advice was rather infrequent and not particularly demanding. "The most efficient method is to eat minimally," one newspaper advised in 1915, acknowledging, however, that "this is of course not entirely convenient when one has a good cook." As a solution to this dilemma, the journalist recommended standing up for twenty minutes after each main meal, an exercise that supposedly would counteract the unfortunate effects of (too much) good food.

Gradually, dieting became more rigorous and sophisticated, and by the mid-1920s beauty experts were prescribing strict diets of grapefruit, fish, and raw vegetables "not just for a few days at a time, but. . . day in and day out, year in and year out." Other recommended ways of acquiring the slender body were equally taxing. In addition to dieting, women were encouraged to engage in various forms of physical exercise, not for the pleasure this might entail but for the results it would produce. If both of these strategies failed, a variety of commercial products promised shortcuts to a slender body.

From the early 1920s, a multitude of remedies, including oils, drinks, salts, and tablets, promised female consumers instant health and gradual thinness. Finally, women aiming for a sleek-looking body could—and very often did—turn to modernized versions of the traditional corset. Most famous for being discarded during the 1920s, corsets were in fact simply remodeled to suit the new styles. Replacing whalebone and canvas, tough elastic material flattened breasts and stomachs and eliminated the visible curves of hips and thighs.

Obviously, then, the fashions that made women more mobile and less physically restrained also made them more self-conscious about measuring up to the new "look." And no matter which strategy women chose in order to obtain the desired shape and weight, they had to engage in the immensely demanding process of self-surveillance and self-disciplining that the American historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has labeled the twentieth-century female "body project." But if the new styles were neither as easy, simple, nor carefree as they have often been described, why did young women so eagerly embrace these fashions?

At the time, answers to this question were rarely articulated by the women who adopted the new styles, especially not in writing. After all, fashion is, as Mary Louise Roberts has pointed out, "something to wear, not [something] to write about," and even though journalists were fond of querying their readers about virtually any topic under the sun, they apparently never thought to ask young women to explain their enthusiasm for the new styles. But when asked several decades later, most women had an answer at hand. "It was what was fashionable back then and of course you wanted to be fashionable," said Dora Ingvardsen.

Lily Enevold gave a very similar explanation. "I guess it was just what was in style, and you know how young girls want to be stylish." Others, including Stine Petersen, explained that "for me, it wasn't really a big deal. I just wanted to look good." Had contemporaries heard such explanations, they may well have been less perturbed than most of them were. For some women, the new styles clearly had no significance beyond being the prescribed fashion. Their reason for liking the new styles was not that they permitted women new physical freedoms, and they did not associate short dresses or short hair with any kind of rebelliousness against the status quo.

As Marie Hedegaard poignantly remarked, "I belonged to Conservative Youth, but being politically conservative had nothing to do with that. Of course, we wore short dresses, and most of the girls [who belonged to the organization] had short hair." Still, the women who recalled their stylish appearances as merely the result of fashion prescription constituted a minority. Far more frequently women gave another explanation. In general, they claimed to have liked the new styles neither for their practicality nor for their ease, but because they were a particularly effective way of displaying their difference from older generations of women and asserting a distinctively "modern" female identity.

As Agnes Nyrop explained, "We were young and gay and full of life, and we wanted to look like that, look modern." Voicing the same sentiment, Louise Ege explained, "Those dresses did not just make you look stylish, they made you look modern." "Having short skirts and short dresses, that was part of being modern," added Gertrud 0st. "It made you feel free and young and modern. Stylish, you know, glamorous, and that was what we wanted," according to Amanda Christensen. Whether or not the new styles were in fact easier, more practical, and more convenient, this was obviously not the only factor in determining these women's fashion choices.

The fact that the new styles set young women visually apart from an older generations whose confining lives they did not care to emulate was at least as important. As Thora Smed recalled, "My mother, she never had a moment of ease in her life. It was always toil and moil for her. I think most of us dreamed of a life that would not be like that." For her, and for many other women who were young in the 1920s, sporting the new fashionable styles was simultaneously an expression of this desire and part of its fulfillment. In her words, "We wanted something more, something better, and I guess [wearing fashionable clothes] was in a way part of that."

Simply wearing the new fashions certainly seemed to provide many women with a sense of glamour and style that lifted their existence into a "modern" realm of luxury, pleasure, and indulgence unfamiliar to most of their mothers. As a result, even the stringent requirements for slenderness and the laborious aspects of other forms of beauty care seemed well worth the effort. In fact, engaging in such beauty care was in itself a privilege that many young women treasured. "I have to admit that [we] spent a lot of time on looking good," confided Vera Thorsen. "But it was fun. Trying different things, trying this and that. No, it was fun."

But the new fashionable styles did not only play a role on the individual level. They also signaled young women's collective embrace of a new identity as "modern" women and their commitment to creating a life for themselves that would be "modern" in a much broader sense. Ingrid Kristensen's answer to the question of why she liked the new styles was therefore less a non sequitur than it first appeared. After a brief pause, she explained that "young girls had a lot in common back then. We wanted something different." After yet another pause, she added pensively, "I think that was why we liked [the new fashionable styles]. It was like— like that was what you let people know when you looked like that."

Clearly, then, young women did not consider the new styles emancipatory in and of themselves. Still, to dismiss the women who wore them as merely clothes horses and fashion plates would be mistaken. Their pursuit of the modern look may have been informed by mass-produced images of female glamour and style, and the acquisition of a fashionable appearance unquestionable tied young women into elaborate patterns of consumption and individual beauty care.

But to the extent that the new styles provided young women with an individual and collective identity as "modern" women, fashion and appearance were part of young women's rebellion against the past. While they did not define themselves as feminists in any way, they were certainly not willing to accept the restricted, joyless lives they believed their mothers and grandmothers to have lived, and in their own understanding, this was exactly what they signaled through their adoption of the new fashions.”

- Birgitte Soland, “The Emergence of the Modern Look.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#birgitte soland #becoming modern #1920s #fashion #diet culture #history #gender

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lesdemonium · 4 years ago

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romtober day 6: adopted by love interest’s family

Rating: T Ship: Geraskier Word Count: 1675 Summary: Jaskier wasn't quite expecting to have such a warm welcome at his first visit to Kaer Morhen, but he certainly isn't complaining. Especially not when he accidentally overhears conversations he wasn't meant to hear.

read on ao3

“I do not kiss and tell,” Jaskier insisted haughtily, though he winked at Eskel and Lambert as he did so.

Lambert snorted into his drink--something far stronger than Jaskier would find at any old tavern in the Continent. Jaskier had taken one sip, gagged, and made some crack about it curling his chesthair that had Eskel and Lambert howling as they offered him something more suitable. More suitable, apparently, meant probably the strongest wine Jaskier had ever taken. It was meant to be sipped, absolutely, but at least Jaskier could stomach this one. He had never considered himself to have a weak constitution, but Witchers just so loved proving him wrong.

“That’s a lie and we all know it, bard,” Lambert accused, a finger pointed at Jaskier as he narrowed his eyes. Jaskier smiled pleasantly back. “If you had actually managed to kiss that princess, you would be bragging about it until your dying breath. I bet she rejected you.”

Jaskier feigned affront. “Rejected? Me? I’m offended you would even suggest such a thing. But I will forgive you, simply because you do not know of what you speak; you have not seen me in action.”

Now was Eskel’s turn to snort. “We haven’t seen you in action,” he repeated, an eyebrow raised pointedly and a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Have you seen him in action, Geralt?” Lambert asked, with all the faux innocence a shithead like him could muster. “Is it truly a sight to behold? Knicker dropping, would you say?”

Jaskier’s face flushed and he resolutely did not turn his attention toward Geralt, lest Geralt read a bit too much on his face. Geralt, however, didn’t seem to notice the teasing, which was less surprising and more disappointing than Jaskier would have thought. Instead, he hummed and tapped the table as if he was actually considering his answer. Bastard.

“It’s a sight, I’ll say that much,” he answered, ever the diplomat.

“Inspirational, truly. I think your roles should be switched. Geralt should sing of Jaskier’s triumphs,” Eskel said, rolling his eyes.

Jaskier waved a hand. “Save us all that misfortune, Eskel. Geralt would have to say a nice thing or two about me on occasion. I don’t think his poor, delicate heart could take it.” Jaskier grinned at Geralt and nudged him with his shoulder, only to receive an eyeroll and a push back--Geralt likely thought it was just a nudge, but it sent Jaskier tumbling over on the long bench. “See? Brute.”

When Jaskier had first come to Kaer Morhen, he had expected a far cooler reception than the one he received. He had been traveling with Geralt for years, and though he knew Geralt was fond of Jaskier, in his own ways, Jaskier could never quite call him warm. It was a safe assumption that a winter in Kaer Morhen would be much the same, but from three new witchers.

Vesemir did have a bit more of his progeny’s cool and collected demeanor, but he had clapped Jaskier on the back in a way Jaskier could almost call fatherly on multiple different occasions. When he had met Lambert and Eskel, Lambert had loudly started singing Toss A Coin at them and Eskel had pulled Jaskier in for the most thorough hug of his life.

Since that welcome reception, they had been outrageously chatty compared to their brother in arms, and nearly every night was spent talking well into the evening. Jaskier had no monster stories to regale them with, but the others did not make him feel as if he was the odd man out. Instead, they looked forward to his stories of skirt chasing and court drama just as much as he looked forward to their tales of heroics against monstrous monsters.

Monstrous monsters. Maybe he’d had a bit too much of the wine.

“It seems my meager human constitution pales in comparison to what your sturdier frames can put away. I fear I must retire before I say something to embarrass myself,” Jaskier said, pushing himself back from the table and standing.

“That’s the longest way to say ‘I’m pissed, gonna go sleep it off,’ I’ve ever heard,” Lambert snorted. “Do you ever say things straight?”

“No,” Geralt answered. “He once ranted through an entire meal, but the only thing he managed to say was that I was a troll.”

“And you are, darling. And a miserable hag to boot.” Jaskier waved a hand dismissively. “A true wordsmith such as I knows how to weave even the most simple of statements into works of art. Try not to miss me and my eloquence too much, and pray that you do not drink yourselves into an early grave. Is it still an early grave if you’re well over a hundred?”

The witcher’s laughed and bid him goodnight, and Jaskier made his way out of the hall.

The problem with the witcher’s keep was that it was not the most intuitive place to navigate. Jaskier prided himself on his sense of direction, having been in many a castle before, and all castles started to look alike with their long, windy hallways and doors upon doors, many of which led to nowhere. The keep was much the same, and the combination of its inherent confusion, the darkness, and Jaskier’s slight inebriation had Jaskier lost. Quite quickly.

It took him about ten minutes and four different doors he was certain had contained stairs earlier that day to finally admit defeat and shuffle back to the dining hall. He didn’t mean to overhear, he really didn’t. Jaskier wasn’t even trying to be sneaky--why bother, when you’re in a keep full of men pumped with so many mutagens they could tell the color of a rabbit from the way it shuffled its feet? Only, apparently the ale had dampened their attention enough that Jaskier’s quiet steps had gone unheard, and he was able to approach the door to the dining hall without so much as a stutter in their conversation.

“--like him, Geralt,” Eskel said.

“Aye. If you manage to fuck things up in the next year and don’t bring him back, I’m not sure if we can let you pass through the gate,” Lamber agreed, though his voice was unusually pleasant. Like he was teasing Geralt.

“So glad to know my own brothers have turned on me so quickly,” Geralt scoffed.

“Well, we’d probably let you in, but only because if your froze your balls off we’d be hearing about it for the next century or so. Seriously, though. He’s nice to have around. You have certainly been less moody this winter,” Eskel said.

“Yeah, you were a right prick last year. And the year before that.” Lambert paused, as if he was considering something. “You have been a right prick this year, too, now that I think of it. Maybe the bard just distracts from your overall unpleasantness.”

There was a quick scuffle and a grunt from Lambert, followed by a long laugh from all of them, though Lambert’s took a moment to move from begrudging to warm. Sometimes, Jaskier wondered if they truly were brothers since infancy; they certainly acted like it. Though, he supposed experiences like they’d had bound people together far more securely than mere blood.

“I’ll ask him, but there’s no guarantees. He makes his own decisions. Goes where he wants. I have no claim to him,” Geralt said, and Jaskier was sure he was not drunk enough to be imagining the sadness etched in his voice.

“Well that’s bull--” Lambert started, only to be drowned out by Eskel.

“Geralt, are you kidding?” Eskel asked, incredulous. “That bard would go wherever you went, if only you’d ask. Even over a fucking cliff.”

“Seriously. He makes eyes at you so frequently, I don’t think he’s even aware he’s doing it at this point.”

Lambert laughed, as if it was a joke, but Jaskier’s face grew hot with embarrassment. Ah. So they had noticed. Jaskier was half afraid they would, and now he had mounting concern over the fact that they were telling Geralt. Jaskier was quite certain this winter was about to get a hell of a lot longer, lonelier, and colder. Either Geralt would realize Jaskier’s affections were just as his brothers said and be disgusted, or he would just let them stay there, as if nothing had happened. Jaskier wasn’t sure which option was worse.

“I’m going to bed,” Geralt said, his voice gruff, and Jaskier heard the scraping of his chair against the wood.

Jaskier stumbled back a few steps, silently cursed himself, then tried to tiptoe away without attracting too much attention. This was not something he wanted to explain. Except, he still didn’t know how to get back to his own room. Fuck.

“If you’re smart, you’ll go to your bard’s bed!” Lambert called as the door opened. Fuck.

Jaskier scrambled behind a nearby door, trying to hide as quietly as he possibly could. It was a fool’s errand, he knew. After all, even drunk, Geralt would be able to notice him, surely. But he had gotten lucky once tonight when it was him against witchery senses; Jaskier could only hope he’d be lucky again. Otherwise he would have a fair bit of explaining to do.

Geralt walked by the door, and Jaskier only narrowly avoiding expelling a breath of relief. Until he heard Geralt stop, then push the door closed.

“Next time, you should make sure you close the door after you hide behind it,” Geralt said, a smile in his voice, then continued on his merry way, as if he hadn’t left Jaskier frozen to the spot in shame.

It took a long time for Jaskier to build up the courage to leave whatever room he had been hiding in. By the time he did so, Geralt was gone. Apparently, that was that. Apparently, Geralt was content to allow Jaskier to at least sort of live this down.

Maybe this winter wouldn’t turn out to be horrible after all.

#geraskier #geraskier fanfic #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #my writing #romtober

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muffinlance · 5 years ago

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Ok so Kindling!AU Zuko probably would be pretty useless as a firebender right? I mean by the time he got banished he was probably like... instinctively afraid of fire, even his own (especially his own if Ozai trained him heh) Does this mean he pretty much stopped firebending? Or does he like... not care how afraid and even more burned he gets, he's gonna firebend because he won't dishonor himself even further and also like surely that's what his father would want from him? ;))))

No one called them Kindling, officially. The word never appeared on any written document, any report. It got censored out of letters home.

Unofficially, everyone called them that.

In the 41st Division, their unit was officially dubbed the 41st Fire Starters. Like all Kindling units, they were kept largely to camp outside of active duty. For better supervision in their training, of course. Their talents weren't to be wasted on scout patrols or minor scuffles. Their barracks were in the middle of everything, the non-bender units and command posts and sentries standing between them and the outside world. For their own protection, of course.

Not firebending was not an option. Not even for their newest recruit, the wobbly kid who was only going to have half a face once those bandages came off. Kuzon of Nara got a peek when he was in the hospital tents getting his hands rebandaged. He wasn't very good at bending. The kid must be worse, with a face like that. The kid was young. So was Kuzon.

The average life expectancy for Kindling in the field was three years. One of those was their training year.

The 41st Division's training year was ending soon. The new kid must have ticked someone off, to get assigned here just as they got their first marching orders.

(The new kid looked a hell of a lot like Prince Zuko, may he rest in peace. It was a training accident that claimed the young prince's life. Of course.)

(Under those bandages, the new kid's raw burn was the size and shape of a grown man's fist. If that fist was on fire. No one said anything about this. Of course.)

Kuzon didn't gossip about what he saw. He told everyone, but that wasn't the same as gossip.

