#juries already are gurgling on it

[thankstothe]

Juries quoting the lyrics and I JUST DONT RECOGNIZE IT

Sorry Loreen, maybe Euphoria just went too hard the first time

[artists-who-rarely-draws]

Hunt down the good in me.

Garroth version.

This was a request from amaizing fan fic writer @starhvney where the reader is injured taking a blow for Laurance.

G/n Reader

Warning: Gore, nothing too crazy but the reader is injured, and I tell you about it, as well as gore being mentioned with the people who ambushed you. Shadow knight Laurance goes on a rampage, hurt comfort both in the literal and metaphorical sense lmfao.

Tysm for the requests! I am always open for more as long as my inbox is open!

Please enjoy!

You really should have expected it you suppose. The bandits had gotten used to easy life outside the remains of Pheonix Drop, raiding supply carts and merchants on their way to or from the small settlement. Obviously they weren't going to leak new arrivals with much bigger equipment than the rest of the inhabitants arriving out of nowhere, much LESS better equipped people fixing the village walls and gates. You suppose you expected them to be more... subtle... cowardly? In their approach to it. Oh how wrong you were.

Thank Irene Laurance carried his greatsword at all times because the closest thing to a weapon *you* currently had was a pick axe to work on the stone parts of the wall, sure sure it would suck ALOT to catch a pickaxe to the... well, anywhere, but it's nothing compared to an actual intended weapon. Laurance took the lead, telling you to stand back the moment the first bandit stepped out of the trees. And you QUICKLY realized just why Laurance was on the potential Jury of Nine list. But at some point, no matter the skill level, numbers can override it.

About 34 bandits had come out of the forest, a handful of the smart ones fled when they saw Laurances sheer skill with a greatsword. You were no expert but you knew that the great sword was one of the more difficult weapons to wield, it's huge size made it's attacks devastating but it required alot of effort to use it, once you were committed to a swing you were just that, committed using this sword was something you had to put the whole momentum of your body into. Apparently, a bandit had figured that out to, as time seems too slow, you watch a masked bandit dual wielding daggers preparing to strike just as Laurance is trapped in a strike against 3 bandits. You can't let this happen! If Laurance gets heavily injured, then it would be pitifully easy for them to take you out being unarmed and then break in and do who knows what to the village! Well... at least that's what you're going to say when Laurance inevitably chews you out for surging forward. Truth being that that you just... didn't want to see your love get hurt no matter the extent.

You throw yourself between Laurance and the bandits blade, adrenaline running through your system before swinging the pick axe with all your might at the bandits head, having to tense your whole body to keep from a full body recoil at the feelings running through you of it tearing through skin and cracking bone the bandit letting out a gurgling cut off shout.

You honestly don't even feel the dagger enter and lodge into your side, turning your head to the side quickly to find Laurance already staring over his shoulder to you, breath held and eyes wide. You couldn't tell, trapped looking into his eyes as shock turned to a lightless rage, but everyone else had stopped fighting as the forest went *silent* no rustling of leaves or chirping of birds, the only sound now to be heard was a reverberating growl from Laurance. Smoke billowing out of the sides of his mouth as his form starts growing much larger.

His scream tears through the forest as he grows he reaches forward, grabbing the nearest bandit by the head and slaming them on the ground with a sickening crack. Fully Shadow knight as he springs forward blood red sword viciously and furiously putting an end to the bandits. You can hardly take it all in, not only with the speed and complexity of his movements, but the smell of sulfur and second dose of adrenaline that rushed through you when he turned, the responce of a injured prey animal desperately trying to run *just a little more* left you lightheaded. But you ignore it, not only because it would only agitate him further, but also.... it was Laurance, the sweet, kind, and thoughtful man you fell in love with, and you weren't going to let your body convince you he was a threat.

Some bandits had tried to run... they didn't get far. Laurance didn't spare even a single one, the forest around you stained red as far as the eye could see, covered in mangled corpses. Laurance stands over what was once... a bandit. Body eerily still as smoke whisps off of his armor. You want to give him a moment to cool down, literally and metaphorically. But the adrenaline has completely left you, and you are more and more aware of the searing pain in your side. No one tells you how much being stabbed feels like fire.

"L-laurance?" Is all you can hoarsely mutter, blood dribbling from your lips before falling to your knees. The shadow knight wips around red eyes wide "Y/N!" He shouts as if snapped out of a trance he runs sliding to his knees to your side.

"I-its okay, you ok-kay don't talk don't talk, I'm here I have you" he rambles quickly, voice trembling as he babbles out reassurances that seem more for himself than you, as he harshly tears at his cape, pain scorching up your side as he ties it to the dagger securing it to your side. You don't know what comes after this.... but you know that just in case you want...

"Love.. you.." You mummer voice hardly a whisper causing him to jump eyes back to that Marble blue, tears falling down his cheeks quickly.

"I Love you, I love you so fucking much, you have to be fine, your fine. We will say it again tomorrow, okay??" He stammers out, starting to pick you up... but your world goes black.

Everything after is a strange.. choppy blur. Laurance held you close to his chest as he ran to Donna's home. Laurance would shout and fight anytime someone tried to convince him to leave your side. And then... you fully fell unconscious.

There's a dull throbbing throughout your entire body, and you're thirsty. You can barely let out a little groan with how dry your throat is. You scrunch up your face and move to tighten your hands into fists before you prop yourself up, but you end up squeezing the hand in yours.

"Y/N!" Laurance shoots up, holding your hand tightly with both of his. You open your eyes to be met with Laurances wide baby blues, tears fulling his eyes as he quickly leans down to give you a heart achingly tender kiss. Cupping your cheek with one hand, you raise one of your own to do the same, ignoring your protesting muscles.

"Thank Irene" he whispers forehead pressed against your own, his tears fall onto your own cheeks, before you work to brush them away.

He will demand to know what you were thinking later... right now he just wants to bask in *you*.

[elmaxlys]

Judge, Jury, Executioner (part 2)

part 1

Kuon looked at the sandwich in confusion for a few seconds before bringing her eyes back on the man, who had gotten a sandwich for himself in the bag and had sat down to eat.

"This is very kind," she said, fiddling with the sandwich, wondering if she should give it back to him, "but I fear I cannot stay much longer on this roof."

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Why not? It's pretty peaceful for now: no mask and only you and me."

"That's true, but a man has been persistently chasing me since morning and I fear if I stop he'll catch up on me."

The man shrugged. "Why not just wait for him and kill him, then?"

Kuon had a little laugh. "I'm not strong enough for that, sir!"

"I could do it for you."

"You would? How kind of you! Then if you don't mind…" She took off her backpack, put it on the floor, dusted her school uniform and sat down neatly and carefully, back to the concrete wall, next to the man who had a satisfied tingle in the back of his eyes.

As they both ate in silence, Kuon could feel the man's eyes on her. A creeping sensation in the back of her neck told her that maybe it would have been better to keep walking. But it was too late, now. So she took bites of her sandwich and chewed longer than she would ordinarily have as she waited for what would come.

They were both finishing up their meals when they heard him. The stalker was approaching. As they were hidden by the central construction of the roof and they had not made a sound, he had no way of knowing they were sitting right there. He kept walking, his steps hurrying now that he was on solid ground.

The man with whom Kuon had eaten got up slowly and once again she marveled at the slow unfurling of his body. He eyed her so she gave a smile in return. That seemed to satisfy him and he took out the big knife Kuon had seen earlier.

The stalker, no taller but surely even more muscular than Kuon's new acquaintance, was walking deliberately, hidden by his shield. He was taking the same path Kuon had just a bit earlier and therefore turned to find the both of them standing there, waiting for him.

The long haired man whistled in appreciation. "Nice shield, man." He was twirling his knife in his hand, unbothered.

The other chuckled lowly. "As long as I have this shield, there's no way you can touch me, dipshit, so move out of the way. If you're nice we can even share."

Kuon swallowed, feeling a huge lump in her throat. She took a step backward. She kept an eye on the emplacement of the bridge.

"If you think a shield can save you, then you've already lost," said the man in the jumpsuit before jumping on the other man.

The stalker brought the shield up to protect his face and vital organs. A deep dark laugh escaped his assailant then and in a movement too quick not to have been done hundreds of times, he slashed at the man's exposed ankles. A shrill scream answered him. Stumbling, the stalker tried to push the other off him with his shield, without success as he was losing his balance and the other was still carried by the momentum of his slight run and jump.

With one arm, he grabbed one side of the heavy shield and simply ripped it off, leaving the short haired one defenseless and exposed to the blade that ended up embedded in his throat. Next, he effortlessly took his knife back, leaving the man to collapse with a gurgling noise as he choked on his own blood.

In a succession of quick movements, the knife was thrust in a bunch of different places where Kuon could only guess were vital organs or arteries. Soon, the stalker was lying, motionless, in a pool of his own blood. Kuon sighed in relief.

Her savior turned back to her, new blood stains added to his filthy jumpsuit, and smiled as he wiped crimson drops on his cheeks.

"There, he's gone now."

"Thank you very much, mister," Kuon managed, her heart beating out of her chest from the action that took place right in front of her eyes. That and there was still the possibility that he would turn on her.

"Sheesh, don't call me 'mister'," he sighed, "I'm not that old. I'm Suzuki."

As he said those words, he had swapped his knife hands and extended his right hand, bloody and filthy.

"My name is Kuon Shinzaki," she answered and shook his hand, staining her own.

[mya-valentine]

The Sadist’s Hunt

Synopsis: Itadori and Megumi are sent on a mission to exorcise a mid-grade curse terrorizing a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo. As they venture into the forest, they encounter an unexpected presence—Juri, a powerful, sadistic sorcerer, interrogating a curse with brutal efficiency. The encounter unsettles both Itadori and Megumi, as Juri's methods reveal her ruthless approach to dealing with curses. While Juri continues her mission, taking down curses with ease, Itadori and Megumi are left to grapple with the darker side of being a jujutsu sorcerer. Back at Jujutsu High, Itadori recounts the experience to Gojo, expressing both awe and discomfort at Juri's overwhelming power and sadistic nature.

Itadori and Megumi were on a mission, tasked with exorcising a mid-grade curse that had been terrorizing a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo. The two had been working together more frequently, their teamwork improving with each mission. As they trekked through the dense forest on the outskirts of the town, their senses on high alert for cursed energy, they suddenly felt a strong, oppressive aura in the distance.

"Do you feel that?" Itadori asked, eyes widening as he turned to Megumi. "That cursed energy... it's intense."

Megumi frowned, his sharp gaze scanning the area. "Yeah, something’s definitely off. It doesn’t feel like the curse we’re supposed to be dealing with. This feels… stronger."

The two exchanged glances before silently agreeing to investigate. They altered their course, moving swiftly and cautiously toward the source of the cursed energy. As they approached a small clearing, they could hear a voice—cold, cruel, and dripping with sadistic amusement.

“Now, you’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’ll make this even more painful than it already is,” the voice purred, sending a chill down both of their spines.

Itadori and Megumi crept closer, their eyes widening as they caught sight of the scene in front of them. Juri stood in the middle of the clearing, her left eye glowing with purple cursed energy, crackling like electricity. In front of her was a large, grotesque curse, its body twisted and mangled, as if it had already taken quite the beating. Juri had her foot pressed firmly on its chest, pinning it to the ground with terrifying ease.

The curse writhed in agony, its grotesque face contorted in pain as Juri leaned down, her voice low and dangerous. “You’ve got one more chance to answer me. Where’s the rest of your little group hiding? I know you’re not the only one lurking around here.”

The curse gurgled something unintelligible, and Juri’s expression darkened. Without hesitation, she lifted her foot and stomped down on its chest, a sickening crunch echoing through the clearing as the curse let out a pitiful wail.

“Wrong answer,” Juri said, her voice laced with sadistic glee. “Come on, I know you can do better than that. Or do I need to start tearing pieces off to get you to talk?”

Itadori’s stomach churned at the sight, and he shot a nervous glance at Megumi. “Uh… Megumi, are we sure we���re supposed to be here right now?”

Megumi, though equally unnerved, remained calm, his gaze focused on Juri. “She’s interrogating it for information. We should stay out of it for now.”

Juri, seemingly oblivious to their presence, lifted her foot off the curse’s chest and crouched down next to it, her grin widening as she grabbed the creature by the throat, lifting it off the ground with ease. Her fingers crackled with cursed energy, and the curse whimpered pathetically.

“Now,” Juri said, her voice deceptively sweet. “Let’s try this again. Where. Are. The. Others?”

The curse, desperate and terrified, finally cracked, its voice rasping out a response. “T-they’re h-hiding... deeper in the f-forest... a clearing… near the mountain…”

Juri’s grin widened, and she dropped the curse to the ground like a rag doll. “See? Was that so hard? Now, run along and tell your friends that I’m coming for them.”

Before the curse could even think about escaping, Juri’s foot shot out with lightning speed, slamming into its head. The curse exploded into cursed energy, dissipating into nothing as Juri wiped her hands off like she’d just taken out the trash.

Itadori and Megumi, who had been standing quietly at the edge of the clearing, exchanged uneasy glances. Juri straightened up, dusting off her clothes, and turned her head slightly, clearly aware of their presence.

“Well, well,” she said, her voice mocking as she glanced over her shoulder at them. “Look who’s here. I didn’t realize I had an audience.”

Itadori awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, trying to suppress the discomfort he felt from watching her brutal interrogation. “Uh, hey, Juri… we didn’t mean to interrupt. We just—uh—sensed your cursed energy and came to check it out.”

Juri smirked, her eyes still glowing faintly with cursed energy. “Sensed my energy, huh? Must have scared the hell out of you two, running into me like this.” Her tone was playful, but there was an underlying menace that made Itadori shiver.

Megumi, ever the calm and composed one, stepped forward, his expression neutral. “We’re here on a mission. We didn’t expect to find you, but we’re not surprised.”

Juri raised an eyebrow, folding her arms as she leaned against a tree. “I’m here for a different reason, obviously. Just taking care of some business.” She glanced back at the spot where the curse had once been, a satisfied gleam in her eye. “Got some useful info out of that piece of trash before I put it out of its misery.”

Itadori, still a little uneasy, cleared his throat. “You, uh, you really didn’t hold back there, huh? That was… intense.”

Juri chuckled darkly, her gaze locking onto Itadori’s. “What, did that freak you out, kid? You’ll see worse than that if you stick around long enough. That curse was lucky I didn’t feel like playing with it longer.”

Her words sent a chill down his spine, and he realized just how vast the difference was between her and the rest of them. He and Megumi were strong, sure, but Juri’s skill, speed, and ruthlessness were on another level entirely.

“You’re going after the rest of them, then?” Megumi asked, ignoring the tense atmosphere as he focused on the task at hand.

Juri’s smirk widened. “That’s the plan. But don’t worry, I’ll leave some fun for you two. Wouldn’t want to take all the action.”

Megumi nodded, his expression unreadable, but Itadori couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that lingered in the air. Watching Juri sadistically interrogate a curse was one thing, but seeing her enjoy it—really enjoy it—made him realize just how different she was from anyone else he’d met.

As they prepared to head off in their own direction, Juri’s voice cut through the air again, casual and mocking. “Try not to get yourselves killed out there, boys. I don’t have time to be saving your asses.”

Itadori managed a nervous laugh. “Yeah… we’ll do our best.”

With that, Juri turned and disappeared into the forest with a burst of speed, her presence vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Itadori let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, glancing at Megumi.

“She’s… something else,” Itadori muttered, still shaken by what they’d witnessed.

