#just falls half way down a tower and survives

[electrozeistyking]

I forgot to post this. Here's some silly art based on my friend @l-borden's playthrough of Voices of the Void. :3

[oh-theseus]

bloody stones

pairing: astarion x gn!reader, astarion x gn!tav summary: you nearly die and astarion still can't bring himself to be honest with you. word count: 4,018 a/n: first time trying to write for astarion (or just bg3 in general) & i'm not sure it came out how i wanted it to, BUT i hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless <333 i kind of wrote this to be like a background for a future thing i think... but no promises bc i am anything if not inconsistent 😭

warnings: descriptions of blood & injury, canon typical violence, mentions of past abuse. lmk if i should add more!

You were fairly certain you had never been as close to death as you currently were. Even while trapped inside of the nautiloid ship, you had felt like you would make it out. Granted, that might have been because you thought Lae’zel was going to kill you if you died, but still. Even then, on a ship that was actively crashing from hundreds of miles in the sky, you’d thought you’d make it out.

That hope is nowhere to be found as Z’rell drives her ax into your lower leg. You have been injured in battle dozens of times but this is the first time your injury has ever made you fall to your knees within three seconds of receiving it. There is next to no pain at first, but then she pulls her ax from your leg, and it feels like… well, like your leg was just split open.

Blood gushes down your leg, and you can’t stand up again, but by the grace of one of the gods, you manage to block her next attack. Her ax meets the blade of your sword with a loud clang that you can hear over the sounds of other blades clashing and spells being conjured. Anger blazes in Z’rell’s eyes and she surges her weapon further with as much strength as she can muster. You met her with the same effort, but you’re losing so much blood so fast. You’re not nearly as strong as she is.

A noise that is somewhere between a cry and a grunt falls from your lips. But you are certain this is it. You’ll die here. In Moonrise Towers with a parasite wiggling within your skull. You’ll die in a blighted land and your friends will go on without you. If they survive, that is. You can feel your arms wobbling, about to give out. Her ax will come down on your neck and you’ll sit here choking on your own blood until you die. Maybe she’ll dig the Illithid parasite out of your skull and consume it just as your Dream Guardian had urged you to do so many times before. You doubt Z’rell would have qualms about it though - if fact, she might just keep you alive while she digs around in your skull. She seems like the type.

But then there’s an arrow embedded in Z’rell’s neck. And now she’s the one choking on her blood, her weapon faltering. You don’t have time to be grateful, not when she’s determined to make a killing blow and take you out with her. It takes all of your effort to roll out of the way, her ax bouncing off of the bloody stone floor where your head had just been seconds previous. Your head is spinning from the movement, and your leg feels like dead weight, but you manage to draw your dagger and shove it deep into the disciples stomach.

Z’rell falls to her knees. Then forward, onto her face. Dead. 

Hands are underneath your arms, dragging you away from the rest of the battle before you even have time to process that you aren’t dead. You have half a mind to kick and struggle, but when you try to push the hands off of your body you stop your fighting. You know these hands.

“Astarion,” you choke out, tilting your head upwards to see him above you, carefully dragging you behind a turned over table. You can feel a trail of blood being left by your leg; for a moment you wonder if Astarion had smelled your blood before he saw it.

“Don’t talk,” Astarion scolds, propping your back against the table. Blood is splattered on his face and armor, his bow slung across his body. Your eyes shift to his quiver where only three arrows remain. If you weren’t so busy trying not to pass out from blood loss, you might have told him you were right when you’d told him this morning he needed more arrows. But you can hardly convince yourself to breathe, let alone make a joke.

Astarion’s face is twisted into an expression you don’t think you’ve ever seen him wear before. There is determination there as he examines your wound, cursing beneath his breath. There’s concern too. But something else dances in his crimson eyes that makes you tilt your head to the side curiously. 

Fear.

Astarion is scared. 

“How bad?” you force out, leaning your head back against the overturned table. Your eyes lock on the ceiling of Moonrise. This had been a temple once. Briefly, as you fight to keep your eyes open, you decide that it might’ve even been beautiful.

“Not terrible,” Astarion lies. You know it’s a lie, and he knows you know that, too. You might’ve looked at him, tried to assure him you would be okay if you believed it. But you’re not quite sure that you do, so you keep your eyes on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of battle slowing down behind you.

Astarion stops talking after that. Your silence and sudden interest in the ceiling is enough to make Astarion certain his heart will start beating again just so it can race in fear. But his hands are quick in grabbing a healing potion from your belt and helping you get it down. They’re faster still as he shuffles through his discarded back for cloth to press to your wound. 

Blood quickly soaks the white cloth and Astarion’s hands, but the vampire doesn’t mind. He can’t be bothered to think about how potent your blood smells, how easy it would be to just take some for himself. He is certain that if you’d been bleeding out in front of him like this when you first met that he would’ve taken every last drop of blood that he could get. But right now… Astarion wasn’t sure he had ever wanted to puke at the sight of blood more.

Astarion isn’t sure he’s ever felt a panic quite like this before. Perhaps when he’d woken up in a coffin six feet underground. Maybe when he’d realized he was a slave to an evil vampire lord. But other than that? No, Astarion had never felt fear like this. Fear that clutches him by the throat, makes his hands start to tremble. Fear that won’t let him focus on the battle coming to end. Not even to see if his companions - his friends - had survived. All he knows is you, your blood coating his hands, and terror coursing through his entire being.

He’s so consumed by his fear that he doesn’t notice you’ve finally passed out. Nor does he hear Shadowheart approach until she’s shoving Astarion away from you, her hands immediately coming to rest above the gash in your leg. She starts to mutter the words of a healing spell and even Astarion can tell that she’s completely spent, that she’s using her last bit of magic and strength to coax your skin back together.

“Wake them up,” Shadowheart hisses, her eyes still locked on your leg. “Wake them up now, Astarion!”

The near crack in Shadowheart’s voice stirs Astarion from his fear driven stupor. His hands are on your face immediately, your name falling from his lips once, twice. His fingers find the pulsepoint at your neck, and Astarion doesn’t dare to move until he feels it. It’s faint, but it is there.

But your eyes are still closed, and no matter how hard Astarion tries, you will not wake up. You’re still breathing, but it’s hard and labored, and Astarion is certain that if he looks away from you for even a moment you will be gone for good. He didn’t know much, but Astarion did know that a world without you was not one he was willing to return to.

By the grace of… something, Shadowheart manages to mend the skin of your leg. She’s exhausted and can hardly stand by the time she’s finished, but she does it. You’re still out cold, and Astarion is not sure whether to start crying or to find something else to kill to distract himself.

“It’s the blood loss,” Wyll assures him quickly, hauling Shadowheart up from the ground with her arm over his shoulders. “They’ll live. But we need to move them. Now.”

The Blade of Frontiers does not waste another moment, leading Shadowheart across the main floor of Moonrise Towers, down into the basement. Astarion doesn’t hesitate to do the same with you, his blood coated hands holding you so, so carefully.

When you wake up, you’re pretty sure you’re dead. You didn’t know what you expected the afterlife to hold, but it certainly was not a stone floor and the smell of mildew. For a second you think that maybe you could be somewhere else (somewhere where you are not dead) but you can’t think very clearly right now. All you can feel is a distant throbbing in your head and a bone deep cold. Your leg… You could feel your leg. That was good, considering the last thing you could recall before passing out was taking Z’rell’s ax to your shin.

And Astarion. You remembered his familiar grip, pulling you to safety. You remembered his crimson eyes, the fear you’d seen in them. But that was it. You didn’t remember passing out or how light you had felt while blood seeped from your leg. For a moment, it troubles you that you can’t remember. But if this was truly your eternal resting place… maybe it was a good thing you couldn’t remember. You’re not sure that it's really something you’d enjoy dwelling on for the rest of eternity.

You’re not sure how long you lay there. You don’t move your body, and your eyes keep falling closed every once in a while. You feel lightheaded, yet impossibly heavy at the same time. All you can bring yourself to do is stare at the ceiling. Maybe there is a god here, because you’re gifted the memory of doing the very same thing before passing out the first time. And this ceiling looks remarkably similar to the one in Moonrise Towers.

That voice, too. The one you can hear in the distance - almost as if they are shouting for you from the other room. The voice is so similar to…

“Astarion?” You breathe out, your eyes finally shifting away from the ceiling. They fall instead to the person beside you. At first, they’re just a jumble of white curls and red eyes. But then your vision clears and so does your hearing. Astarion’s repeating your name, asking if you can hear him. All you can do is nod. At least you know you’re alive, though. Or at least, you’re pretty sure. Your brain is still foggy. The lingering effects of blood loss? Or perhaps one too many healing potions?

You somehow manage to force yourself into a sitting position. Astarion’s right hand splays against your lower back carefully, his left one hovering in front of your body to catch you if you fold in on yourself. When you straighten your back, the room spins so fast you’re certain that Gale’s cast a spell to make it do that. Your hands grip Astarion’s left arm to keep from falling over.

“Easy, easy,” Astarion says softly. You’re not certain of many things right now, but you are certain that you have never heard Astarion use that tone before. One so gentle, so soft. Even when he’d told you of Cazador and the scar that tainted his back. 

“I’m okay,” you reply after a moment. Your hands still grip his arm but neither of you seem to mind it. “I’m okay, promise.” The sentiment is just as much for yourself as it is for Astarion.

Astarion only hums in reply. His eyes are flickering over your face. Like he’s taking you in for the first time - or perhaps even the last. His hand on your back is a welcome weight and the feeling of his forearm under your fingertips keeps you grounded. This is real. You are here.

You are alive.

“Holy shit,” you curse. Your eyes widen and your breathing slowly begins to pick up. You’d been so close to dying, to bleeding out in a cursed land so far from home. You’d never thought you’d be one to care so much about something like this, but the fear that you could’ve died is gripping you by the throat, pinning you beneath its clutches. 

Astarion notices this. Of course he notices. He notices everything about you. The way your eyes crinkle when you laugh. How you shift your weight from foot to foot when unsure about something. How your hands flex when you’re growing frustrated. So of course he notices your breathing picking up, your grip on his arms becoming just slightly tighter.

“You’re okay, you’re okay. You need to breathe, love.” He says your name softly then, still in that foreign tone of his. The hand at your back comes up to cup your face, his thumb brushing across your cheekbone. “Breathe,” his voice is firmer now, one you’re used to from him. Maybe it’s that tone of his that compels you to listen. Maybe it’s his hand cradling your face like you might slip away as soon as he lets you go. Or maybe it’s the fact that his eyes are still swimming with that fear you’d seen before you lost consciousness.

It takes a few moments, but you manage to even out your breathing. Those invisible claws at your neck retract, fading into the shadows of the room. The basement of Moonrise Towers, you realize. That was why the ceiling looked similar to the one upstairs. 

Everything returns to you then. The battle, Ketheric, the ax, the amount of blood you’d lost. Astarion’s arrow in Z’rell’s neck.

“You killed her,” you say, as if Astarion had not killed dozens of other enemies during your travels. “Nice aim.”

Astarion visibly deflates as soon as the joke leaves your lips. Your lips quirk into the smallest of smiles despite yourself. But then Astarion retracts his hand from your face, and that small smile falls away slowly. Astarion pretends not to notice it. You pretend like you don’t either; your attention shifts to your right leg, studying the skin exposed by the large tear in your pants. You make a mental note to find new pants.

Your hand trembles slightly as you remove it from Astarion’s arm and bring it down on your leg. Gingerly, you pull the ruined fabric back more and take in where the wound should have been. Instead, your skin looks near perfect. There is a thin scar from where Shadowheart’s healing had knitted the skin together but that is the only indication that your flesh had been torn apart that very same day.

“For a woman who worshiped the Lady of Loss, Shadowheart was rather good at keeping me - us from losing you.”