"Hey, kid," he said in the dark of the barracks. (It was after light's out, and they'd been locked inside for their own good, of course.) "We're going to take care of you, okay? Wherever you came from, that's over now. They don't... they don't hurt us, here."

Kuzon had some scars too. Not from bending; his mum wasn't a bender. His mum complained that if she had to raise a piece of Kindling for the military to burn, the least they could do was pay to feed him. His mum had three other non-bender kids to look out for. It had to be hard raising a kid you knew you couldn't love.

"Not on purpose," Kuzon added, into the silence. The kid curled up tighter on his bunk. Maybe he even got some sleep.

Officially, the kid's name was Li. The kid was real slow about responding to that.

Unofficially, they called him Prince.

"Just a nickname, Sarge," Kuzon smiled at their squad leader. "Harmless, right?"

The Sarge let out a breath, and then got back to yelling them through their drills.

The kid had been cleared for training (too soon).

The kid went through water like he was running a fever (he was).

The kid came with them all to the hospital tent afterwards, and fell asleep sitting up while they chattered around him. While the healers wrapped their new burns, and checked their old. Kuzon nudged him awake before the nurse could set a hand on him. Prince did not like waking up to unfamiliar faces. Kuzon wasn't exactly familiar, but he was better than nothing.

"Where are you hurt?" the nurse asked. Clinical, perfunctory. It must be hard, helping patients who would never really heal.

"Just my face," Prince said.

The nurse's lips turned down. "I mean new injuries."

"Nowhere," the kid said, and he sounded so puzzled about it. Like after a full day of training, that was normal.

(Prince Zuko was said to be a crap bender. Such a tragic death. If only he'd been born with the talent of the rest of Sozin's line, that innate control that had let them ascend to leadership, their bending blessed by Agni himself.)

(A lot of the kid's scars had the wrong edges to them, if you knew what to look for. Accidents were accidents: they flared, they dotted little ember-trails, they didn't stop clean like a hand wrapped around a forearm.)

(Kindling were allowed to wear short sleeves during training. Encouraged, even, for their quartermaster's sanity. The kid never did. He barely ever lit those trailing edges on fire, either.)

"You never have to go back," Kuzon said, into the darkness between their bunks. "I know this isn't a great life, but it's better, right?"

"...I miss home," the kid whispered back.

"Yeah," Kuzon said. "Me too."

You could miss things even when they were terrible for you.

The Sarge had been working them extra hard since their deployment orders came. He didn't need to remind them that the only prisoners the Earth Kingdom ever took were non-benders. Kindling were dangerous enough to themselves.

The non-bending units were getting worked just as hard. The officers all looked like they'd swallowed lemon-kumquats. They stopped sometimes, and watched the Kindling squad at training. Watched Prince. Left, after a good long look, their expressions unreadable.

Now that the kid's fever had broken (now that he almost-trusted that they wouldn't lay a hand on him, with fire or not), he'd taken to yelling at their sloppy bending almost as loud as the Sarge. The Sarge allowed it. The Sarge might have been in love.

The kid's new nickname was Sergeant. Sergeant Prince, Sir Yes Sir, if they were being formal.

"I hate you all," the kid said, and only growled when they ruffled his chick-fuzz hair. (Their entire unit might have been in love.)

Deployment day. Camp was packed up, and distributed largely to the wagons and the backs of the non-benders. Couldn't really trust the Kindling not to light something vital on fire, after all.

"You've got your full three years until retirement," Kuzon tried to joke. (It wasn't a joke.) "We've already used one of ours up. Remember that, okay? You're the one who's going to be fine. Statistically speaking."

The kid's scowl was really good, with that scar.

They reached their new camp site, on the wrong side of the lines. The Kindling unit took one of its small pleasures in life: heckling the non-benders as they set up.

"You could help."

"With our delicate constitutions?" Kuzon gasped, a hand over his heart. The fake swooning was probably unnecessary, but it made Sergeant Prince snort. Which was pretty much rolling in the dirt laughing, from anyone else.

None of the officers were laughing. Or shouting more than necessary. The camp was reassembled to military standard, and not a polished-boot more. It felt hollow, somehow.

Their first fight made it pretty clear why. It was also their last fight, after all.

The kid was alive, the last Kuzon saw. They'd done that much right. Without a locked bunk room or checkpoints or sentries watching inside the camp as much as out, he could leave. Run. They made him run, scared him with fire when he wouldn't, gave him a few more non-accidental scars. They wouldn't look any different then the rest of the kid's collection, but they were.

Where would be go? He was as obvious as firebenders got. The Earth Kingdom would kill him on sight; he'd have to go back to the military. That was the real trap. Not the locks or the guards. There was no place else that let Kindling burn, even for the short time they had.

But the kid was alive. That wasn't nothing.

Kuzon hissed in pain when the soldiers flipped him over. They weren't trying to be rough about it, but they weren't trying for gentle, either. Just checking the bodies.

It hurt too much to hold his breath, so playing dead had never been an option. He just kept breathing in quick tight breaths, and gave the guys in green his best smile. More or less.

"You a bender?" one of them asked.

Didn't really seem much point in answering, all things considered.

The other one lifted Kuzon's arm--stopped lifting when Kuzon couldn't help the noise that brought out of him--and rolled up his sleeve.

Rough burn scars, and yesterday's bandages. Yeah, he was a bender. The guy's face twisted in disgust, but the way he set Kuzon's arm back down was almost gentle.

"They're all so young," the guy said.

"Yeah," his partner said. Which was about the only thing a man could say, when everyone knew the truth didn't change anything.

Kuzon of Nara didn't see much after that.

#way to bring down the average Kuzon #Kindling AU

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langernameohnebedeutung · 5 years ago

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Okay since I remember one of the asks that disappeared, it was about what the situation is like between East Germany and West Germany today and if there are linguistic or cultural differences. (For one, if you’re interested in this, I really recommend the film Goodbye, Lenin, it’s a classic and it’s exactly about this subject and really funny and sad)

As for the linguistic side, because it’s simpler-

There are a lot of regional differences between German to begin with and I think compared to them, the differences between 'East German' German and 'West German' German are rather small. Being West German myself, I have an easier time understanding someone from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or Brandenburg or Saxony-Anhalt than I do with someone who has a strong Bavarian, Swabian or Franconian accent, although the former were East German and the former are West German. Also they’re not necessarily more similar because they were one a specific side of the border.

There are some things that vaguely align with either region and were more common on one side - for example there are different ways to same the time, but those also predate the separation and not all 'Wessis' say it this way and all 'Ossis' say it that way.

There are some specific words and abbreviations and idioms that originated in West Germany or in East Germany, but they are mostly rooted in Hochdeutsch (Standard German) so you can conclude their meaning.

For example, in West Germany people called a supermarket a Supermarkt (generally, there are more loanwords from Western languages in 'West German') while East Germans said 'Kaufhalle'. But 'Super' and 'Markt' are both German words and even if you don't know what it means, you can conclude that it's a really great place to run your daily errands. And 'Kauf' and 'Halle' translates to 'buying hall' so you get the same idea.

In regional dialects such as Frisian or Swiss German, this would impossible, because these dialects are much older and very often have words and rules that don't exist in Standard German - not to mention they are pronounced very differently. You couldn’t deconstruct a word like that into Standard German unless they sound similar. Some researchers also said that some words were used differently and that East Germans had a stronger distinction between public and private language and make different jokes - which is pretty much a transition into the other differences. Basically, the actual use of language that came into existence because of the separation was too short-lived and too artificial to truly part of the language. Plus there was never actually an attempt by either side to create a ‘new’ German language.

I actually watched some videos about North Koreans living in South Korea and struggling with the language and I noticed that for one, that Koreans said there was a rather consistent North Korean way of speaking - but while there are certain dialects like Saxonian that are ‘typical’ East German dialects (my parents can tell you if someone comes from East or West Berlin and often which part of either just based on the way they speak), there is not ONE East German dialect. Plus, the duration and intensity of the separation cannot be compared to that of Korea. Many East Germans still listened to West German radio and watched Western television. People could talk on the phone and write letters. And before the ‘death strip’ was finished, people could even talk across the wall. So there was some interaction.

As for other differences -

The obvious ones are the economical differences. West Germany still has a stronger economy than East Germany - a map, as an example (although it’s a bit small I know) - you can easily make out which part used to be GDR and which used to be West Germany.

The result is that many young East Germans, especially young women, move into the West to work, especially from rural regions. There are a lot of towns actually shrinking because they're only populated by old people and those who stay behind and try to make it work. At the same time, a lot of West Germans have started studying in the East because things are cheaper there. Many of them are students - so, again, young people - but they are moving into the cities like Leipzig, Potsdam or Dresden.

I definitely think there is a generational divide in the attitude East Germans and West Germans have for each other. I was born after the reunification and I've always considered all of Germany my home-country and so do pretty much all my peers and everyone up to a certain age. But my mother, for example, was born three years after the wall was first built and her entire youth, she watched it become bigger and higher and stronger - back then, she could barely imagine ever seeing a reunification and living in West Berlin, she experienced East Germany as a hostile country surrounding her and restricting her and being the cause of all the military presence - so she also didn't really see them as the other half to a whole and more of an enemy.

This was one of my favourite caricatures in my history books in school, it’s about the changing attitude East and West had to each other, the text says:

1945: “Brother!” 1955: “My dear cousin!” 1965: “Oh, right - we still have some distant relative living in a foreign country.”

The generation who was actually born pre-separation was born under the NS-regime and for most of them, watching the country as it was fall apart and rebuilding their lives after the war was a formative experience. This generation was all about looking forward, not back (because...looking back was very ugly, too). People who had family in the other half tried to stay in contact, make it work - but people who didn't usually had a more ambiguous relationship to all of this.

After the war, West Germany under Chancellor Adenauer's leadership was at least as eager to build relationships with the West as to reunify. And considering that occupied Germany could do very little to actually solve the whole Cold War problem all by itselves, the focus for the West was really on reconciling with France, forming a stronger European community (what would eventually turn into the European Union), rebuilding the country (Miracle on the Rhine) as well as rebuilding its international reputation. The fight to reconnect with the East (like attempts to form a 'pan'-German Olympics team) was mostly carried by individuals and organisations.

West Germany never considered itself saturated - for example, the reason that our Constitution is not called a Verfassung but a Grundgesetz a 'basic law' is that having a constitution would imply that this is a fully-formed state, when really, it was only expected to exist until the reunification. But de facto, in the 1960s and 1970s, reunification had begun to seem so unlikely that West Germany begun to ‘solidify’. I live near Bonn (the capital of West Germany) and it's interesting that the buildings the government moved into during the 1970 are much more permanent and secure (also partly because of RAF terror attacks).

You also have to keep in mind, even when the wall came down, only very few countries actually supported a reunification - many wanted the two Germanys to continue to exist as separate countries or to find a different solution. People were really worried about German reunification meaning that Germany would suddenly revert back to Nazi-Germany or, less paranoid, that a united Germany would be such an economic super-power that it would dominate the EU (...well) with only France and Britain (...well) being able to opposite it. So being too vocal about reunification for no reason was a delicate diplomatic endeavour in the decades prior to reunification. But long story short, there was always the dream of reuniting and becoming a whole new country together one day.

Which is...kinda the problem today.

Culturally, East Germany had an entirely different attitude towards itself, West Germany, its Allies and the world. It was a lot more militaristic, it was socialist and also had a very different relationship to the legacy of the NS-history and had very different international allies. For example, in SED-lingo, the “Berlin Wall” was called the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall” (The West being the fascists.) They considered themselves a new country. West Germany considered itself the Nachfolgestaat (successor state) to Nazi Germany with all responsibilities like building a good relationship with Israel etc. while East Germany held up the communist resistance and saw themselves more as the successors of the people who fought against the Nazis. A lot of members of the SED government had actually fled Germany during the NS-regime and gone to Russia and aided the resistance from there.

I already mentioned West Germany's great plans about reuniting and becoming a whole new country together. But when the wall fell, that never happened. West Germany absorbed East Germany and moved on with no new constitution or actual negotiation. Compared to West Germany, East Germany didn't have a strong economy and it was socialist, which means that the companies were owned by the state. A state that had ceased to exist, basically. So West Germany decided on a plan to bring East Germany up to (capitalist) standard. Chancellor Kohl promised that he would turn it into 'Blühende Landschaften', 'thriving lands' (which is something West Germans often mockingly say when they're angry about something happening in East Germany, so you do the maths).

Problem with all of this was that this meant basically re-modelling the entire economy. A lot of people lost their jobs, the weaker East German currency was replaced with the West German currency and Western companies moved into East Germany.

There is this old joke about reunification: East Germany: "West Germany, West Germany, you broke your promises." West Germany: "Don't worry about it, I'll buy you a new one."

Basically, through the Solidaritätszuschlag a lot of money was invested into the East - something that to this day, many people in the West resent, especially people who come from poorer regions themselves and accuse East Germans of mismanaging money or say that cities like Leipzig or Dresden were built up to be representative for the success of the reunification while certain regions in the West like the Ruhr-region are suffering at least as much as rural regions in East Germany. These groups demand that the Solidaritätszuschlag isn’t just invested into the East but all regions that have a poor infrastructure or similar problems.

You have to understand what a big deal reunification was when it happened. To this day, it is considered the 'only peaceful revolution on German soil' and East Germans take great pride in beating that regime while West Germans consider it the fulfillment to all diplomatic ambitions the country had since it was formed. And obviously, families were reunited after decades, people could move freely - you have to keep in mind, travel was extremely restricted and now everyone could go wherever they pleased. It was the biggest, best and happiest moment in living history. And then it took a giant nose-dive in the 90s and the stereotypes of the 'whining East German' and the 'arrogant West German' were born.

For example, the poverty caused a rise in right-wing radicalism in East Germany. The country was very isolated and suddenly a lot of families lost their income and people started blaming it on immigrants. West Germans, in response, decided East Germans are all Nazis and racists and are ruining our elections.

These days, parties like the right-wing AfD are actually trying to use the 'Western is the default' culture of Germany to appeal to East Germans and presenting themselves as the only ones who will represent East Germany. That's why they're rather successful in East Germany - they actually address East Germans as a group while the other parties look out for their supporters in specific regions in the West. At the same time, many East Germans who aren't racist, aren't Nazis and aren't voting the AfD or NPD accuse West Germans (rightfully imo) of blaming all problems there are with racism in the country on the East to avoid addressing their own issues.

East German: “As if there was no racism in the West.” West German: “There is...but it’s only latent.”

I think it’s important to understand that there are cultural differences and they can’t be broken down into: “East Germany has more Nazis”. And there are different experiences people made on either side.

For example, in 2009, during her election campaign, Angela Merkel had an interview and spoke about how she preferred buying her own groceries. (Yeah, German elections are full of riveting revelations about exciting stuff. Nothing compared to her compaign where she revealed her recipe for potato soup). She said: "I go to the supermarket - or, as we used to say, Kaufhalle."

The German version of the Daily Show takes this clip and shows it and makes a whole joke about it with the host commenting rather drily: "No, she got something wrong here - we never said Kaufhalle in the Federal Republic of Germany". Obviously, Merkel never said that anyone said that in West Germany. She was speaking of her personal experience - and she's East German. But I find it very telling that a national tv program actually branded this as a 'mistake' on her part, because the way she talked about her experiences wasn’t altered for West Germans to identify with them. At the same time, if you watch tv shows that are in a generic German setting - for example the tv-show Dark - you will notice that they’re never in East Germany. They’re almost always in a generic West German place - because that is not considered a statement.

As for other cultural differences, East Germany became very un-religious while West Germany had many CDU (Christian Democratic Union) governments. The result today is that West Germans are more likely to be (at least on the paper) either Protestant or Catholic while (I think) 3 out of 4 East Germans are neither. There are different attitudes towards family, equality, community, ---- nudity, entertainment, food, cooking. how much ice-cream should cost and so on.

So this also means there are...differences regarding the way people think about the past. West Germans tend to think of their living memory as universal, while Ostalgie (East-algia) is something peculiar to the East - because West Germans (with the exception maybe of West Berliners) didn’t experience comparable changes. But East Germans remembering their old cars and old food and stuff is something that many West Germans are suspicious of, because for West Germans, their last experience with a dictatorship was the NS-regime, so there is a much smaller acceptance of the West of separating the lived every-day culture under an authoritarian regime than in the East, where entire generations grew up in this system and built a private life for themselves outside the political aspects of that society.