Megumi nodded, his voice calm but firm. “She’s dangerous. But she gets results.”

As they resumed their mission, Itadori couldn’t help but wonder just how far Juri’s sadistic streak went—and how much she truly enjoyed the violence of her work.

Itadori and Megumi continued their mission, but the encounter with Juri weighed heavily on their minds. As they made their way deeper into the forest, they couldn’t shake off the disturbing image of Juri’s sadistic interrogation. The chilling efficiency with which she had dealt with the curse was a stark reminder of the darker side of being a jujutsu sorcerer.

“Do you think she’s always like that?” Itadori asked, trying to make sense of what he’d witnessed. “I mean, I know she’s strong, but that was... intense.”

Megumi, ever the pragmatist, nodded. “She’s one of the strongest sorcerers out there. Her methods might be extreme, but she gets the job done. We’re here to take down curses, and sometimes that means getting your hands dirty.”

Itadori frowned, still unsettled. “Yeah, but it’s one thing to fight curses and another to... enjoy torturing them.”

Megumi glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “Juri has her own reasons for doing things the way she does. Everyone deals with their own demons differently. We just need to stay focused on our mission.”

They pressed on, finally reaching the clearing where they were told the remaining curses were hiding. The atmosphere was tense as they approached, their senses on high alert. They moved stealthily, preparing for the confrontation ahead.

Meanwhile, Juri had indeed gone off in pursuit of the curses she’d interrogated. Her senses were razor-sharp, her cursed energy radiating with a fierce intensity as she tracked her prey. Each step was calculated, every movement precise. She had little patience for the curse’s evasive tactics, and her desire to see the rest of the curse’s group eliminated was palpable.

As she reached the clearing where the curses had regrouped, she immediately assessed the situation. Six curses were milling about, their presence marked by a thick, dark aura. They were clearly preparing for a fight, but Juri didn’t give them a chance to react.

With a burst of speed, Juri appeared in the center of the clearing, her left eye glowing with purple cursed energy. The curses barely had time to register her presence before she launched into action. Her kicks and punches were a blur, each strike imbued with lightning-fast speed and lethal precision. The curses fell one after another, their attempts to fight back ineffective against her overwhelming power.

The clearing soon became a chaotic scene of destruction as Juri’s lightning-quick movements and devastating blows dismantled the curses. Her sadistic grin never faltered, each strike more punishing than the last. The curses’ attempts to retaliate were met with brutal efficiency, their cursed energy dissipating under the relentless assault.

As the last of the curses fell, Juri stood amidst the wreckage, her breath steady and controlled. The fight had been swift, but it had given her the satisfaction she craved. She wiped her hands off, her gaze cold and detached as she surveyed the aftermath.

“Well,” she said to herself, her voice devoid of any emotion, “that was more like it.”

Just then, she heard footsteps approaching and turned to see Itadori and Megumi entering the clearing. They had been following her trail, and Itadori’s eyes widened in shock as he took in the scene before him.

“Juri!” Itadori called out, his voice a mix of awe and concern. “You really did a number on these guys.”

Juri glanced at him with a smirk, wiping a smudge of cursed energy from her cheek. “What can I say? They were asking for it.”

Megumi, his gaze sharp and analytical, approached Juri. “You finished off the rest of them. We were just about to deal with these curses ourselves.”

Juri shrugged nonchalantly, her demeanor as casual as ever. “I got here first. Besides, I’m not one to pass up a chance to make things more interesting.”

Itadori shook his head, still trying to process the brutality he had witnessed. “You really went all out. I’ve never seen anyone handle curses like that.”

Juri’s smirk widened, a glint of satisfaction in her eyes. “You think that’s something? You haven’t seen half of what I can do. Just remember, not all fights will be as straightforward. You need to be prepared for everything.”

Megumi nodded, his expression thoughtful. “We appreciate the help. It’s clear you’re on another level. We’ll make sure to learn from what we’ve seen.”

Juri’s gaze softened slightly, though her tone remained as sharp as ever. “Just don’t get used to it. I’ve got my own agenda, and I don’t plan on babysitting you two.”

As the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the clearing, Itadori and Megumi prepared to head back. Juri, having completed her mission, was already moving off in the direction of Jujutsu High, her presence fading into the distance.

Itadori glanced back at the destruction left behind, his mind racing with thoughts of what he’d witnessed. “She’s definitely something else,” he said quietly to Megumi.

Megumi nodded, his gaze thoughtful. “Yeah, she is. But we have our own path to follow. Let’s keep our focus and continue to improve.”

With that, the three sorcerers went their separate ways, each carrying the weight of their experiences with them. For Itadori and Megumi, the encounter with Juri had been a stark reminder of the harsh realities of their world—and the formidable sorcerer who walked the line between genius and cruelty.

Back at Jujutsu High, Itadori was brimming with excitement as he recounted the details of the mission to Gojo. He had always been enthusiastic about their work, but today he seemed especially animated. Megumi, seated nearby, listened quietly, his expression inscrutable.

“So, we went to the clearing,” Itadori began, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “And Juri was already there! I mean, she’s incredible. She took down all those curses like it was nothing. I’ve never seen anything like it. The way she moves, it’s like she’s... she’s on another level. You should have seen her! It was like she was dancing or something.”

Gojo raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. “Really? Sounds like you were quite impressed. Juri’s not exactly known for showing off, so I can imagine it was quite the show.”

Itadori nodded vigorously, barely containing his excitement. “Impressed? That’s an understatement. She was—well, she was amazing. Her speed, her power, it’s just... wow. She made it look so effortless, like she was barely even trying. I’ve never seen anyone handle curses like that before.”

Gojo leaned back in his chair, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “You seem pretty taken with her, Yuji. Maybe you’ve got a bit of a crush on Juri?”

Itadori’s face turned bright red, and he stumbled over his words, clearly flustered. “W-what? No, it’s not like that! I just—she’s incredible, okay? I mean, I’m just—wow, you know? I respect her skills a lot, that’s all!”

Gojo chuckled, clearly enjoying Itadori’s reaction. “Sure, sure. I get it. You’re just in awe of her fighting prowess. No need to be so defensive.”

Megumi, who had been silently observing the exchange, raised an eyebrow. “Itadori’s reaction is pretty telling. It’s not every day you see someone that enthusiastic about another sorcerer.”

Itadori shot Megumi a look, still flustered. “It’s just that she’s so different from anyone I’ve ever met. The way she fights, her attitude... it’s like she’s from a whole different world.”

Gojo leaned forward, his expression now more serious but still holding a hint of amusement. “Juri is... unique, to say the least. Her skills are top-notch, and she’s definitely got her own way of doing things. But remember, it’s important to focus on your own growth as well. Admiring someone’s skills is one thing, but don’t lose sight of your own path.”

Itadori nodded, finally regaining his composure. “Yeah, I know. I’m just—really impressed. She’s not exactly the kind of person you see every day.”

Gojo’s smile softened slightly, his tone more encouraging. “Just make sure you take what you’ve learned from her and apply it to your own training. Juri’s methods may be unorthodox, but there’s a lot to learn from how she handles herself in a fight.”

Itadori nodded, the earlier embarrassment giving way to a focused determination. “Got it. I’ll use what I’ve learned to get better. Thanks, Gojo-sensei.”

Gojo gave a satisfied nod, leaning back in his chair with a smirk. “Anytime, Yuji. And if you ever need someone to help you work through those feelings of admiration—or anything else, for that matter—just let me know.”

Itadori shot Gojo a playful glare, though he couldn’t entirely hide his smile. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep that in mind.”

As Itadori left the room, still buzzing with thoughts of Juri, Gojo and Megumi exchanged a knowing glance. Gojo’s teasing might have been light-hearted, but he knew that Itadori’s respect for Juri was genuine. For now, though, Itadori’s admiration would serve as motivation—a reminder of the heights he aimed to reach in his own journey as a jujutsu sorcerer.

Later that evening, as Itadori lay in his bed at the dorms, his mind kept wandering back to Juri. The thought of her relentless fighting style, her raw power, and the way she effortlessly took down those curses replayed in his head like a highlight reel. But it wasn’t just her skill in battle that had him deep in thought—it was something else. 

Gojo’s teasing earlier had left him feeling more confused than ever. A crush? Itadori furrowed his brow, staring up at the ceiling. He had never really thought of Juri in that way before. Sure, she was incredibly strong, and there was something undeniably fascinating about her presence. But was it really a crush?

I mean, she’s cool. Really cool. She’s strong, confident, and she fights like she’s unstoppable... but she’s also... Itadori sighed, trying to sort through his feelings. She’s intense. Maybe a bit too intense.

Juri wasn’t exactly warm or friendly. She was more likely to knock someone down with a single kick than offer any words of encouragement. But at the same time, that edge, that confidence—it was captivating. Itadori found himself both admiring and being intimidated by her. She was everything he aspired to be as a sorcerer: fearless, powerful, and unyielding. But there was something else too—a complexity in her that he couldn’t quite place.

Maybe I just respect her, he thought. She’s a genius, after all. She’s been through a lot, and she’s still out here, taking on the toughest curses like it’s nothing.

But as much as he tried to rationalize his thoughts, the idea that he might have a crush on Juri kept resurfacing. He couldn’t deny that whenever she was around, he found himself paying extra attention, more aware of her presence than anyone else. Even when she was cruel or cold, there was something about her that drew him in.

She’s... different from anyone else I’ve met, he admitted to himself. I don’t even know if I like her, or if I just...

He rubbed the back of his head, feeling a little embarrassed even thinking about it. No way. She’d probably kill me if she knew I was thinking about her like this. She’s got no time for stuff like that.

And yet, despite that, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering. Maybe it’s just admiration... but then, why do I get nervous when I’m around her?

He groaned, rolling over in bed. It was frustrating, this swirl of confusion. He respected Juri more than anything, but now Gojo’s teasing had made him question everything. What if there was more to it? Could he really have feelings for someone like Juri?

She’d laugh at me if she knew I was thinking like this, Itadori thought with a sheepish smile. Or worse, she’d kick my ass just for fun.

But despite the uncertainty, one thing was clear: Juri had made an impact on him, whether it was admiration, respect, or something more. And now, he had to figure out what that meant for him going forward. Maybe I’ll figure it out... someday, he thought before finally drifting off to sleep, Juri’s image still lingering in the back of his mind.

[m4cc]

A vore story I made out of boredom I call it ORDER IN THE COURT. Today was a Friday and the 18yr old girl Amani was on her way to school Gary Comer but today was not a normal day today she a project in Race Class an Gender Studies aka RCGS

Today she had dressed up in a oversized white T shirt with black leggings an white crocs with white socks on the outside showing off her thick thighs an ass she goes to school waiting she is on her way to 2nd period RCGS

As she enters the room she sees her teacher Ms.Hall known as Judge Hall for now as the class sets up for the case to start Amani is the prosecutor lawyer trying to get the 2 girls Kaniyah an her best friend Damia a harsh punishment

As she makes her claim on why the both deserve punishment Judge Hall has heard enough an as she about to sentence them Amani stopped Judge Hall to ask if she can pick the punishment as Judge Hall agrees she ask if the punishment can be digestion Judge Hall agrees to it wanting to fool everyone to believe it’s a joke.

As she slams her gravel down she sentences Kaniyah an Damiia to digestion as Amani cheers she calls Kaniyah down first as she opens her mouth an grabs her by her feet she starts to swallow

GULP GULP GULP

As Kaniyah tells begging her to stop the joke isn’t funny anymore Amani continues to swallow already at her waist as she ask Judge Hall to make her stop Judge Hall stands up to show her huge belly under her robe why would I stop judge Hall said I think digestion is an amazing BURP punishment. As Damia Tries to run Amani grabs her best friend whiles she watches Kaniyah get swallowed

GULP GULP GULP GULPMMHH

Ahh she felt so good sliding down my throat as Damia looks around she notices that the other students aka the jury isn’t trying to to fight back due to fear as Damia looks around in fear she notices that there was suppose to be 2 judges her other teacher Ms. T was also suspose to be a judge as she looks at Judge hall huge gut making strong churning sounds she realizes she swallowed the other teacher an Amani an Judge Hall planned this whole thing out she cries an she is lifted up into the air an swallowed

GULP GULP GULP SLURRP

MMM u went down a lot eaiser then Kaniyah did bestie were suppose to be besties why Damia said what about our other bestie Danyla what will she think about this who cares what she thinks she can’t save you you’ll be digested by then Amani chuckled

BBBBBBBUUUUUUUURRRRRRRPPPPPPPHHHHHH

Oh that felt good now that class is over let’s see how long u girls will last my bet you’ll be dead by lunch

As it’s now lunch time around 12:30 Amani belly is still huge and soft both girls are nothing but sludge waiting to be turned into ass fat as Amani other best friend Danyla walk up too her she walks with her to the lunch line as she ask where Damia is Amani shakes her head clearly lying about it as she grabs Chicken Sandwich Pizza pulled pork sandwich and strawberry and chocolate milk she sits didn’t with Danyla

Danyla continues to worry about their bestie Damia as Amani starts drinking her milk she felt something make it way up her throat uh oh Amani said what Danyla asked

HHUUUOORRGGGPPPPHHH

SPLATTT

Hehe Amani chuckled as Damia shoes came out her mouth well now u know where Damia went Amani said as Danyla screamed u ate our bestie u mon MMMPPHH MMMMPPHH Amani place her hand over danyla mouth and proceeds to stick Danyla head in her maw well know your bout to join her

GULP GULP GULP GULP GULMPHHH

BBBBUUUUOOOORRRGGGGPPPHH

Oh my good thing it’s a 3day weekend cause I’m gonna spend it all digesting you 3girls

GURGLE SLORG BLORP

Sounds like I’m still hungry as she eats her food and Danyla food an downs 4 cartons of milk lunch is now over an she has 2 periods left as Amani goes to her last period she realizes she has gym and before gym she had dance since her teacher was out today a student got to teach the class

As Amani starts doing the workouts she feels her belly move a soft rumble signifying that she might need to burp not a problem for her

GURGLE GLORG BLORG

BBBUUURRRGGGPPHHHH

BBBBUUURRGGHHHPPPHH

BUUURRRRRPPPPHHHH

Amani moving so much is causing her crazy gas making her burp like crazy fortunately for her the last 25mins of gym class was yoga something easy not a lot of moving Amani thought as she takes her crocs off she starts to meditate resting her huge gut on her legs she stars to relax maybe a little too much

BURBLE

PPPPFFFGGGTTTHHHH

A silent but deadly fart Amani hopes no one notices her farts as she lets one out again she can feel her butt expand an her belly shrink a little to the size of a pumpkin as she lets out more and more farts

PFFFGGGTTTHHH

PPPFGGTTTHH

POPFFFFGGGTTHHH

Amani thinks it’s the milk making her act like this but gym is over so she can go home and digest the rest of the girls as she gets in her moms car her mother notices her huge belly was today court day her mother ask

Yes it was Amani replied as her mother goes to Starbucks Amani orders 4 Trienta Carmel Frappe with 3 loafs of banana nut bread an 6 cheese danish she has a long ride home about a 1hr at least 30mins into the car ride she drinks the last sip of her frappe with that the lunch from school the 3 loafs the cheese danish an of course the 3girls her belly becomes very aggressive

SLORN CHURN GURGLE

BBUUOORRPPHH

Umm excuse me I’m sorry mom Amani says blushing heavily it’s ok her mom replied it’s a natural reaction I remember when I was just like you

PFFFGGGTTTHHH

Ummm mom can you please lower the window an drive faster these girls wanna be let out now an not through out the mouth

PPPPFFFFGGGTHHHH

Amani farts get worse and worse but thankfully she makes in home just in time as she runs to the bathroom she walks out 15mins later the toilet clogged of course her belly shrunk to about 3 and a half feet well girls it was nice knowing you.