Your eyes shift to Astarion’s at his slip. You try to not let your face fall when he pulls his arm from beneath your other hand. He leans back in the chair that matches the table you’re laid out on top of, crossing his arms and screwing his face into that expression you’ve grown to recognize as a mask. A flash of hurt floods through you. Selfishly, you wonder how much more you will need to do to prove yourself before Astarion finally, finally trusts you.

“Shadowheart is a good healer,” you say instead of what you want to say. You want to comment on him being scared. You want to point out that he had literally saved your life. You want to tell him that that is not something you just do for someone you’re looking at with sheer indifference. “I think you’re the only one who doubts her.” Your own tone has changed. Despite the hurt in your heart, your tone is sharp.

“I do not doubt her, my dear. I don’t trust her. There is a difference,” Astarion replies with a wave of his hand. You don’t like this game. You hate this game. Why must he insist on playing it?

“Do you trust anyone, Astarion?”

If you were anyone else, Astarion would’ve had a quick retort. Or if you’d said it with anger in your voice. But you’re you and the question comes out with far less frustration than you had wanted it to. Instead, you sound sad. Hurt. And somehow, seeing you look like this is almost as bad as watching you bleed out. He predicts your next words before you say them, but he still winces at them all the same.

“Do you trust me?”

Your question hangs in the air between the two of you. Maybe it’s the lack of blood in your system that makes you say it. You never would have dared to ask something so vulnerable just a few feet from the rest of your companions normally. Maybe it’s the fact that you had almost died. Almost died with so many unsaid words swimming through your mind. Maybe that’s why you say it. Or maybe you’re just tired of not knowing what Astarion is truly thinking and feeling.

“You know I care for you,” Astarion replies after a moment. And you do know - how could you not when you’d seen his fear at the prospect of losing you with your own two eyes. How could you not know that he cared for you when he was so gentle every time he took your blood? How could you not know that he cared for you when he had sat beside you on sleepless nights? 

But that was not what your question was. 

“That’s not what I asked.” You intend to sound firm still. You fail, though, and you sound every bit as hurt and frustrated as you feel. “Why not?” Why didn’t he trust you? Or better, why did he not trust you enough? He trusted you enough to tell you about Cazador and what his former master had done to him. But he didn’t trust you enough to be honest about his emotions - especially his emotions towards you. Why? Why?

You watch as Astarion shifts in his seat. At first, you think he’s going to get up and walk away from you. Instead, he shifts forward, and his left hand finds yours. Your eyes fall to where your skin meets, they watch as Astarion holds your hand on top of his gently. His own attention is drawn to it, watching carefully as his other hand fidgets with your fingers.

“I thought you were going to die.”

His confession is soft, heartfelt. You might even be able to convince yourself he sounds like he might cry. But when he looks up to meet your eyes again, his crimson eyes are clear of tears. But there is pain there. Pain and torment and that fear. 

“I thought you were going to die and I would… And I would have to live with -” He gestures to himself with his hand that had been fidgeting with your fingers. “This.”

Your eyebrows knit together at his words, but you say nothing. You had long since learned that when Astarion was on the verge of opening up, it was best to let him get the words out on his own. Pressuring him had never gotten you anywhere. Well, except for right now. Every other time it had been entirely fruitless. 

“You have shown a kindness to me that I am unfamiliar with. With Cazador… His version of kindness was letting me eat instead of starving. But it always had a price. Always,” he can’t look at you anymore, instead looking intently at your hand in his. “Your kindness - I am learning - comes freely.”

“You are waiting for the other boot to drop,” You say, understanding what he is trying to tell you without directly saying it. When he nods, you swallow thickly. Words seem to fail you as you search desperately for the right thing to say. But there are no words that feel good enough.

Astarion also seems to be at a loss for words. Carefully, you place your hand not holding his under his chin and tilt his face upwards, so that your eyes meet once more. Your hand slides to cup his cheek, and your heart swells when you feel him press into your touch gently. 

“I am not him.”

Astarion’s eyes close at your words. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything except sit there for a long moment. So long that you think he isn’t going to reply. But then he turns his head, and he kisses the palm of your hand. Then where your hand meets your wrist. Then the inside of your wrist. As he places the third kiss to your skin, you let your hand fall away and watch as he picks it up with his free hand.

He doesn’t say it, but you know he understands. He knows you are not Cazador. And you don’t say it, but he knows you understand. You know he is trying. And neither of you say it, but both of you see those three words swimming in each other’s eyes. But you both know they’re there.

“Thank you,” you say after a long minute. “For not letting me die. Not that I expected you to, but…”

But you knew he wouldn’t have saved you a few weeks ago. 

“I mean it. Thank you.”

The fear in Astarion’s eyes finally melts away and that smirk of his falls onto his lips. But this was not his mask - no, this was his real joy. His real happiness at your not being dead and at being able to let a joke slip past his lips knowing you didn’t expect anything because of it.

“I can think of a few ways you could show that gratitude,” he says suggestively. A smile of your own spreads across your face, despite the color that floods it, too. Weakly, you shove his hands off of yours and roll your eyes at him. “You are welcome. I’ll save you a thousand times over if it means I get to see your smile once more.”

“Oh, don’t get soft on me now,” You say through your grin. But you’d like nothing more. A soft Astarion meant a healed one, a safe one. If that meant you were subjected to a few sappy lines here and there, you wouldn’t mind it.

“Hard to be soft with you around.”

“Astarion,” You hiss, realizing the joke you’ve walked yourself right into. For a second you debate getting off of the table and smacking him over the head, but when you shift your leg just slightly, that dizziness returns and has you gripping the edge of the table. 

Astarion is on his feet within a moment, noticing the change in you as soon as it happens. His hand has returned to your back, steadying you as the room starts to spin again. With your head a little clearer now, you recognize the feeling as similar to what you feel when Astarion drinks from you. With how strongly you’re feeling it… you don’t want to think about how much blood you must have lost.

“Rest. Please,” Astarion says in that soft voice again. And truly, who are you to deny him when he’s being so gentle? You let him coax you onto the table, onto the soft pile of fabrics you hadn’t realized had been under your head until just now. You want to stay conscious, to talk to Astarion more, but as soon as you’ve settled back down, you realize just how tired you are.

When you stir hours later, you’re tucked into your bedroll within your tent. And Astarion is sitting not far from you, reading. You don’t say anything as sleep overtakes you again, but you’re pretty certain you could get used to waking up to the sight of Astarion.

And Astarion’s pretty certain he wouldn’t mind it either.

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[weirdgenetic-fuckup]

can you write 90s Axl Rose being all sweet to his girlfriend and they have bath sex in the jacuzzi in their hotel room?

A/n: the thought of this is really sweet but I just can’t stop thinking about how badly it would hurt like on your knees and stuff, man I’d fall and break my jaw power to you if you could survive bath sex

Also sorry that it’s short I kind of lost motivation halfway through, I hope you it’s still good <3

Warnings: smut, fingering (f receiving), bath sex, if you think I missed anything let me know otherwise enjoy!

You were so happy that Axl finally brought you out on tour with him. You'd been seeing each other for almost a year and had always wanted to come with him.

Axl was hesitant, tours could be draining, but Guns was going to some of the most romantic places this tour and he was sure it would make a great trip for the both of you.

You'd been so excited for this trip, planning and packing a month in preparation for it. Axl didn't seemed stressed in the slightest, although you were the one packing for him and his trip planning was also done by a group manager. He did try to help you calm down a few times, it usually worked, at the very least it was helpful and a sweet gesture.

When the tour finally came he refused to leave your side, even if you were just going to the bathroom he'd wait outside for you.

With the way everyone was treating you you got the feeling he had given a speech to everyone, lecturing them on how to treat you.

Axl wanted to show you off, always helping you pick out more revealing clothes when it was just the two of you going out, making sure people saw when he brought you into his dressing room. He wanted people to know how lucky he was to have you and he wanted people to know he had you.

It was about a week into the tour, you'd just landed in Paris and were staying in a hotel room that had a window staring out directly onto the Eiffel Tower.

It was night and the city was glowing so beautifully, you couldn't help but stare out the big window.

Axl came up behind you, placing his hands on your hips and giving them a small squeeze. "Beautiful, isn't it?" You nodded. Axl opened his mouth to say something more but you interrupted him.

"No ruining it with something cheesy." Axl scoffed.

"It wasn't gonna say anything cheesy." You rolled your eyes. "I was just gonna say that it's not as beautiful as you." You groaned and walked off.

"Alright, you ruined it." Axl laughed. "I'm going to check out the place." You walked back into the living room area, a half kitchen by the front door. You noticed another door leading out to what you assumed to be a deck, and it was. A deck with a jacuzzi, that is. It was filled and ready to go so you immediately went to get in.

You went to change into a bathing suit but couldn't find one, even though you were sure you had brought one. You searched and searched but it simply wasn't in your suitcase, so you went looking for Axl.

You eventually found him on the deck setting up candles and tossing in rose petals. He smiled back at you when he heard the door open. "Where's my bathing suit?" You asked, coming to stand beside him and admire his work.

"Come on, you don't need a bathing suit." He assured, wrapping an arm around you and rubbing your side. You rolled your eyes at him. Axl shrugged and began to strip.

Your eyes widened as you looked out across the city. "What are you doing?" Axl was already getting in the water.

"Thought you could use some company." He said with a smile. "Now you won't be lonely. You chewed your cheek but you couldn't deny that it sounded nice so you stripped as well and got in with him.

The water was just right, it relaxed your muscles and smelled so good with the candles. Axl sat beside you, running his hands over your body, kissing down your neck and whispering in your ear.

His hands moved lower, rubbing your thighs, teasing your hole. You let out a soft sigh. "What are you doing?" You asked, voice low and airy.

"Just helping you relax." He said, deep voice raspy in your ear. You melted under his touch, head falling back and resting on his shoulder and he rubbed your clit in circles, drawing more moans out of you.

He slid a finger into you, groaning when he heard the noise that came from you. "You're so pretty, you know that?" You moaned in response, grinding down on his finger. "Don't worry, we're getting there." He kissed your cheek and pulled his finger out of you, you whined softly.

He pulled you up onto his lap, sinking you down onto his dick. His arms wrapped around your waist and he held you tight to his chest. He rolled his hips, you gasped softly and he did it again. You started grinding down on him and soon you both found a rhythm.

"Ah-ngh, Axl." You muttered. "Fuck, go faster." He chuckled and kissed your neck. He started moving faster and you matched his speed.

Axl pushed you off of him and turned you around. You were staring out to the cityscape below, all the bright lights scattered across the town, the Eiffel Tower looming not far away.

Your hands were on the edge of the jacuzzi, your knees resting on the seats, Axl was behind you with his hands on your hips. "Was this what you were thinking when I asked you to come on tour with me?" He asked, deep voice pulling you from your thoughts.

You shrugged. "Not the first thing that came to mind." He kissed the back of your neck and over your shoulders.

“But it’s pretty fucking nice, huh?” You inhaled deeply, moaning softly when he pushed into you once more.

“Hah, it’s perfect.” You sighed. “You make it more perfect.”

Axl laughed. “And I’m the cheesy one?” You waved him off and pushed your ass back on him.

[sluttyten]

mine for the taking (Raw | Part 1)

Kinktober Day 13 | Taeyong Masterlist | YangYang Masterlist | Member Masterlist

tags: zombie apocalypse au, cnc, bondage, outdoor sex, oral sex, face fucking, threesome, dirty talk, praise

length: 6194

When the world fell to shit, it took a little while before you found yourself in a safe and comfortable nest surrounded and protected by two men that you now trusted with your life. 

YangYang and Taeyong were the two men responsible for your safety. They were simultaneously very different and very much alike. 

Mostly what they had in common was their attraction to you. 