This also leads to the bigger conversation about the GDR as an ‘Unrechtsstaat’ (Rechtsstaat: A country where everyone is equally protected by the law, Unrecht: Injustice). Basically, when East Germans say “Not everything was bad”, they are usually speaking about the community, helping each other and specific traditions, child care, things being more affordable. When West Germans hear them say ‘not everything was bad’ they think about that one uncle who might or might not have been in the SS and alarm bells begin to ring. I think this conversation is full of misunderstandings on either side. Because the East Germans actually suffered a cultural shock in the 90s when basically their entire culture changed and many people lost their jobs and their entire social environment begun to crack - while West Germans grew up watching military parades and giant socialist celebrations being held on tv for years in their neighbouring country and feared that they would be the first to die if a nuclear war broke out and now they see people celebrate that time.

That said, I think the tone of these disagreements has changed somewhat and statistics show that people are becoming increasingly more ‘German’ and less ‘East’ or ‘West’ German.. As I said, there is a strong generational divide, imo. No one in my generation or ...below 35 would ever seriously argue that 'East' and 'West' don't belong together, while I know some people in their 40s and 50s who sometimes say it was a mistake. These days, in my opinion, its less a sentiment of 'this is a different country and we have to live with them' (another joke: What's the difference between Russians and West Germans? - we got rid of the Russians) and more an internal disagreement that has some very serious aspects and some less serious aspects.

There is this (unofficial, whimsical) thing that journalists do every year when we (officially) celebrate (by doing literally nothing and sitting at home) reunification and they go around asking random people if the 'wall in our heads' still exists and I don't think it's really a wall that exists - it's not about the wall, anymore, or the Cold War or propaganda or anything, it's about the differences that exist today.

And in your original ask you wanted to know if there are still ramifications and there definitely are - the economical ones and the cultural ones. But I think when it comes to the cultural ones, I think part of the problem is the West German expectation that in order to truly tear down the 'wall in our heads', East Germans have to become and act and think exactly like West Germans - but I don't think that should be the goal and I think that the actual tensions between East and West are becoming smaller rather than bigger. I mean, I really focused on the negative in this answer, but I think most people today, especially the young generation, considers themselves German first and Ossi or Wessi second (or fourth or fifth) and the economical situation in the East has improved tremendously since the 1990s and I think that also helps easing things.

I also dug up some numbers of varying usefulness for you:

43% of East Germans say they eat meat and sausage every day, only 24% of West Germans do

The Gender Pay Gap is 7% in East Germany and 22% in West Germany

Of the 201 most successful CEOs in Germany, only 2% are East German

27% of East Germans say they trust the media, 43% of West Germans do

The 20 biggest German newspaper are all from former West Germany

2017 about 38% of East Germany were open to trying chocolate pizza, 43% of West Germans were

#nonfandom #I hope this answers some questions

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psalloacappella · 4 years ago

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Red (oneshot)

Title: Red Pairing: SasuSaku legit i don’t write anything else Word Count: 3400~ Rating: E, for like explicit, not for everyone. NSFW. Ya get it. Tags/What you’ll see: Sakura getting the office and oral she deserves

Summary: An old dress, a new office — Uchiha Sasuke offers regards to both.

Ao3 | FFN | ↓

(I have to preface when I post this that my top-tier amazing friend convinced me to do so and reminded me not to delete it this morning in the cold sober dawn lol. I consider this absolutely self-indulgent)

“Ah, Sakura?”

Jade eyes alight and ringed with red, her subordinate regrets interrupting what seems to be a bout of sickness or sadness; she’s been busy lately. They all are.

Spine bent in bass clef camber, in exhaustion, she straightens at his words into a ramrod illustration of diligence. Over scrolls and haphazard paperwork, empty mugs sitting in their own fossilized dregs, she snatches up a fountain pen to preserve her dignity and reputation. At her age she’s been handed enormous tasks that she only imagined in her wildest dreams, and most of those, in the past, were of love and marriage and not the nightmares and duties which replaced them.

Extreme stress manifests in mysterious and chaotic ways; she intuitively knows this, especially today, as she basks in the quiet glances, the way their eyes follow her long, long legs leading into ankles in heels that feel like cages. Her choice of a dress underneath her white coat today feels like a wanton beacon, but her battle reputation precedes her, legendary and terrifying; no one will dare blithely approach legs like those or earn the ire of her dangerous hands, so delicate until they’re crushing mountains and throats.

Electricity, a buzzing in the marrow of her bones; she taps the pen on the desk in a stilted rhythm.

She regards the young medic with a hazy gaze for a moment, then waves a hand. “Sorry, I’m just—”

He steps over the threshold; Sakura raises her chin, lips taut.

“No no, I’m sorry,” he insists. Under her bright eyes he feels the beginnings of idiocy and bumbling; his boss makes him tongue-tied, stupid. Younger than him, in a league of her own as she stands at shoulders with new legends; lethal, inured to all the stories about herself.

He notices the ochre on her lips like an invitation.

“I wouldn’t come too close today,” she says. Grants him a demure smile, the type that doesn’t quite fool her friends but still works with fools like him. “I’m not feeling the best. It could be contagious, and that wouldn’t be helpful to our operations right now.”

“Yes, of course.” Agreeing, nodding fervently with the obedience of a particularly compliant breed of dog. “If I may — you work so much. Too young to be feeling so tired.”

A laugh, it bubbles — starts from her chest as a giggle and drips from her lips as honey. Makes her quake, mottled red seeping through the skin of her chest as a sieve, collarbones sharp.

She looks feverish; she looks like a dream.

In turn she struggles to keep the waver out of her voice, knowing she’s lit up as fulgent as rouge festival lanterns and there's no way to kill the current.

I’ll never live this down — have to get him out of here

The cough she musters up is weak and if this was Ino, or gods forbid, her teacher, they’d call it pathetic. For a young man trapped in her sphere of admiring attraction, it does nothing but induce sympathy. But her legs are shaking, the situation is dire, and she’s loath to have another round of torrid rumor on the flapping lips of civilians and staff.

“Ah!”

At her cry, she lets her temple fall into her hand and her subordinate rushes forward. Gasping, she raises her other one, trembling.

“No, please. That sounded worse than it was. Just a headache coming on. In fact,” she rasps, “if you can let Shizune know I’ll be taking the next hour to recoup? A nap, maybe that’ll help.”

“I don’t know if I can leave you like this.” His tentative step earns her sharp gaze again, pursed lips that start his mind wandering in a way that makes him blush. Physically shaking his head to clear it, he nods slowly, finally, backing out of the doorway.

The hollow sound of Sakura’s kneecap hitting the underside of the desk rings in the space. Her gullible underling starts forward again, but the foreboding slap of her hand on the desk stops him cold. Acute, like it’s one to the face.

Sakura brings her knees together, swift, crushing his damn near regal bone structure and the handsome high bridge of his nose between the muscle of her thighs. A warning.

She glances down at him, he’s slicked with sweat — the glimpse of his glittering black eye and swirling purple one bring her too close to a wave she can’t indulge; she’s still this unwanted visitor’s boss until he closes the fucking door.

“Just me being clumsy! Do as I’ve asked and let her know, and,” here her breath hitches, hand leaving the desk, fingers burying themselves in dark messy hair, “th-thank you for worrying. I appreciate it.”

She’ll pay for the smile she gives this man, a sparkle of hope, like he’ll ever earn his boss’s favor in that way, as if he’ll measure up in any lifetime to the man that has her heart, the man on his knees under her desk.

“Sure. I mean,” horrified at his own too-familiar tone, “of course, right away, ma’am. Miss. I—”

“Oh go now. ” It stutters out in jete musical meter, resembling pain — or other things. “Please.”

She doesn’t have to tell him to close the door, though she’s surprised he didn’t find another excuse to stay with her. Oh, he has it bad. But there’s no time to think —

Sinking into her chair, her hands grip the armrests with an intensity that forces music from them, cracking underneath her fingers. And now all the words of the last few minutes tumble from her lips, an unintelligible medley of curses and pleas cradling the half-formed shell of his name.

Without warning, she yanks him back by the hair and almost comes right there: His eyes scalding her, the mess on his stupid and incredibly fuckable face, a talented and dangerous mouth settling into a smirk as he thumbs an errant bit of her off his lip.

“That was close. Ah, so are you.”

He says it with such smugness and vanity. Quivering in her office chair under nothing but his stare, still in the grips of the unrelenting buzz and hum he’s enticed, and he absolutely notices.

“One of these days, we’ll be caught!” Tries to sound stern even as he rolls his neck and shoulders with a pithy nonchalance. “Stop that. So arrogant, preening like that—”

“Me? That’s rich.” He lazily trails a finger from her swollen, hot clit to her opening, lingering and lush to force all the heat and sounds he’s craving — her fingernails dig into her thigh while the pallor of her skin and dress seep and marry, reflections of one another. “Why did you wear this, Sakura?” Nudges the fabric with his nose, and she mumbles something hazy under his resumed touch; lost in orbit, in a void, in a place unearthly.

He starts the routine again, pressing his mouth to the inside of her thigh. Frowns at the irritating strip of fabric that constitutes clothing; it’s been twisted and pushed aside anyway. Her skin burning against his face, a lean cord of muscle taut underneath her pale skin. Vaguely threatening, but she’s yet to crush him to death and he’s on the second round of bringing her there and back again, and close calls such as those seem to stoke something smoldering. Some days, it feels like the only thing worth pulling himself out of bed for.

He fucks like he fights: Relentless, consuming. But that essential difference for the former is he never gives an inch; here, he pours it all in, something like an endless apology. Maybe she knows and that’s why she wears the red dress he won’t admit he prefers and paints her lips and runs the entirety of this village hospital system with grace and her own brand of gentle ascendancy — why he’s desperate for just the ragged edge of danger.

One of her legs shudders, the frenzied tap-tap-tap of her heel stammering against the floor in a cadence fit for instruments. “Sasuke-kun.”

Between the presses of his lips leading a hot, agonizing march back to her core, an arrogant noise in his throat escapes, rich and amused. “So this — is your new office?”

“Mmm,” she confirms, still clinging to the chair. The only support she has; the room’s spinning and every cell is vibrating, pink eyebrows knitted as she fights to remain upright and solid and somewhat human because the door’s not locked and she knows he knows, knows he doesn’t care and frankly neither, really, does she. Melting like basalt in unending, stifling heat.

Calloused fingers walk up the soft skin of her calf, catching and searing, sundering the delicate layer where they brush to release the pent-up steam underneath.

He’s fire; she is earth.

Always, all of him ablaze — possessive in its own discipline but a thing begging for taming. He builds the pyre here, as he has been for the last hour or so, to focus himself, patiently coaxing it into something chaotic but fruitful. Lately all he’s felt is the joyless, sober embodiment of a tool to be used though perhaps this is the same, a compulsion by any other name.

But it can’t be, not with her looking like this. Striding down her hallways with purpose while bending the horrors and ills of the world to her indomitable will. Certainly this dress is no accident, as it never is, not with him coming off a mission full of blood and necessary evil.

Dragging the thin, sorry excuse for fabric down the burning skin of her leg, Sasuke’s tongue finds her clit with terrifying precision and rips a moan from her throat, pulling a jerk of her hips against his mouth. The shockwave shared, vibrating as wires intertwined, a forcible current.

Leans back, takes her in: Her trembling, knuckles white from the fatal grip on the arms of the chair, knees sinking inward toward one another. The sight of this rich red dress against the stark, starched white of her coat blending with the mottled pinks and crimsons painting her cheeks and chest. Unraveling before him, extraordinary, even while this space belongs to her.

This, sometimes, feels like undeserved forgiveness.

Because she is always, always in living color.

Adjusts his own knees, shifts, a catch of air in his throat as he accommodates the hard length of his own caged cock. They’re no stranger to claiming desks and other surfaces as their own, but she has strings on him and there's authority in here now, where she holds men at the door with a flicker of her gentle jade eyes borne of the grueling process which created her.

Sliding the useless fabric into his pocket, raises his chin to her. Stares as she bites her lip and struggles for composure, though it’s difficult under the gaze of a man like this.

He waits, and the only sounds are ragged breathing from both.

“Please,” she whispers. Quivering, even at the ask. “Before someone comes back.”

“You worry so much,” he says. “Relax.”

“I’m sorry, I just—”

“What did I tell you,” he hisses, “about apologies?”

She blinks, startled, and her lips part. A sparkle, a brilliance emerging in her eyes as she clenches and unclenches her fingers. Still, they shake a bit, the anticipation and remnants of the rise and current before still lingering, lying in wait. Predatory. A wetness floods to her lips and she swallows it down, leveling her eyes to his glittering, savage gaze.

With a deep inhale, she spreads herself before him, knees apart. Blushing invisible, lost in the red that’s already dappled every inch of her, she exhales the rest of her timidity with an edged, sharp expression and hopes she’s being clear—

Sakura just barely glimpses the fierce red in his gaze before he answers with his tongue, deft, ardent, and divine.

Breaking the chair arms beneath her delicate hands again, scrabbling to stay on the beautiful planet before it turns her loose. Sinking, again, the boundaries of atoms dissolving — they are nowhere but bliss.

Like before, the careful building of a fire, the agonizing escalation: He drops a kiss here, employs a firm tongue there, skirting the easy option in favor of the tease as he peels her back, layer by layer. Running it the length of her slit, heart skipping a bit at the dangerous quake of her thigh muscle; how long it's taken to differentiate between pleasure and impending crush. Again, the sensation of crawling into the den of something prized and feral. He feels it, her writhing and the pace and canter of her breathing and she’s liquid gold, fucking melting —

Her hips jerk, hard, when his tongue swirls around her clit, the cry coming from her jagged as broken glass and trembling like music, all things that make his own situation difficult to manage but he will, because these sounds entrench him firmly in reality. Alive. Knees screaming on the hardwood floor, unyielding as his cock cradled only by fabric and not as he wishes, by her hands or her red, red lips like the kind she’s wearing now.

Instead he slows her down again, pendulum swings between teasing and a furious rhythm that coaxes the full spectrum of human sounds from her beautiful throat. Rewarded for it with a whiny gasp as if breaking the surface of water, mingling with his own as he catches his breath. The end of it careens into words, something rough, he’s not even quite sure what he’s saying but he imagines, neither does she.

This—fucking dress—!

Nice, isn’t it?

Gets you attention

But only from you, S-Sasuke-kun

And her hand lands on his head again, thin fingers yanking his hair and guiding him as he splays her open, lays her bare. His name never quite fully leaves her lips, dancing with fragments of alternating pleas and curses. Just for that, for something he’d never thought he’d ever hear in his life, he grimly knows he’d write a fucking sonnet just to hear her like this — and with his tongue, he does, or at least approximates. The tremors of her shift deeper now, approaching release; she’s so slick it feels vile, indulgence in sin. All of which is smeared on his lips, his face, tasting of tang and salt; how many times has he been told he’s selfish? Guilty. Greedy, too, as he pauses to breathe—

looking up at her, he has an idea but can’t possibly know the extent of this, how she’s absolutely wrung out and beyond this dimension, hell, this galaxy, every inch of her humming in tune with the universe and brimming with absolute, inescapable heat, muscles taut and and begging for climax. Though the soft edges of her green eyes that see through him and everything else, rolling back, mouth open and lips parted in mimeo of an oracle, sunken in the weight of divinity, might give him some clue.

Don’t stop, please—!

— he’s there, with his fingers buried and soaked and deep, playing that just-right rhythm with a thumb on her clit that’s been worked to the edge and back again over the span of her busy afternoon. Hairs part from his scalp without remorse; her nails scrabbling and fingers clinging as she prays and sighs and curses occasionally, quietly, into the limp back of her hand. As if she’s really still trying to maintain a semblance of professionalism in the throes of being launched into orbit.

So very close. He knows by the slightly erratic rhythm, the pulsating of muscles inside and out and around him, tight and he steals a quick breath to endure and ease his fingers out to redouble effort with his mouth because the way she’s sounding, that sharp icy note on the ragged edge of pleasure and pain, tends to be the signal, the tipping point. The tremor her free hand sends through the bones of the chair. Knees apart as far as she can manage and desperately meeting him at the hilt —

Steady through until the end.