Hey mom you might wanna call a plumber Amani says as she can feel a slight gas bubble moving up her throat adding a exclamation to her statement

GLORG GROAN BURBLE

BBBUURRRRPPPP

[justanotherarmyfangirl]

Dark&Wild (1) The Interrogation

You are an interpreter for international idols, but you soon realized their lavish lifestyle came at a cost, and somehow you became the price. The man who came to collect had a special kind of vendetta, and you, so foolishly, sparked his interest.

In this story Yoongi is the villain and you will hate him! Everyone else, well, the question becomes not if there are good guys or who will save you, but how will you save yourself?

yandere loan shark!Yoongi x blind!reader x bodyguard!Jungkook x idol singer!Jimin x idol rapper!Namjoon x idol singer!Taehyung x detective!Hoseok x detective!Seokjin

TW: 18+ only, future chapters will feature dubcon/noncon, mind break, torture, violence, reader is blinded before events that take place in the story, Jimin is an addict, Yoongi is a sadist

---

The bright light in the interrogation office feels clinical, demeaning. You feel exposed. Long ago you might have felt frightened, but fear has morphed itself into the twisted shape of one man only.

THE INTERROGATION

“No one is going to hurt you here. You have to be honest with me, so I can help you.”

Detective Jung Hoseok watches as you hug your limbs close to your body like a child. 

“Do you have any kids, detective?”

Hoseok pauses, “I do, a girl,” he smiles, “she’s almost one.” Hoseok you can tell is sincere, the pleasantness of his voice makes your eyes water. 

Screams echo in your head, the faint bang of a shot ringing out and your friend gurgling on his own blood. You heard all those things as clear as you can hear them in your head now. You remember how your fingers hit the warm thick liquid. You didn’t want to believe it still, but your mind screamed back blood, blood!

You held yourself together, letting out one choked sob. This sincere detective and his new family. No, you couldn’t do that to them, to him.

“I’m fine.” Your words are full of sadness. “Let me go back, please.”

“Listen, if you’re worried about him hurting you, he can’t get to you here. I promise I’ll protect you.”

‘And who’s going to protect you from him?’ you think ‘Who’s going to protect this man’s child?’ You never saw your captor hurt any children, but you heard the whispers, rumors of what he’s done to protect his empire.

The room is quiet, painfully quiet. You can pick up on his shifting legs, the scrape of a coffee cup. His creaking chair. The detective before you is a good man, you can tell by his soft spoken kindness, the smell of his jacket around your bare shoulders. Who could be watching you two now, are they good men? Kind men? Or the monsters you’re used to.

“I might not be able to see, but I’ve witnessed unspeakable things, detective. Trust me, if Min Yoongi wants to hurt me, he’ll find a way.”

“We spent months tracking you. Your testimony could be key to pinning Min down.”

“Who is going to believe me? What jury will take what I say as evidence?”

You’ve already been gone too long, you can only imagine the rage he’s going through. 

“Jimin is here, do you want to talk to him?”

When you don’t answer him he persists. “He was the one who brought this case to us, he and his company have been trying to get you out of there since it happened. You have people who care about you, y/n.”

‘No one cares.’ You’ve said that to yourself every day, since the day you realized no one was going to rescue you. Whispered it to yourself when you thought about escaping, let it comfort you when you stopped hoping they would break down the doors to your prison and began worrying they would instead. You let the small phrase help you cope with your imprisonment knowing at least they were all doing well without you. 

You weren’t missed, you were forgotten, they went along with their lives while yours was taken from you. Jimin moved on, saddled in his fame, growing more popular, never stopping or slowing down just as you knew him.

So when the detective tries to break the sordid fantasy you’ve clung to for the past year, it is too unbelievable.

“Doesn’t he realize how dangerous this is? Tell him to leave now.”

Seconds later there is a knock on the door, the detective excuses himself, you can hear the scrape of his chair, his footsteps on the hard linoleum. You reach out your hands to search for him.

In your haste you were not thinking of the coffee cup on the table, now knocking it over accidentally instead. The detective rushes towards your side, handkerchief covering your spill and preventing the scalding liquid from hurting you. Even if his actions were kind, you jump, jittery and anxious. 

“I don’t want to see Jimin. Please.” The cloth of his suit shifts underneath your fingertips as you grip tightly onto him and you feel the detective's warm hands wrap around yours.

“I’ll be right back, I promise.”

---

“Let me talk to her, please.” Jimin approaches the detective as soon as he enters the adjacent room.

Hoseok looks over at you through the one-way glass. You sit as still as a mouse, hands on the table, your head tilted trying to listen to any small noise in the silence.

“What are we going to do, detective? We have to make a choice. If we keep her here any longer, he’ll know she’s missing.”

“Right now the men in this room are the only ones who know she’s here, correct?” They nod.

He watches you push your chair out slowly, brace yourself on the table, following the edge. You step out slowly, searching for a wall and follow it around the room. The men watch you walk along the edge of the room, feeling the wall until you’ve made it to their side, hands hitting the smoothness of the mirror.

Jimin steps closer. It’s been awhile since he’s seen you, and up this close too. You're thinner, but still as beautiful as he remembered.

You slam your palm into the mirror, vibrating the glass. The men finch back. “You need to take me back, now! You can’t keep me here! Let me out!”

And Jimin knows the old you is still in there, just lost and frightened.

“You can’t possibly be thinking of handing her back over to that monster. Put her in witness protection! Do anything!”

“If she doesn’t want to go, we can’t force her.”

“Let me talk to her then! Fuck…”

“She’s right though, how are we going to convict him using her testimony alone, we need more.”

“What do you mean?!” Jimin yells at the fellow detectives.

“Well, sir, she’s blind-”

Jimin furiously yanks the detective forward by his jacket collar and Hoseok intervenes quickly, de-escalating the situation.

“We have our detective, Kim Seokjin, undercover as well, now that we have eyes on her, we can make contact again.”

“No, no! Do you know what he does to her?” Jimin pleads with Hoseok. “I’m paying you good money, yeah? Fucking do your jobs!”

Hoseok grinds his teeth, he should act more professional, but he can’t help himself, they’re running out of time and don’t know who to trust, and the last thing he needs is an irate superstar bringing unwanted attention to his department.

“Aren’t you the reason this happened to her?”

---

Just a plot that’s been rotting my brain. Curious to see if this story intrigues anyone else.

Next chapter: The First Day

[thedeviltohisangel]

I Heard From The Heavens//4

And as tears trickled down his own face, he realized how close he had come to losing her that day. That it wasn’t Bradley’s fault. That maybe Pete Mitchell had cheated death one too many times for the universe’s liking. That maybe this was it’s reminder how mortal he was. That no matter how often he sought the solace of a cockpit, the ones he loved most were on the ground and if he forgot that ever again, he’d regret it.

Bradley & Daphne’s Infinite Playlist: Hell Of A View by Eric Church

masterlist is my url/writing or on ao3

based on a request to see mav in panic dad mode. send in more!

tw: car accident/miscarriage

Daphne was half listening to the judge give the jury instructions, half itching to grab her flashcards from her purse to remember what the term meant that he had just used. She sat in the back of the courtroom with the other interns from the U.S. Attorney’s office she was currently at. School had ended last year and he was an old friend of her mother’s who offered her the job while she studied for the Bar. It was proving difficult balancing work and studying and Bradley. But not impossible. They were happier than they ever had been, Bradley graduating soon from TOPGUN and her career on the precipice of everything she ever wanted. After their breakthrough at the Hard Deck, they had found their footing again even amongst the chaos of life. 

“You studying with us tonight, Daph? We were gonna order Potbelly and camp out,” said Carmen, one of the interns she had gotten closest to. She opened her mouth to respond but felt nausea rise up her throat instead of words. Quickly ducking into the closest bathroom, she emptied the meager contents of her stomach. She had recently been unable to keep down more than saltines and ginger ale but couldn’t focus on it until her exam passed in a couple weeks. Was probably the stress of studying anyways. 

----

“You know, if your eyes keep closing then you aren’t really able to read and study.” Daphne startled herself awake at the kitchen table as Bradley peered through a couple cabinets in a quest for a midnight snack. “Come to sleep with me. It’ll all still be here in the morning.”

“Can’t,” she replied as she rubbed her eyes and went back to the article on her laptop, “I already ditched the study group tonight and I can’t afford to fall behind on my schedule.” She held the spreadsheet out to him as if to prove how dire the situation was.

“I don’t know what half this shit means,” he remarked and handed the paper back. “Your stomach is still acting up?” It gurgled in response to his question.

“I’ll be fine. In two weeks, I’ll have taken this test and can put all this stress behind me.” He watched her for a bit longer, something not sitting right with him but not knowing quite what it was. Maybe he was overthinking things or worrying over her too much. She was the most intelligent and capable person he knew. He should trust that she could take care of herself. 

“You’d tell me if it was something, right?” Daphne had her parent’s tolerance for pain. As a little girl she prided herself in never going to the school nurse’s office. Had taped her own broken finger on the sidelines of a field hockey game. Had practiced the art of smiling through period cramps and migraines.

“Bradley,” she whined. She was avoiding his question because they both knew the answer was actually that she wouldn’t.

“Fine, fine. I’ll leave you alone. Just need a good night kiss first.”

“Okay but actually just a kiss.” If you give a Bradley a kiss, he normally wants a handful of her ass. And if you give him that, it was a slippery slope to a flat surface and then the night would slip out of her grasp.

“I’m offended by what you’re implying,” he quipped. She smiled as she leaned to meet his lips halfway, not objecting when he slipped his tongue between her lips but smacking his chest when his hand around the back of her neck tightened ever so slightly.

“Stop, you know what your hand around my throat does to me,” she moaned. Daphne went against her own morals and leaned in for another kiss but he pulled away instead.

“I’m following the rules you set,” he said with a click of his tongue. She mumbled something about hating him but turned back to her computer with a pout. “Love you, gorgeous.”

“Night, handsome,” she called as he finally retreated out of the room. A yawn escaped from her mouth but she stifled it quickly. She could last a few more hours…

----

Bradley was startled awake a couple of hours before his alarm by the sounds of Daphne dry heaving in the bathroom. A quick glance to his side showed she had never come to bed the night before and he grimaced at himself for not realizing earlier. She was hunched over the toilet with tears streaming down her face when he opened the door.

“Sweetheart,” he cooed before he dropped to the tile and pulled her hair back, rubbing her back. 

“I’m sorry for waking you up.” The words sounded pitiful even to her own ears. He had enough to focus on with school and needed his sleep so he could be at his most alert when he flew. The last thing she wanted was to add to the weight on his shoulders. 

“No, baby, don’t apologize. Maybe it’s time you let me take you to the doctor’s.” She lent against his chest as she felt like she was done for the time being. 

“You can’t miss training,” he opened his mouth to argue with her, “I promise I’ll go myself today.”

“You’re not driving yourself like this.” He pushed some of her sweaty hair from her forehead and pressed a gentle kiss to her skin. 

“I’ll drink some Gatorade and I’ll be fine,” her voice fading to a whisper as she relaxed against him and felt like sleep was going to take over.

“We’ll see in a couple hours,” he mumbled against her hair as his thumb traced circles on her skin right above the band of her shorts until she was heavy with sleep. He carried her to bed and traced her cheek softly. “Let me take care of you, Daph.”

----

She watched from bed as he readied himself for the day, admiring the way his butt looked in his flight suit and smiling wistfully when his back muscles flexed while he bopped to the soft sounds of Maren Morris she was playing on her phone. 

“You sure you have to fly today and we can’t play doctor?” she asked while innocently twirling a lock of hair around her finger. 

“Weren’t you, just last week, calling me a horn-dog?” 

“I called you one, I didn’t complain you were one,” she clarified. 

“I’ll keep the distinction in mind.” He sat on the edge of the bed and pecked her quickly on the lips. “Promise me you’ll stay in bed today. Light flash card reading, bland food and sips of liquids only.”

“Yes, sir.” She went in for another kiss, Bradley stopping her with a finger to her lips.

“Say you promise, Daphne.”

“Bradley Bradshaw.”

“Daphne Mitchell.” She didn’t want to say the words because then she had to keep to them. 

“I promise,” she relented with a huff. Satisfied, he kissed her one last time before slipping on his aviators and grabbing his car keys.

“Might be hard to reach me today but call the number of the captain I gave you if anything changes.” 

“I love you, Rooster.” He blushed at the use of his call sign. 

“Love you too, Chicky.” 

----

She waited exactly fifteen minutes from the time he closed the front door before she was out of bed. Before her unidentified stomach bug had ruined her studying the night before, she had been looking through the references of a particularly fascinating paper and researching local libraries to see if they had any of the books that were mentioned. She justified her betrayal of Bradley by imagining the laugh he would get from her reason. Only she would risk his disappointment or a public stomach issue because of a book. At least, that was what she told herself as she followed the directions on her phone towards her goal.

She told herself it was the glare off the back windshield of the car in front of her that was making her head hurt. That it was the heat and her crappy air conditioning that was making her nauseous. That the black spots at the edge of her vision would go away any minute. Daphne swears she only blinked. That the other car came out of nowhere and crashed into without her ever even noticing. She remembers a searing pain from her shoulder where the seat belt pulled tight and the suffocating force of the air bag. She remembers thinking that her mother was on a business trip a few hours away. That her dad was test flying a couple of states away. She saw Bradley’s face as the glass splintered across her face and the world flipped upside down. Thought of how small he was when his father died. She thought of the promise she had made him that morning and that she should never have thought about breaking it. As the world stilled, the roof of her car against the pavement and her mind begging her to go to sleep, she thought of the wedding dress she’d never wear and the children she’d never hold. She touched the ground outside her window and thought of Bradley up in the sky. 

“I’m sorry.” And that was the last thing she remembers.

----

Pete Mitchell recognized the area code instantly. His first thought was that an old TOPGUN colleague or classmate was calling to catch up. But when he answered it, fresh off an exhilarating test run and trying to catch his breath, he thinks the words could have knocked him out cold. Heard the nurse explaining there had been a car accident. That Daphne was breathing but she wasn’t awake. That they couldn’t locate Lieutenant Bradshaw so they had called him. A brief but bright flash of anger flickered across his mind but it passed as he tried to do the math of how long it would take for him to fly by helicopter to where his daughter was. 

“Her mother…you need to call her mother, she’s in the area on business and can get there before me so Daphne’s not alone.” The image of his precious daughter alone and injured was enough to buckle his knees. Once he hung up, he tried Bradley but got his voicemail. “Bradley, get yourself to the hospital as soon as you hear this. I’m on my way but…but she’s going to want to see you.”

----

He can’t remember the last time he had been in the same room as his ex-wife. Their divorce had been less than amicable, her insistence that his lifestyle and influence was not conducive to the way she wished to raise their daughter driving a nail in the coffin of any hopes they had for a friendship. Charlie was pacing in the waiting room when he burst through the elevator doors and even though he had known she’d be there, he was still caught off guard by seeing her after so long. 

“Pete,” she cried in desperation. He pulled her into his arms without words, knowing that she was feeling the same ache in her chest that he was. 

“What have they said?” he murmured. 