There were some days when the streets outside your hideaway in the city grew too packed with a passing horde of zombies, so the three of you would hunker down, tiptoeing around the place in the quiet and the dark. You began to develop a sign language with each other during those times when you couldn’t speak aloud, a silent method of communication through looks, expressions, and hand gestures. 

The three of you relied on each other more than you’d ever thought that you would rely on another person. Every day you were putting all of your trust in Taeyong and YangYang. You were trusting that they would come back home each evening, trusting that YangYang wouldn’t just leave you to be torn apart when you get cornered on a food run one day, trusting that Taeyong knows what he’s talking about when he tells you an admittedly disgusting way to sneak through the masses of zombies when necessary - coating yourself in their essence to mask the smell of your human life. 

For months, they are only your companions. They’re the two that saved you when you’d been clinging to life on a radio tower with a pack of ten zombies trying to get you. They showed you back into the city, welcomed you into their hideaway on the third floor of an abandoned office building they’d cleared and fortified. They fed you, armed you, and gave you somewhere that finally felt safe to fall asleep in, though you were on guard for the first two weeks before you finally felt relaxed and trusting enough to fall asleep on your pallet of blankets in the office between the two they slept in. 

After you find it in your heart to trust them, it doesn’t take long for your heart to start feeling other things. It’s almost as if between one day and the next you develop a crush on Taeyong. You spend an embarrassing chunk of time admiring his hands as he ties knots in a net he’s going to take down to the river for fishing. You begin to notice that he’s actually insanely handsome even though his hair has grown long and it looks a bit silly with the grown out dye-job. 

And it’s not just Taeyong. 

You find yourself watching YangYang too, the curl of his lips and the sly glide of his eyes as he makes a dirty joke that makes Taeyong groan but sends you into peals of laughter. You can’t peel your eyes away when YangYang takes his shirt off to sunbathe on the roof of the building one day while you’re attempting to plant a rooftop garden. You know he caught you looking half a dozen times, but he doesn’t comment, just smiles brightly. 

They’re just your companions, just your survival buddies until one evening when that changed. 

An afternoon supply run ran a little long. The convenience store Taeyong led the three of you to was beside a pharmacy, and beside that was a bookstore, and on the other side of that was another store, and your trio just kept finding reasons to look through each shop as if this was nothing more than just a day out shopping with friends before the fall of the civilized world. 

But you went into a whole row of shops, only realizing how long you were taking once the sky outside began to fill in with dense black storm clouds  

Evening came early that day, and with it came a downpour, lightning and thunder. 

The three of you shoved your discoveries into your bags, and you ran back through the city to your office building. Halfway there, you ran headfirst into a pack of swirling, confused zombies milling about in the storm. 

YangYang strikes first as you try to untangle yourself from the zombie you ran into. His machete shears straight through a skull, spattering you with gore. You push away the corpse, reaching for your knife.

There are more zombies than you first realized as more of them keep pouring out of the surrounding buildings and side streets. 

Taeyong fights at your side, his arm constantly swinging as he lands hits with a crowbar, his other hand fast with a knife as secondary protection. 

The three of you fight your way through the zombies as lightning flashes and thunder booms, and still the rain pours down. You’re cold and soaked to the bone by the time you shove the last zombie off the end of your blade. It splashes to the ground, and you find yourself laughing as you tilt your face up to the sky, feeling the rain wash away the remnants of the fight from your skin. 

YangYang laughs too, both of you filled with adrenaline now after the fight for your lives, and Taeyong just grabs you both to resume the run back to the office building. 

You’re still buzzing as you make it inside your safe haven. YangYang is just as excited, recalling his favorite parts of that battle, telling you and Taeyong how cool you both looked, his favorite close call. Taeyong had concealed his excitement until you were all safely inside, but now his energy is apparent too. All three of you are just filled with high energy and nowhere to expend it. 

Until the wild, racy thought hits you. 

You kiss Taeyong, and not wanting YangYang to feel left out, you drag him closer by the belt loops. He fits against your side, and with Taeyong along your front, you feel warm and safe between them. 

Taeyong kisses you like he’s been waiting for this moment, taking full advantage of the opportunity to kiss you deeply. 

YangYang squirms, complaining for you to let him go or let him have a turn, which was your goal all along. 

When you detach from Taeyong’s mouth, YangYang quickly sweeps in to take over. 

You claim, in the moment, that you’re just trying to burn off energy, that they both have energy to burn off too, so this just makes sense for all three of you to be together like this. As you break YangYang’s kiss, as you step back and take each of them by the hand, as you guide them along with you to the convenient bathroom equipped with a shower, you think that it would just feel wrong to leave one of them out, so having them both just makes sense. 

All three of you shower off together in the cramped shower stall. The water is cold, but at least there’s still running water. Besides, the combination of Taeyong and YangYang’s hands and lips serve to keep you warm. 

The shower serves an actual purpose, not just an excuse to get naked. The three of you scrub away the grime and gore, using a spearmint scented bar of soap which you’re grateful for so when you bury your face against YangYang’s chest while Taeyong fingers you to orgasm all you can smell is delightfully fresh spearmint. 

And after the shower, the three of you pile into the office Taeyong’s using as his room, falling onto the bed he’d hauled up here in the early days of his and YangYang’s residence. 

The three of you spend hours that first night, taking each other apart, learning each other's bodies. YangYang luckily had snagged a box of condoms during one of your shop stops earlier, and you definitely took advantage of them that night. 

Following that night, it’s just a thing between the three of you. You don’t really talk about it. 

Some nights you spend with Taeyong, some with YangYang. Occasionally both. 

After YangYang twists his ankle badly during a supply run with Taeyong, you sleep all together on Taeyong’s bed again. When you fall ill with a cough and brutal headache and chills, they both stay by your side, nursing you back to health. 

Is it a relationship? You couldn’t say. Is there any use to labeling things like this during the apocalypse? Maybe this is just convenience for all three of you. You’re the only woman around for them to fuck, they’re the only men for you, so it makes sense that you would just fall into each others arms. If you were in a larger community with more options, would they still choose you? Would they still want to share you? You’re pretty sure that you would still want them, both of them. 

This convenient thing continues for months. This throuple not-relationship thing you have going on. 

And still you question from time to time if YangYang and Taeyong are only doing this with you because it’s convenient, though neither of them ever complains about having to share you with the other, but maybe that’s because you’ve learned to split your time between them pretty evenly, and because in this apocalyptic world they’ve just learned to share resources, even if the resource in question is your pussy. 

But sometimes you forget to question things. Sometimes you just simply enjoy being wanted and wanting them. 

Sometimes YangYang will find an excuse to come up to the rooftop when you’re on night watch patrolling up there, and even though he should be sleeping, he sits up there with you and talks and keeps you warm and stargazes with you and he calls it romantic. 

Sometimes Taeyong will scavenge some canned food and he’ll do his best to prepare it in a way that’s not just canned food warmed over a fire and poured in a bowl. He’ll make it as fancy as he can, serve it to you at the desk in his office bedroom with candlelight and a little bit of a bottle of wine he recovered from an apartment he searched. 

They do these little special romantic things for you, yet still you question things. 

And then there’s the less romantic, more sexy type of things they spring on you. Kinks they want to try. Scenarios they’d like to play out with you. One evening when you’ve just a very satisfying romp with the two of them, Taeyong tells you that he’s always wanted to try bondage, YangYang then confesses an interest in some dubious consent roleplay (his face red as he admits it), and you tell them that you’ve never tried either of those but you’d be willing to try, as long as they’d be into some exhibitionism with you too. 

Taeyong tests out the bondage thing a bit one morning when you wake in his bed with your arms bound to the headboard, Taeyong sitting there watching you and waiting for you to wake. He fucks you roughly, making you moan loud enough to wake up YangYang in the other room. 

YangYang tries a taste of the dubious consent roleplay immediately following that, sneaking into the shower with you, fucking you against the shower wall with his hand over your mouth so your cries of pleasure won’t alert Taeyong. 

Your request of exhibitionism is a little more difficult to achieve. You’d always been a little intrigued by the idea of sexual things in a public space, performing whatever act it may be nearby people, of maybe getting caught. The “other people” and “getting caught” aspects of that interest was rather difficult to achieve in this apocalyptic landscape where you hadn’t seen another living person outside of YangYang and Taeyong in months. 

But one day you find a close way to achieve what you want and pair it with Taeyong and YangYang’s kinks as well. 

For no other reason than your idea, you head out into the woods outside the city. 

From the moment you leave the office building, you’re already in the role you’ve chosen for yourself today: lonely girl, easy victim. 

You travel by yourself through the streets, avoiding zombies as you see them, and soon you’re wandering under the trees. There are dozens of abandoned camps out here, so partially your excuse for being out here is to scavenge what you can from the remains of these camps, but more than that, your goal is to get captured. 

You haven’t heard either Taeyong or YangYang behind you on your journey out to the woods, but you know they’re there. That’s the plan, anyway. You listen for any signs of movement under the trees, whether it be from either of them trailing you, a stranger who you would actually hate to stumble upon, or a zombie. 

But your shadow moves quietly through the woods, more quietly than you. You don’t hear him upon you until it’s too late. 

Taeyong holds his knife to your throat, and with his lips to your cheek, he tells you not to move. You hold perfectly still even as he moves the blade away, as he pulls out a blindfold and covers your eyes with it, fastening it behind your head. 

“Don’t move,” he warns you again, then adds on, “You’re going to make perfect zombie bait, pretty girl.” 

A thrill races through you. 

His hands run over your body, groping at your tits and your ass, and then Taeyong begins undressing you, pulling your jacket off, dragging your sweater and the shirt beneath over your head, he tugs your pants down around your ankles, then he takes your clothes away, leaving you standing there blindfolded and naked in the woods. 

But this time you hear the crunch of his footsteps on the leaves and fallen branches as he returns. Taeyong’s familiar breathing pattern as he cups your tits in his hands again, circling his thumbs around your hard nipples. Your core is hot, wetness growing between your thighs. 

“So pretty,” Taeyong coos. “Hold out your arms, little lamb. You’re so innocent, so obedient.” 

You hold both your arms out, and a moment later, You feel the rough scratch of rope against your wrists as he wraps rope around them, tying it tightly but not too tight, winding it around them so it holds firm. 

“Don’t move,” he warns again, and then he’s walking away. You listen closely, shivering as the cool, damp breeze blows over your bare skin. You can hear the scrabbling sound of his feet seeking purchase, and you realize he’s climbing the tree a few feet away from where you stand. You can feel the light tugs on the rope around your wrists, and as you stand there, unmoving, just listening, there’s suddenly a hard jerk on the rope, and your wrists are hauled up above your head. 

It’s just to the point of discomfort, shy of pain. He ties the rope around a branch above your head, leaving your arms suspended above you while your feet remain planted on the ground. 

Taeyong slides back to the ground, feet dully hitting the earth a few feet to your left. 

“You look so pretty like this,” Taeyong says, his hand gliding over your bare ass. “Left out here in the open.”

You squirm, a whine falling from your lips before you can help it. “Please, let me go,” you beg, though truly there’s nothing you want less. 

Taeyong tsks, patting your bottom again. “I think not. Let’s see how long you can last.”

You hear the crunch of leaves underfoot as he walks away. 

You stand there, squirming and shivering, feeling the burn in your arms and wrists. And you know Taeyong is standing only a few feet away, likely leaning back against a tree and watching the way that you’re rubbing your thighs together, the way that your nipples stand at attention. Because you’re turned on. And Taeyong has known you intimately for long enough now to be able to read the signs. 

You cry out for help, and it doesn’t take long for your cries to draw attention. 

You hear shuffling footsteps behind you, and for a moment your blood runs cold. But Taeyong doesn’t move from his position watching you, and you know that if you were truly in danger, he would jump into action. 

No, this might sound like a zombie shuffling towards you, drawn closer by your struggling and cries. 