Release comes as glass shattering, atoms splitting. Unintelligible words trapped in amber, in a moment, in desire. With a mouth full of fire, he rides it with her through every wave, persisting through her slow and ebbing tumble back down to earth. To him.

He leans back at last, groaning at the pain in his knees. Watches her tremble and twitch, wringing out the very last dregs of her orgasm, displacing everything coherent left in her head.

Seconds stretch into minutes, and he gets to his feet as she languishes in a pool of pleasure, steeping as scalding tea.

At some point her hand rises to her own lips, limp and wavering, to clean her own unabashed drippings with an expression of dizzy surprise. The white dissipates from her vision and she finds his eyes on her again, one still richly red in its sole mission of memorizing the glowing after.

“Oh.” That’s all she says, breathless.

Sasuke brings fingers across his own mouth, rolls his jaw side to side, and something about his expression of smug satisfaction resonates, strings of a plucked instrument, a pull again of desire that threatens to ruin the sanctity of this brand new office and the role that comes with it.

For a moment she leverages the chair to rise, then loses strength — she lowers herself back in it, arms still quaking.

She reaches for him, plucking at his shirt. Hair flyaway, askew from her frenzied fingers, still in his mission gear.

Yanking him down by the collar, she crashes her mouth against his, red and hot, the tang and taste of herself immiscible with his own. Whatever sound he makes, this growl or rumble or ache, splits them open.

What pulls them apart is the grating sound of their former sensei’s voice: “I heard from a bird that someone in here was sick?”

Sasuke feels them in the room now and pulls away. Half-turns, finds himself leaning on her desk in a way that’s almost too casual, but necessary — his knees are shot through. Sakura smiles too widely, masking a secret; after all, both still feel the pinpricks of liquids drying in the new air.

“From your darling subordinate,” Kakashi twinkles, grinning underneath his mask.

“That one who follows you around like a puppy,” Naruto supplies, pouting.

Kakashi tilts his head toward him, both still lingering over the threshold. “Terrible, hm?”

Naruto misses the jibe and instead turns his wide ocean eyes on her new space. Whistles. “Man, Sakura-chan, this office is niiice. I’m jealous.”

“You’ll be in your new one soon enough,” she says, and there she is, her usual self. “I have faith. Anyway, this office comes with responsibility.”

“Well if anyone can do it, it’s you.”

“He was under the impression you were sick. Looking at you now, though,” and here Kakashi pauses in a manner all too deliberate, eyes sweeping over Sasuke’s cloak and belongings in a chair, and ends it with looking right at him, “you seem all right. Exhausted, I imagine.”

Her flush threatens to undo them both.

“He’s . . . sweet. To care.”

“He’s a fool,” Sasuke mutters.

“Perfect, you’re dressed nice,” Naruto crows. “How did you know we’d come make you celebrate? You didn’t eat, I bet you didn’t!” He eyes Sasuke up and down, at his unusually ruffled appearance, and clicks his tongue. “You didn’t even go home first, did you? Shitty boyfriend.”

The damage he committed on his recent mission pales in comparison to the crimes Sasuke wants to indulge now.

“Anyway, we’ll wait out here. After all,” Kakashi says, inclining his head, “this is your space now.”

Sakura exhales long and slow as they step out into the hallway. Covering her face with her hands, she groans. “No matter my job, I’ll never escape embarrassment, huh?”

Standing at last, she readjusts her clothes and kisses the underside of Sasuke’s chin. She reaches for his pocket and he moves easily out of her grasp.

“Sasuke-kun!”

“Pointless now. I’ll keep it.”

No matter what time, season, dimension, he regards all of her — the dress, the lips that held their color, the new flush simmering on her neck and chest — and craves, endeavors, to always love her red.

#sasusaku #psalloacappella #sasusakufanfic #smut #sasusaku smut #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #sorry it's shameless #whatever ya'll #give me good head or give me death

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darkpoisonouslove · 3 years ago

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Singing a New Tune

Summary: Valtor takes Griffin to the opera but his surprise meant to arouse carnal desires brings out unexpected feelings as well. Part 11 of Sparks of Life. Set before all the previous parts.

Don’t get fooled, this is 98% sexual content and banter. The other 2% is angst as per usual. This is an older idea (took over a year to get to it) but I finally came up with something solid and you get this. Was all the factual information in this necessary? No. But I did the research so you get it. Also, the Sparks of Life verse now exists in an alternate universe where time is warped so everything I need for a story exists at the same time (aka a vibrator before its time). Set before all the previous parts.

CW: Sexual content, edging, orgasm delay, sex toys (vibrator), a bet and public setting (for most of this)

Applying makeup in the evening traffic was a delicate process. At least Valtor had the decency to drive smoothly while she fixed the lipstick his greeting kiss had smeared over both of them.

Griffin's lips stretched into an indiscreet smile at the lingering warmth of his where the red was smudged. He'd gotten out of the car to open the door for her but instead, it had been her mouth opening for his tongue and the taste of tonic water on his breath. The musky scent of cologne wafted off of him to wrap her as tangibly as the candid thirst in his frozen irises had. Her breath had hitched under his wandering fingers, leaving his appreciation of the red satin silk hugging her body over her curves in case the push of his hips into her hadn't gotten the point across. She'd only had to stop him once his passion had threatened to muss her hairdo.

Valtor wasn't worried about the hardening erection he'd been staving off while helping her in the car, his hand palming her knee when it wasn't on the stick shift. It was pleasant if distracting with his constant motions. Each time his fingers left her leg her stomach sank a little in anticipation of their unlikely return. It had to be exhausting or at least annoying for him to constantly switch between tending to the car and feeling the fabric of her dress as a barrier between her bare skin and his. Yet, his touch was back invariably.

Griffin swung the sun visor back up, no longer in need of the little mirror it provided. "Are you going to tell me where we're going now?"

He'd called and told her to put on an evening gown for a night out. He hadn't given her specifics, only respite from the knot in her stomach with his compliment of her beauty upon arriving to pick her up from her apartment. Now she could be disoriented in peace without fretting over not fitting in with his fancy lifestyle.

"I am going to make you a bet," Valtor didn't ease on his cryptic behavior to fuel her heartbeat to faster notes in her ears. "Look inside," he pointed her to the glove compartment where a black plastic box was waiting for her.

It was a perfect polished rectangle with only two small openings in the lid for keys to lift it up. The shape corresponded to that of the attachments to the hair pin he'd presented her with upon entering the car. She'd been catching her breath still from his kiss, her cheeks the same shade as the flowers adorning the gold blush metal. She'd nestled the pin into her bun to spare Zarathustra's work from Valtor's abnormal clumsiness.

Griffin set the box in her lap. It was probably a necklace to replace the one around her neck although it went well enough with the hair pin and the bracelet she'd borrowed from Ediltrude on his instruction to adorn with gold. "That's a bit much. I've already accessorized, not without help from you."

"Aren't you curious about the centerpiece?" A smug grin took over Valtor's features even though his eyes remained on the road. He didn't have to look to find her curiosity; he'd fished it out with simple words. "If you are surprised by our destination, you'll wear what's in the box for the rest of the evening. What do you say?"

Griffin's eyes narrowed as her fingers glided over the sleek box. She had about as much idea where they were going as she did about what was inside it. The chances weren't on her side with that bet but he'd set up the perfect mystery to captivate her. "You're on."

Valtor beamed, fingers squeezing her knee lightly. Just what had she gotten herself into? His reaction was far too small to justify the joy spilling over her lungs at the look of the sparks in his eyes.

"What do I get if I win?" She had the key to the box. She could satisfy her curiosity no matter the outcome. So why did her question ring so hollow as they sped down the street?

"I have to admit I haven't thought that far," Valtor's reply was more sly than remorseful.

"Confident with yourself, aren't you?" Griffin fidgeted with her necklace when it was her heart she had to make sure was in its place. She must have lost it to him if she thought of the arrogance she'd despised at first with fondness.

"You're in my car after as vague an invitation as they come. That constitutes an absolute win in my book," Valtor caught her gaze in the few seconds the red traffic light granted them. The sincerity in his eyes was cutting despite all the times she'd already seen it and ran deep inside her bones. "Everything else is just greediness."

Griffin tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as an excuse to hide the flush blooming in her cheeks behind her hand. The Griffin that had barged into his office months ago would have scoffed at her gullibility but that woman hadn't been touched by the naked Valtor behind the suits and charming words. He was a different person from the one she'd set out to hate despite the same face. A person she could trust, not just with her physical well-being, but with her mind as well.

"Greediness is usually not a virtue in my book but this time I'll join you in your debauchery."

The corners of Valtor's mouth twitched up, his voice dripping with self-satisfaction. "Seduction is truly one of my best skills then if it grants me your company."

She'd peg him down a notch if she could find her disenchantment with his attitude. She was lucky the car enforced sitting on them as she went weak in the knees from the memories of every time his eyes had melted into a bared heart when she'd agreed to give him the time of day. Her time. He treasured it like the most valuable currency in his life. She wasn't a trophy or a possession as she'd first imagined herself from his point of view. She was a safe haven. His presence shaped her into something she never could have made out of herself. He did have an artist's touch, after all, if he hadn't proven it already all the times he'd drawn satisfaction over her being.

Griffin flipped down the sun visor again and ran her fingers over the corners of her eyes. The last thing she needed was smeared eyeshadow or mascara in her eyes.

"We're here," Valtor slowed down to give her time to look out the window.

They were passing by the Josie Robertson Plaza and the facade of the Metropolitan Opera House behind it. Even as they drove past it down Ninth Avenue, the building of the opera threatened to smash through the window with the force of her disbelief.

"I thought you hated opera," Griffin shifted in the passenger seat. He'd told her about his mothers dragging him to hours-long operas that were capable of crushing not just the spirit of a small child, but also his eardrums.

"I do," Valtor shrugged but the action was stilted. "However, I thought that was due to change if you were to indulge my experiment and accompany me."

Griffin nodded despite his occupation with the scanner in the parking garage they entered at W 62nd St.

"Are you surprised?" Valtor pocketed the ticket they were dispensed and the car was back in motion.

Griffin stared at him momentarily, jaw slackened with soft shock that was undue after all the times he'd proven he did have her best interests in mind right along with his own. He'd handed her the bet and it was only right to return the favor.

"Mhm," she nodded. "I guess that means I'll be wearing your gift." She reached for the pin in her bun but Valtor grabbed her wrist just in time with the engine shutting off.

"Not yet."

He pulled her into a kiss, her body relaxing in his arms despite the awkward angle they had to submit to. He took advantage of having no chauffeur on her request and pulled her legs over the parking brake and the stick shift and his own knee to bring her to the edge of her seat. His hand slid over the length of her thigh before squeezing at her ass while the other one tilted her face towards him to let him swallow her gasp right from her lips. He bit her lower lip to draw out a desperate whine for more as her chest pressed against his insistently as if her heart wanted to merge with his.

Valtor answered her, slipping his tongue over hers in a sensual caress while his fingers tugged playfully at the loose strand of hair. Griffin pulled on his blond locks in return to draw a moan from him in lieu of her own. Her nails scratched at his back through his shirt to launch his torso closer into her. A painful grunt reverberating through him sent their teeth clashing when her heel stabbed him in the shin and her shoulder tingled from the discomfort of being crushed between her body and the seat but neither of them let go before air was running out.

She caught a glimpse of the red smear all over his mouth before he nuzzled his head in the crook of her neck, lips tickling her sensitive skin. The off-the-shoulder dress gave him unobstructed access to her cleavage and he took the opportunity to run his fingers over the top of her breasts before slipping them between to tease the tender flesh. His teeth grazed over her heart to make her breath plunge in the hollow of her throat but they just scraped against her senses leaving a faint wet trail behind. A moan ran like a shock wave through her when Valtor fondled her breast roughly, her fingers digging into his inner thigh to jolt him.

Her breasts followed his retreating mouth, chest expanding with the breath she hungrily sucked in. Her pulse pounded in her throat and her head swam in the blur of passion wrapping them like a cocoon. Her muscles strained against the loss of proximity between her and Valtor.

"A little farther down that road and we'll miss the opera," Valtor filled the silence separating them like a brick wall. His breath came in short puffs that were barely enough to carry his voice steadily. She was tempted to say screw it and straddle him right there in a very public garage but the black box weighted her down in her seat. They hadn't managed to knock it out of her lap by a miracle. "You'll need to go to the bathroom once we enter the opera and put it in." Valtor nodded towards the plastic rectangle to pique her curiosity again and give her legs an incentive to move out of his lap.

She could use a bathroom to touch up her makeup again. Most of her lipstick was over the lower half of his face and warranted a tissue asap.

Exiting the car landed her in the glare of a woman in a close-by vehicle. It could be the smudge of lipstick on her chest that she'd missed to wipe away that got her the look or it could be the barely tinted windows of Valtor's car. At 70 percent Visible Light Transmission there was barely any difference from non-tinted glass. State laws were a real pain sometimes.

She looped an arm through Valtor's and they headed towards the Opera House. They'd practically parked at the entrance of it and she was en route to the bathroom in a minute, the box clasped in her hand.

From Valtor's wording it was safe to assume it contained a vibrator or Ben Wa balls–though, it seemed oversized for that–or some other sex toy. In any case, it was something designed to occupy both their attention and distract them from the actual opera. If he made a joke about making her sing, she would smack him with her clutch.

Once locked in a stall, Griffin finally pulled the hair pin out of her bun. It fit perfectly into the little locks and released them with a quiet click to make the lid pop up. Who knew how much it'd cost Valtor to have that mechanism custom-made.

She was met with a bright pink vibrator with an antenna for remote control. Which was where Valtor came in. She'd be at his mercy the whole time, the thought making her drip even more. She was already wet from the mystery he'd gift-wrapped for her and his fingerprints on her body. At least inserting the vibrator would be easy. Easier considering she still had to fight with her dress. It would have been so much faster with Valtor's help.

The thought of his probing fingers dipping into her arousal sent her cheeks flushing hot. A gasp tore from her when the egg fit snugly against her G-spot and the extension with the antenna aligned perfectly with her clit. She could only imagine the effect the vibrations would have. She'd had her fair share of scandalous escapades but making herself this vulnerable and handing someone the opportunity to take advantage of it was a first. She was already hot and bothered and Valtor hadn't even worked his full wicked magic on her yet.

The vibrator fit well inside her and stayed in place with her movements, just noticeable enough to make her constantly aware of its presence without even being turned on yet. Watching the couple women that walked past her while she fixed her makeup had her imagining their impossible knowledge of her situation. The rhythm of her chest was disrupted as she forced her eyes to stay on her own reflection. She'd have to make Valtor pay for reducing her to an embarrassed schoolgirl.

The sight of him outside pulled on the muscles in her lower belly, anticipation curling there for the vibrations to hit her with a simple motion of his.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly, leaning into her in a way made overwhelmingly intimate by the awareness they both shared of the toy inside her.

"Yeah," she nodded weakly. "I'm fine." The tension in her body spiked at the touch of his hand at the small of her back only for her to relax in his hold.

She let him lead her to the Balcony leaning on his sturdy frame for support. Their seats were numbers 5 and 6 at box 14, on the right side of the stage. There was just one other man in their box, in the seat that was farthest removed from theirs. Only a smidge of relief to her high-strung nerves.

She clung to Valtor's arm like a lost little puppy. Her fate was in his hands and he was making small talk like the world would end if they didn't discuss the view and acoustics of their seats at length. As if he'd come to watch anything but the performance he'd make her put on.

"Have you been to the opera before?" Valtor asked. Each word stretched endlessly in her mind to break her resolve against squirming in her seat. And hadn't she told him that already when they'd spoken about opera previously?

"Yes." Griffin licked her lips to smooth out the path of the oxygen into her mouth. "Headmistress Annora had us take the students several times."

"What did you watch?" Valtor was playing the part of an opera lover with care that terrified with its lack of transparency. If someone watched them, they would never guess the salacious game he was playing with her, his full attention dedicated to an art form he sincerely couldn't stand.

"I... don't remember." Griffin pulled the black box out of her clutch where she'd managed to stuff it at the risk of it bursting at the seams just so that her brain wouldn't be stimulated with wild fantasies. Valtor was pushing her buttons with random words like there was no sophistication whatsoever to her and she shoved the box in his hand to make him direct the bountiful energy inside her before she'd lost her mind.