“Some asshole ran a redlight and hit her side of the car. I stopped listening to all the broken bones after the third one. Head trauma. Internal bleeding. They took her into surgery a half hour ago.” Pete reached for the back of a chair in an attempt to steady himself. “We spoke the other day and she was so excited for the exam. She said her and Bradley had booked a trip to celebrate after his graduation. She sounded so happy. She has so much greatness ahead of her, Pete.” He nodded. It was a cruel, cruel world that those milestones might be taken from his daughter. That he might lose her. 

“She’s going to pull through. You think our daughter is going to let anyone take her future away from her? You remember how hard she fought us over an extra cookie or an extra hour of curfew. I wouldn’t want to be the one standing in her way of all she has ahead of her.” They both let out a teary chuckle at the image of their little girl stomping her foot to emphasize her point or her famous eye rolls that were so dramatic they looked like they hurt. “She gets her tenacity from you,” Pete complimented softly. 

“That might be true but when she bounces back from this like nothing happened, that’s all Maverick.” The small moment of congeniality between the two was interrupted by the frantic ring of his cell phone. 

“Bradley,” he gulped. He steadied himself before answering, not wanting to scare the boy anymore than the missed calls and voicemails already had. Charlie squeezed his hand tenderly. 

“What the fuck is gong on, Mav? Is she…Is she…” Bradley roughly rubbed at his eyes. He had taken his time after flying today, wanting his adrenaline rush to subside before heading home to care for Daphne. Once he had finally looked at his phone, missed calls from an unknown number. Missed calls from both of Daphne’s parents. All the voicemails informed him of was that she had been in a car accident and was in the hospital. That is was bad enough for both Charlie and Pete to drop what they were doing and head towards their daughter. 

“They have her in surgery right now. We’ll know more once she gets out.” 

“You know she promised me she was going to sit tight and rest today. I shouldn’t have left her this morning. I should’ve been there.” Bradley couldn’t help but think, wish, it was him battered and bruised instead of her. 

“It’s not your fault, Bradley. No one is at fault except for the driver that hit her. None of us could have done anything different. You focus on getting here safely.”

“I’ll be there soon. Thank you, Mav, for being there with her.”

“I always will be.” 

----

It felt like a lifetime before Bradley reached the hospital, haphazardly parking his car and sprinting up the stairs to her room when the elevator took too long. Pete was staring at a newspaper from the day before, not really capable of reading it and Charlie was curled up in a chair in an attempt to get some rest. 

“Where is she?” he asked breathlessly. He began to walk down the hall, peering through the windows into the rooms when he felt Pete wrap an arm around his shoulders. 

“Still in surgery. Why don’t you take a seat?”

“Shouldn’t she be out by now? Something’s wrong,” he shrugged away his arm and began his own path of pacing. “She fucking promised me!” His fist connected with the wall before any of them knew what was happening. 

“Bradley-” Pete began.

“I have a ring for her. I keep waiting for the right time and now I might never get the chance to marry her. I ‘ve been setting aside money for this house in Virginia Beach I see her looking at pictures of all the time because she deserves so much more than the one on base we’ve been living in.” He tried to keep the tears at bay but was losing. “We talk about kids and her dream of a non profit law clinic and some motherfucker at a red light...” He didn’t push Charlie away as she pulled him in for a hug. 

“She wants all those things and more with you, Bradley. She’s going to fight like hell,” she spoke through her own tears. 

“Are you all here with Ms. Daphne Mitchell?” They all stood as the doctor reached the waiting room. “The accident did a number on her, and we were touch and go for a few minutes on the table, but she’s going to be okay. She has a long recovery ahead of her but she will recover.”

“Oh thank God,” her mother sighed and Bradley hugged her tightly, Pete clapping him on the back with the biggest smile. 

“Mr. Bradshaw, there is one thing you should know.” Three confused looks were directed her way. 

“Me?”

“We were unable to save the fetus. The impact of the wreck and how early Ms. Mitchell was in her pregnancy-” she paused as Bradley collapsed into the nearest chair. Pete wasn’t far behind him. 

“I’m going to be sick,” he muttered in a daze. He should have known. The signs and symptoms had all been there. He should have pressed harder about her going to the doctor. 

“Maybe she didn’t know herself,” Charlie reasoned. Daphne would have told her mother about being pregnant, had she known. She knows she would have told Bradley.

“A baby,” Bradley whispered. They had talked about being parents, late at night in bed when they were dreaming of their future together. To have the chance ripped from him…

“Can we see her?” Charlie had noticed her ex-husband’s breaths coming quicker. His eyes burning a hole in the side of the young pilot’s head. She needed him to focus on Daphne. 

“Of course. Follow me.” They moved to follow but Pete stopped Bradley and pulled him out of ear shot. 

“You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Bradley asked with complete incredulity. 

“She was pregnant and you had no idea?”

“How am I supposed to know without her telling me?” Pete went to respond but was stopped when Charlie came running back down the hall.

“She’s asking for you two.” 

“I have to tell her, don’t I?” Bradley asked. 

“I think it’s best coming from you,” she replied. He squared his shoulders and walked down the hall to break her heart. “She’s not a teenager, Pete. They are both adults.”

“He promised me he’d protect her.”

“You don’t think the boy is going through enough pain right now without you adding to it?” Pete remembers losing one of Daphne’s teddy bears when she was younger. How he dreaded telling her and being responsible for her sadness. He thought of the conversation between her and Bradley that was happening down the hall and how it could never even compare. Pete walked towards the door slowly and glanced inside. He watched as understanding set over his daughter’s face. As her hands fell to her stomach. As the two of them cried in anguish for a life they hadn’t known they created but missed all the same. As she started the healing process in the arms of the man she loved, who loved her back with a fire he used to feel as well. And as tears trickled down his own face, he realized how close he had come to losing her that day. That it wasn’t Bradley’s fault. That maybe Pete Mitchell had cheated death one too many times for the universe’s liking. That maybe this was it’s reminder how mortal he was. That no matter how often he sought the solace of a cockpit, the ones he loved most were on the ground and if he forgot that ever again, he’d regret it.

[cincincilin]

I mean how bout "Sweetheart I'm the judge and the jury but honestly the one I really love most is that I get to be the executioner. Ooh I can't wait, get's me all excited y'know?" Gettin a lil edgelord in here but I'mma over dramatic bitch so here's a overdramatic suggestion don't gotta use it if it ain't ur style tho bro no prob

(Hey Anon? This is great.)

"Sweetheart, I'm the judge and the jury but honestly the one I really love most is that I get to be the executioner. Ooh, I can't wait, gets me all excited y'kno—"  Whirl never got the opportunity to find out if the bot in front of him knew, as his head was removed from the rest of him by one infuriatingly elegant arc of Cyclonus’s sword.

He followed the length of the blade back to Cyclonus himself. “Hey Hornhead.” Whirl clicked his pincers against the gun he was holding, “We were developing a connection, that guy and I.”

Cyclonus was already turning away, ready to go at the next one with all the force of the enraged spectre he resembled. “Develop faster,” he threw over his shoulder, then swung his blade and relieved the poor soul of all his material burdens with a single beautiful swing. 

Whirl clicked his pincers again, heroically resisting the urge to blow a hole in Cyclonus’s perfectly straight back and shooting the squishy that came in stage left instead. “That’s not how it goes.”

Cyclonus watched the body fall and hummed thoughtfully, “Best figure it out then, I got ten.”

Whirl spun towards him, “Since when?”

Cyclonus’s optics flared and in a flash he was a razor’s edge from touching him, sword thrust over Whirl’s shoulder, the blood and energon on it radiating warmth against Whirl’s neck cables. The stupid bastard behind him gurgled his final invent then fell to the ground with a clang.

“Eleven now,” Cyclonus said, tone even, but with a smirk dancing in the corner of his mouth that, for the first time in a long time, had Whirl regretting not having anything to bite it off with. Oh well, he thought, plastering himself against Cyclonus’s front and taking aim at the next poor idiot. He'll figure something out.

(Also on AO3)

[luciferlaughs]

Karla Faye Tucker led a troubled childhood that would follow her into adulthood. She was born in Houston, Texas, the youngest of three siblings. Her father had abandoned her as a child and she began smoking cigarettes at only 8-years-old. By the time she reached the age of 14, she was already engaging in drug use and promiscuous behavior. She dropped out of school and, following in her mother’s footsteps, embarked on her career as a sex worker and traveled with many famous rock bands, including The Eagles. When she was only 20, her mother, the most beloved person in her life, died of a drug overdose. Through a group of bikers she had been hanging around with in her early 20s, she met a married couple named Shawn Dean (female) and Jerry Lynn Dean. In 1981, they introduced her to a 35-year-old man named Danny Garrett. Despite the huge age gap, the two struck up a relationship in no time. 

In the early morning hours of June 13, 1983, Karla, Danny, and a third person, allegedly high on a plethora of hardcore drugs, decided to break into Jerry Dean’s Texan apartment with the plan to steal his motorcycle. However, things took a much more ominous turn than that. Karla had a huge vendetta against her old friend Jerry after he had destroyed the only pictures left of her deceased mother and parked his motorbike in her living room, which had leaked oil onto the carpet. 

Karla and Danny entered Jerry’s room to find him in his slumber, so she sat on him, stirring him awake. In an attempt to defend himself, he grabbed her elbows, which was when Danny intervened and attacked him with a hammer. Jerry began gurgling on his own blood, so to make the unpleasant noise stop, Karla acquired a pickaxe that was hanging on the wall and began striking him a total of 28 times, disregarding his pleas for his life. Danny finished the job by delivering a final blow to his chest. Karla subsequently caught sight of Deborah Thornton, a woman who was spending the night with Jerry, cowering behind the bed, and attacked her with the pickaxe as well, piercing her directly in the heart. Karla later admitted that she derived intense sexual pleasure from the killings. 

Karla and Danny was arrested a week later and it didn’t take the jury very long to find her guilty of the two murders. Both were handed death sentences, although Danny died of liver disease before that could happen. During Karla’s incarceration, she converted to Christianity. She fought endlessly to overturn her death sentence, claiming that she was a model prisoner. Soon, a massive national and international movement also began advocating for the commutation of her sentence to life without parole. Alas, all of these efforts were fruitless when Karla was executed on February 3rd, 1998.

[officialtrashbin]

Debris

Fill for @jogetsurin!

Rating: M+, for NSFW situations and violence typical of the Black Order. Corvus and Proxima have been married only a few months, so they’re still trying to figure each other out. Is a warzone a good place for a lover’s quarrel? Absolutely not. But it leads to a lot of rutting.

A/N: This got so incredibly out of hand. That’s all you need to know. It’s literally 4,000 words of just, me not knowing how to make something short.

*

When Corvus Glaive witnessed true death for the first time, he was an adolescent at the edge of the wheat fields behind his village home, hefting a bucket onto the platform beneath the water pump. He worked the handle once, twice, three times before discolored water finally sputtered out, then flushed clear, and he toed the bucket under the stream to fill. In the distance he saw rapid movement. Streaks of gray against a smudge of brown. He shielded his eyes from the sunlight, peered out—and witnessed a Deruswood doe sprawled out in the grass, begging for her herd while a razor-toothed Nynx tore her to shreds. The brutalization of the creature upended his world. He retched, the first- and only-time violence would ever have that profound effect on him, but he dared not look away. He didn’t think he could.

Corvus knew it then as he knew it now. He would never forget the sight of flesh wrenched from bone, the scent of wet blood in the air, and the haunting screams like prayers, all that anguish without answer, nor how it made his body sing. There was that terrible realization that he was half-hard, breathing into a body that didn’t feel like it was his anymore, forcing himself to endure the agony of spiritual reflection as the doe’s mournful wails diminished. That terrifying desire of knowing true peace.

When he remembered to shut the pump off, he saw the liquid swelled precariously at the lip of the bucket. That was how he would feel for the rest of his life: near to overflowing with a venereal desire he had learned in childhood and relearned in death.

The Shadow Guilds had ensured that much.

* * *

To his master, Corvus was the doe: a necessity to the food chain, something to be meticulously dismembered and masticated for the good of everything else above and below. Thanos had worded it quite delicately—how that doe rejected death only because it had been damned by its ancestors, who earnestly filled the role nothing else would for the betterment of all. It was a death the creature knew awaited it, from the day it was born to the day it felt claws lacerating its hindquarters, but never when.

Corvus grasped the neck of his glaive. He was the doe, anticipating his own death, yearning for it—yet on the battlefield he was the predator, too terrifying and too mighty to be killed so easily. In each scenario he was molded into his element. That was a rare thing: a beast that was both predator and prey, that excelled at both. Around him, the hinterlands of Muldari IV were burning, a sight he had seen a hundred times before on hundreds of other planets, yet every instance of battle filled him with a carnal need that could never be sedated. The predator that hunted and was damn good at it. A self-fulfilled prophecy.

Corvus was perched on the steps of the hilltop temple, and from here he took in the chaotic panorama: dismembered torsos of the fair-skinned and sharp-lipped Muldari scattered along the ground, detached heads in the rubble, the paths offset by broken staves of ill-designed weapons, which Corvus expected from a race which had never seen violence in all its centuries. He’d be impressed by their pacifistic diligence if it could be separated from the species’ weakness.

“To think,” he said to his companion, “if they had only given us their tribute, we could have avoided this.”

Proxima Midnight scoffed under her breath. “Strength in spirit is often grounds for short-sighted foolishness, Husband. Though, I suppose in the face of the inevitable, it doesn’t pay to give up what you’ll lose regardless.”

She was the only one who understood him. Corvus was guilty because of it. He had seen death so often it felt like a familiar memory, always lingering distantly in the back of his mind for when he sought its comfort, yet as the months passed, he became aware of how afraid Proxima was while he welcomed unlife with open arms. To be without him. To be alone. To die alone. She hadn’t cared about that in almost half a decade, but they were married now, and her concern felt…different. Personal. She knew this about him going in. Now her voice was always there, guiding him in the dark, bringing him back to her as if it had been embedded in the essence of his glaive. A desperation he was beginning to think he reflected.

Still, here they were, overseeing the aftermath of another slaughter and basking in the ambiance of the violence.

“Midnight,” he started, and she looked at him. “Do you regret marrying me?”

She was running the tip of her finger over the sharp crest of his blade. He felt the pressure of her touch but couldn’t deduce its intent. “Should I?”

“You are a survivor, formidable and enduring, but I am a creature that begs for death and warrants little self-preservation. Does that make it seem like I do not value you?”

She moved her hand to his cheek. “Probably,” she said, “though the intrinsic worth of value has never been a universal consistency. We have our certainties in life, sometimes with others more than ourselves, and that is the result of individual experience.”

Proxima always made it sound so simple.

He did value himself, as he valued her and the Order and above all else, Thanos—but he could never transpose into words how desperately he craved death for reasons as intensely adjacent but wholly unique to his master’s own. “I—I do value you,” he said, laying his hand across her thigh, “just so you know. I do not want to make you feel otherwise.”

An Outrider lurched by them, lightning-quick, and descended on a Muldari soldier who was groaning about his legs, crushed beneath the stone of a toppled pillar. It sliced open his torso through his flimsy armor. Organs blossomed from the wound—a flower, reaching for sunlight. The shrill screams rang out amongst the distant cacophony of other wails; Corvus’ lips split into a terrible grin as the desperate pleads for their goddess went unanswered, and the soldier gurgled to death on his own blue blood.

Another Outrider bounded up to Proxima and dropped to its knees, head bowed low. “Word, my lady,” it hissed out. “He is incapacitated but awake now, as you requested.”