YangYang’s hands land on your hips. 

“Looks like you’ve got a hungry taker,” Taeyong teases. 

YangYang moans, sounding disturbingly similar to a zombie as he leans closer, the heat of his body so nice against your cool skin. His mouth closes over your shoulder, and he bites. 

You gasp, jerking against the rope holding your hands up, twitching in YangYang’s hands. He holds tighter. His tongue traces over the marks left by his teeth, driving heat to rush down to your belly, pooling between your thighs. 

YangYang rocks forward against your ass, and he’s so hard, sliding his clothes cock between your bare ass cheeks. You twist, but he holds your hips tight, fingernails digging lightly against your skin, and he bites down on your shoulder again. He presses your hips back against him as he rocks forward again.

“Please, please!” You beg, needing more than just this teasing. 

He grinds forward against your ass again before pulling back with a moan. You start to spin, the rope twisting you around by your wrists so you’re facing the opposite direction you’d just been. 

YangYang’s hands on your hips stop your movement, and then you feel him moving, the soft rush of air as he drops to his knees. 

God, how dearly you wish you could see this. YangYang on his knees for you on the forest floor. 

His hands caress your thighs, and then he’s pushing them apart, and there’s his mouth. Hot against your pussy, YangYang devours you like he’s starving for you, like the taste of your wetness on his tongue is all he needs for survival. 

You arch against his mouth, your feet leaving the ground. YangYang’s arms go around the backs of your thighs, holding you aloft as he licks you out. Your arms and wrists burn, but you barely feel it as YangYang sucks at your clit, as he plunges his tongue inside you, as he moans hungrily against you.

The sounds that spill out of you now, you can’t even pretend like they’re sounds of protest to go along with this scenario. You’re enjoying this too much, moaning loudly as YangYang bites your thigh, as he thumbs at your clit while fucking his tongue inside you. 

“You need to quiet down,” Taeyong says suddenly right behind you, his lips to your ear. “Before you draw some zombies that actually want to eat you and not just eat you out.” 

The blindfold is suddenly yanked down from your eyes, turned into a gag as Taeyong stuffs it in your mouth. 

Your eyes water at the sudden brightness around you, but you blink away the tears to look down at YangYang. 

His eyes flick up to yours for a moment, a sweet moan pressed to your pussy before his eyes flutter shut again. You want to dig your fingers in his hair, angle his mouth against you just a little better, but instead you just have to twist your fingers around the rope holding you up, and you try to rock your hips against his face. 

Taeyong chuckles behind you, and his hands come around to steady your hips. “Now, now. Here I thought you were pretty innocent, but you’re getting off on this, aren’t you?” 

To answer, you rock your hips against YangYang’s face again, and you moan into the fabric stuffed in your mouth. 

Taeyong’s hands slide up to your tits, pinching and rolling your nipples between his fingers, causing you to whine and jerk around. Your wrists tug against the rope. YangYang’s mouth works magic against your pussy, and you’re right there on the brink of orgasm when Taeyong drags you away from YangYang’s mouth.

Your toes drag the ground, and you scream into the gag, tears streaming down your face. You were so close to cumming! Why did he pull you away from that?

“My turn.” Taeyong kisses just behind your ear. 

Again, you’re spun around to face him, your wrists caught tight in the rope. Taeyong faces you, holding your gaze for a moment, searching for any sign that you’re ready for them to stop. But you’re good. If they stop now is when you’re going to have a problem.

“Shit.” YangYang groans behind you, and you turn your head just enough to see him walking off, heading straight for a zombie that’s staggered around a tree some distance off, definitely drawn by the sounds you’ve been making.

Taeyong grabs your chin, turning your head back to face him. “Think you can handle more, sweetheart?” 

You nod. 

Some distance away, you hear the thump as YangYang puts down the zombie, and then he jogs back over to where he’s left you and Taeyong. “Can’t we share, man? I found her, I should get to have her, right?” 

Taeyong’s gaze lowers to your lips around the gag. “Technically speaking, I found her first. So she should be mine for the taking.” His thumb draws along your bottom lip, and he says, “But I think I can be convinced to share. I bet she looks so pretty with her lips around my cock while she’s fucked from behind.”

Oh, you know you are. And you know Taeyong knows it too, as that’s one of his favored positions when he and YangYang share you back in your shelter. 

“Yeah, man,” YangYang encourages, “You fuck her mouth, I’ll take her cunt.”

You grow wetter hearing them talk about you like you’re not really here, and YangYang using cunt just sounds dirtier, makes you feel a little less like this was something that you’d planned on happening. 

Taeyong’s still trying to read your eyes when YangYang takes you by the hips, pulling your ass back towards him. You feel the brush of his cock against your pussy before you’re jerked forward again. Taeyong’s taken hold of the rope above your hands, tugging you forward by it. 

You whimper into the gag. 

Taeyong twists his fingers in the gag, dragging it out of your mouth so it falls around your neck. Before he can even say anything, you lurch forward and kiss him. Taeyong immediately falls into the kiss, pressing in, kissing you back.

YangYang takes advantage of the moment, and he rolls his hips forward once again, this time succeeding in fitting his cock into you. You moan into Taeyong’s kiss, wishing that you could clutch at his shoulders for balance when YangYang starts fucking you, not holding back, nearly knocking you off your feet with the force of his thrusts.

Taeyong breaks the kiss, unleashing your moans into the woods. Your cries echo through the trees, no doubt catching the attention of every creature – living and dead – that is wandering these woods. 

“Sweetheart, I’m gonna need you to quiet down before you bring all the dead down upon us.” Taeyong again tugs on the rope holding your arms aloft, but this time he’s just tugging down. 

To your surprise, the rope comes loose from the branch overhead, and Taeyong grabs your arms as they numbly fall. Your wrists are still bound together, and he takes advantage of that, bringing your bound hands to the front of his pants. 

He doesn’t have to give you any instruction, you start undoing the buckles of his weaponry belt as well as the belt actually holding his pants up. Taeyong groans and knots his fingers in your hair. YangYang’s hips smack forward against your ass, nearly knocking your forward into Taeyong, who hisses as your cool fingers reach inside his pants and bring his cock out into the open.

“Fuck, fuck,” YangYang moans, slamming you back down onto his cock. “Love hitting it raw, baby. You’re so warm and tight, so perfect and soft.” 

You never let either of them fuck you without a condom. The idea of any unnecessary complications arising when you’ve found perfectly good boxes of condoms seems like a stupid mistake. But today, in this scenario, you’re allowing it.

The next time that YangYang thrusts into you, you push forward with your mouth going right around Taeyong’s cock. 

Now it’s Taeyong that moans, low and deep from within his chest. 

You love the taste of his cock, the weight of him on your tongue. His hand in your hair presses you all the way down until his cock is hitting the back of your throat, until you’re gagging around him with your nose buried in the hair at the base of his cock. 

YangYang pulls you back by your hips, burying his cock in your pussy. 

“She has such a sweet cunt, man. Maybe you should try this next.” YangYang smacks his hand against your ass. “She’s so wet, you’d think she wanted to be fucked out here in the middle of the woods.” Which was exactly what you wanted, exactly why you were enjoying this so much, and you’re glad that it seems that both of them are enjoying it too.

You slurp at Taeyong’s cock, drooling around him, using your bound hands to stroke what you don’t have in your mouth. Taeyong yanks at your hair, rocking forward at the same time, gagging you once again on his cock. 

“Her mouth’s pretty good too. She keeps choking around me, drooling for me.” Taeyong hisses as you accidentally scrape your teeth along his shaft. “Pretty good for an innocent little lamb we found out here wandering alone in the woods.”

They pass you back and forth for a little while. YangYang pulling you back on his cock, Taeyong pulling forward to take his whole cock down your throat. Your head is spinning in the best possible way, eyes watering and mouth drooling, wrists still burning from being bound in rope, and your knees are wobbling and legs aching. 

“Maybe we take her home with us,” YangYang says, reaching up to wrap his hand in your hair, pulling you backwards off of Taeyong’s cock, using his hold on you to keep you in place while he rapidly thrusts into you a few times. “Keep her around to fuck. I bet she’ll be good for us, the best cunt left in this world. Gonna let us do what we like with her, take her however we want, let us cum in her however much we need to as long as we keep her safe from the zombies for another day.” 

For a brief moment amidst your lust-hazed brain, the thought breaks through that what YangYang’s saying could be true. Is that what they’re doing with you? Fucking around with you because you’re around, knowing that you’ll be down to let them do whatever because you know they offer you a layer of protection from the zombies?

Taeyong’s hand is suddenly there, gentle on your cheek. “Look at me,” he commands. “And YangYang, stop.”

You lift your wet gaze up to his face. 

YangYang’s thrusts slow and then stop, but he stays inside you, hands on your hips. 

Your hands are braced on Taeyong’s stomach, and he reaches down for them, slipping the fingers of one hand into yours; you hold on tight. 

“That’s not true, what he’s saying,” Taeyong reassures you quietly. “I can tell that’s what you’re thinking. That’s not the case, I promise. He’s just trying to talk dirty.” He casts a look behind you to YangYang who’s rhythm stutters. “We’ve always liked having you around, even before sex was on the table. If you told us to stop right now, if you said that you never wanted either of us to touch you again, then that would be okay. Don’t think we keep you around for sex, that’s literally not a part of it at all.”

“Shit, I’m sorry!” YangYang apologizes, leaning around, trying to see your face without pulling out of you. “I didn’t mean it like that, baby, please, believe me.”

You believe him. You believe both of them, and you’re grateful to hear them saying as much. You squeeze Taeyong’s fingers, you blink away the tears rising in your eyes, and you push your hips back down to fully take YangYang’s cock back inside you. 

“I’m good.” You breathe in deeply. “We can keep going.”

Taeyong smiles, leaning down to kiss you briefly.

YangYang resumes fucking into you at his brutal pace, his thrusts growing more erratic as he nears his climax. Taeyong pulls your mouth down around his cock again, and you let your mind go blank and blissfully hazy as they each use you.

Perhaps YangYang’s hands are a little more gentle on your hips now than they were before. Maybe Taeyong’s combing his fingers through your hair rather than just yanking on it. You get lost in the push and the pull, the constant state of either being filled or of tasting cock and sweat on your tongue. 

“Oh, shit,” YangYang moans after another few minutes, pumping into you quickly. “Baby, where do you want me to cum? Shit, I’m so close.”

Taeyong lets your mouth slip off his cock, and your voice is raspy from the abuse of his cock down your throat as you tell YangYang, “In me. You can cum in me just this once.”

The other day you found a box of Plan B at the pharmacy that miraculously hadn't expired yet. You could take the risk today, take the pill when you get home. 

YangYang leaves one hand on your hip, the other flies to your hair, once again roughly pulling so he can hear you cry out, the sound a guttural moan as he plants himself as deeply inside you as he can when he cums. 

“Now, take care of Taeyong, slut.” YangYang’s still pulsing inside you, still rolling his hips to get the most of the feeling of you around him, and he uses the hand in your hair to push your mouth back down around Taeyong. “That’s right, like a good girl, take his cock.”

You put your all into sucking Taeyong off, and he and YangYang work together to fuck your throat around his cock. Both of them have hands in your hair, and you just keep moaning and whining and choking, tears pouring down your cheeks, and you hope you look as much a fucked out mess as you feel. 

Taeyong cums without warning, groaning as he spills down your tongue, across your tongue, shooting a last few streaks of cum across your lips and chin. 

You’re fully crying now, not because you’re upset, but because you want to cum so much that you’re just beginning to feel overwhelmed by it all. You feel like after having your orgasm torn away earlier on YangYang’s tongue, you’ve been teetering on the verge of it, unable to quite tip over the edge. 