"Shame," he pocketed it in his suit jacket and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I could have made you si-"

She would have socked him in the jaw and dashed out of the building if the beginning of the show hadn't interrupted his pun.

"Ah, time to commence our experiment." He pulled out his phone – the remote for the pink toy inside her. "Did you know," his finger slid lazily over the screen, "that the vibrations can be activated by sound?" A tap of his fingertip and the vibrator buzzed to life inside her.

She grabbed at his suit jacket, teeth biting in her bottom lip to hold her moans in. The vibrations hit her G-spot and her clit in waves synced with the music on the stage and she was at the half point of an orgasm already. The tension in her body tightened like a knot from the charge of adrenaline. He'd gotten her this worked up like it was nothing. She'd give him a piece of her mind if she weren't pulled taut like a bowstring between the building need for release and the wariness of getting caught pink-handed to kill all of her arousal and dignity.

"That's the medium level," Valtor's voice squeezed her throat to cut off her air and keep her from crying out. "Do you want to try out the highest?"

Griffin's eyes bulged out. She couldn't handle more without screaming over the orchestra. She'd make a fool of herself and ruin the show for everyone.

Valtor was faster than her ability to form sentences that had drifted too far away for comfort and the noise from the toy increased audibly under the sounds coming from the stage. And so did the frequency of the vibrations.

She had to clamp a hand over her mouth to trap the intensity inside her body but the groans were bubbling in her throat. Her thighs were shaking, toes curling in her pumps with nothing to ground her, and she only had seconds to spare. Her fingers twisted desperately in Valtor's suit jacket in a plea he heeded as she bent over, her walls clenching hard around the toy, and the vibrations eased up on her to let her take a breath through trembling fingers.

Valtor rubbed her back in a rhythm that nearly swayed her mind out of the reach of the vibrations against her most sensitive spots. "Are you okay? Did I push you too far?" Vibrators were still a vastly uncharted territory for her. She'd barely used any before he'd introduced them to their sex life.

"I'm fine," she leaned into his arm, head nearly lulling down on his shoulder. "But I almost came. I just need a little break." She hadn't backed that far away from the edge and she had never had a quiet orgasm in her life. Even when she'd been young and hadn't quite known how to bring herself the most pleasure, she'd had to muffle her noises with a pillow. And biting down into his collar wouldn't get the job done with so many people across the hall that would notice.

Valtor tapped his phone screen again and the intensity of the vibrations dropped to a level that was barely noticeable compared to the previous two. "Better?"

Griffin nodded. "Much. Thank you." Her lungs had an easier time expanding for air without moans constantly threatening to erupt from her open mouth.

"I could turn it off if you want?" Valtor caught her gaze, the blue of his eyes glistening with worry.

"No, it's fine. Really." He'd wanted her to wear it all evening–while turned on–and she loved a challenge.

"We could try out different patterns to the vibrations if you want."

Griffin shook her head. If they were following the sound patterns of the show, then there was less risk of making noise through quiet moments during the performance. That setting was working out in her favor. "No, we were experimenting with the opera experience, weren't we?" she managed a grin.

"So you want to leave it as it is?" A devilish note crept in his voice. "You know you won't be able to come on the low setting, right? You'll be teased without relief the whole time." His fingers brushed innocently against her breast to raise her skin into goosebumps.

She couldn't afford to come anyway but the certainty of that fact wasn't reassuring. "How long is this thing anyway?" They were watching the abridged version of The Magic Flute in English. It couldn't be that bad.

"An hour and 45 minutes."

A groan slipped past her lips to draw a glare from the man in front of them. At least that implied that he hadn't noticed their other activities.

"You have quite the way to go," Valtor leaned over, pulled in by the stronger vibration echoing through her body when the orchestra hit a high note.

"Are you discouraging me?" She didn't need consequences to her failure to be motivated to avoid it. Her pride was enough of a drive to grit her teeth through the merciless teasing of the toy inside her.

"I wouldn't dream of it." Valtor's hand clamped down on her thigh in a purposeful squeeze that made her walls clench around another tide of intensity from the vibrator. "Your reactions are so fascinating to watch."

"Thank you," Griffin returned the gesture smirking when it went directly into his cock and the little jolt of arousal pried his fingers off her thigh. He had a phone to pay attention to but her hands were free to pay him back for the teasing in case it got too unbearable. She'd have the time of her life if it weren't a double-edged sword and thus, saved as a last resort.

She turned her attention on the stage and the performances. She had a vague memory of hearing about the plot of that particular opera but nothing to make it familiar to her which wasn't necessarily a disadvantage. The costumes easily caught the eye with their brightness and peculiarity and the sets and props were breathtaking. The paper birds they had flying around on strings were her favorite detail and the only thing that managed to fully free her mind from the clutches of the vibrator inside her.

Getting immersed in the show was only setting herself up for failure when she forgot about the shift in the stimulation to her sensitive spots that would come with the change in the music on stage. It was a wicked scheme masterfully crafted by Valtor whose smug grin was always nestled in her hair or the crook of her neck. His breath tickling her skin and a casual whisper caressing her ear only pinned her focus on her overflowing arousal like the tip of a razor-sharp sword.

Tears sprang in her eyes at a high note that was repeated in a devastating sequence of vibrations for her. It was just short of making her tip over the edge of pleasure to leave her teetering on the verge of losing her mind instead as her whole body trembled.

"C-can I-I have your j-jacket?" she pleaded with Valtor, desperation making her voice even shakier.

"Of course," he took it off immediately, the commotion earning them more disapproval from the man in their box. "Are you cold?" he helped her put it on, allowing her to keep an arm wrapped around herself so that she wouldn't fall apart.

"No." She did several buttons to have the oversized jacket clinging around her frame like a tent to hide the uncontrollable reactions of her body from prying eyes.

Valtor chuckled.

"Don't laugh at me!" she scolded, her voice rising above the influence of the toy.

"I'm not. I'm just admiring your ingenuity." Valtor tucked a strand that had pried loose from her bun behind her ear, his touch sending shivers through her with the fantasies of him slamming her down on his bed and giving her the orgasm she had to deny herself. "I'm surprised you're still able to think so quickly and efficiently."

"Next time you'll be the one with a vibrator in your pants."

"Deal," Valtor agreed instantly, his eyes twinkling like happy stars on a warm summer night. "I never imagined I'd be eager to come to the opera but you've worked a miracle for me." His fingers stroked over her cheek gratefully to quiet down the screaming need of her body for a moment.

"Not for love of the opera." She wasn't even sure how many characters there were supposed to be in the show they were watching. But at least she had an excuse. Valtor couldn't say that much and he'd caught even less of the performance, his eyes clinging to her form the whole time to add more tantalizing caresses over her skin. Her panties were soaked and she had no idea what state her dress was in. She could very well be needing his suit jacket to cover up her mess once they headed out.

"That's good enough for me." His eyes grew darker like a storm cloud, the change from the deep shade of desire that had filled them grotesque. "This is more fun than I could have imagined one could have at the opera."

"You paid how much for tickets exactly just so you could fool around?" Cold and heavy dread cut through her lower belly to make the curling pleasure in there sizzle out. From the right angle she was just another toy for a rich boy like Valtor to entertain himself with. And she'd allowed it, had been the one placing herself in his hands.

"The money still goes to the form of art regardless of how I spend my time during the performance." Valtor turned off the vibrator snapping in half the chain dragging her mind down. "I see no harm or exploitation in a mutually beneficial situation."

The art was probably suffering from being ignored in favor of carnality but two tickets purchased was surely better for everyone involved in its making than two empty seats. And she hadn't left her apartment to go to the opera. She'd left to be with Valtor, the thought sparkling a warmth in her heart that lightened up her whole body.

"Sometimes when you grow up with limited resources, any frivolities feel like a crime." She was reeling in the freedom of his company. The suspense of getting caught was shedding from her like an old skin that was only stifling her progress. She'd outgrown the need for shame over treating her own desires with respect thanks to Valtor. After seemingly putting his selfishness over her agency the first time they'd met, she couldn't have expected such a valuable gift from him of all people. But he'd kept the miracles coming into her life, surprise after surprise that satisfied every craving of her heart for affection and kindness before she'd even recognized it.

"You don't have to justify yourself," Valtor cupped her cheek. "You are stunning just as you are."

The trembling of her lip could disintegrate him into the dust out of which her imagination had made him if she leaned into the impulse to kiss him. Instead, her hand sliding in his left trouser pocket startled him half out of his seat as it closed in on his cock.

"We're entering a dangerous territory here," Valtor chuckled, the sound coming from his throat far from the smooth composure that was slipping through his fingers as he gripped the armrest of his seat.

"You're the one that set us on that path." There was nothing in the bet to suggest she couldn't return the favor of robbing him of his lucidity.

"If you take us any further down it, I will need my suit jacket back." To his credit, he didn't reach to remove her hand or obstruct her access to his rapidly hardening erection. It was a competition now of who could stand the heat better, his ragged breathing reverberating through her over the score of the opera. The muscle memory of him sinking to the hilt inside her synced to his pants in her ear unfolded through her body despite the inappropriate setting. She was still wound up even with the break he'd let her catch.

"And leave a lady in need?" Griffin crossed her legs, the motion echoing through her own pleasure centers as her shoe brushed against his calf. "Not very gentlemanly of you."

"Did the vibrator inside you fail to convey the right impression?" The stimulation returned with the barest flick of his fingers over his phone screen.

Her foot tapped back on the floor and her hand flew out of his pocket as she sat up. She bunched up the fabric of her dress in her fist, her teeth sinking into her tongue to sever the surprised squeak threatening to give her away. She'd counted too much on fair play from him. It was her own mistake.

"Finders keepers." She smirked at him through the tame but insistent buzz against her sweet spots. The break had done more harm than good relaxing her muscles only for them to be pulled taut with yearning again. "I could lend you my clutch if you're in such dire need." She dropped it in his lap to provide herself the perfect cover to cup him through his pants.

Squeezing his rock-hard cock rapidly ended in an unearthly curse from Valtor's lips as his hips bucked into her hand and he had to jerk it away. They had to have drawn someone's eye with their conspicuous behavior but her whole focus was swallowed by the shift in vibrations from the toy. He'd switched up the pattern to leave her mouth hanging open without her palm to cover it. Unfortunately for him, without her clutch she had a free hand to resume his torture.

"Whoever's reduced to a bigger mess at the end of the show will be at the mercy of the other then," she pushed out through gulps of air. The flush in her cheeks could pass as excessive rouge and her labored breathing could be blamed on Valtor's cologne. Her shaking legs would be harder to ignore but Valtor's glaring erection would lose him the challenge any time.

"Did the teasing finally get to your brain?" Valtor altered the vibration pattern again to make her squirm in her seat, nails digging in her thighs through the red of her dress. "If I keep this up," another change of the stimulation to make her nerve-endings scream, "you'll be begging me for the high setting soon with no regard for propriety." He was on the right track, the world around her narrowing down to just the two of them and the phone in his hand the further the vibrations reverberated through her being.

The vague awareness of the multitudinous audience around them was an issue that was too easy to shrug off in her hazy mind. With it out of the way, she leaned over to let out her whimpers and moans right into his ear and make him shift in his seat in search of unobtainable relief. Keeping her voice down was a struggle she had to risk in the name of victory.

Valtor's losing battle against her vocalness forced him to swallow down his own noises and fiddle with her clutch for some cover to his straining cock. Too preoccupied with reining in his own breathing, he returned to the sound activated setting as a last lack of courtesy to her.

The music from the stage made for unpredictable stimulation against which she couldn't brace herself. Squeezing her legs together only pressed the vibrator harder into her clit to spread the shaking through her whole body underneath Valtor's suit jacket. Gasping was her default state of existence when the opera hit its climax. The world was disintegrating under her fingers with the intensity trapped inside her without spilling. It was just short of sending her over the edge of release.

Valtor's breath in her ear was the only outside force penetrating the barrier her eyelids had dropped on her mind. "You have about five more minutes to go." In other words – an eternity on the cusp of madness. "Shame we have to put an end to things so soon," he slipped a finger under the neckline of her dress, running it over the top of her breast and back to add more to the tingling overtaking her body. "I could watch your chest dance in its own rhythm for days on end."

A strangled cry escaped her at the cruelty of his imagination.

"And your face is an ethereal sight to behold in the throes of passion."

Bastard. His fingers rested calmly on her breast while hers twitched into the skirt of her dress, separating them from relieving her of her predicament. He wouldn't turn up the setting on her no matter how much her whole being strained towards the pleasure she'd left in his hands. She'd have to beg to earn his benevolence.

"You want me to count the minutes down for you?" Valtor's smugness dripped over her spine in shivers.

"If I were you," she licked her lips, her voice roughed up by the edges of her frustration, "I would take the time to... commit a fleeting experience to memory."

"You would deny me the pleasure of seeing you this way again?" he brushed away a strand of hair from her burning cheek.

"Long live hypocrisy."

"You are the one who's been denying yourself this whole time. And rest assured I won't let you go unsatisfied after working you up so thoroughly."

She looked at him, the promise encased in his eyes shaking her heart, too, with all the meaning he'd added to a game of pride and stubbornness. His fingers responded to hers faster than her breasts had lured them in and clasped her hand securely to lead it to his lips for a kiss. Perhaps not a gentleman but gentle with her, and that was enough.

On the stage below them the opera crested to its final notes. The calm before the storm as the loud applause exploding around them for the vibrator to echo it pushed her to the limits of holding back an orgasm. Her will was the only thing keeping her on the verge of one but she couldn't let go. She wouldn't.

The stimulation eased up when the excitement over the finale of the opera settled to a quiet buzz throughout the hall. Valtor got up and waited for her to collect herself. She'd lost the additional bet as well but that was the least of her worries.

Comparing her legs to jello would be putting it lightly. Valtor had to pull her out of her seat and support about 98 percent of her weight as she leaned heavily on him. At least his suit jacket was long enough to cover whatever stain her arousal might have left on her dress.

Valtor had to practically carry her down the stairs drawing most eyes around them but she couldn't be bothered to care. The vibrator had quieted down inside her to leave her dangerously relaxed. She had to watch out for sudden loud noises that ran through her like electric charges.

Valtor picked her up once they were outside to draw a squeal from her in revenge for all the noises she'd swallowed down. The motions pushed the vibrator harder against her clit just in time to tease it with the impact of her own voice but her muscles had already slackened in Valtor's embrace. Half her hair fell out of her bun as she rested her head on his shoulder. She must have thrashed harder than she'd thought in her seat.

Valtor gently placed her into the passenger seat as if she was fragile and dropped off her clutch in her lap. The vibrator barely responded to the quiet noises of him settling in the car. He unlocked his phone and handed it to her before he'd rev up the engine and jolt the toy back to life.

"You can try out the high setting and all the patterns you like. I can't imagine the restraint you had to exhaust on behalf of my little game." He got the car in gear before she could think too hard about his words. Her brain was stirred into mush by all the frustration she'd accumulated but that couldn't stop her heart from following.

"I didn't wait this long to come in your car with that thing still inside me instead of your cock."

Valtor floored the brakes so hard she was almost thrown in the dashboard without her seatbelt buckled. The car driving behind them honked continuously which would have sent her over the edge of an orgasm if she hadn't switched up the settings before driving past them and towards the exit.

Valtor looked at her with wide eyes as if he was seeing the world for the first time. His stare was intense enough to bring the blush creeping back up her neck and sides. Instead, it was his hand sliding up in her ruined hairdo. "How did I deserve your commitment?"

Commitment? Hadn't there been something to that effect in the opera? A character singing about his search for a wife? She was speeding in the motionless car and getting ahead of herself but Valtor caught her, his lips covering hers like a silky blanket.

That kiss was slow and gentle against her raw senses, his mouth just barely moving against hers and his tongue gently stroking a promise for later over hers. His free hand cupped the side of her neck with a slight tremble that quickly settled in the feel of her heartbeat underneath. Her lungs kept to a slow pace steadily breathing him in. The warmth of his proximity on her skin relaxed her body against the seat until she was floating in softness, in the embrace of the intimacy they shared.