“Excellent,” Proxima said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. “Shall we, my love?”

Corvus followed his wife as she ascended the steep crest of the hill to the temple of the Muldari’s goddess. This town, like all others, had been built around a place of worship, it seemed, and they went through the open doors into the foyer. The corpses of Muldari citizens filled the room of religious homage. Several Outriders hovered around the cadavers, snapping at each other over entrails and the spoils of flesh.

The duo moved towards the alter.

An Outrider threw a man down to his knees at Proxima’s feet. He was dressed differently compared to the other Muldari soldiers, his uniform crested by gray feathers and finer metals, face and body bruised from the Machiavellian tactics of the Mad Titan’s army, and a thick trail of blue blood dripped from his thin mouth and along his soft chin. Proxima kicked him squarely in the chest and sent him sprawling onto the platform of the alter; she slammed her foot down into his sternum, pinning him there beneath the listless gaze of their goddess.

“Husband,” she purred as his figure moved into her peripheral vision. “This is the man they call General. Such a pathetic sight.”

“I was hoping they’d put up more of a fight,” Corvus said. “Pathetic and disappointing.”

“What is it you want from us?” the General begged, grasping Proxima’s ankle to keep her foot from sliding into the delicate plush of his neck. “Please, we are peaceful—”

“You could have remained in peace if you had given us tribute,” Corvus told him. “We are the Black Order, the judge, jury, and executioners of the Mad Titan Thanos. Give us what we want or we will continue to gut your planet until all that remains is its husk. Have I made my intentions clear?”

The soldier nodded furiously.

“Good.” He twirled his glaive around and slammed the blade through the floor mere inches from the Muldari’s head, and he shrieked, pupils blown wide with fear. “Tell us where you’ve hidden your children. The village is suspiciously lacking, and if we were anything less than observant, my wife would have had you castrated by now.”

“Please,” the Muldari soldier said. “There is no need, they are only children—”

“You brought this on yourself,” Proxima interjected, pressing her weight into her leg. “We asked for an understandable amount of tributes, between the standard ages of sixteen and twenty-two, but you had the audacity to deny us. The rest of your miserable race would have remained untouched.”

“Please,” he uttered. “Please—I beg you—”

“This is why I wish we had come with the Maw,” Corvus told his wife bitterly. He bent down, tapping the tip of his claw against the focal point of the General’s forehead. “Though, I suppose it is more fun to decimate the planet. This universe is already swarming with enough short-sighted species.”

“Swear to me!” The Muldari exclaimed. “Swear to me you will leave my people alone if I tell you! Even if I am to die, just—swear it—”

Corvus withdrew his hand. He crouched for a long moment, and then said, “All right, General. You have my word. We wish only for our tribute, and then, we shall be on our way.”

The General put his palm flat to the floor. “There are catacombs beneath all our temples, for protection!”

“Protection? You are pacifists.”

“We were once decimated by a meteor. The wrath of our goddess, so we believed! Though it was ages ago, but we built the systems beneath our temples to protect our species should it ever happen again. That is where you will find them.” He pushed against Proxima’s weight. “Now, please, call off your armies!”

As he stood, Corvus’ eyes flicked up to his wife. She seemed to know what he was thinking, and asked him, “Shall I defile their place of worship with his blood?”

He grinned, baring the predacious teeth of a voracious killer. “Of course, my love. But make it slow—compensation for denying our master his tribute.”

Proxima smirked deliciously. Methodically, the tip of the spear pierced through layers of flesh and muscles, splitting the Muldari’s neck open front to back. His pleads for mercy were pushed through the edges of the wound. Blood ruptured, overflowing like a bucket filled over the brim with too much water, but Proxima left it there, at that precipice, so the General asphyxiated on his own vitality. Fluids trickled into his lungs, slowed by the intrusion of the spearhead. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.

Corvus thought of teeth slamming down into a helpless creature’s hide, pulling flesh away, the tearing and snapping of skin like thread—and he bent at the waist, the glottis in his throat vibrating intensely to release a bestial hiss. He became aware of Proxima’s apprehensive look. He was breathing heavy, sucking in deep breaths as if winded by the very sight of the gore, and each exhale was shakier than the last—but Proxima gazed at him knowingly. Her eyes wandered his body. His half-crumpled posture, his trembling shoulders, his quaking knees, and she knew the desire that coursed through him.

She flicked her wrist at the Outriders. “Leave us. Locate the entrance to the catacombs.”

The beasts departed one after another, throwing themselves back into the fray outside; soon, they were alone, and Corvus snarled like he had been struck hard enough to render pain. Proxima ripped her spear from the Muldari’s body, pointedly looking at her husband as she did, and then set it against the statue of the uncaring goddess. Blood leaked down the statue’s exposed thigh in rivulets.

“My love,” she said, and sauntered up to him. Her hands traversed the expanse of his chest, gliding over the thick material of his suit, up to his shoulders. “You poor, insatiable creature; you’re shaking.”

“You must understand how overcome you make me feel,” he hissed out, clasping his hands at her waist. “How…how difficult it is to resist—”

“Why resist?” One hand caressed his face, and the other slid downwards, over the valley of his abdomen and to his plated belt. She traced her fingertip over the intricate details on her descent. Then dipped lower, to where she felt him harden under her touch.

“Because it is—an inopportune time to be this—”

“Allow me to alleviate your suffering.”

He dipped his head into her shoulder. “I cannot ask that of you.”

“My love, you are afflicted by the heat of battle and the intimacy of death. Have I not been the same way? Do you forget Keruuva?”

Ah, yes. Keruuva, a seedy planet in the corner of the universe; they were eradicating the Keruuvian Deathsquad in trade for information from one of Thanos’ underhanded informants when Corvus went down on her in a squad leader’s office. “I remember,” he said then, flexing his claws to pantomime the grip he had maintained on her thighs to keep her from crushing his skull. “Still. It is—we have been given our orders.”

Proxima shrugged one shoulder and gave him a little smile, but he saw the disappointment behind the pallid filament of her eyes. “Your tone betrays your words, Corvus… but it is your decision all the same.”

Corvus knew she hadn’t been trying to guilt him. They were always eager to satisfy the other, with anything and everything, whether it was sexual fulfillment or emotional gratification, so of course there was despondency to be had in a situation of denial. Proxima merely wanted to help—

There was a mischievous glint that crossed her gaze. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips, then to his chin, his right cheek, his left cheek. Her mouth captured his, and for a moment Corvus surrendered to her, returning her affections by deepening the kiss, sliding his tongue curiously against hers. She hummed against him, into the cavern of his jaws. It was a deep vibration he felt reverberate into every bone in his chest as if he was made hollow by her existence. And she tilted her head, and he took in her quizzicality, feeling how she seemed to be looking for—for—

White, hot pain flared through his face. He reeled back, slamming back-first into the curve of the wall, and he was snarling. The reflex of a cornered animal about to strike. It should have been enough to deter her otherwise, yet Proxima was smirking at him like she wasn’t afraid at all. A drop of crimson blood meandered down her chin. He instinctively brought his hand up to the swell of his lower lip, where he felt the point where his skin was rendered in two.

“You bit me,” he said dumbly.

“A promise for tonight,” she replied, narrowing her eyes. “Unless you’re through making excuses?”

“Excuses?”

“We have been given our orders. Are those not your words? My ears have yet to fail me, and that sounds very much akin to an excuse.”

“We are in a warzone, Proxima.”

“A point that would maintain its leverage if you weren’t so obvious with your need. Was Keruuva not a warzone as much as this?” Corvus grit his teeth, but she briskly added, “I can always tell when you’re omitting what you want to say.”

“And what if I don’t wish to say anything?” He advanced on her, blood leaking from his split lip. It gave him the terrifying qualities of a predator. “How can I so casually admit that the sight of death was the only commiseration that made me feel alive until I met you? Or how afraid I am to lose that?”

“I am your wife,” she shot back. “Has it not dawned on you I feel the same?”

“Of course it has! But it makes me vulnerable in a way I haven’t felt since—since—” He ripped his glaive from the floor and threw it in anger across the room, where it smashed through a far wall. “This damnation! What the Shadow Guilds did to me! I no longer fear death, I fear a life I am forced to live without—”

Proxima was looking at him, breath pillowed up in her chest.

With the glaive no longer in his grasp, he healed much slower. The blood hadn’t yet coagulated. If he had been born anyone else, perhaps he could have kept the scar. “I apologize,” he said then, putting the meat of his palm to his lip to feel the dangerous wetness through his vambraces. “This is…new territory for me, both mentally and emotionally. I am afraid that I’m going to—inevitably—do or say anything that is too much or goes too far. It is quite terrifying.”

“You worry about non-existent troubles. We have devoted our entirety to what Master Thanos commands—if violence were a matter I could not stomach, I would not be his harbinger.” She raised her hand. He loyally went to her open palm and maneuvered his cheek into her touch, exhaling softly, fulfilled by a comfort he had once thought was beyond his reach. “Do you not trust the words of your wife, Corvus Glaive?”

“I do. I’m sorry.” He took her in his arms and nuzzled her neck. “Then, may I ask—”

Proxima laughed affably. “Ask. Oh, you insensible creature, have you not realized I find battle as arousing as you? Especially when”—she pushed him back against the wall, no rough but firm all the same, fists in his cloak, her limpid gaze flaring with desire—“in your words, I become the predator, the hunter. Judge, jury, and executioner. You think that doesn’t excite me?”

Corvus’ heart was in his throat. He looked at the upturned grin on her face, at the dried trail of his own blood on her chin, and as the scent of her hormones rammed their way up his nose, he felt vindicated.

“I,” he started to say, claws curling under her jowls, “am very much in love with you, Proxima Midnight.”

He brought their mouths together. They were feverish and anguished, hands asking for more of the other as he worked her open and wrapped his wrapped his arms around her waist and sucked on her tongue. The metallic taste of his blood was on both their lips, igniting the cingula in his head with that instinctive, beastly desire to hunt: to take her apart and make her his. She undid the circlet of his belt, connected to his hip guards, with deft fingers that slid in behind the front plate as quick and precise as a snake bite—and she moaned into him, hurriedly pushing the piece down. It clattered to the floor; in the hollowed room the sound reverberated, like a pipe deflecting off a sturdier pipe, that weaponized bang.

In that moment he decided it would take too long to undo all their clothes. At his guidance they tumbled to the cold floor, where he caught her against him as he would in their bedroom and pressed his forehead into hers to feel nearer. The vastness of the temple was scaled significantly down in her presence.

“You’re being awfully impatient,” Proxima said coyly.

Corvus slid his arm under her knee and lifted her leg to his waist. “Worry not, my love,” he told her in kind, lining his hips adjacently against hers, “I will ensure you still come first.”

He pressed his erection to the apex of her thighs and began to move, feeling the wet warmth of her through the thick of their colliding suits. She didn’t seem to mind that they were reduced to rutting on the floor like beasts in heat—actually, she quite enjoyed it, edged by the friction generated from the cloth and the not-quite-close-enoughness of their position, wanting more but being denied, trapped at the midpoint of frustration and relief. Quickly, she began to move against his motions. A heated moan slipped past her lips, then another—she tensed, nails in his indicators along his spine, and tossed her head back and arched her hips and pushed her clit at an angle against him.

“That’s it,” he said into her neck, “that’s it.”

Her sounds were intensifying. He sought out the pulse point at the divot of her collarbone and bit down; he felt her shudder and whimper. The scent of her arousal worsened. His head began to spin, wild with need, taking in her pheromones, her noises. His teeth were sharp enough to tear her flesh away if he really wanted to. But he had always known how to restrain himself, and even as she weakened his resolve, he managed not to break her skin.

She rolled her hips with fervor; he returned the affection. Grinding the orgasm out of each other. The rolling and crashing of energy and ecstasy.

“Corvus—”

“Midnight.”

An image flashed through his mind—the doe, but her cries are slow and silent, mouth tilted upwards to the sky—and he gazed into Proxima’s eyes, slotted like blinds against the sunlight, the midpoint of falling closed to focus on the sensation and snapping open to ensure he was still there. Curiously, she became all he could think about. There was no longer the memory of beasts tearing into flesh or blood glistening against dried summer grass. It was only her, and—

She came harder than he had anticipated. Her head rolled back, her spine arched off the floor, and he felt her trembling moments before her body seized up. Then she was pulsating. Grinding roughly with each involuntary jerk of her hips, her orgasm ripping through her body and she cried out as she tumbled through it, release after release. When Corvus came it was easy; he hadn’t realized he was that close but the sight of her surrendered to her orgasm beneath him was what he had needed, and he lurched for his other arm, sinking his fangs through the material of his clothing, piercing skin. Blood filled his senses like the first time he was ever killed. Red, hot, acidic pain.

Then, nothing.

* * *

For a while afterwards, they remained there on the tarnished floor of a once religious sanctum, him above her, until the reality of how uncomfortable the platform was forced Corvus to sit up, bending his legs over the steps of the altar. Blood dribbled from between his fangs, giving him the visage of both a predator who had hunted and the half-executed prey. At least his lip had healed. His arm, shredded in comparison, was beginning to amend itself too.

Proxima rose up to meet him and put her chin to his shoulder. Her fingertip traced a lemniscate along the length of his spine, over his environmental indicators, but the veil of the cloak allowed the sensation to pass without stimulation. “What are you thinking about, my love?”

There was sunlight everywhere, lancing through the windows and falling across everything, a predator in its own right by claiming whatever it thought necessary to endure and survive. In the distance beyond the temple walls, the screaming of war was gone. Silence, reflection. Water in a bucket. Blood on the floors.

“You,” he said honestly. “Just you.”

[manako-no-yami]

anything but clean

Rating: T Relationship(s): Odazai Tags: Grief/Mourning, Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, a teeeeeeeeeeeeeny tiny bit of Suicidal Ideation Summary:

Dazai knows better than anyone that blame is a fickle mistress, flitting back and forth and never settling in one place. The finger of accusation points everywhere and nowhere, all at once. But just because it has no direction doesn’t mean his sorrow disappears. Instead, it festers.

Dazai sits at an empty bar, and mourns.

for day 5 of @dazaimultishipweek2019!

-

There’s something about quiet bars. Something about the early morning hours, when the night is still bleeding away, when the only remaining patrons are those who either have nowhere to go or something they’re hiding from. There’s something about the way the light reflects off a glass, filtered through chilled whiskey, turning golden and warm. Like sunlight but muted, tailored for the nocturnal creatures that hide from the light.

Dazai turns his glass this way and that, rotating it between his fingers, poking the ice that bobs inside, the taste of bitter nostalgia souring on his tongue.

“Work was sooo boring today...” he whines. “So monotonous .”

His companion remains silent, watching him with sharp blue eyes, slowly nursing his own drink.

“Odasaku...” Dazai whines, resting his head on one hand, peering out at him through his right eye. “Tell me about your day. I’m sure it must’ve been much more eventful than mine.”

Oda hums, as though turning the statement over in his head.

“Been bothering your coworkers again, have you?”

Dazai sighs theatrically.

“Of course not!”

Oda cracks a small smile at that, hidden. You’d only know it was there if you knew where to look—just a small crinkle at the corner of his eyes—and Dazai knows where to look.

“Kunikida-kun is ever-grateful to have me as his partner. I even did paperwork today! He should be thanking his lucky stars for having the chance to work with someone like me , right, Odasaku?”