YangYang pulls you upright, your back pressed to his chest, his cock still buried inside you. He bites down on your shoulder again, scattering bites and kisses, leaving hickeys in an alternating pattern across your shoulders and your neck.

Taeyong presses up against your front, his softening cock against your belly, his hand knotted in your hair as he crushes his mouth to yours, kissing away the taste of himself from your lips and tongue. And then he slides his free hand down between your bodies. 

You cry out sharply when Taeyong’s fingers find your clit. 

He kisses you again to quiet you down, swirling his fingers on your clit.

“Come on, baby,” YangYang murmurs against your neck. “Cum on my cock, baby. Cum for Taeyong. You’ve been so good for us today. You can cum now.”

His cock is still inside you, still half-hard. He shallowly thrusts a few times, and held now at this angle, with Taeyong stroking your clit, you’re getting the perfect stimulation both inside and outside.

Taeyong moans as he licks his cum out of your mouth, his fingers sparking lightning along your every nerve ending. YangYang gasps as your pussy clenches around him, as your orgasm finally unleashes. 

You feel like you’re falling over the edge, the ground disappearing from beneath you in the best way. Like you’re flying or floating. Your whole body is alight with the high of your orgasm, tingling and warm, and covered in the two men.

YangYang cums weakly again as your pussy massages his cock. Your nails drag along Taeyong’s stomach. You break the kiss with him, flopping your head down onto his shoulder.

You feel utterly boneless, and it’s only their hands and the way they’ve got you between them that is keeping you upright.

“You did so good, sweetheart,” Taeyong tells you, resting his cheek against your head. “This was so good, so hot.”

“Maybe we can do something like this again sometime,” YangYang suggests, sponging a kiss to the back of your neck. 

You just moan softly, unable to really give voice to anything right now. 

Taeyong wraps his arms around you, holding you as YangYang pulls out of you, bracing you against him to support your weight as YangYang moves over to pick up the clothes Taeyong stripped you of earlier. He’s just gathered them and taken a step back towards you, when all three of you hear the shuffle of footsteps over the underbrush.

YangYang tosses the clothes over to Taeyong, and he reaches instead for the golf club he’s been favoring as a weapon since he found it earlier this week. He heads toward the sound as Taeyong quickly tries to help you back into your clothes, which is easier said than done as you’re feeling about as sturdy as a limp noodle.

YangYang’s made it only a few steps before a figure steps around the tree you’d previously been tied to.

All three of you freeze.

It’s not a zombie, but a man.

The man’s face breaks out in a relieved smile. “Thank God, I thought I heard sounds. I was hoping to find people.” 

You’re only half dressed, and if this stranger finds that odd, he doesn’t comment on it. His gaze just brushes briefly over you before looking at Taeyong, then back to YangYang. Taeyong helps you slide your sweater back on, and then your jacket. You reach for the switchblade you keep hidden in the pocket of your jacket, holding it ready if this stranger decides to attack.

Taeyong beside you refastens his pants, and you hear him pull the pistol out of his weapons belt, cocking it as he aims it at the man.

“Who are you?” He asks.

The stranger backs up, hands in the air. “Woah! I’m sorry! I’ve just been looking for people for ages. I lost my group about a month ago, I’ve been on my own since then, looking for a community.” Taeyong steps around you so that now he and YangYang stand between you and the stranger, who takes a faltering step backwards at Taeyong’s advance. With a wide-eyed look of innocence, the newcomer exclaims, “I’m Mark!” 

Neither Taeyong nor YangYang lower their weapons. 

Maybe you’re too quick to trust, but looking at this guy – at Mark – you think that he must be telling the truth. You place a hand on Taeyong’s arm, and with a glance over his shoulder at you, he lowers the gun. 

“Where do you come from?” YangYang asks. “What have you been doing since the world fell to shit?”

YangYang doesn’t lower his golf club. You don’t actually let go of your switchblade. Taeyong keeps a hand on his pistol although he has reholstered it. But you at least put on a more relaxed face as you listen to this Mark guy provide answers. 

You notice he keeps looking at you, and you’re sure YangYang notices too because after a few moments, he shifts just right to block you from Mark’s view. 

But Mark answers all of the questions the three of you ask him. He easily hands over the only weapon he’s got – a heavy staff – and consents to YangYang patting him down and checking his belongings. 

“I’m being honest,” Mark says as YangYang runs his hands down Mark’s sides beneath his jacket. “I’ve just been looking for a place to belong, people to be around, a place to be able to rest at night without the worry of being caught unaware by zombies, people to watch my back, food to eat, a place to bathe.”

You squeeze Taeyong’s arm, and he shares a quick look with you that tells you he’s thinking the same thing as you.

You’ll trust this guy for now, bring him into the office building. You’ll keep an eye on him, like you’re sure he and YangYang did when they first found you. You’ll grow this little family of yours by one, and it’ll all be okay.

a/n: originally this was supposed to be Day 10, just supposed to be Taeyong and y/n was going to be a spy infiltrating other communities to steal resources, but since I skipped a couple days, I decided to combine day 10 with day 12 which was YangYang with a mild zombie play kink, and somehow this was born.

And then in the process of searching for a gif to use for this post, I found it's almost impossible to find one gif of YangYang and Taeyong, and the only one I could find that had both of them also had Mark since it was a New Axis stage performance, and I decided to maybe include Mark in this fun as a little twist there at the end, but using that gif at the top of the post would be misleading since he's not really a part of the smut.

If you notice any errors or if you feel I should include some more tags/content warnings, please let me know!

I hope you enjoyed! Reblogs are deserving of my eternal gratitude, likes are greatly appreciated, and your thoughts and comments are always welcome!

[suuuupernovaaa]

muntxa si

MUNTXA SI: (english) to mate with, marry

(Adult) Neteyam vehemently opposes his human mate becoming Na’vi, for fear of losing her.

This story makes many assumptions - just go with them to enjoy the ride.

2,247 words.

The strength with which Neteyam opposed the idea, right from the very start, was a shock to everyone who knew him. When his mother first mentioned it, she saw a familiar fury in his eyes, one she knew she’d worn many times. 

His brother nearly lost his head when he brought it up, and his father hadn’t even tried to broach the subject.

What he didn’t know was that they weren’t bringing it up of their own accord, though it was something they’d thought about before. They were bringing it up because I had brought it up to them first.

I was the only one who wasn’t shocked by his reaction. I knew that all Neteyam would see was the danger and risk involved, and there was nothing more detestable to Neteyam than putting me in harm’s way. This was a sometimes annoying but mostly reassuring trait of his, especially given that, as a human living on Pandora, danger was lurking around nearly every corner for me. Ewya had blessed me with a strong and capable - but slightly overbearing - protector.

After weeks of his family telling me it was me who would have to convince him, I finally plucked up the courage.

We sat in our Mauri pod, late at night, and the words spilled out of my mouth before I could fully control them.

“I want to become Na’vi. Norm has an Avatar for me, he’s been hiding it since I was little, and he told me on my 20th birthday. It’s fully mature now.”

Neteyam sat at the edge of our pod, his legs dangling over the edge and into the water, and he spun around so fast that his braids smacked the wall of the Mauri.

His eyes narrowed and he lowered his chin. “No.”

Taking a deep breath beneath my mask, I stood up. “You don’t get to decide for me, Teyam. I have decided, and I know the clan will support me.”

“No!” He was standing too now, towering over me at nearly twice my height, but he could never scare or intimate me, even if he truly tried.

“Listen to me, Neteyam. You are only thinking of the risk involved, and not the reward. I can’t survive here forever, as one of the last humans. What if the air tanks run out? How will we live our lives together, with me in this human body? Have you considered the fact that your lifespan is twice mine? What will you do when I am too old, even, to run and swim? I won’t live like that, Neteyam!”

I felt hot tears in my eyes, and tried to blink them away in frustration. “You can’t force me to live a half-life with you when a full life is within my grasp! I know Ewya will give this to me. She wouldn’t have brought me to you if she didn’t want us to be together.”

Neteyam’s hands rested on my shoulders, enveloping me, stressing to the both of us our impractical size difference.

“Y/N... you don’t know that she will give this to us. She may take you home to her.”

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the panic I could see in his face. 

“I have to do this, Neteyam. We won’t have a future together if I don’t. Norm and the others... they talk about having to leave, without a permanent colony here. Their supplies won’t last forever. They would either take me, or leave me here to die with no oxygen.”

Neteyam pulled me down, so we were sitting face to face, our legs crossed.

“I cannot lose you, Y/N.”

“This is our best chance, Neteyam. Please. Please let me do this.”

As much as I had been pretending it was only my choice, and I didn’t need his permission, I knew I couldn’t do it without his blessing. That just wasn’t something I could do to Ma Teyam. 

I watched his chest rise and fall with deep breaths as he contemplated.

“We will do this, Y/N, and if Ewya takes you, I will follow you to her myself and bring you back.”

-- 

It took time to plan - time that was exciting for all of us. We decided to fly back to the Tree of Souls to give my human body the best chance, since with the Metkayina, the ceremony would have to take place under water.

The Omatikaya welcomed the Sullys, and one sky person, back with open arms. After all, it wasn’t as if I was a stranger to them - I had many friends to greet, as well.

The ceremony was set for the night after our return. Neteyam was quiet at dinner, and his mother watched him cautiously.

“Son,” she said, handing him a plate, “I see the spirit within Y/N. It reminds me of your father - strong, stubborn, a little frustrating.” She smiled, but Neteyam couldn’t bring himself to follow suit. “She will be okay.”

She gripped her son’s arm and he nodded, but the sinking feeling in his chest was there to stay, until the ceremony was complete.

--

Neteyam walked with me, hand and hand, through the large crowd there to witness my birth - or my funeral.

I could feel the tension radiating through his body, but no matter what I said, I wasn’t able to ease it for him. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, myself.

There she lay - me, but not me. Tall, with long, thick black hair and eyes that would surely be a piercing gold when opened. She was beautiful; it was the first I was seeing her.

“Oh, Neteyam...” I said, a lump in my throat, and gripped his arm tightly as we approached the tree.

He placed his hand over mine. “You can still change your mind,” he said, but with a sly smile, the first I’d seen him wear in a while - he knew there was little chance of that.

He lifted me up and placed me next to my new body, where the spiritual leader of the Omatikaya waited, a serene and focused look on her face.

She gestured for me to lay down, and I turned to Neteyam. Maybe it was the proximity to the Tree of Souls, but I felt a calm - and tried to convey it to Neteyam with a smile. His family stood behind him, taking their seats to join the ceremony. Neteyam would stay with me until it was done.

He nodded, and I could practically see his heart beating through his chest as he helped me to lay down, my head inches from my avatar’s.

“You will sleep now. Be calm,” a voice above me said, and I had only time to tell Neteyam I loved him before I sank away.

--

Watching her eyes close, a panic gripped Neteyam’s heart and he felt as if he could vomit in front of the entire clan.

He turned and sought his mother, and would have been embarrassed to do so in any other situation. She was seated between his brother and father, all holding hands with eyes closed, chanting to Ewya.

He watched as Ewya reached up, covering his mate in feather light touches, and he put his hands on her, praying to Ewya, reminding Ewya how much this human woman meant to him.

Silently, he told Ewya of the first time they’d met, at only six years old, and of their first kiss at 12, how she fought with him through the Great War despite her size, how long it took him to work up the courage to ask her to be his mate, and how they cried together when she said yes.

This woman is my life, Great Mother, he prayed, I ask that you return her to me in either body here, and we will make the most of this life we have together.

Every minute felt like an hour, and then the Tsahik reached over and pulled the mask off of his love’s face.

She was gone, at least from this form.

“She is passing through Ewya now, Neteyam, and you must guide her back,” the Tsahik said.

He leapt carefully over to her avatar body, taking it in for the first time. Those were her lips, the shape of her eyes, the sharp dip between her nose and mouth - all his favorite things about her, right here.