Valtor touched his forehead to hers briefly to invite the closeness to stay after their lips parted. "Thank you for indulging me tonight. It'll be my pleasure to give you as many orgasms as you want."

"Any number will do if you truly commit to the execution." He was supposed to be lost in her body moving with his like one, not in the depths of self-deprecation.

Her voice had Valtor fishing in the pockets of his suit jacket for the ticket from the parking to avoid denying her any longer than necessary. They'd both waited enough for each other to be that unjust to themselves.

#winx club #winx griffin #winx valtor #griffin x valtor #covenshipping #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my writing #sparks of life #singing a new tune

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emeraldtawny · 5 years ago

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Satan x Fem!MC: A Foreign Heat

...I started this like 4 months ago and have only now just finished it oTL I hope you enjoy this 10k slow burn, friends-to-lovers style fic because wow this boi deserves soft love ;;w;;

This is also up on AO3 right here if you wished to leave kudos or the like uwu

Anyways, hope you enjoy~ :3

Rage is not a foreign concept to Satan; if it was, it would leave his title as the Avatar of Wrath quite redundant. That heat that flares up inside of him, that suffocating, clawing anger that makes his teeth clench and his blood boil, is such a familiar sensation to him that it feels wrong when that flame dwindles. Suffice it to say, being consumed by the flames of rage is what Satan is used to. It’s what he knows.

So when that flame wavers, he’s almost at a loss.

He remembers his first impression of her. She was, well, nothing special. Maybe an occasional aid to his boredom if she was near. He didn’t spare her any more of his thoughts than necessary, because he didn’t deem her worthy enough of his attention. He scowls at himself whenever he remembers that thought process, that mightier-than-thou mentality reminding him of a certain demon that shall not be named.

He’s glad that he thinks differently now. He’s glad that he gave this human girl a chance to prove herself. Because now, he thinks that he quite enjoys her company.

… Yes, he quite likes it.

“Satan?”

He’s pulled from his reverie of the past and back into the present, the very focus of his thoughts sitting beside him. Her head tilted quizzically and her eyes trained on him, she waits patiently for him to respond. When he focuses his attention on her, she sighs out her query.

“I’m having a bit of trouble with this passage. I don’t understand what it’s asking of me.”

He feels the corner of his lips quirk up at the perplexion on her face, seemingly enjoying her mild distress for the upcoming exam on Applied Magic. He sets his own book down and leans closer to read over her shoulder.

“Ah, Incantations and Curses. I can’t say I’m surprised this is tripping you up.”

She taps the side of her pen against her textbook, her lips pressing together and out into a pout. He has to school his features to keep himself from grinning at her endearing display of dismay, his eyes pretending to scan over the book while his peripherals work to keep her in his sights.

“This isn’t a normal thing to learn in the Human World, yet they teach it to us like it’s common knowledge.” She sees his lips begin to move to rebut her, but she beats him to the mark, “I know it’s common knowledge here in the Devildom, but that just makes it so unfair for those unfamiliar with magic.”

A huffed laugh escapes Satan’s nose as a puff of air. “Unfortunately for you, ‘those unfamiliar with magic’ constitutes only humans. Are you that determined to learn?”

He meets her undivided gaze, completely forgetting of their close proximity and is only viciously reminded of the fact by how clearly he sees himself reflected in her eyes. He catches the subtle widening of his eyes in his reflection, but nothing more. Sitting before a demon, this human simply smiles.

“I am if you’re the one teaching me.”

He blinks, forgetting his prized vocabulary for a moment as he loses himself in her earnest gaze. If he didn’t know any better, he would believe she was mocking him with her kindness. But he knew of her genuineness and he knew not to dismiss it so quickly. He leans back in his seat, clearing his throat simultaneously to fill the silence and to restart his brain.

“I guess we can arrange a study session if you think it will help.”

Her smile directed at him grows, her eyes lighting up and, for just a moment, Satan swears that the warmth coursing through his body feels... different. His attempt to follow that train of thought is cut off by her D.D.D. buzzing once, twice, thrice, to tell her she has a text.

She hesitates, casting a look his way to gain permission. He sighs in response.

“Mammon?”

She checks her phone quickly. “Levi. New expansion in Mononoke Land.”

He doesn’t seem to realise that he’s smiling as he says, “I suppose we’ve done enough studying for one day.”

She instantly relaxes, “Thanks. I’ll message you later about that pre-test study session.”

“I look forward to it.”

Grinning at his words, she begins to pack away her things. All the while, Satan finds himself unable to look away from her, a slight frown marring his lips.

The questions swimming through his mind irk him; why does her smile make him lose his words so successfully? And, more curiously, why does he want her to smile if that’s the effect it has on him? He found it bizarre.

The quick tap of a pen against the desk brings him back once again and he blinks up at her face, thankfully with a little more distance between them to keep his thoughts grounded.

“What?”

“Are you alright? You seem a bit spaced out.”

This troublesome human, only vigilant when she shouldn’t be, Satan thinks to himself dryly.

He smiles his usual smile, about as real as Mammon’s financial independence. “Same as always. Tired from reading, most likely.” he lies effortlessly.

“If you’re sure…” She hesitates before gracing him with a shy smile, one he can’t quite pinpoint the message beneath, “I’ll see you later, then.”

With a tiny wave, she readjusts the bag on her shoulder, lifts her phone to her ear and heads off, and Satan can’t help rolling his eyes sympathetically at her unhurried “okay, okay” as she no doubt addresses Levi through her phone.

Alone and without distraction, his thoughts should return to him again, unbidden. And they do, but only of her.

His fingernail connects with the wood of the desk as he taps his finger against it, his eyebrows pinched together and his lips opening to release a sigh into the air around him.

Even the book beneath him cannot distract him from the prospect of when he’ll next see her.

Days went by and things remained the same. It was exam period at the Academy, so Satan concludes that must be what has him so on edge… despite all previous years going smoothly and without incident. And also being aware that these feelings started shortly after she had arrived.

He shakes his head at the thought.

No, that IS the reason why I can’t focus as well as usual. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

He was certain that if he was an outsider looking in on his situation, he would be snickering at himself, baffled at how desperate he is to ignore the elephant in the room. He lets a silent sigh exhale through his nostrils - his fifth one of the evening - and returns to flipping through his latest novella, his dinner going untouched. He hardly flinches at the doors of the dining room bursting open and the loud voices accompanying it; sounds he has long since learned to block out.

“Whad’ya just say to me, huh?! Say it again, I dare ya!”

“I’ll say it however many times I have to to get the message through your thick skull: absolutely NOT!”

“C’moooon! It’s quick and easy cash! You’ll be rollin’ in dough faster than you can say ‘Wow, Mammon! I knew you were right!’. It’ll be too good to be true!”

“Usually when things are too good to be true, it’s because they are.” Satan pipes up, not even bothering to glance at another one of his brothers’ infinite arguments.

“Thank you, Satan. Finally, a voice of REASON in this room!” Asmodeus sighs, the sound both forlorn and dramatic. “I swear, such gorgeous bronze skin loses its charm when the person who wears it has about as many brain cells as my pinky finger.”

“Gr...Yeah, well! … Shut up!!”

The chair scrapes loudly against the floor as it’s forcefully pulled out to seat the exasperated Avatar of Greed, his grumbles unintelligible as he reaches across the table to pile his plate high with food. Another chair is pulled back from the table - much more delicately - as Asmo grabs his own food. After a moment, he hums in thought.

“Where’s ___? I thought she was in charge of cooking dinner tonight.”

“She said that she wanted to study more for the upcoming exams, so she left as soon as she finished cooking.” Satan flips another page of his book as he replies, all of his conscious efforts focused on remaining flippant in his demeanour.

“Awww, our little human is awfully diligent, isn’t she? But that means I don’t get to see her adorable little face over dinner. She’d be much more delicious than this, I’m sure.”

Satan didn’t need to look at his brother to know he was smirking, his eyes likely alight with whatever lustful fantasy he was conjuring up and acting out in his mind.

He’d hardly ever bat an eye at it. But now? Now, a sudden swell of fire pumps through his blood and makes his lips twitch in distaste.

“Not while I’m eating, Asmo!” Mammon somehow manages to muffle out around a mouthful of food, “Show some class, why don’t cha?”

His remark provokes an apathetic blink and an unenthused stare from Asmo. “You are the last person in the universe who is allowed to lecture me on class. Besides, don’t act innocent. I know that you’ve thought about her that way.”

That causes Mammon to swallow mid-chew, sending him into a coughing fit as he desperately beats at his chest to dislodge the choking hazard. He swallows again and gasps for air unnecessarily loud.

“Y-you can’t just say shit like that while I’m swallowing my damn food, y’know!”

“You’re not denying it, hm?” Asmo rests his elbow on the table and cradles his chin in his palm, grinning at his older brother squirming under his gaze.

“Of course n--NAH! I’d never think of a… a HUMAN like that! Nuh-uh! No way!”

Satan feels his fingers tightening around the book in his hands, his eyes practically burning through the page yet not reading a single letter printed onto the paper.

“But, why not? She’s such a beautiful young woman. Any man, or demon, would have to be blind or completely ignorant to not see what a sexy little thing she is~”

Words no longer process in Satan’s mind, the only sound in his head a high-pitched scream from a kettle way past its boiling point. He barely registers how tightly he exudes pressure on the book he holds, nor does he notice how he’s one lip twitch away from snarling in carnal rage.

What he does register, however, is the distinct sound of paper ripping. As do his brothers.

He crashes abruptly back into reality, the sight of Mammon’s and Asmo’s astonished faces greeting him. Dazed confusion turns into speechlessness when he turns his eyes down to where they’re looking. His novella, previously in peak condition, now sits split neatly in two, the spine of the book ripped perfectly down the middle and each half held tightly in Satan’s hands.

No one says a word, each demon brother parroting the other with their wide-eyed stares and inability to speak. Until the doors swing open to shatter the silence.

“Man, I’m hungry…”

Oblivious to what he just walked into, Beel walks up and grabs the entire plate in the centre of the table, bringing it in front of him as he takes his seat. Satan rises to his feet just as Beel gets off of his.

“I’m going to bed.”

“Hm? Alright. Are you going to eat your plate?”

He leaves without answering, his footsteps quick yet levelled as he flees the scene, the evidence of his lost control still held tightly in both hands.

Two demons speechless, one demon oblivious, and the other acutely aware that he can’t ignore this any longer.

___: Satan?

___: Satan, please answer me

___: ...Just a sticker or something

___: Anything?

He reads each bubble popping up on his lock screen, but makes no attempt to reply. Leaning back against one of the multiple bookshelves in his bedroom, Satan has long since given up on the mystery novel in front of him, his phone now sitting between the pages as his new reading material.

The device vibrates again and another message comes through.

___: If you’re busy, I understand. But can you let me know if we’re still okay to study together?

That’s right, he muses to himself, she wanted my help.

With a heavy inward sigh, he sits up straighter and grabs his phone, swiping it open and tapping through to send a reply.

Satan: Busy. Ask the others.

As much as I want to, I don’t think I should see you right now.

Instant regret plagues him as soon as he hits send, his stomach shrinking and dropping like a stone in water, sending ripples of guilt and unease through him. He drops his phone carelessly to the side and glares up at the light fixing like it will somehow burn away these alien feelings within him.

Yet through the guilt of letting her down, he’s angry. Angry at himself for letting this happen, for not seeing this coming until it was too late.

A powerless, frail little human did this to him? The devil on Satan’s shoulder laughs at his pitiful state; oh, the irony.

“What a mess…” He sighs out into the empty room, the literature his only audience. He looks down at his D.D.D., its screen black and lifeless and he curses himself for holding out hope that she’d even reply to him.

So when the screen lights up and dances along to its ringtone, her name dead centre, he almost smacks his head back against the bookshelf with how quickly he straightens up. He grabs his phone and stares at the screen, his mind running so fast that the vibrations from his phone feel numb in his hand.

I shouldn’t answer… I really shouldn’t.

Her expression from their last study session materialises in his mind’s eye, that sweet, shy smile he hopes that she only shows to him. He clenches his phone tight in his palm and, with a frustrated inhale and an equally frustrated exhale, he accepts the call.

“... H-hello.”

Damn his voice for faltering.

“No.”

He blinks at the assertive punch behind that single syllable.

“Um, what?”

“No, I won’t ask the others. Because right now, I’m more worried about a certain demon that has apparently shut himself in his room without explanation.”

Satan sighs in quiet annoyance and judging by the soft sigh from her end, he didn’t mask it well enough. “I’m just studying. It’s nothing for you to be concerned over.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. And I judge that you are very obviously lying.”

He props his knee up and lets his free arm rest on it whilst the hand that holds his phone taps its index finger against the device, waiting for her to elaborate.

“Exhibit A: You’ve been acting weird lately. And it’s not because exams are coming up.”

“Your proof?” he counters.

“I asked your brothers about your behavioural patterns around stressful school-related events, which would include exam and test periods. Every single one said that you don’t act how you’re acting right now. And if six of your brothers isn’t enough proof, I got similar responses from the likes of Barbatos and Diavolo.”

The assurance behind her words gives him pause, himself not expecting to be caught so cleanly in his lie.

“Exhibit B:” she continues, “What’s this about you ripping a book in half at dinner?”

His eyebrow twitches, as do the fingers around his phone.

“Who told you?” He doesn’t mean to come across as hostile as he does. Thankfully, she brushes it off without taking offence.

“Mammon. He was telling everyone how you ‘lost the plot’.”

“Hehehe.” The grin that accompanies his laugh is anything but jovial, “I’m going to have a LOT of fun hunting him down for that.”

Her sigh wrought with worry pulls Satan back from the brink of his sadism. He pictures what expression she’d be making right this second; her eyebrows likely pulled taut, a slight crinkle above her nose its byproduct. Maybe she’s biting her lip the same way she does when she’s fretting over the simplest of things; the thought that she’d be that concerned for him touched him, though he would seldom admit it so quickly.

“And finally, Exhibit C: … me.”

“Y-you...?” He barely recognises his voice with how unsurely it leaves his lips.

“You really think you can pull the wool over my eyes that easily? I may be a human, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

Satan’s nose scrunches up with his confused frown and he bites back, despite himself. “What makes you so sure that something’s wrong with me? You don’t know what I’m thinking, so don’t pretend like you do.”

“I’m not pretending to know, I’m asking you to tell me. And of course I’d notice when something’s wrong with you. I-”

She stops, her breath hitching slightly as she kills the words she was about to utter. She sighs again, a sigh of exasperation.

“Just let me be worried over someone I care about, okay?”

Silence. Her words play in Satan’s mind again despite him just hearing them, seemingly in disbelief.

The suffocating heat of rage, its smoke clawing at his lungs and its flames boiling his blood, is displaced by a calmer, more mellow warmth, akin to a bath run just a tad too hot; warm enough to lose yourself in the feeling, but hot enough to pool your skin in sweat and linger through your body.

Is she feeling this, too? This heat - a cold respite compared to the heat Satan is used to - that’s somehow both addicting yet stifling. It leaves him unsure of whether to draw near or pull away. The only thing he’s sure of is how fast his heart is beating in his chest.

A laugh. His laugh. Short and punctuated, yet relieving of the weight bearing down on his shoulders in an instant.

“Satan?” she calls out in worry.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. I just… realised how childish I was being. I’m sorry for speaking to you in that manner. You didn’t deserve any of that.”

“I deserve a little bit of it for prying. I was just worried. But, you seem better already, so I’m glad.”

Her smile translates so purely through her words that it’s only natural for Satan’s lips to curl upward as well.

“You really didn’t give me any room to argue, did you? That was cruel.”

“I learned from the best, and from his mystery novel and crime show recommendations.”

They both chuckle softly at that, both of their hearts aching in relief to be back in their normal routine. After a pause, she speaks again, her concern clear.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You know I’m here to talk to whenever you need, right?”

His smile twitches slightly, the bittersweet irony threatening to ruin the calm around them.

Kinda hard to talk to you about it when you’re the cause of all of this...

“Yeah, I’m fine. But if I’m ever not, I’ll tell you.”

I’ll tell you that you’re why I’m acting like this. But only when I can find the right words.

Until that moment comes, Satan sits contently as he talks with her, the warmth surrounding him ebbing and flowing like the waves of a tide.

“Well? Come on, don’t leave us suspended in, uh… suspense! How’d ya go?”