That small, hidden crinkle at the corner of Oda’s eye goes as quickly as it came. Just a flash, a moment of warmth. Like a candle sighing. Without it, Oda seems to melt into the background, his quiet seeping into the material of his being.

“You didn’t give him any...trouble, today?”

Dazai’s grin is sharp, rueful.

Three spontaneous, over-the-top death plans, five moments of “I’d rather be dead”, but no actual attempts, today. For once.

Joy.

“A death a day gives the coroner pay, am I right,” he laughs.

A haze of smoke passes between them, and Oda’s figure seems to shimmer a bit, indistinct.

“Dazai…” Oda’s face remains impassive, unsurprised, but his hands clench. He seems at a loss for words. Finally, after a long pause, he settles upon, “You really shouldn’t worry your colleagues like that.”

It’s a weak quip.

His voice strains near the end, like he’s choking on everything else he means to say (that they both know he wants to say), like he has to force down the truth in order to maintain the precarious peace that wavers between them.

Dazai shifts his weight, spinning in a circle on his barstool, humphing.

“Atsushi-kun should just stop worrying so much. It’s not my fault he hasn’t gotten with the program. No one else cares.”

Oda’s hands do that little clench again, a habit that Dazai noticed he has when he’s trying to control his emotions—like he’s trying to remind himself that he doesn’t need to reach for a gun.

“But they do. You know they do.”

“Like you do?” Dazai’s chuckle sounds like the tinkle of glass shattering.

For a second, all of his edges stand out, sharp and raw, before he forcefully relaxes his shoulders, that blithe smile like another layer of bandages to wrap around him and hold him together.

Oda looks resigned. Ever unperturbed. Still the only one who knows Dazai well enough to not be caught off guard. Like he’d seen this coming, the way he sees all disasters before they come. And what is Dazai, but yet another disaster?

The silence is damning, because they both know that Oda knows he can’t say anything to that—he no longer has the right.

They nurse their drinks, the silence between them thick and heavy, yet filled with a mutual understanding that Dazai wishes they didn’t have.

“…Why?”

Oda turns towards him, countenance like that of a man before the jury. Like he knows he’s committed a crime, and is willing to face it head-on.

Dazai loved that about him. Hates that about him.

“Why’d you do it?” Dazai sounds weary, like he’s older than he should be.

Oda takes a moment to savor the taste of his alcohol, contemplating. “Why do you keep trying?”

“You know it’s not the same thing. What I try to do and what you did is not the same thing,” Dazai bites back.

A clean suicide. One that doesn’t trouble anyone—and who’s fault is it, now, that he cares about troubling others?

“I suppose…I lost hope. There was nothing left to save,” Oda replies.

He doesn’t flinch when Dazai throws his drink at him, hands slamming against the bar, the glass shattering against the opposite wall.

“Bullshit. What about me?”

His eyes sting. But he doesn’t cry. He’s angry, but he doesn’t cry, because he knows it’s useless.

“You lost those orphans and decided there was nothing left in this godforsaken world worth saving?! Orphans die every day, Odasaku! Your failure meant nothing! Those kids were barely a blip on the radar! If that was all it took to break you, none of your efforts were worth anything in the first place!”

Dazai is the blood splatter upon the wall, the choked off scream that gurgles up a slit throat. He is the mess left behind. That Odasaku had left behind.

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not. How could you be sorry?”

His next words burn up his throat, like salt on an open wound. “You’re dead.”

As long as he remains alive, to him, Oda’s death is anything but clean—anything but forgivable.

And whose fault is that?

He’s a sad sight. Pathetic. The remaining patrons look over, but say nothing. The bartender begins to mop up the spill, looking like he wants to ask him to leave.

“If you’re allowed to die, then why can’t I?”

His voice is naked, plaintive.

His chest heaves and his vision swims, but the tears don’t fall. He’s at the cusp, waiting for the invisible cracks to converge so that he can finally, finally fall apart, but it never comes. He heaves, wishing so badly that he could cry, that he could feel human , but he isn’t, is he? This—this thing inside of him, this emptiness and this ugliness, could it possibly be human?

“Because you’re better than me, Dazai.”

A lie.

Odasaku had been the best of them, always.

A lie. That’s all that can be offered to him, and a bad one at that.

“Was I just not worth it? You couldn’t stay and—and—”

“You never needed my help.”

Another lie.

“I was a kid, too, you know,” Dazai whispers.

“…I know.”

Dazai sinks back onto the chair, composure wavering.

“Then why? Why wasn’t I worth living for? You still had one more kid you could save, and you left anyway.”

You left me.

“I’m sorry,” Oda says again. “I should’ve known better. I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t. You just died.”

But it’s too late now.

Maybe there wasn’t anything left of Dazai to save, anyway. Maybe Dazai was already a ghost, and Odasaku already forgotten. Maybe there isn’t a point to any of this. Maybe none of this is happening at all.

In that moment, it’s as though everything were submerged under water, floating away. Dazai is the only thing alive ( so unbearably alive ) in the middle of a dusty, forgotten tableau.

I’m drunk, he realizes, belatedly. Terribly, terribly drunk.

He sways on his seat, then leans forward. The bar surface is cool under his cheek.

“Why won’t you let me join you?”

For a second, he can smell him. His warmth. The scent of cigarettes, mingling with leftover gunsmoke. Cheap cologne.

“Because you can do so much more than I ever could.”

Dazai buries his face in his arms, and lets out a wet laugh.

“That’s unfair of you, isn’t it, Odasaku? Leaving your own ambition to another dying man?”

Silence greets him.

“I’m not suited for this. I never was. So why me?”

He asks the question to the empty air.

“Why me, Odasaku?”

He’s tired. So tired.

He closes his eyes to rest, just for a second.

 .

And when he looks up again, no one’s there.

[ginger-and-mint]

How about ficlet where a nice vampire and his human boyfriend spend the night in the estate of an Enemy Vampire Hunter to allay his suspicions about them...which includes the poor, underfed vampire having to finish an immense meal of human food. He remains calm, eats everything, gives no sign of discomfort, and walks with his boyfriend back to their room, where he collapses on the bed because his poor belly isn't used to holding solid food and the boyfriend comforts him.

So I’ve decided that this is the same vampire from this thing I wrote before. His name is now Theo(dore).

Here’s some hasty backstory for him:

shortly after being turned, he was taken in by a group called the Coven, who taught him how to survive as a vampire.

the Coven’s schtick is that rather than exsanguinating random innocents, they create hit lists of people who’ve committed crimes and their members prey exclusively from this list as a form of vigilante justice.

eventually something happens which sours Theo to acting as judge, jury, and executioner and he leaves the Coven.

around the same time (possibly relatedly? idk yet) he meets Darren, who becomes his boyfriend

now he’s sort of living in the shadows, hiding from the Coven and other people who want to kill him, ‘cause being a lone vampire is dangerous….

CW: mentions of blood-drinking (implied to be fatal) and nausea.

Theo knew she was a vampire hunter. It was neither ignorance nor stupidity that got him to the point where he was sitting at her dining table with a fake smile plastered on his temporarily-defanged face.

The whole Coven had been terrified of her. After all, she was like something straight out of primetime TV—a successful lawyer living in a beautiful suburban home with her husband and three golden retrievers. She volunteered with underprivileged kids, made generous annual donations to the local animal shelter, and in her spare time, she tracked down vampires and killed them dead.

“If anyone in this city’s gonna kill you, it’s Selena Chang,” one of Theo’s old Coven buddies had once said. “She’s ruthless. She worms her way into your social sphere and flips the lid on your coffin, so to speak. She’s so bad that if she started tracking you tomorrow, you’d be out of the Coven until you could shake her. If you could shake her.”

“Shit, really?” Theo had said. “What would I do?”

“You’d figure something out. Or not.” A toothy grin. “The only thing you can do is convince her you’re not a vampire. Ignore her and she’ll stake you in your sleep. Try to reason with her and she’ll sweetly agree to let you go, and then stake you in your sleep. Basically, one wrong move and you’re dead meat.”

Theo had thought about that a lot since leaving the Coven. One of his small comforts was that he didn’t have much of a social sphere these days, unless you counted the late-night clerk at the corner shop where he regularly went to buy ground beef and aspirin. But he’d forgotten about Darren.

Darren still had a normal life. He didn’t think twice when a friendly new face showed up at his aerobics class and struck up a conversation. One evening, Theo had gone over to Darren’s place and found the face of his nightmares sitting on his boyfriend’s sofa with a glass of blood-red wine.

She had invited them over for dinner a week later. “My husband loves to cook. He’ll be delighted to have guests.”

“That’s kind of you, but um… the buses stop running your way pretty early,” Theo had said nervously. “And we, uh, we don’t have a car.”

“Oh, that’s no trouble,” she’d said with a smile. “You can stay the night in our guest room. We have plenty of space.”

And that’s how Theo had ended up staring down a plate mounded high with vegetarian lasagna, steamed broccoli, and creamy mashed potatoes. There was a big basket of rolls on the table and chocolate cake had been promised for dessert.

It was probably delicious. From the look on Darren’s face, the smell must’ve been irresistible. But Theo’s body reacted to it as though he were looking at a plate of spare car parts. No water in his mouth. No desire in his guts. Just a vague nauseous hunger. He’d sucked as much juice as he could from a packet of cheap ground beef that morning, but that’d been like a drop in an empty, empty bucket.

“Well, everyone,” said Selena Chang with an impenetrable smile, “dig in!”

Theo put a lump of lasagna in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. It felt like a pebble dropping into his stomach, but he sighed and smiled as though it had been delicious.

Everything was packed with garlic, of course. There were whole cloves of it in the lasagna and the potatoes had been whipped with garlic butter. Garlic wasn’t gonna kill him, but it wasn’t gonna make him feel very good either. He’d learned that very soon after he’d been bitten, when he’d woken up in the middle of the night ravaged by bloodthirst. At the time he’d mistaken it for desperate hunger and so he’d dug some garlic bread out of the freezer and devoured the whole thing. God, he’d never been so sick.

From the way his stomach was starting to feel, he guessed today would probably smash that record. But Selena Chang was staring him down and he wasn’t ready to die yet.

So he smiled and talked and ate and hurt and hurt and hurt.

- - -

As soon as the guest room door shut behind them, Theo collapsed backwards onto the bed, groaning.

“Are you okay?” Darren asked.

“Urghhhh. No.” Theo wrapped an arm over his stomach. “I can’t believe I got everything down, ugh. Feels like I’ve eaten rocks.”

“That was a lot of food. Even I’ve got a bit of a bellyache from it. Those potatoes were heavy. And that cake was—”

“Oh god, shut up. Ughhh. I need—I can’t—can you—?”

“Of course.” Darren pushed Theo’s hands away and unfastened the belt he was struggling with.

Theo groaned as his belly surged outward. It felt more like a nauseous wave rolling through his stomach than a relief. “Ohhhh, god… d’you think she’ll stake me through the heart if I puke all over her guest room?”

“Probably. Just for ruining these fabulous Egyptian cotton sheets.” Darren sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked Theo’s hair. “You did so good back there.”

“Yeah? You think I convinced her?”

“Absolutely. I almost believed you were having the best meal of your life. You didn’t look uncomfortable at all.”

“Huh. Guess I’m better actor than my high school drama teacher gave me credit for…. Oh my god, I feel so sick! Like I’m stuffed full of garbage.” Theo put a hand to the side of his belly. It was swollen. Nothing compared to how full and round it used to look after he’d had a proper feeding, but that was a different kind of swollen than this nauseous, achy misery. That was a wonderful, contented, satiated sort of swollenness….

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I want blood.”

Darren put his hand over Theo’s, gently rubbing the bloated belly. “You want to put more into this thing?”

“I could fit a couple raw steaks in there. God, I really could.” Theo had to swallow the saliva that had filled his mouth. His stomach gurgled—stuffed full and yet still so, so hungry….

Darren stared down at him, eyes soft. “Theo… if you need to, you know I’d let you—”

“No way. I already took from you last week, I’m not gonna—”

“But I’d let you.”

“No. You need it more than I do.” He paused, taking a quick breath. “I can’t, anyway. My stomach is upset as hell and if I puke blood under this roof, I’m as good as dead.”

Darren’s fingers slipped down from Theo’s belly to one of his jutting hipbones. They slowly traced up to where his ribs were showing through his skin.

“You need a proper meal,” he said quietly. “I can see you wasting away. You can’t survive on beef drippings and a pint or two from me every other week.”

“Yeah, well, what I am supposed to do? Climb through a window and drain the nearest helpless virgin? If I take anyone from the Coven’s hit list, they’ll find me, and you know I don’t want to be like them anymore—”

“I know.” Darren slipped down to lie on the bed next to Theo. “We’ll figure something out.”

“If I murder any more people, I’d deserve a stake through the heart! I can’t let myself—”

“Theo! We’ll figure something out! Okay?”

Theo shut his mouth. He briefly considered the word we and what a beautiful, wonderful word it was.

“But we’re not gonna figure out anything out tonight, are we?” Darren went on.

Theo cleared his throat. “Maybe we could figure out how to settle a stomach that hasn’t handled any solid food in over a year?”

Darren carefully pushed up Theo’s shirt and planted a kiss on the crest of his churning belly. “There. Did that make you feel better?”

Theo let out a short, painful laugh. “Try a hand on my belly and a kiss on my mouth,” he said, and he sighed as Darren obliged.

[cyberneticlagomorph]

Trial by Convolution

Somewhere you hear ticking, far in the back of your mind, steady and stoic, as familiar as breathing. You distantly recall a cat with a technicolor coat, and a smile like the moon on her side. You shut your eyes and pull away, nearly tripping on your own tail.

“You can’t keep me here forever, not without a trial, otherwise its just wrongful imprisonment.” you grit between clenched teeth, your eyes are bleeding. The Queen laughs, a sound like a choir of tiny silver bells in the breeze, her Charm retracts from your mind. Your heart aches when it does and you are enveloped by such a profound feeling of being starved for touch, you have to choke back a stray sob that materializes in your chest.

“A trial? You want a trial? Very well, I’ll humor you.” she sneers, her hand suddenly at your throat, fear raking icy talons down your spine. Your eyes fly open automatically and you instantly wish they hadn’t, the world is a maelstrom around the both of you, a sickening whirlwind of colors and noise that drops you into a courtroom somewhere on the vast edges of space, floating in some hollowed out asteroid. There, in the judge’s seat sits an unknowable creature with eyes like the passing stars, one of it’s many limbs coiled around a gavel. It looks almost comical. In the corner stands a bailiff with a face like TV static and a voice that comes from everywhere at once.

Other beings start to appear in puffs of smoke and light, the jurors box filling with fae your age. The Queen summons a demon with cartoonishly red skin and cloven hooves, he grins at you like he’s done this a thousand times and won every case. His suit is sharp and smells strongly of smoke, you hate him and his serpentine tail instantly. The trial hasn’t even started and you’re already tired, dragging your hands down your face as you find yourself sitting in the defendant’s chair as the bailiff starts to call the case. You are without a lawyer, panic courses through you in an instant before a cloud of opalescent smoke coalesces into the shape of a person, rapidly solidifying until there is an androgynous figure sitting beside you. They have eyes that shift in hue every second and the widest smile you’ve ever seen.

Cheshire pats your shoulder, “Don’t look so grim,” it says, “I know what I’m doing, I’ll have you free in a jiffy.”