“Yawne,” he said, reaching out to touch her soft face, “can you hear me? Follow my voice. Come back to me so that we may return home together, and live the life you promised me.”

He looked to the Tsahik, who nodded in encouragement and resumed chanting. The cries of the clan rose around him, his father and mother’s the loudest, and he steadied his shaking body with a deep breath.

“Y/N, Yawne, hear my voice and follow it. I will wait for you forever - remember the promise I made. Do not deliver two souls to Ewya this day.”

He nearly shot back when the woman before him took a gasping breath, and amber eyes shot open.

--

It’s impossible to describe how it happens. It’s not a wordly experience, and there are no words to properly convey it.

Ewya is real, and she gave me a second chance at life.

Neteyam’s face hovered inches above mine as I gasped for air. He slipped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me up, and even in this new body, in my disoriented state, I was acutely aware that I was naked.

“Yawne,” Neteyam whispered, and I saw the tears spilling from his eyes. He only called me Yawne - beloved - once before, when he asked me to be his mate.

“Tiyawn,” I replied, my voice breathy and almost foreign to my ears. My ears! I reached up, trailing my hand over my thick hair and reaching up to feel the pointy, blue ears atop my head. A giggle escaped before I could stop it.

“Can you stand?” he asked, gripping my arms.

I leaned into him. “I am naked.”

“You are Na’vi now,” he replied with almost a shrug, “but I will carry you if it concerns you.”

“I think you should, my legs feel weak.”

They felt strong. My entire body felt strong, and I couldn’t wait to learn how to use it. 

I glanced over my shoulder to see myself. My former self. As Neteyam lifted me into his arms and stood up, I thought I should cry for her... but she didn’t feel like me, not anymore. 

The clan cheered and whooped, hollered and threw their arms triumphant in the air, as Neteyam stood with me and let out what sounded like a war cry, shaking me in his arms.

The joy in his face was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was beautiful, especially seen through these new eyes.

He rushed through the crowd, to his Ikran, and mounted in one fell swoop with me in his arms.

The Ikran felt so much smaller than she had when we’d arrived less than an hour ago, but of course, I was the one who had grown over three feet.

He took off, holding the saddle with one arm and me tightly in the other, to a place we could be alone.

--

Back at our temporary home, I was finally able to take a breath and try my new body out. For my first few steps, I had to hold Neteyam’s hands, until I got the hang of it.

I felt weak, but I knew that would wear off. This body was strong, and I was going to make it even stronger, so I could finally keep up with Neteyam.

The thought made me burst into tears as he searched through his mother’s things for something I could wear.

“What is it, Y/N? Do you hurt?” he asked, rushing to my side with only a necklace in his hands.

Embarrassed, I tried to wave him off, but he was too on edge. “Tell me, Yawne. Tell me what you need.”

I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him tightly to me. My face rested perfectly on his chest, where before, it was just over his waist - making hugging an awkward feat. We fit perfectly together now, and it made me cry even harder.

“I’m just so happy and grateful, Neteyam.” I pulled back, wiping at my tears. “Tell me what you think.”

“What I think?” he asked, turning his head to the side.

“Of... me. Of my body. Do you still, I mean, do you like it?”

His gaze softened and he reached up to cup my cheek. “I have loved you for 15 years, Y/N. I loved you human form. Your small body, your beautiful soft hair, and your light eyes. I loved every moment of our life together.”

The tears threatened to return.

“But this... this is my dream, Y/N. I see it now, what you’ve always seen. You were meant to be one of The People, to be with me, to be the mother of my children and my mate for life.”

A smile spread across my new face so wide, I thought it might crack. “I love you, Neteyam.”

He pulled me into his strong arms, and we took a deep breath together.

“Forever,” he whispered in my ear.

I squeezed him tight. “Forever.”

[gl1tchy-4rt]

MORE ELDRITCH LORE

Hello everyone!

Sorry For not posting for a while...

I was busy with school but now I'm back! And I'm going to continue with The Eldritch Tower AU, specifically with the forms they can take

Using our beloved Gustavo as example!

Look at him :) what horrors is he going to expose us to? I don't know but we are going to find out! HEY @technically-a-kiwi COME SEE THE HORRORS

Enjoy!

WARNING: Body Horror, Guts, Spoiler of The end of Evangelion (the mote of light part) And Very, very long post!!

• Human (Eldritch Human)

Their human part and the form they take to interact with The Mortals, suspected to be their original form before 'The Elder of the beginning' turned them into Elder horrors.

Usually they are as normal and expressive as most humans, all of them with their own distinct personality... That's until they start to tap into their powers, when that happens they tend to go quiet and calm in order to not lose control.

• Glimpse to The Eldritch

Even when they had stated and proved their Eldritch status, or when they don't even remember being Eldritch (Yes, that can happen in some realities), Humans still try to push their buttons, or sometimes some Humans can try to attack them for no good reason: That's when they access this form

A little glimpse of their true form to tell humans to back away or bad things will happen, when they have to use large amount of powers they take this form.

Their followers and Half-Eldritches can take this form, often triggered by the Elder's power.

• Mini Eldritch

The Mini Eldritch form is tricky since it can be multiple forms, from angel-like or otherworldly to humanoid or animal-like, let's take a look at these two examples:

Tendril-like: A mass of eyes, fleshy tendrils and veins with a shape that vaguely resembles a human torso, it usually grows to cling and grab unto the walls and ceiling, they take this form when recovering from mayor injuries, sometimes during their sleep and when they... "Trully" stretch their limbs.

Humanoid EVA-Like: A 4-5 story tall humanoid monster with a "human exoskeleton" it's a smaller version of their full Eldritch form, it's more powerfull than "The Glimpse" but also way more unstable, Full of tumors and bones sticking out, This form is usually triggered when the Eldritch is Threaten.

• Full Eldritch

When Humans fool too much with the Eldritch, then they stick their noses there they shouldn't, even when some clearely overworldly men tell them not to do so, they can cause an "Early awakening" Eldritch are only meant to wake when the Sun dies and it consumes The Earth but here we are...

An Awake, City-sized, Underdeveloped Elder God, Yet it's more than capeble to put an end to this World...

To avoid feeling unnecessary trauma and pain, it completely shuts down it's human side, leaving a monster that only runs on instincts.

It's flesh and bones melted and full of tumors, Pulsating vains and rotting flesh, a body falling apart trying to protect it's insides... why trying so desperatly to survive?

So it can Truly awake...

• True Eldritch

Finally it separates from it's cumbersome body, it shows it's True Full form, It spreads it's wings as it's body acomodates to the laws of this universe, as it's glow drowns the skies, it's form extends beyond the stratosphere, becoming this massive, winged Elder God.

It finally reconects with it's Human side once again, it's human part, it's mind and emotions, after so much pain and "bottling up" itself...

It's free.

It feels Liberating, Euphoric… The others can feel it's joy, The other Elders, The Half-eldritch, It's closest followers, they can feel it, they free themselfs from their own bodies to Join the Liberated.

If The Earth is safe, they just leave, Flying endlessly through space, in eachothers company until The Heat death of the universe, then it's time to move on to a new life and another reality.

If The Earth is Too far gone, they stay a bit longer and can upon... a bit of help...

• "Mote of Light"

Born from the Blood of the Eldritch and The compassion of the Human, Made of the same Flesh of it's True Form and taking the form of his Human Form...

It can't speak or really think, but they are really friendly and inocent, they can break the laws of physicics in order to complete their only task, their only purpose... "Liberate" people, Introducing themselfs in a friendly manner to the humans and Releasing them from their bodies, letting their souls go to the afterlife were they will enjoy eternity.

Normally only one appears, which is quickly dispossed of, but when the "Early awakening" happens and The Earth is too far gone, Billions of them flood the world, They take all the living beings in the world, leaving The Earth as a baren wasteland...

They are kinda like the Rei clones in the ending of "The End of Evangelion"

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

HOLY SHIT DID I WENT ALL OUT WITH THIS 0_0

Anyways, As i mentioned, i was pretty busy with school but now and next week im free of work!!

So i'll keep of posting more Pizza content :)

Okay everyone that's all for this Post!

Buh-bye y'all!! And let me know if you want more Pizza Lore ;)

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Can I Stay? (A Baekhyun Story) Part 17.

Pairing: You x Baekhyun

Rating: M

Word Count: 10.5k

Warnings: More plot. No space for smut this time.

Tag list @andimoon @his-mochi-cheeks

Links: Part 1, … Part 16, Part 17, Part 18

You were the kind of person who worked very well under pressure. It was written all over your résumé and unlike some others who claimed this trait and then folded like paper under the slightest bit of stress; you actually did work very well under pressure.

The career kind of pressure.

The pressure involving deadlines and all-hands on deck scenarios in which you needed to perform flawlessly and harness every innate professional skill you’d perfected over the years so well that you could rely on trusting your gut with every move and you actually saw results. You could handle anything, professionally; you were not one to back down from any challenge you were presented with and you did not waver or cower in the face of great adversary.

Baekhyun had gone motionless beside you. From the corner of your eye you could see the way he clenched down hard on his jaw and judging from how very still his chest was, it didn't seem like he was breathing.

Your mind half registered the elevator stopping at your floor, only you did not make any moves to exit.

You watched the back of President Byun’s head, frozen by what you could only describe as abject panic coursing through your every vein. It was a new feeling to you. You felt paralyzed as you stared at the graying strands of his hair and you begged and pleaded that perhaps you had simply misheard him.

You did not have a plan for this. This was a new and terrifying kind of pressure you had never experienced before.

President Byun, Baekhyun’s father and your boss — not your direct superior by any stretch of your imagination but the boss, the big boss, the boss to end all bosses of your entire professional existence up until this point, that President Byun — he had just dropped an atom bomb on top of your head in this tiny box that was hurling you away from the earth up toward his golden towers in the sky, he had just called you out for your sins against him, your sins against him and your sins again his precious and dearest child. His son who he’d breathed life into when he brought him into this world and had handed over to you to nurture and to care for and you had what? Seduced your way into his life; made him fall in love with you…

What would the man think of you?

A harlot? A threat to the Byun family name? A gold digger? There was plenty of his hard earned and life long suffering gold to dig for; but would any amount of your begging and pleading arguments even begin to touch at the surface of just how much you weren’t after any of the fortune? You did not care one bit about it. You had made your way in this world just fine so far on your own merit alone and you could continue in this way forever for all you cared.

But Baekhyun… never in your entire existence had you felt this kind of love for another human being.

Would you just have to give him up?

You would not survive such a blow. You’d just as easily give up your career than give this man up. Just the thought of spending a lifetime without him in it made that prospective life worthless to you.

The elevator had halted. It had reached the end of the line and the doors dinged softly seconds before they pulled open and your eyes caught the tasteful red patterned plush carpet that lined the top floor of this building. None of the other floors had this kind of luxury that gave with a bounce underneath your feet as you walked.

It was a different world entirely up here.

“See me in my office, in one hour.” You flinched when his strong booming voice called out into the hollow space of this elevator right before a shift in his balance indicated that he was leaving you both behind in here. You still could not be sure he was speaking to you both or only to Baekhyun, but there was something that felt a bit like a guillotine’s chop that struck against you hard when you caught movement in his face as he angled his focus just slightly in your direction for one more strike, “You might as well come too,” he added before he was gone.

You managed a quiet whisper before the doors moved. A “Yes, Sir” somehow came out of your parted lips.

The doors closed up and neither of you moved.

Your eyes wandered over the space before you. The illuminated lights overhead that told you this contraption was still sitting at the top floor; not yet called on by any other travelers and not told where to head by either of the two occupants still standing inside of it. The shiny doors now in their closed position showed very clear scratch marks from the years of opening and closing again and again. The panel with all of its numbers and at the bottom, the red alarm button that would connect you with someone, with anyone, who might be able to help you in the most dire of situations you found yourself trapped in. Did they help with disasters of your own making?