“Hopefully better than you in a basic understanding of the English language LMAOOO.”

“Says the nerd who speaks in text! Can it, Levi!”

“I’m curious, too.”

“Mmm, mmpf ammff mmmmpff.”

“Beel said he wants to know how you went, too.”

“Well, ___? Don’t keep us all waiting.”

Six of the brothers lean in close, waiting with trepidation for her next words. The one brother yet to speak simply stares expectantly at her, his hand in a fist and pressing his green thumbnail against his lips, his normally indifferent demeanour abnormally showcasing of his own anticipation.

She meets each of their gazes individually before looking to her feet and wringing her hands together. Asmo’s face falls, while both Lucifer and Satan’s expressions harden, expecting the worst. The others simply wait, not willing to believe her signals.

And, sure enough, she raises her head with gusto and breaks out into a triumphant grin.

“Nailed it! Top 10 in every exam!”

What wonderful hype-demons she has, their cheers filling the air and perfectly illustrating her own glee. Asmo places his hand over his heart with a heavy breath, as if it was about to give out.

“You sneaky little-! You can’t toy with us like that, ___. We were all worried about you!”

She sends a grin his way, currently preoccupied with accepting endless high-fives from Mammon and a back hug from Beel, “Guess I couldn’t help myself.”

She yelps and laughs as Beel’s hug lifts her off the ground with a spin, Levi and Belphie pulling her free only to entrap her in a congratulatory hug themselves. Away from the fray, Lucifer hums out a short laugh, his arms crossed in their usual fashion.

“I suppose your little prank can be forgiven for this occasion. You did well, ___.”

Gently pulling herself free from her hug sandwich, she smiles in thanks at Lucifer, but her eyes pull her to look at the demon beside him. His fist still covering his chin, he looks as if he’s still processing the information, responseless to everything else.

She steps closer to him. No response.

Another step. He blinks, his eyes locking on her.

That’s all the indication she needs and she springs forward to close the last bit of distance between them, wrapping her arms around Satan’s waist in a tight hug. She giggles at the shocked little “ah” that leaves his lips unfacilitated, and desperately attempts to hold back another at the way he clears his throat pretending that didn’t just happen. His hands move to her shoulders and, for a moment, she expects him to throw her off. But his arms circle around her back instead, his hands cupping her shoulders as he returns the hug, albeit a little stiffly. She smiles into his chest, thankful for a place to hide her face.

“Thank you, Satan. You’re the reason I did so well.”

He murmurs a response, his words a mixture of perplexion and embarrassment, “I didn’t do anything except some extra tutoring.”

“But so much of what we studied was on the exam, so I’m saying it was because of you. Accept it.” she counters, punctuating her words with a squeeze.

Just before the heat overwhelming Satan breaks to the surface and threatens to consume him--

“OI, SATAN! What’s the big idea, takin’ her all for yourself?!”

She stiffens in realisation at Mammon’s shout and quickly untangles herself from him. Satan picks up on the subtle blush blossoming over her cheeks and the way he feels a sense of loss at the warmth she was giving him. That lost warmth is quickly replaced by the fire he has long since grown accustomed to, the demon striking the match this occasion - and on many MANY occasions - being Mammon.

“If you’ll recall, Mammon, she hugged me. I didn’t ‘steal’ anything if she gave it willingly.”

“Ohhhh no! You DEFINITELY stole her! And no one steals property away from THE Great Mammon! I was her first! So I naturally deserve her first, and longest, hugs!”

“Is that so?”

Mammon gulps at the chilling edge to his younger brother’s voice, only emphasised by the smile on his lips, one of murder disguised as a summer’s day. The casual clothes adorning his body dissolve as he moves towards Mammon, replacing the mellow blues and yellows with black and neon green, the tip of his tail uncoiling from around his leg to direct its pointed tip at Mammon. All the while his smile never wavering.

“Speaking of people deserving things, there was an incident that I never talked about with you. I think now’s the perfect time to go over it.”

“I-I don’t thi-GUWWAAAAAH! Le-le-let go! Don’t mess up my hai-RAAAOWOWOWOWOW!!!!”

The rest watch - some with expressions of “serves you right”, others with exasperation, but none of them surprised - as Satan drags Mammon away by his hair.

“While we wait for that to calm down,” Lucifer interjects amidst Mammon’s wailing, “How about we celebrate your accomplishment?”

“Celebrate?” she blinks curiously.

“We prepared a party for you. Whether you succeeded or not, we were gonna party regardless. We’re glad that it’s going to be a nice party, though.” Belphie smiles.

“Simeon and Luke helped us cook up a lot of food. And I held myself back, just for you.” Beel chimes in.

“Yet you still ate two-thirds of the table...” Asmo sighs out.

“Let’s get this started so it can end faster. I picked up a new game from Akuzon and I’ve got my entire night planned out to the second, as long as this all ends by twenty-two hundred hours.”

Levi maneuvers himself behind her and presses his hands against her back to push her hastily towards the party, the rest following close behind. However, she can’t help but turn her head back to where Satan dragged his brother away, a smile creeping onto her lips as she remembers how he stiffened in her arms and hugged her with more tenderness than anyone can imagine a demon could muster. As the party kicks into high gear, she waits patiently for the one who will truly start the party for her.

…

A room almost completely trashed, enough food to be classified as its own country consumed (mainly by one demon), and the promise of headaches that will persist through all of tomorrow…

“I’d say that party was a rousing success!” Asmo announces, looking oddly pleased from his position sprawled over Levi’s lap, the latter too busy playing on his Ninterrordo Switch to notice.

“It was a success at creating the biggest mess yet.” Lucifer sighs, his headache already beginning, “Mammon, you’ll be cleaning up this entire room.”

“Wha-?! Why just me? Beel almost caused a food avalanche and Satan punched a hole in the wall! They should hafta help me!”

“I ate all of the food that fell off the table. So I’ve already cleaned up.”

“And the hole Satan made was made by YOUR head, so it’s more your fault for being an idiot and blabbing about the book incident.”

Mammon seethes silently at Beel’s and Asmo’s immediate shutdowns to his points. He looks around the room, suddenly confused.

“Speaking of, where is Satan?”

“He’s… currently compromised.” Asmo smirks.

At Mammon’s eyebrow raise, he points his finger to the side and everyone turns to look. Leaning against the wall with his legs crossed, Satan stares down at his phone in an obvious attempt at distraction. But his eyes keep darting to his side, incredibly conscious of the weight of a human head on his shoulder, using him for comfort as she breathes evenly in peaceful sleep.

“WHAT THE F--mmM! MMmmmMMM?!?!?!”

Mammon’s shout is cut off by Belphie’s pillow careening into his face with enough force to smack his head against the floor. He sighs as he smothers his brother’s all-too-enthusiastic shouts.

“She’s asleep. Keep it down.”

“If his shouts won’t wake her up, this putrid smell of normie jealousy will. Stupid Mammon.”

“I can hear everything you’re saying, you know.” Satan’s voice rings out, the annoyance behind his words clear. With a sigh, he pockets his phone and shifts as gently as he can to move her.

“What are you doing, Satan?”

He leaves Lucifer’s question hanging in the air, more preoccupied with slipping his arms around her upper back and under her knees to cradle her against him. After moving to his knees and then to his feet, he turns to face his brothers with her in his arms.

“Taking her to her room. I thought I could wait until she woke up naturally, but if you’re all going to keep making this much noise…”

“You don’t need to glare at us.” Asmo laughs, “She’s obviously tired from all that studying and partying. Just make sure you put her to bed like a good boy~”

Not even humouring him with a response, Satan leaves the room, acutely aware of his smirk following him out.

His footsteps seem to echo as he trudges through the hallway, the portraits ever vigilant and watching. Her soft breaths draw his focus, her head tucked in and resting against his chest. A smile creeps onto his lips at the way her curled fingers flex and relax against her chest, almost like a cat kneading its paws. He knows he shouldn’t enjoy this, shouldn’t be watching someone sleep. But his eyes had drifted to her face before he could stop himself and there they now stay, his feet on autopilot as he makes his way to her room.

He readjusts his hold on her, eliciting a soft mumble. Satan stops, afraid that he woke her. She shifts slightly, nuzzling into his chest and resting her head against his collarbone, a breathy sigh ghosting from her lips. He shudders, his fingers tightening against her thigh on impulse, and he’s suddenly extremely thankful for his high-necked shirt, unsure of how he would have handled her breath against his bare skin. Satan scowls and hastens his pace, desperate to leave those rogue thoughts behind and get her out of his arms as soon as physically possible.

The door opens with a soft creak and he shoulders her through into her bedroom. He tuts softly at her leaving her tableside lamp on but smiles at the open book on her bed. A quick skim of the contents confirms it as one of the books he lent to her, his heart fluttering in his chest at the fact.

The bed creaks under their combined weight as he sits on its edge, his previous thoughts of putting her down as soon as possible now no louder than a whisper to his conscience. The weight of her against his legs and in his arms, the calming warmth emanating from her that leaves him oddly restless for more, the way her eyelashes flutter softly in her sleep; suddenly, all Satan wishes for is this moment to last longer than he knows it should.

Freeing his hand from underneath her legs, he rests it atop her knee and stares down at her face, her head still resting against his chest. He can feel a heat creeping onto his face - the same heat from when she hugged him and thanked him so earnestly - yet he can’t find it in himself to dislike the feeling. Hesitantly, he moves his hand and cups her cheek, his fingers and palm moulding to the shape of her face like this is where they belong.

“So warm…”

Mystified and unaware he released his inner thoughts into the open, Satan studies her face while his hand basks in her addictive warmth, his thumb greedy for more as it traces the contour of her cheekbone with the same gentle care of flipping a page. Her shoulders roll back and she leans further into his touch, turning her face into his hand. Satan stiffens at her lips brushing against his thumb, but the happy hum and subsequent deep breath she releases against his skin freeze him in place before he can pull away.

He was right. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to handle her breath against his exposed skin.

With a thick swallow, he entertains pressing his thumb into her bottom lip. How it gives way to him so easily is fascinating and he doesn’t know if his thumb is shaking from fear of her waking up and him having to explain what he was doing, or the giddying thrill of chasing this warmth now pooling rapidly within him and begging for more.

Satan’s breath leaves him stuttered, his eyes following the path his thumb paves over her bottom lip, so soft and so malleable to his touch. He can’t break his gaze away, afraid of the spell shattering and dragging him by the scruff back to reality if he did. He doesn’t want this to end. Just this once, he could indulge himself - he could give in to the feeling instead of fighting it, propriety be damned. All he wants at this moment is to study her lips; what they feel like, how they move, how hot they can grow, how they taste, how…

How they… taste. How… they…

Taste.

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, and only vaguely registers his fluttering lashes as he opens them again. But the rush of heat cascading over him and pulling him under like a riptide yanks him back to the path of reason.

Heat bordering on scalding centres at his lips and sends pulses of heat to singe through his entire body. And at its epicentre is her lips, brushing ever so softly against his own.

The yelp that leaves Satan is strangled and confused and he jerks back, suddenly unconcerned over if he wakes her or not. He deposits her onto the bed, almost destroys the switch on the lamp turning it off and makes a break for the door. He curses his hearing for registering a soft mumble from her while he flees, as if taunting him further when she has already taken over the better part of his thoughts.

Leaning against the closed door, Satan stands stock still, feebly attempting to process what just occurred. How did he even get that close to her? He remembers being entranced by her lips, their softness, their feeling, wanting to taste them…

He stops before he falls too far back into his thoughts. He’s too hot - his face, his body, his… something that Asmo would be proud of. His blood is boiling for an entirely different reason other than anger. With only the paintings on the walls as his witnesses, he returns to his room on unstable legs, convincing himself that if he sleeps now, everything that happened will be nothing more than a dream.

Satan knows better than to repeat the same mistake twice. And he doesn’t plan on doing so. Even with every fibre of his being begging him to save face and strategically disappear until it all dies down, he knows it’s not that simple. Plus, he doesn’t want to avoid her again.

That doesn’t make this walk to the dining hall for breakfast any less daunting. His meandering pace screams hesitance, but he continues to walk forward in the hopes that each step will be easier than the last. It’s not.

He grabs the handle to the door and pushes it open before his brain has a chance to interject, his own pride too great to make him act so cowardly. However, as he steps into the dining hall, Satan is surprised to find it mostly empty. Only one other person sits idly at the long dining table, their elbows resting on the table and their fingers tented with their chin resting atop them, a small, sly grin on their lips greeting Satan as he enters.

“Hello, my dear big brother. Nice of you to join me. I was almost afraid that you’d stood me up.”

A hand on his hip and his lips pressed together with discontent, he replies, “What are you doing, Asmo?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Just wanted to have a little heart-to-heart.”

“About?”

“Don’t play dumb, Satan. You know what about.”

He stiffens slightly at the quietly admonishing tone behind Asmodeus’ words. With a sigh, he shuts the door behind him and moves to take his usual seat at the table. The two sit in silence for a moment, Satan’s eyes glued to the table and unable to meet Asmodeus’ inquiring gaze. Then, a bubbly chuckle dispels the serious air, even when Satan lifts his eyes to glare at the offender.

“Why are you laughing?”

“I just find it quite ironic,” Asmo leans in further, his smile widening, “I never thought I’d be sitting here consoling YOU. Maybe the sun will rise in the Devildom tomorrow.”

Satan returns his gaze to the table, his finger tapping against the wood in a purposefully steady pattern.

“Alright, alright.” Asmo sighs, “Joking aside, we’ve all been a bit worried about you recently, one of us especially so.”

The twitch of Satan’s finger against the table urges Asmodeus forward.

“A certain little sweetheart of a human asked us to make sure our dumb brother was taking care of himself. All of that pure warmth and concern of hers going completely to waste…”

His eyebrows furrow, but he says nothing. Asmodeus continues.

“It’s almost like she genuinely cares about him and wants the best for him. Of course, she could just be doing it out of the kindness in her heart, but she seems awfully insistent on spending more time with him than the others. Poor Levi has been throwing himself into his games even more than usual to fight back the envy he feels over that fact.”

“Is that so?”

Asmo shifts to rest his cheek on one palm, his head tilted quizzically and sighing with almost convincing perplexion. He sneaks a glance at Satan, aware of the demon fighting back a smile.

“She’s even been turning me down. ME! And I’m clearly the most beautiful demon in all of the Devildom! She must have bizarre tastes to go after a demon who rips a book in half because his brother says she’s gorgeous, and who ignores her for days because he doesn’t know how to act in front of her.”

His tongue tied, Satan can only convey his guilt and annoyance through his eyes and actions. And Asmodeus registers every single one. Dropping his hand from his chin, he clasps his hands together and leans forward onto his forearms, prompting Satan to meet his oddly serious gaze. Jewels of amber and jade pool together as their eyes meet, the less powerful demon’s gaze oddly paternal and wise compared to his usual self.

“But love and lust do that to people. It makes them do stupid things and makes them fall for stupid people.”

“...”

“Not going to deny it?”

A bitter chuckle, “I don’t have it in me to.”

“Because you have no rebuttal, right?”

Satan’s strained smile wavers slightly. He turns his head down to the table with a cynical, self-deprecating laugh before willing himself to meet Asmodeus’ eye again. “If you had tried to tell me this not even a day ago, I wouldn’t have listened to you. I would have entertained the thought, but never would have admitted it out loud...”

“You still haven’t, you know~” Asmo says with a coy bat of his eyelashes.

“Don’t push your luck.”

A short pause before the two demons let out their soft laughter, alleviating the serious atmosphere. A welcome calm for the whirlwind of Satan’s thoughts, if only briefly.

Love… It IS love that I’m feeling. Heh, I think… I could get used to this feeling.

“Soooo?” Asmodeus inquires, his eyes lighting up as they narrow gleefully, “When did you start falling for our dear little ___?”

“You’re the Avatar of Lust. You tell me.”

The level-headedness of Satan’s response draws a pout to Asmo’s lips. “But I wanna know straight from the source! Unless that means I have to ask her for the details. With enough… persuasion, I’m sure I can get her to tell me anything.”

A wide grin splits Satan’s lips. “Sounds like someone wants their head immortalised in the wall just like Mammon.”

The Avatar of Lust raises his hands up in mock surrender, yet his eyes are peaked with intrigue.