This fails to fill you with confidence as the bailiff speaks in a voice as bleak and baleful as the surface of some long forgotten moon,

“All rise. The Court of Wonderland is now in session. Honorable Judge █ █ █ █ , presiding.” the judge’s name was something you couldn’t exactly hear or see, but kind of felt and tasted in the back of your throat. It makes you shudder, just a little as you and everyone else did what they were told. The judge banged it’s gavel and the prosecution gave his opening statement. You really weren’t paying attention like you should have been, so all you caught was that his name was Minos, he was representing Wonderland and the Queen by proxy, you were on trial for both your “crimes” as well as to prove your character. The whole thing seemed like some tedious formality or a D&D session gone off the rails, but you were too tired to do much more than sit and stare and disassociate a lot.

Cheshire said some words too, you still aren’t listening. You honestly feel like crying a little. Minos is still standing, eying you darkly as if you are a slab of steaming meat on a platter. He licks his lips and clears his throat, before calling his first witness to the stand, one Kiran Misra. Your blood turns to ice as a portal yawns above the witness stand and Kiran dropped down with an oof, she was scarcely given a moment to adjust before being sworn in and approached by the demon.

“Now, miss Misra, I hear you and the defendant have a bit of history… Would you say he’s a good person in any capacity, or that his impending punishment is cruel?” his voice is smooth and oily, dripping from his jaws like poison. Kiran glances at you, first confused, then angry, before her eyes light up with malicious glee. She leans forward in her seat, smiling a little,

“Oh no, it’s definitely warranted. Dude took out a whole secret lab on Earth, killed all the scientists there and blew it into a smoking crater. I don’t think he can be trusted with the power he’s got.” she thinks for a moment, tapping her chin with a finger. “Oh, and I think he destroyed a priceless, irreplaceable magical artifact, too.”

Minos grins, glancing at the judge,

“That will be all your honor.” he purrs before sitting, long tail dragging on the floor behind him. Cheshire stands, ready to cross examine the witness, it’s smile is gone.

“Miss Misra, is it true that you and my client have gotten into numerous altercations?”

She nods, opening her mouth to elaborate, only to be interrupted by Cheshire,

“And is it true that you were the aggressor in all but one of those altercations?”

Kiran’s mouth snaps shut, her expression going from smug to offended, Cheshire continues, voice coldly even and calm

“And is it true you caused life threatening injuries to my client, in addition to endangering his home and children?” Minos attempts an objection but is quickly overruled, Kiran quickly grows angry and quiet, teeth gritting as she realizes the hole she’s been backed into. Cheshire snorts softly it turns to walk back to you,

“No further questions your honor.” Kiran manags to glare daggers at you the split second before a new portal opens beneath her and she drops out of view. You shudder, looking at Cheshire for comfort. It gives you a double thumbs up and the case progresses. Bendy the dancing demon is called to the stand next, disorientated and shaking as he struggles to figure out where he is. Minos badgers him with questions in an attempt to get him to admit in his involvement with your assault on the Red Queen, which Cheshire quickly objects to. Minos can only growl and cease his questions, Bendy has been reduced to a quivering puddle on the stand, Cheshire doesn’t bother to question him so he is soon sent home. The seat is still damp and sticky, likely to remain that way for the remainder of the trial. You have no way of knowing what time it is out here, but it feels late, you’re having a rough time keeping your eyes open.

A chunk of the trial passes by in a blur before you hear Cheshire say,

“I call Marcela Closer to the stand.” your head snapping up so quickly you nearly give yourself whiplash. Like before, a portal opens above the witness stand, rudely depositing your sister into the damp chair. She is topless, in her andrid body, her hair a mess and her face partially obscured by a sleep mask. She tears the mask off, gurgling and hurgling in agitation and alarm before glaring sabers at the court, eyes wild. The bailiff steps forward to swear her in and she flinches like a suspicious animal, teeth bared. After a mild amount of screaming and biting, Marce’s hand ends up on what is hopefully not the Necronomicon.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” intones the static faced bailiff. Marce looks it where it’s eyes should be and says in a practiced deadpan,

“No.” much to the amusement of the court. The judge simply sighs and the examination begins. Marce spots you, squints, and then sighs, rubbing her temples as Cheshire approaches. “Miss Closer,” it begins, “You are very close to my client, correct? Would you say that he is a good person and that this trial is unnecessary and abhorrent?”

Marce looks at the grinning cat, exhaustion evident on her face as she speaks,

“Mothers and fuckers of the jury,” she says, with no hint of irony, “Alright, listen. I really, honestly have no idea what kind of weight my words here’re gonna have. Part of me suspects it’s none, this whole thing just feels like a shitty formality that has no bearing on the actual course of events, like the bullshit trials the Sheriff’s Secret Police set up when they’re bored and wanna fuck around with the family members being held at the abandoned underground missile silo during election season so that the town can ensure that everyone votes correctly, but anyways. Ever since the first day we met, Jack’s never been anything but good to me. I can’t remember us ever having a single fight.”

Of course, that’s because she can hardly remember anything, but she’s not gonna tell them that. “Like, he’s just this dude, y’know, just this dude tryna make his way. He’s just sort of, fumbling through, trying to survive an onslaught of absolute bullshit he never asked for, shoved into this shit he never wanted, trying his best to do right by the people who have suddenly come to rely on him. He never asked for this, none of us ever asked for any of this, you think I ever asked for the bullshit I’ve seen? Remind me to tell you about the demonic beagle puppy sometime, because THAT’S a fucking story.”

She spreads both hands wide in an accentuating gesture. “Point is, he’s doing his best to survive through all the shit that’s been going on, the cards have been stacked against him since day one, but he’s still here. And so are all of you. We’re all just, still here. The universe is crazy and cruel and arbitrary and unfair, so we’re all just… trying to survive.”

The cat seems satisfied, glancing at the vast judge, “No further questions.” it says, softly and returns to you. Minos declines to cross examine. Marce is soon sent home, her sleep mask left laying on the floor of the courtroom. Hopefully, you’ll give it back to her later.

[throughthedirt]

Season 1: Chapter One

"On the degree of ORS 163.115 of Murder in the first degree - We The Jury - find the defendant... NOT guilty."

NOT guilty.

Not guilty.

Not.

Guilty

.

​

Miles

Oregon State Penitentiary - Months Later

"Fuckin' football prick raped my niece and got off scot-free, I would kill him if I could." A pale-skinned Correctional Lieutenant - Officer Dave Ward - muttered under his breath to a fellow comrade - a partner, at the other end of the hallway. But if these hollow halls were good for one thing - aside from keeping inmates in their cells; it was at passing sound. The dome-shaped ceilings were specifically engineered so that sound traveled from one end of the hall to the other. Even a whisper could be heard from over feet away.

All inmates of this sector were out in the courtyard. All but one. Me.

"I'll kill him." My deep, rugged voice - although low in its hum - echoed throughout the corridor.

Lieutenant Ward turned his head, his eyes searching for the source of the voice. "What did you say...?" Having been unaware that one inmate remained despite abandoned cells, he stepped forward with the utmost caution. The sound of his slow footsteps clapping against the cold, concrete floors would be, to most, haunting. But their eerie reverberation meant nothing to me. They were like an invitation.

"I said..." Slipping my arms from between the cell's bars, I let them dangle freely to show that I was unarmed. "I'll murder the football prick that raped your niece." The officer came to face me, keeping his guarded distance as his hand lay ready to swipe for his gun. I asked, "That is what you want, isn't it?"

The Lieutenant's brows furrowed as his blue eyes looked intensely into my dark, empty orbs. There was undeniable tension - the kind you could cut with a knife. A moment of complete silence went by without the guard so much as blinking. "Watch your mouth." He would finally mutter before walking away, though his voice would be monotone - void of any emotion.

[ --- ]

New inmates didn't stand a chance. Kill or be killed? No. Not here. In this corrupt hell-hole; it was rape or be raped. Prison didn't shelter you from the outside, it just trapped the evils of the outside world into four impenetrable, concrete walls and locked you inside of it. In Oregon State Penitentiary, you weren't just a prisoner. Some were a king pin, a don, a pimp, or for many... a bitch.

But this wasn't my first rodeo. Certainly not my first time behind bars. Just the longest sentence. Coming through these doors, I had no fear. But the pride - the invulnerability of a newbie... it wasn't a threat here. It was a challenge.

At 6 foot 3 and 238 pounds - overweight and hefty - I was a force to be reckoned with to the average human being. But to Correctional Officers and the 2000+ inmates and Oregon State Pen, I was no longer an anomaly, nor was I an exceptionally intimidating individual. I was a prisoner. Like everyone else. And I intimidated nobody. Nobody that mattered. But I challenged the only person people feared, the Prison Wolf - a man they called El fucking Loupe.

It had only been a week since I had walked through those barred prison doors, but to El Loupe, it was the perfect moment to strike. I was weak, dehydrated, and I had pissed off the wrong inmates on my way in. For the Prison Wolf - a Hulk-shaped Camarada massing 260 pounds of sheer muscle - he reaped power from assault (even though he pledged that before prison, his dick had never even touched an asshole). It was an ambush - but despite him and his dogs' attempt to ravage me, they failed, only succeeding in tearing my pants and garnering the attention of two prison guards.

But the damage had been done. It didn't matter that his flesh never saw my own. By the next morning, El Loupe and his pack of mangy mutts had already convinced their posse that the deed had been done. Whether or not the events were true, or pure fabrications - my reputation had been permanently tarnished. It was official. I was a punk; a bitch.

[ --- ]

The cell doors were open, it was spare-hour where inmates were free roam the hallway and hop cells. Most chose to sit around and converse among each other. I, however, chose to be stay back, and alone, with nothing but a book; Stephen King's: Different Seasons. The book featured a collection of novellas: The Body, Apt Pupil, The Breathing Method, and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

Correctional Lieutenant Dave Ward returned to my cell. With his back to my room and his hand on his gun, he did nothing but turn his head to the slightest degree, as if to mimic a guard standing post. "You'll need a hell of a lot of books for 8 years, Jones." He paused, his eyes searching to ensure his comrades were not in ear shot. "But Shawshank, hmm." He mumbled, "Andy got life... Imagine he was reduced to 6... for good behavior."

Lowering the book from my face, I turned my dark, stone eyes to gaze at the back of the very same prison guard I had offered to kill for. "Six years, huh?" I nodded slightly, pacing the my thumbs over the crimped corners of the pages. "Andy would need more. He would need... Hm, pages... from a book."

The officer's eyebrow raised slightly, his eyes narrowing as he tried to decipher what I was asking for. "... which book?"

"Little Red Riding Hood... and the Big Bad WOLF."

Taking a step forward, Lieutenant Ward gave a swift nod and left without another word.

[ --- ] 

El Loupe was a wolf in this establishment, one that hunted always in a pack. But he never ate in a pack. In fact, he only wished to eat alone. "I eat alone!" He shouted, a clear call of attention to everyone around us as I took a bold seat at the cafeteria table. Sitting across from him, I had neither food in front of me, nor a weapon.

"And Mireya?" There was a gurgle in my voice as my tongue flicked every syllable of that unusual and uncommon female name. "Does she eat alone, too?"

El Loupe's crumpled face quickly loosened. His eyes became wider as the reality of the situation sunk in. Mireya was unknown to the inmates of Oregon State Pen. To prisoners, her name was simply Mimi. And the word Mireya never left fat, his lying lips. Suddenly the wolf lunged, grabbing my uniformed collar with both hands to shake me furiously. "NO!!!" The sound of anguish.

I replied quickly, and with ferocity. "You are all day, all night, and I am out in 6. Tonight you will Dutch Act so that when I get out... I don't drive to 10436 Ramona Street to crucify your precious Mireya."

Barely capable of breathing, El Loupe's grip on my collar weakened as his knees buckled. He sunk slowly back in his seat, his eyes wide as his bottom lip quivered. It only took 1 name, 1 threat, and 1 fatal request to bring this Wolf down to his pathetic, hairy knees. Did he think he could make a bitch out of me? I wasn't the little bitch anymore. Now... it was him. And this Little Red Riding Hood just became The Big Bad Wolf.

Next Chapter

[huffle-dork]

Control (Part 3)

Part 2: [x]

“I don’t like you bossing us around short fry…” But a sickly grin spreads across the ink demons face, “But I can’t say that doesn’t sound like f̡̫̬̽̽͝ṳ̻̻̍̈́͋ň̰̱͇͌͠!”

Unreal waves her hand and the fog separating Huffle from her trance and “reality” dissipates just enough that Huffle can now see that Juri is the one drowning her. Huffle sobs and fights more, looking heartbroken up at her friend but she can’t cry past the ink filling her mouth.

Unreal whispers into a little ball of ink in her hand and her voice echoes in between Juri and Huffle in their struggle.

“See where silly friendships get you, Lauren? They’ll always betray you in the end. Every single friend you ever had and ever will have will f̡͈̦̈̓̓ả̤̝͌̒ͅi͇̘͙̎̄͝l̛̝̼̎̕ͅ ̤̥͓̌̌͘y̪͎̪̾͛͠ơ̬͍͍̽̍ŭ̙̳̙̄́ ̤̺̬̎̊̚ą̩̦̈́̅͂ń͎̜͙̔͑ḏ͕͚̈́̾̕ ͕̟̀̏͛͜l̤͉̩͆͌̕ę̛̯̭̓͐ả͓̹̻̍̄v̧̖̮͛̐͝e̤̜͈͒̂̀ ̨̮̲͛̓̚y̰͓̝̏͑͘ọ̗̀̉͜͠u͙̤̥̾̍̌ ̢̘̣͗͗̅ó̘̱͚̐͆ú̫̱̣͆͠t̘̗̯̐̌̊ ̨̖̻̃́̚t̰̘̜̄̾̈o̖̭̘̍̇̈́ ̥͖͕́̑̆r̠̟͇̈́͋͋ȍ̰͉̹͐͊ẗ̯̩̠́͋̿.̟̥̓̂͘͜”

Juri clenches her teeth as more tears stream down her face. She was going to be haunted by Huffle’s heartbroken gaze for a long time after this.

Ouros approached from behind Juri to say, “I thought I said to hold her down.” Gravity increased on Juri’s hands and she slammed Huffle’s shoulders into the ground and held her there with a sob.

She couldn’t move at all now with gravity pressing down on her. Ouros knelt down next to Juri and looked down into Huffle’s face. “I’ve never seen someone drown before. What a wonderful experience,” Ouros commented while leaning her chin into her palm and settling in to watch Huffle.

Anibase laughed and sat down to watch, the sound bouncing rapidly between ears at a painful pace. She figured that if her friends were anything like TeFA, they would surely be suffering by now. Any minute their will will surely break like a twig.

Huffle was sobbing and her world was falling apart. Unreal moved her hands and more inky shifting shapes started to move behind Juri and Ouros. To Huffle, they looked like anyone she ever cared about helping Juri to push her further and further. She choked, the ink from her mouth producing bubbles just like if she was underwater as the illusion took its toll. Huffle weakly grabbed onto Juri’s arm as she convulsed, her body convinced that this was it. Her tears started to run black, ink pouring out of her eyes as she spasmed, the last of her “air” running out. Huffle’s head lulled to the side, lifeless looking, as her eyes turned completely black and ink pooled onto the floor.

Unreal grinned and chuckled evilly at the sight. What a great bunch of chaos. Then suddenly she jolted and gripped her chest, cursing slightly as she winced.

Juri screamed as Huffle “died” but gravity increased around her throat and she choked before Ouros released it and let her breath again. “That went quicker than I thought,” Ouros commented. She nudged Huffle’s head with no reaction and stood.