You extended your hand and you noticed the visible tremble in your fingers as you pointed your index finger and lightly ran it over that red alarm button; genuinely wondering what kinds of emergencies they were equipped to help with.

A movement pulled you out of the quiet trance you’d been stuck inside, and a hand with slim fingers reached forward into your field of vision.

His fingers pressed a familiar number and then his hand traveled down to lay lightly over your hand. His hand moved slowly over the back of yours and he wrapped his fingers around your hand and squeezed down just enough for you to pull your eyes away from the red alarm button and seek him out.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly; his brown eyes looking into your own with a myriad of emotions surging through them. Concern. Guilt. Worry. He blinked once and broke eye contact, looking down at his feet as he bit down on his bottom lip and furrowed his eyebrows.

“I’m going to be fired.”

Baekhyun shook his head back and forth, lightly at first but harder as he got going; with a deep inhale into his lungs, his face lifted and he looked into your eyes once more as he shook his head with more conviction.

“No,” he said, “No, you won’t.”

You watched his face and felt the effect of the stress you were feeling pulling at your stomach, making you ache from the inside. You closed up your eyes and felt the smallest tug at your hand as he shook you lightly to beg for your attention again.

You gave in to him with his next words.

“This is just a negotiation. We have an important meeting in an hour — for a negotiation. We’ve had plenty of those, right?”

It took you a moment to hear him through the haze you felt in your mind but after a few seconds you nodded your head in agreement. Maybe you could get through it with this kind of mindset.

He inhaled to speak again, “Now…we have to prepare for the meeting.”

You found yourself seated on the sofa in your office. Assistant Cha had been sent away on some insane photocopying mission crafted by Baekhyun that was likely to keep her occupied for hours, and although you had wished for it all day long, having some alone time with Baekhyun inside your office now, felt about as joyous as planning a funeral.

During your discussion with him, he seemed to overlook the ‘how’ for now — he was less concerned with how President Byun came to know of this incriminating information; brushing it aside as a mere detail that would be dealt with later, and he was fixated on the ‘what’ as in Baekhyun seemed convinced that his father, master businessman that he was, actually knew far less than the brief encounter in the elevator suggested.

“I’m not convinced he knows it’s you,” he urged.

“Why does he want to see me in his office, then?” You countered and he only shook his head with a small shrug of his face, not at all giving you a response to this fact with anything concrete.

“I don't know that. But you don't know that man. He was angled in my direction; I could just feel it.”

“He was standing straight and facing forward. There was no angle.”

“He was talking to me. His tone — his voice — it was projected in my direction. I know my Dad, he is upset at me. But only at me. His feet, or his hips had a slight…angle, I can’t explain it, but I know it,” he insisted again, “he definitely knows there is a woman, but that’s as much as he’s got.”

“What if we get up there and he knows?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. What do you always say is the first rule of negotiation?”

“Don't ever show your hand,” you repeated the words you religiously mumbled to yourself before any big showdown.

“Don't ever show your hand,” he repeated with a forced smile on his face that did not reach his eyes.

You’d kept an eye on the clock. Time was moving much too fast for this. You hardly had any time at all to prepare; not that there was much either of you could do to prepare for this.

You made a quick stop at your desk before you joined where Baekhyun stood with his hand on the doorknob of your office watching and waiting for you to follow him out. Of course, he was watching you as you grabbed the plain white envelope out of your desk drawer and discretely slipped it inside the inner pocket of your suit coat.

“You won’t need that,” he said matter of factly.

“That’s just a worst case scenario. Like a plan B.” you said with a sad smile on your face, speaking of the short but sweet resignation letter signed with your own hand. “I’d rather resign than have my name dragged through the mud.”

You heard a dissenting hum from the back of his throat as Baekhyun clearly did not agree with your back-up plan. You’d taken your place at his side and instantly you felt his hands reach into your coat and he pulled out the letter. You watched in half annoyance, half amusement as he gripped it lightly in his fingertips and quickly ripped it in half, before stacking the halves and ripping those into more pieces which he proceeded to drop into the waiting trash can near the sofa.

“Plan B is you are 6 weeks pregnant,” he said in a joking tone. You frowned as you looked down into the trash can. You definitely didn't have time to print out another resignation letter now. “Of course, we’d have to get started on that right away, so that the timing works out.”

“And then plan C is we run away and get married, anyway,” he said with a dip of his head to catch your eyes, making you look up into his face. You had still been looking down at the trash can when you felt the softness of his fingertips below your chin, urging you to look at him. “You can be the breadwinner. I alway knew I would make a beautiful trophy wife one day.”

He was playing now. It was intentional; just to lighten your mood a little bit before the real danger came and you found yourself standing in front of the consequences of your actions trying not to pass out. You knew he wasn’t making light of this very real and very scary situation with his jokes and after a few seconds you looked up into his face; you could see so clearly, the poorly concealed worry there.

You leaned into him first. You slipped your hands inside the warmth of his suit jacket; wrapping your arms tightly around his waist and you buried your face well into the crook of his neck. His arms encircled you immediately and you felt the echo of a soft hum from deep within his chest.

“We will be okay,” you heard him say right beside your ear where he had tucked his face into your hair. It sounded like a statement but you definitely heard a hint of uncertainty in his voice. After a few quiet seconds you heard his inhale.

“No matter what happens — y-you wouldn’t leave me, right?” All traces of the ruse were gone. All false humor and forced bravado vanished with his quiet question.

His voice trembled with genuine fear as he asked you such a terrible thing.

You lifted your eyes to look into his face and you lifted a hand to rest it on his cheek.

“I would abandon my career before I would leave you, my love,” you called into his heart, soothing whatever silly fears he had — that you could somehow live without him. With your words, he closed his eyes slowly; taking them deep inside. His lips parted as he tasted the truth in them.

“But you just ripped up my resignation letter so let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that.”

For this, he opened his eyes again, tilting his head slightly to the side.

It was time to go. You knew how long the elevator ride would take up to the top floor and if you weren’t inside of it soon, you’d be late. With as many transgressions as you had under your belt against his father you didn’t need to add any more to the list.

“Wait, I thought the resignation letter was to keep your name off the blacklist, as in to protect your career — but it was for me? To stay with me? You’d give up your job to stay with me?”

“But you love your job. Your job is, like, everything to you.” He was still speaking; strangely fixated on this little detail. You were certain it must be his need to gauge your love and devotion to him; which was ridiculous. You were about to get fired because of how much you loved this man. The least he could do was not gloat about it.

You were straightening your suit jacket, buttoning buttons and smoothing your skirt as he talked.

“Well you ripped it up,” you said with a grin; feeling a little bit like you were going into battle, “so I guess we’ll never know.”

You pulled your office door open and stepped out into the open floor; making your way through the cubicles and out into the hallway that led to the elevators.

The hour reprieve you’d had with him had done something unexpected. Yes you were headed up to what was very likely to be your demise, but strangely with him beside you — with Baekhyun, your love by your side, you might just make it through whatever happened upstairs. Perhaps this love you’d found could soften whatever detrimental blows you received today. Suddenly your work, your career, your job title felt just a little bit less than the highest priority to you.

Inside the elevator he inhaled a breath. You knew his silence through the crowded office space would not last; not with his curiosity left unsatisfied.

“So me or your professional reputation? What was that letter for?”

The elevator moved quickly. The rapid motion made you feel queasy and you had to lay a hand over your belly to calm your nerves. He noticed and reached a hand out in your direction, landing a palm over your own hand as you cradled your belly.

“What is it? Is it the baby?” His words of what sounded like genuine and convincing concern caught you off guard and you couldn’t hold the small surprised chuckle that broke free — that he would dare say such a ridiculous thing out loud. The laugh, the first genuine bit of happiness you’d felt in more than an hour caught you off guard more than his joke and you marveled that you could dare to be feeling something so joyous during such a dreadful situation.

You lightly swatted his hand away and he let out the sweetest teasing giggle.

“Sorry, just practicing my acting.”

The final steps out of the elevator, out onto that luxurious carpeting, and down the hallway that lead up to the heavy wooden doors of the CEOs office, were quiet. Any remnants of misplaced humor from either of you were snuffed out by nerves.

Baekhyun pulled on the handle and you stepped inside first, catching the eyes of the President’s secretary as soon as you both stepped inside the entryway.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Byun, ” the young man in the crisp suit called out an overly formal greeting with a stiff smile directed at your boyfriend. His eyes glanced in your direction and you got a short head-nod, “Miss Managar. The president is expecting you. Please — this way.”

The man rounded his desk and stood in front of a second set of heavy wooden doors with a hand extended toward it and his torso leaned in the direction you were both to go.

“You may go in.” His other hand extended halfway toward his first.

You felt as if this plush carpet had swallowed up your feet. They seemed to refuse your attempts to send a signal from your brain to your legs to make them move.

You heard the heavy door open, despite how well oiled and maintained those hinges were, your ears caught the movement of wood as it slid over thick carpet.

You knew you should move. Baekhyun was already inside.

The young man took one step closer to where you stood and you heard him inhale to speak again.

“You — may go in,” he said with, god bless him, without any change at all in his tone, despite the fact that he had now said this to you twice without you actually moving at all.

“Yes.” You whispered toward him. His eyes caught ahold of yours and he held on to his blank expression so well.

“I am — g-going in.”

Something was wrong with you. Could stress cause paralysis?

“Miss Manager, you may go in.” The man reached a quick hand behind you and you felt the smallest push of his palm over your shoulder and coupled with the nerves; the embarrassment you felt surge through you surely had turned your entire face into a flushed hot red mess. Still, the smallest push he gave you actually got your feet moving and you took three or four big steps right into the office of the President of this company and the father of the man you secretly loved.

President Byun’s focus was on his son. There seemed to be some sort of a stare down going in the first few seconds of this interaction. Your entry into the space pulled both of their eyes away from each other and you closed the distance so that you were standing directly beside Baekhyun.

President Byun opened his mouth to speak.

“Ahh Miss Manager,” he said, looking into your face with lifted eyebrows and a confusing smile on his face. “Lovely that you could make it as well.”

The smile for you felt so genuine. Soft almost. You couldn’t quite connect that soft smile the old man gave you with the anger and outrage he should have had on his face when he looked at you — you, the scheming, gold digging harlot who had used her influence and power over his dear sweet child to trick him into believing he was in love with her.

You felt confused. You felt silly. The longer he looked at you with such a warm expression. The nerves and apprehensions you had been feeling were dissipating like bubbles in the air above your head.

“I actually wanted to meet with you about this young man right here, but I don’t believe you need to be present quite yet.

“I have a personal family matter to discuss with my son first. Something about some woman he intends to marry — without even consulting his dear father, that has given him everything — without even letting me meet her first.”

Oh.

He didn’t know.

Baekhyun was right.

Baekhyun’s posture had sagged some. You could see the relief in his spine and you looked over into his face and found him concealing the smallest smile on his lips that he had to bite down to keep under control. His eyes stayed fixed ahead of him but you could tell he was quite pleased to have been right about his father.

“Umm..pardon me, Mr. President but I haven’t prepared any performance evaluation materials for Assistant Byun for today…”

“Oh don’t worry one bit, Dear. This is all very unofficial.”

The soft pet name was unexpected but not unwelcome. You were not in any trouble at all. You were not about to be fired. There would be no official sanction or lawsuit. Sure you had technically broken some of HR’s rules with the timing of everything but there was no crowd awaiting your public execution. No one was sharpening a head chopping ax. Just a soft old man whose feelings had been hurt that his son left him out of such a monumental life decision.

Baekhyun would have to soothe his fathers ego well, but you were certain he could handle it without letting his own stubbornness get in the way.