“I jest, I jest! But wow, you really can’t take a joke when it comes to her, can you?” He tucks a loose strand of his hair back into place and leans in with a smirk, “You’ve got it baaaad. You’re so in loooooove~”

The serene smile on Satan’s face belies the horns growing and curling out of his head, the aura surrounding him dense, like a black hole of barely suppressed rage. Asmo raises his hands again in innocence, movements more stilted and frantic than before.

“Okay, okay! I’ll stop, I’ll stop. Just-“ he taps a finger against one of the obsidian horns as he stands from his seat, “-put those away and do NOT push my face into a wall! You will not ruin the very thing that makes me beautiful, or you will have hoards of succubi coming after you!”

His horns retract with a roll of his eyes, his gaze trained on Asmo as the Avatar of Lust moves towards the door. Satan’s eyebrow raises.

“That’s it?”

Asmo stops, tilting his head back to his brother without fully turning to face him, “What? Were you expecting the ‘a demon should never fall in love with a human’ lecture? I’m not Lucifer.”

Satan snorts, a bitter grin splitting his lips, “Does that mean he knows about this and is going to berate me later?”

Asmo’s shoulders rise and fall with the hyperbole of a stage actor or a five-year-old, Satan choosing the latter as a more accurate description.

“Who knows? I don’t. I haven’t told anyone and, as far as I know, I’m the only one who’s figured out why you’ve been acting so weird around ___.”

He turns his head to face forward again, hiding his beaming, scheming smile from Satan, “But if I were you, I would hash out your feelings now, before all of our brothers figure it out and try to do something stupid. For example… try to stop you, or maybe… try to take ___ for themselves?”

The scrape of the chair against the floor as Satan leaps to his feet has Asmo chuckling despite himself.

“Sorry! Couldn’t help myself.”

Satan’s death stare softens when Asmodeus turns back once again to meet his eyes, the look he sends the Avatar of Wrath oddly kind considering his teasing not five seconds before.

“Just be honest with her and you’ll be fine, Satan. Lust is the body’s way of telling the truth, and love is the same for the heart. Trust your brother on that~”

With those parting words, Asmo takes his leave, leaving Satan to stand there mulling his words over in thought. As he struts down the hallway, Asmo can’t help but let a little sigh escape his lips.

“I meant what I said, Satan. You better snatch her up before I do. Just be thankful that I’m giving you a head start.”

He wishes that he could be bold enough to go straight to her and confess his revelation - confess that she has taken over the better part of his thoughts for so long that she has basically denounced him as the Avatar of Wrath altogether.

But, unfortunately for him, his rational side is much more in control than his emotional side, even with the realisation of his feelings for her. Any inkling of thought to approach her, any free chance to change the subject or whisk her away to speak in private is cut off… by his own doing.

Curse you for giving me some of your foolish pride, Lucifer. Satan seethes inwardly, looking for anyone to blame regardless of accountability.

Strolling with palpable irritation through the House of Lamentation’s halls, he pulls his phone out for the umpteenth time today, swiping it open and opening the messaging app. He stares at her contact, top of the list. The last message sent was her sending a sticker, the little demon character smiling brightly at him. With a slow, deliberate inhale, he focuses on dispelling all of his inhibitions with this exhale. Then, with every fibre of his being, he stops himself from thinking and simply lets his thumbs type away against the screen.

Satan: Are you busy right now? If not, come to my room for a bit.

He hits send before pausing to look over the message. With his eyebrows furrowing and that just-short-of-comfortable warmth pooling in the depth of his stomach, he types out a second message.

Satan: I want to see you.

That message sends a much harsher jolt of warmth through him as he hits send, suddenly self-conscious at his boldness and acutely aware of how direct and clear his message is. Even though he was staring directly at the screen, the vibration of the reply still makes him jump. Scolding himself and shaking his head, he pours his eyes over the screen.

___: Okay! I’ll be there in 10.

Three little dots dance in sequence beneath the text, Satan’s hint to know that she’s typing something else. What appears is a sticker, the little red demon character blushing as it averts its eyes. Satan is quick to mimic the sticker - though unintentionally - his free hand covering his mouth as he turns his eyes to the ground, the heat emanating from his cheeks coursing into his fingertips.

Is that a good sign? I’ve read that courting for humans is the same for demons, but that was a book from the last millennia so maybe it’s changed since then? … I’m reading too much into this. Stop thinking, Satan!

With a grunt and a grimace, Satan continues down the hall, his footsteps heavier with anticipation and nerves. He vaguely registers a side glance and eyebrow raise from Lucifer as he passes him, but he doesn’t stop to process it. Not when the biggest challenge of his life was looming above him and ready to strike.

…

It was the longest ten minutes of this immortal demon’s entire life.

But the soft sound of knocking fills the quiet room and Satan is quick to open the door. He’s greeted by an equally soft smile, her cheeks rising with her clear happiness at seeing him. Satan feels the desire to let his gaze drift down to her lips, but he resists; every interaction with her begins this way after that night, but thankfully he can retain a somewhat normal air without her noticing his gawking.

Without a word, he opens the door further and steps aside. She walks past him as she enters the room, Satan aware of her eyes never leaving him even after he closes the door. Now alone in his room is when Satan begins to feel nerves twist his stomach into knots and swell in his throat like a lodged rock.

“Thank you for coming. I realise it was short notice.” He hopes he sounds normal enough as he says that.

She replies with a soft laugh, “Of course. I always enjoy seeing you.”

Satan swears he feels his ribcage jolt with how hard his heart hammers against his chest. Her words hold such power over him that he starts to second-guess if she might be a wizard like Solomon. He closes his eyes and clears his throat, raising one hand to his hip and the other to his chest.

“Hm. Well, good. I… I do, too.”

Keeping his eyes closed, he finds the words coming to him easier.

“Do you remember when you told me to come and talk to you whenever I needed to?”

“Yeah, I do.” He hears her small heeled boots click once, twice, against the floor, her voice closer than before as she worriedly asks, “Is something wrong?”

Satan swallows thickly. “I wouldn’t say ‘wrong’, per se. It’s just… difficult. I haven’t felt anything like this before, so it was quite the mission to wrap my head around before I could accept the truth.”

The hand at his chest clenches into a fist, his sweater balled into its middle - directly over his heart.

“I found it infuriating at first, and even more so when I became aware of what this was. But now, I’m just angry at myself because I can’t look you in the eyes as I tell you this.”

“Why can’t you?”

An understandable question, yet it tightens the frown on Satan’s face and makes his breath leave him as a hiss through clenched teeth.

“Because looking at you makes me want to--!” He bites his tongue and turns his back to her, the end of his sentence ushering from his lips with remorse and shame, “--it makes me want to kiss you...”

A beat of silence. Enough to convince Satan that everything he has said has ruined their chances at ever having a normal conversation again.

Her footsteps announce themselves as she steps closer, each one cautious as if she is approaching a frightened yet powerful beast. Gently, she places her hand on his shoulder, and Satan tenses slightly at her warmth - at her warmth only making his own warmth burn hotter.

“Satan.”

Please, don’t do it, he begs silently. But it is ultimately futile.

“Satan, look me in the eye.”

His body moves on its own accord, obeying the pact without any concern for the demon’s reluctance. She doesn’t command him - nor any of the demon brothers - that often through the pacts she made with them, but they know that when she does, it’s serious. Satan turns around, his arms moving to hang rigidly at his sides before his eyes are forced open by demonic influence.

She stands in front of him, no more than a foot away, her head tilted up to meet his eyes. And she looks… beautiful. Her eyes glisten with the beginnings of tears, yet her gaze is clear and focused only on his face. Her cheeks are stained a tempting shade of pink and stretch out to caress her ears. And her lips look so tantalizing and soft as she releases a breath from them.

For a moment, the two stand there staring at each other, absorbing each other’s palpable emotions and letting themselves get lost in the other’s eyes. Then, she raises her hand and carefully cups the Avatar of Wrath’s cheek with a touch so tender that he forgets himself for a moment. His eyes widen and his lungs halt their breaths, everything ceasing to focus on the warmth and softness of her hand against him.

“___…” Satan breathes out, his voice confused and pleading, desperate for both more and less simultaneously.

The pad of the human’s thumb strokes against the skin of Satan’s cheek, seemingly lost in the act of touching him. He swallows around the lump in his throat and waits for her to speak, the everpresent heat only flaring hotter at the addition of her skin caressing his own.

“Tell me, Satan.” Her cheeks flush further and her eyes communicate hope and affection, “Why do you want to kiss me?”

“Because, I…”

Her hand moves to the back of his neck, her fingers sweet as they comb through his blond hair in a comforting, encouraging way. Lost in her eyes yet emboldened by her actions, his own hand lifts to cup her cheek, his thumb gravitating to push on her lower lip, so plush and perfect.

“Because I love you.”

His whispered words incite the warmth within him, breaking the dam and flooding his entire body with this sweet, addictive heat. Satan moves his thumb, replacing it with his lips as he finally, finally listens to his heart. She hums into the kiss, her fingers gliding further into his hair and tightening her grip, just enough to keep her presence known. Their lips part with incredible reluctance, their faces still so close together that neither can see anything except the other’s lips, both open and ready for more.

“I love you, too.”

… What?

Satan baulks, his breath leaving him as a confused gasp that he couldn’t mask quickly enough. She laughs softly at his confusion, her fingertips moving to brush his fringe out of his face while her other hand moves to grip his shoulder with a comforting squeeze.

“I love your company, your wit, how sweet you can be, your kindness. I love you, Satan. And I want to kiss you, too.”

His heart soars at her words, his brain struggling to catch up. But his body does not wait to react, the heat beneath his skin now burning his blood and fogging his brain. His eyes darken and his breath leaves his lips hot and desperate. Whilst familiar sensations, they feel foreign to Satan, this heat being too… addicting. He wants - no, needs - more.

His inhibitions discarded, his lips reunite with hers with such vigour that she gasps against him. Satan takes the opportunity to trace his tongue over her lips, poking and prodding at them, desperate for access. Her shock subsiding, she gladly relents with a sweet sigh and Satan claims her, his tongue running along the roof of her mouth before seeking out her own tongue to twine with. His hand still holding her cheek, the other loops around her waist and pulls her flush against him, desperate to feel more of her warmth and to share this glorious, suffocating heat with her. Her hands move as well, her grip tightening on his sweater while the other returns to his hair, carding her fingers through it and gripping tight.

Satan inhales sharply through his nose before deepening the kiss. She pulls his hair harder in response, the action spurring him on and making him want more. He sucks her bottom lip between his teeth, toying softly with it, lulling her into safety before biting down. Her groan is let out into the air unmuffled by their kiss, Satan pulling back with her lip still between his teeth. He lets go, letting her catch her breath and letting his eyes rake over the fierce blush on her face and the sweet, swollen velvet red of her lips. He pulls her back for another kiss, his impatience mounting. She returns it eagerly, her gasps and moans chorusing together. Their hands move over each other like the ebb and flow of a tide, each responding to the other and reacting in turn.

Their lips never leaving each other, Satan staggers backwards, urging her to follow. His back hits the door of his room with more force than she expected, her balance skewing and her chest colliding with Satan’s. She releases his lips with a gasp, pulling back to make sure he’s alright, but the hand on her cheek pulls her back in for more, a moaned grunt of satisfaction leaving Satan.

“Don’t stop.” He breathes out against her lips, his words muffled by the kiss he speaks through.

When she hesitates, Satan moves his hand from her cheek to the back of her head. He lets his fingers be enveloped in the silky river of her hair before gripping it and tilting her head back with just enough force to hurt. She gasps, an edge of pain in her voice, but a whimper follows as Satan attaches his lips to the sensitive skin of her pulse point. Soft yet fierce kisses travel across the plains of her neck down to the collar of her shirt before retracing each step anew, his teeth nipping every so often at her soft skin just so Satan can feel her twitch beneath him. The pleasure he feels pooling within him is incredible, the heat intoxicating and desperate for release.

If I’m not careful, I might just--

His lips reattach to her pulse point, sucking and nibbling at the skin whilst the hand at her waist adjusts to trace his fingers along her spine, relishing in the way her body follows his touch as if begging for more.

I need more.

He moves back up to cherish her jaw, kissing along its edge until he reaches her ear. Her breath leaves her as a shuddered moan when Satan takes her earlobe between his lips, his tongue playful in its caresses and his teeth gentle in its affection against her sensitive organ.

“S-Satan…”

Her saccharine voice makes him sigh, the sound reverberating right into her ear and sending a shiver of pleasure through her. Just before he can return to her waiting lips--

“Satan! You in there?”

The voice and simultaneous knock shock the two in the room, the vibrations of the knock felt through their bodies significantly. In a panic, she buries her face into Satan’s chest to prevent any sound of shock from escaping. His hand still on her head, he gently strokes her hair both to calm her and to compose himself.

“What? I’m busy.”

“Lucifer needs ya. Better come quick before he throws a fit.”

Satan clicks his tongue at Mammon’s awfully timed message, “Alright. I’ll be over shortly.”

“Don’t leave it too long or we’ll both be in deep trouble! And I won’t forgive ya for it!”

His older brother’s heavy footsteps disappear into silence as he leaves, but they remain silent and still for a moment longer just to be safe. Convinced that they’re alone once again, Satan buries his face into the crown of her head and sighs deeply, his breath tousling her locks and wafting the sweet scent of her hair into his nostrils. He feels her nuzzle into his chest and he can’t help but smile at the action, his past thoughts of her being cat-like re-emerging in his mind.

After another minute enjoying each other’s embraces on borrowed time, Satan begrudgingly pulls himself back. She follows suit, pushing herself from his chest but keeping her hands against him just as an excuse to touch him. Their eyes meet and they share an embarrassed smile, both of them flushed and glowing with a subtle hint of yearning and lust.

“You okay?”

His question makes her smile widen and she stands on her toes to press a ghost of a kiss against his lips, one so quick that he can’t react quick enough to reciprocate.

“More than.” she grins, “The demon I love returns my feelings. How can I not be okay?”

A troubled smile couples with tender eyes to make Satan realise that his heart is definitely going to be tested with this human if she keeps this up. But, the thought of always feeling so pleasantly lost for words and lighter than air doesn’t actually sound that bad to him.

He’s distracted from his thoughts by her hand sweeping a stray blond lock of his hair back into place, her eyes narrowing with unadulterated affection.

“Go on, then. I don’t want you to get in trouble with Lucifer.”

Satan nods, yet neither of them moves. His fingers massage the muscles at her hips, and hers trace over his collarbone through the fabric of his shirt. He can’t help but grin wryly at how easily this human has him in the palm of her hand, but realises that she likely feels the same about him. It makes him happy to imagine but, ultimately, the thought of Lucifer coming after him overpowers his greater desire to stay.

He pushes her away gently by her hips and moves away from the door. Quickly straightening out his clothes, he hesitates to turn to leave as he eyes her face. She raises an eyebrow at him and he lets out a soft laugh.

“One more?”

She rolls her eyes, but her grin and the twinkle in her eyes give her away. Satan closes the distance between them, his hand moulding to the shape of her face as he cups her cheek and his lips doing the same as they meet hers. Slow, smouldering, sweet; the kiss lingers even as they both pull away, the kiss kept short lest they get lost within their passions again.

“I’ll be right here waiting for you when you come back.” She whispers with a conspiratorial smile, one Satan can’t help but mirror.

With a final, final peck to her lips, Satan pulls himself away from temptation and opens the door to leave, his eyes locked on her for as long as possible before closing the door behind him. The sweet, lingering heat still coursing through his veins simmers gently through him, her warmth and her scent reminding him of her presence despite her absence. He scoffs, yet the smile alighting his lips doesn’t match the sound.

I’m an idiot. And she’s an idiot for choosing me. But, now that I have her, I won’t let her go. This warmth of hers is mine.

As he starts walking towards Lucifer’s room, Satan does his best to school his features to keep the content smile off his face. But he can’t deny that it’s difficult, knowing that she’ll be waiting for him to return. And that she loves him and yearns for him, too.

That fact fills him with sweet, loving warmth.

#obey me #obey me fanfic #obey me satan #obey me female MC #I had a lot of fun writing this so hopefully you all like it too uwu #alternate title: Satan is a dingus #long fic

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