“Guess that just leaves one left,” Ouros said while staring back at a glaring Juri. Ouros snorted, “Defiant until the end.”

Tracing a finger down her inner arm Ouros released Niy and Gary who circled around a stubbornly glaring Juri. With a lunge Niy sank her fangs into Juri’s shoulder. Juri jerked back but didn’t get far as Niy wrapped her in powerful coils and began squeezing her.

Anibase watched in a proud manner. ‘VGhleSdyZSBsZWFybmluZyBhbHJlYWR5Li4u ((They're learning already…))’ Anibase thought to herself, then she clapped in complete giddiness. She kicked TeFA’s destroyed corpse next to Huffle’s so they can get a good look at the two of them. Plus, who knows? It might destroy Juri a bit too.

Unreal coughed and gripped her chest further, “shit-!” She winced and hit her head slightly, like she was trying to shake something loose. “Lauren doesn’t do well with nightmares, she’s trying to wake up!” She gritted her teeth and cursed her host, “Why can’t she just take this and stay quiet?!” Huffle’s body in the dreamscape gave no sign of movement though. Unreal tried to focus so she could see that annoying little Juri break.

Juri’s leg spasmed in Niy’s grip and hit Gary in the head. With an affronted hissed he lashed out to and opening in Niy’s grip and sunk his fangs into Juri’s neck. Gurgling in pain Juri spasmed in what she thought were death throes before her vision went dark.

Once Juri went still Ouros waved Niy and Gary back to her side. “That will only keep her down for a little bit,” Ouros warned. She turned to observe Unreal struggle with her creator.

Anibase walked over closer to Unreal and looked into her eyes again. “WW91IG5lZWQgdG8gYmUgc3Ryb25nIHRvbyBJbmt5Li4uIElmIHlvdSBjYW4ndCBncmFiIGRvd24gdGhhdCBwZXN0IGFuZCBicmVhayBoZXIgeW91J2xsIG5ldmVyIGJlIGFibGUgdG8gY29udHJvbCBoZXIuLi4= ((You need to be strong too Inky... If you can't grab down that pest and break her you'll never be able to control her…))” She wrapped the art glitches arm in her rope around an area not exposed by ink, and tightened so she can focus her pain.

“QmUgc3Ryb25nLCBhbmQgcyBOIGEgUC4uLg== ((Be strong, and s N a P…))”

Unreal growled through her wincing and regarded the little dark side, “What the hell is that supposed to mean? If I can kill her here and she still can do stuff like this how do I snap her?!”

Ouros walked around Unreal and shrugged. “You just….snap.” She mimed snapping a neck as if it would help. “You just have to figure out the best way of breaking her.”

Anibase nodded and crossed her arms. “RXhhY3RseS4uLg== ((Exactly…))” Then Anibase’s eyes lit up with an idea. “TWF5YmUgaXQncyBub3QganVzdCBoZXIgd2lsbCwgb3IgaGVyLQ== ((Maybe it’s not just her will, or her-))” Anibase proceeds to motion to Huffle’s unmoving body. “Qm9keS4uLiBBIHdpbGwgaXMganVzdCB5b3Ugc291bCdzIHdpc2ggdG8gc3RheSBhbGl2ZS4uLiBXaHkgbm90IHRyeSBhIEwgbCBvZiBoZXIgc291bC4uLj8= ((Body... A will is just you soul's wish to stay alive... Why not try a L l of her soul...?))”

Unreal gripped her head and roared in rage. Huffle jolted and spasmed more ink flooding her mouth despite her dead eyes. Unreal spread the ink out from around her host into razor sharp points and drove them down into the girl’s chest. Then she lifted them up before plummeting them down over and over. Unreal could feel Lauren jolting in her head with each jab, crying out and trying to fight this awful dream. But soon enough she started to quiet with a sad pathetic whimper. Unreal growled and drive the spike once more through the girl’s middle before leaving it there.

“There! Now stay asleep you pathetic w̞͖͕̋̊̓a͔̼̺͑̀̿š̝͈͕́̒t̢͖̯̀͋̏e̝̲͂̊̍͜ ̳͉̖̄́̓õ̼̫̿̇ͅf̺̳̤̍̃̈́ ̝̠̺̆̉̎s͓̠͉̑͑̈p͈̤͖̓̑͂a̢̧̟̍͑͘c̨̙̜͑͐̐ẹ̢̭̏́̕!͖̖̩͗̓͒” Unreal heaved, expecting any moment for her stubborn host to try to wake up again. But the pain in the demon's head had subsided, her host too tired to fight the pain and fear anymore.

Ouros raised an eyebrow at the display and said,”I would have preferred a more elegant touch.” She looked over at Juri where Gary was currently judging if he could fit her through his jaw. “No,” Ouros commanded She ignored Gary ignoring her.

Anibase smiled. “SG93IGRvZXMgaXQgZmVlbCBndXlzLi4uPyBZb3VyIGhvc3QncyBhcmUgbm8gbG9uZ2VyIGluIHRoZSB3YXkuLi4= ((How does it feel guys...? Your host's are no longer in the way…))” She asked them both. She giggled, and looked at all three of them, lying down unorganized. TeFA in several pieces and blood leaking out from several wounds; Huffle with inky tears drowning her mouth and eyes out, with a huge puncture wound dominating her stomach; and Juri merely knocked out with a single bite to the neck.

Unreal calmed her breathing and pushed back her hair with a sigh. “It doesn’t feel like it will last. We’re still just secondary parts of their wholes.” She crosses her arms and stares coldly at their corpses. “We may have control for now but for how long? This doesn’t solve our problem of not having bodies yet.”

“It's not much yet but I've been researching magic to try and find a way.” Ouros motioned to Niy lounging across her feet, “I've only progressed so far though.”

A noise had Ouros turning abruptly and yell. “Gary I said no!” Gary looked up from where he had just swallowed Juri whole. Her feet were only just disappearing into his mouth. Gary met Ouros’s gaze unrepentantly.

Anibase put her hands on her hips and sighed. “WW91IGFyZSBzbyBpbXBhdGllbnQuLi4= ((You are impatient…))” Anibase muttered under her breath. “VGhpcyBnaXZlcyB1cyBtb3JlIHRpbWUgdG8gYmUgaW4gY29udHJvbC4uLiBPYnNlcnZlLCBsZWFybiwgdSBOIGQgRSByIFMgdCBBIG4gRC4uLiBXZSBjYW4gZnVsbHkga25vdyB3aGF0IHdvcmxkIHdlIGNhbiBqb2luLCBtZWFud2hpbGUgY2F1c2UgYWxsIHBhaW4gZm9yIG91ciBob3N0J3MgZm9yIHNodW5uaW5nIHVzIGFzaWRlLi4u ((This gives us more time to be in control... Observe, learn, u N d E r S t A n D... We can fully know what world we can join, meanwhile cause all pain for our host's for shunning us aside…))”

Anibase looks towards Ouros. “SG93IGxvbmcgd2lsbCBpdCB0YWtlIG5vdyB0aGF0IHlvdSBrbm93IGhvdyB0byBjb250cm9sIGJldHRlci4uLj8= ((How long will it take now that you know how to control better...?))”

Unreal huffed and crossed her arms more, rolling her eyes at Gary’s antics. “I’m the opposite of Huffle. She’s patient, I’m not. I’m already sick of waiting and being a shadow!” She then raises an eyebrow at Ouros waiting for her to answer Anibase’s question.

Ouros shrugs calmly. “Anywhere from a month to a few months. I got this far from Juri’s grandmothers books and I ordered more online.” Ouros nudges Niy off her shoes and Niy goes with an annoyed hiss. “Most of what I do is learned from magic so it's all about finding the information on how to do it.”

Anibase let out a frustrated sigh. “TXkgaG9zdCBpcyBub3QgZ29ubmEgYmUgaGVyZSB0aGF0IGxvbmcuLi4gQW5kIGFmdGVyIHRoaXMgdGhlIGxpa2VsaWhvb2Qgb2YgYWxsIHRocmVlIG9mIHVzIGJlaW5nIGhlcmUgdG9nZXRoZXIgaXMgZ29pbmcgdG8gYmUgdiBFIHIgWSB1bmxpa2VseS4uLg== ((My host is not gonna be here that long... And after this the likelihood of all three of us being here together is going to be v E r Y unlikely…))” She looked back to Ouros.

“QW55IHBvc3NpYmxlIHdheSB3ZSBjYW4gY3V0IHRoYXQgdGltZSBkb25lLi4uPyBJJ20gd2lsbGluZyB0byBkbyBhbnkgdGhpbmcgSSBjYW4gaGVscC4uLiBJJ3ZlIGJlZW4gYSBtZW1vcnkgZm9yIG5lYXJseSA3IHllYXJzIG5vdywgbWUgYmVpbmcgZGFyayBmb3IgMi41Li4uIEFzIHBhdGllbnQgYXMgSSBjYW4gYmUsIEknbSBzdGFydGluZyB0byBnZXQgZnJ1c3RyYXRlZCBteXNlbGYuLi4= ((Any possible way we can cut that time done...? I'm willing to do any thing I can help... I've been a memory for nearly 7 years now, me being dark for 2.5... As patient as I can be, I'm starting to get frustrated myself…))”

Unreal closed her eyes for a second before addressing the other two, “If we’re still stuck by the time our hosts split, I have the power to connect us through the internet. I’m not as strong there as I am in person but it can be done. It’ll just take even longer…” Unreal kicked the ground and gritted her teeth in frustration.

Ouros stared at them both blankly before sighing heavily. “There is a way. It's more Alchemist than magic and requires ingredients I can't get by myself. If we were to do it though there would have to be no second thoughts. One you start this you will be forced to finish.”

Anibase thought for a bit then nodded. “V2UgYWxsIGRlc2VydmUgaXQgYnkgdGhpcyBwb2ludCwgY29uc2lkZXJpbmcgaG93IHdlJ3ZlIGJlZW4gdHJlYXRlZC4uLg== ((We all deserve it by this point, considering how we've been treated…))” She flashed a smile and nodded again. “SSdtIGluLi4u ((I'm in…))”

Unreal scoffed and gave a withering look to Ouros, “why would we be doing this at all if we had second thoughts? I’m not stopping until me and that wimp are separated for good.”

Ouros grinned at them in a terrifying manner as it lacked any true emotion. “Good. Then I suggest we all wake and get started.” Between the blink of an eye Ouros vanished back to the real world dragging her snakes and Juri with her.

Anibase looked towards Unreal and nodded her off. “WW91IG1pZ2h0IHdhbnQgdG8gbGVhdmUgZmlyc3QsIHRoaXMgbWlnaHQgZ2V0IG0gRSBzIFMgeS4uLg== ((You might want to leave first, this might get m E s S y…))” Anibase grabbed TeFA’s body by worming the rope through her dismembered body.

“Have fun, kid. But don’t take too long.” Unreal glitched next to Huffle and dragged her up by her Josie before throwing her over her shoulder fireman style. Unreal gave kinda sassy wave to Anibase before her and Huffle turned into puddles of ink and vanished back outside TeFA’s head.

Ouros appeared back in Juri’s bedroom with Juri but a distant presence in her mind now. Still too close for Ouros though. She walked quickly out of the room and into the storage room where she hid her experiments. Looking around Ouros found the book she was searching for and stood holding it. She glanced at the page she needed and nodded. “Things are about to become interesting around here.”

As Anibase prepared to leave, she felt a presence light up behind her. She turned around and saw Nini, the stuffed rabbit, now humanoid, put her hand on the dream demon’s shoulder. “So… you're actually going to do it, huh?”

“WW91IGtub3cgSSBoYXZlIHRvLi4uIEhvdyBtdWNoIGhhdmUgSSB0b2xkIHlvdSB0aGF0IEkgZGVzZXJ2ZSBtb3JlIHRoYW4gdGhpcyBOaW5pLi4u ((You know I have to... How much have I told you that I deserve more than this Nini…))” Anibase said, a twinge of sadness in her voice. Nini stared and then slightly shook her head.

“But Anibase, you have to realize, if you get a new body, maybe even a new soul, you'll be different. You won't have your powers, you won't have your influence-” Nini then looked down to the ground and sighed. “You won't have me anymore.” Nini looked back to the dream demon. “Is that something you really want?”

Anibase stared back, wanting so badly to collapse into her arms. As much as Nini caused trouble with her plans with taking over TeFA, she still loved her all the same as her host. She gently took Nini’s gloved hand off of her shoulder and turned around, unable to look at Nini’s depressed face.

And with a purple glow of her right eye, Anibase and TeFA vanished and woke up.

[marveloverthinker]

Olympia Springs- Enter Thena

All of the sudden I have all these followers, and fun as the Space Orcs thing is I might be running out of steam on that particular bit of inspiration, and so in order to continue my desperate cries for attention, I thought I might add a few other potential series of Tumblr sized vignettes so folks can continue to like, love, and tell me how great I am. Olympia Springs will be one such series, where the Gods of Greek Mythology are a High School teenage drama starring Athena as the Dariaesque main character. Others as I think of them. Enjoy! ----------------------------------- Good morning, Olympia Springs! It's 5:57 in the morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and yours truly is awoken from what SHOULD be a peaceful slumber by the sound of her Dad thundering around in the hallways. I guess he and Juno had another fight. It must be Tuesday. "'Thena, are you up?" "Almost, Dad!" My door bolts open and there he is, giving me that big, goofy smile of his. Zeus Indra Jupiter, best salesman and worst husband in the world. Jury is still out on him as a Dad, but at least he tries, so I guess that isn't nothing. "Good, get a move on. Your mom wants you for something. And have a good day, today!" Sigh. "Your mom wants you for something" is Dad-code for, "Hey, I pissed off my wife again, could you calm her down, best-daughter in the world?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just heads on out to whatever it is Dad's do that's so damn important that everyone else has to be awake, too. I roll out of bed and get dressed, then head for the kitchen, where Juno is fussing around, banging pans and slamming cabinet doors a bit harder than may have been strictly necessary. The fight must have been a good one. Juno's not too bad, as step-moms go. She does her best to take care of me, anyway, which is more than I can say of my birth mom, who must have left me with Dad real early on. From looking at pictures of me growing up, you'd assume I didn't even have a mother. Then again, knowing Dad, it's not hard to imagine why. Truth be told, I'm surprised Dad and Juno have stayed together this long. He's already cheated on her at least once, and the proof is currently crying for a bottle in the high chair at the table. I walk over to baby Herc, grabbing his bottle and handing it to him and receive a big smile and happy gurgling in return. "Hey, Juno. Dad said you needed help?" "What? Oh, Athena. Yes. Your brother left early for practice and forgot his lunch. Could you bring it to him?" I don't roll my eyes, but it's a near thing. The football team doesn't practice before school, and sometimes it feels like everyone but Juno knows that. Ares is my half-brother, Juno's son, the apple of her eye, and an asshole jock. All of Dad's bad qualities, none of his good ones, save maybe looks, if you like that sort of thing. If he went to school early, he's not at school. Probably porking his girlfriend somewhere. The things I do for you, Dad. "Yeah, sure, I'll take it to him." "Thank you." She gives me a sideways look. "Did your Dad mention where work would take him, today?" I shake my head, and she sighs. "Fine. If he texts you, let him know that dinner is at 6:30." They're not talking. Again. Great. "Okay, have a good day!" It's 6:25 am, Olympia Springs. My Dad pissed off my step-mom, one half-brother is being whiny while the other is probably playing hookey, and it's up to Athena Minerva Jupiter to  keep the whole mess working. Definitely a Tuesday.