“Dad. You will get to meet her, but no matter what you say, I’m not going to change my mind. This meeting is pointless. If you wanted me to come and hang out we could have just had lunch together.”

Oh no. He sounded sassy and defensive. Stubborn and immovable. Just as you’d feared, both men shared an equally strong sense of stubborn entitlement that was probably genetic.

“I don’t even know her. Is she smart and capable? Does she have good business sense? What does she do for a living? You have kept her from me — why? Do I know her?”

“She loves me. I love her. That should be your first question.”

Part of you wanted to intervene; to remind him of how delicate this situation was and how if he handled it with just a little more grace he might get further with convincing his dad.

You were retreating. You’d already been told to step aside and you’d made it just outside the doorway mid-way through their heated discussion about Baekhyun’s future, his birthright, and his responsibilities.

You were alone with the secretary again. He was seated in his chair behind his desk watching you with a passive and disinterested expression on his face as you stood with your back against the wall right beside the still slightly parted doorway.

You could make out their conversation but with the young man watching you, you pretended like couldn't and you kept your judgements about the over the top and ridiculously stubborn things both men were saying to yourself.

“Have you ever been to Egypt?” the secretary suddenly asked. His focus seemed far away but you were the only person in this room so you figured he was talking to you.

It took a few seconds but you shook your head back and forth as a reply.

“Oh you seemed like maybe you have. I want to go to Egypt.”

Clearly this man had some preconceptions about you. You smiled politely as you kept your ears trained on the heated discussion that continued behind the door.

“Just try it. Go ahead. You say I’m dramatic now, just try and force my hand. You want to lose your only son, forever? You have no idea how dramatic I’ll get.”

“Maybe I’ll go in the spring so it’s not so hot. It’s the desert though so it might be hot all the time. I want to see the pyramids. Which has better pyramids, Mexico or Egypt?”

“Please. The nurse at the hospital said she’d never seen such a dramatic baby and you were only one day old. I know exactly what kind of show you can put on. Is she trustworthy. Can she handle coming into this world.”

“I won’t give her up, even if she can’t. I’ll protect her from the family if I have to.”

“I don’t know,” you said to the young man.

“Oh you seem like you would know,” he replied, looking genuinely disappointed in your answer. You felt slightly taken aback. What on earth gave him the impression that you were an expert on the pyramids in Egypt and Mexico? “Why do I seem like I would know?”

“I don’t know.” He said as a final cryptic response and just continued staring at you. You felt weirdly sorry to him; as if you’d actually let him down today. Maybe you should read the Wikipedia pages on the pyramids in case you had to come back up here for a meeting with the President again.

“And don’t even try and come up with something dumb like ‘she’s pregnant.’ I have my own private doctor on speed dial.”

“Well, what if she really is pregnant?”

“Is she?”

“No.”

“Get out of here.”

The door pushed open sooner than you expected and with enough force that you had to quickly move yourself away from it to avoid being smacked. Baekhyun came through the doorway with about as much pent up aggression as you had ever seen on him and the second his eyes met yours you caught the tiny wink and the soft smile that spread over his face for a split second. He gave you a small head nod and you inhaled a breath and actually fought the eye roll at the theatrics you had just witnessed from him. Was this really his negotiation tactic? Act like such a brat that his father simply gave in from sheer exhaustion from having to put up with his spoiled behavior?

You made a mental note to have a word with him about maybe trying out some other techniques that may be just as effective and less traumatizing for everyone involved.

There was no time now though, it was your turn with the old man. You pushed through the doorway and found Baekhyun’s dad standing on this side of his desk. You imagined how worked up the man had been with his son pushing all of his buttons as he had apparently been so good at doing.

“Ahh yes, close the door please, if you don't mind.” The shift was attempted well, but not complete as you could still see some of the previous agitation rolling off of his shoulders.

You did as you were told and circled back toward the doorway that you had left slightly parted for Baekhyun’s benefit and through the crack in the doorway you caught his eyes and seemed to beg you to keep it open just a little bit. He even lifted his fingers up, holding his index and thumb together motioning a tiny space between the two and frowned his lips dramatically when you shrugged and pulled the door closed completely, blocking out the view and the sight of the man entirely.

You could tell from how his disgruntled ‘hrmph’ sound was cut off mid-way that this heavy wooden door was completely soundproof.

“Miss Manager,” the president began when you returned to him. He had leaned against the desk, taking on a much more casual stance than when you first entered this office and he lifted both of his hands to his chin in a thoughtful and pensive pose as he cleared his throat and said your name without your title attached to it. You found it curious, but the next words he said had your curiosity absolutely burning and your mind whirling.

“I’m afraid this is not a business meeting. I am so sorry if this is unwelcome and I realize it is inappropriate of me to even mention it, but alas I am an old man without nearly as much shame as I should have. Life is long and yet life is so short.”

“And yet, I do admit that I am still ashamed to say I have something very personal to ask of you — or more so, to beg you to consider. Merely the consideration is all I ask.”

“Go on,” you said carefully and with absolute caution in your voice. His words had so much pretext you could hardly stand the build up. Whatever it was he was about to ask you must be the most unusual and unheard of request you’d ever received from anyone and as delicately as he danced around his words, protecting his pride with as many asides as a self aware one act play, you imagined he had never had to ask anyone this sort of thing in the entirety of his life up until this point.

Until he was standing here before you with chagrin in his eyes, a shameful smile on his face and his beseeching request sitting on the tip of his tongue.

You had been well prepared. As prepared by him as you were going to get. And still you felt a jolt.

“What do you think of my son?”

You watched his face after he asked this question. Unsure enough for your lips to remain steadily closed and your eyes to flutter about his face, landing into those familiar brown eyes that now seemed to look at you with a different sort of fondness you had not yet noticed from him before.

Was this a trick?

Had you walked into a trap?

“Umm..Assistant Byun has proven himself to be an invaluable asset to my team. He is sharp, insightful, and incredibly capable. Much too valuable to be stuck as my assistant for any longer, which is why I’ve processed his transfer out so much sooner than anticipated. Perhaps you’ve noticed, he will be moving on next week.”

President Byun watched silently with that same smile on his face as you raved about his only child and when you were out of compliments to give, you closed up your mouth and looked into his expectant face with your eyes growing wider the longer he looked at you in silence.

“Mhmm, I see,” He said after a while and his eyebrows lifted as he tilted his head.

“And what do you think of my son…as a man.”

His eyes did not leave your face and you inhaled a breath to hear his follow up question and the implications it concealed. It definitely felt as if you had walked into some sort of a trap here with his knowing smile and his trustworthy and open stance. He was standing close to you and had angled his torso in your direction. He had given you his full and undivided attention and possibly even cleared out a long block of time in his busy schedule just for you and you instantly closed up your lips; taking a tiny step backward and crossing your arms over your chest at just how dangerous this little talk of his felt. This unofficial, off the record talk, in which he had yet to actually ask you the question — the favor or whatever it was that he claimed to be so ashamed to have to ask you to consider.

The shift in your body language loosened his tongue and out from his chest came the smallest chuckle of amusement.

“I have to admit. I’m a bit disappointed. As a loving father to that kid — that brat. Over the past few months of him working closely with you, I admit I noticed some incredible changes in him and silly me, it actually did get my hopes up a bit. I thought — I hoped there might be something there. Now I fear I’ve been wrong. You’re sending him away and he’s marrying some stranger.”

“And so now here I am — just a pathetic old man coming to a strong and capable and wonderful woman such as yourself, who I’m sure has her share of men to choose from and asking her just to consider him.”

“What exactly are you asking of me?” The longer he went on, the less this felt like a trap. It felt like the carefully trodden steps of a father who loved his son and wanted what was best for him, even at the expense of his own pride.

“Nothing really. You can just turn around and leave and this conversation will have never officially happened, in fact if you are so offended that you wish to file suit for this; I would have it coming and settle immediately. I understand that this is inappropriate of me to ask.”

“Mr. Byun,” you said softly, removing the formal title and addressing him in a way that took a little of the pressure off, “I’m not…offended so much as I am just a bit cautious; yet, I do feel the need to answer you honestly, as difficult as it may be to say. Just to answer your question from earlier, as a man, Baekhyun is just lovely. To me, he is. He is funny and caring and handsome and he was raised right. There is so much to like about him. That much is clear. Any woman, myself included, would be absolutely lucky to have him. Honestly, and this is quite embarrassing to admit to you; but, I’d be lying if I said I’ve never seen him in that way.”

Your words had an effect on the man. You saw the widening of his smile, a genuine grin that reached his eyes and he even went so far as to lightly clap his hands together just once out of happiness. You couldn’t help your own smile even if you did have to look away from him to keep yourself from giving away too much.

“That’s good enough for me. Let me just put it out there. If something should transpire and you happen to steal him away from her…let’s just say I wouldn't be mad about it. We all have our favorites and I don't even know who she is. But I know you and I couldn't sleep at night without at least having said it. I hope you’ll forgive this silly old man for the intrusion.”

“Of course, Mr. Byun.” The smile on your face was as genuine as the endearing words from this man that you’d absorbed straight into your heart.

You said your farewells and as you made it closer to the door, Baekhyun’s father called back to you with his hands to get your attention, making a motion like he was zipping his lips closed and locking them tight with an imaginary key as he gestured toward where his son waited on the other side of that door. The message was clear. Baekhyun shouldn’t know about his father’s plan to get you to steal his affections away from whatever mystery woman he had promised to spend his life with.

You smiled and nodded your head in response, placing a hand over the center of your chest in a promise to the man that his secret was safe with you, you would do your best with your new task, and he could trust you with the minor details of it all.

This was really the best case scenario in every way possible. It wasn't that you didn't want to tell him the truth about you and Baekhun’s relationship right now. After having talked with him, you knew you could trust the man to support you both. But you could tell just how much he was enjoying crafting this scheme of his and you would much rather have him believe he was a relationship mastermind later, than know right now about how inappropriate and unprofessional the mentor/mentee relationship with his son had already been up until this point.

When you pushed the big heavy door open you could hear Baekhyun’s voice as he appeared to be deep in a conversation about pyramids with the president’s secretary.

“…actually in Mexico, in Cholula there’s a pyramid twice the size of the biggest one in Giza, but the problem is it’s buried so it just looks like a big hill. The Spaniards built a church on top of it. But if you’re looking for the oldest pyramids, then definitely Egypt is the place to —,” Baekhyun said; his voice trailing off at the end when he noticed you emerging from the office.

“Hey man, thanks for this.” The secretary said to Baekhyun as he motioned to something on his phone. Gone was the disinterested and blank stare; the man was downright jolly as he looked down at whatever it was Baekhyun had provided.

Clearly your boyfriend was the kind of pyramid expert that you simply were not and you vowed to brush up on several wonders of the world the moment you had a few hours to spare.

The second you were both out of earshot Baekhyun turned to you with bright eyes and a hopeful smile on his face.

“What happened in there? What did you two talk about?��

You bit down on your lips and shrugged your shoulders lightly, avoiding his eyes in favor of finding the ever elusive elevator button to press.

“Umm..” you let your response trail off under the guise of needing every bit of your focus for this task in front of you.

You were extra careful to press it slowly and you did not let up until you were satisfied that the button had been pressed and was lit up in just the right kind of way. You listened carefully, craning your neck a little until the far away sounds of the ascending elevator box could be faintly heard as it made its way up to you.

Beside you, Baekhyun was vibrating with anticipation.

He was a remarkably patient man. You could see his movements out of the corner of your eye as you looked ahead and waited for the elevator.

“Noona,” he barked straight from the center of his chest, the nickname said in the gruffest most annoyed sounding tone you’d ever heard him use with you.

The sound of it pulled your eyes away from that illuminated up arrow on the wall and you looked into his once expecting, and now outright demanding face with his raised eyebrows and parted lips, his arms crossed over his chest and his huffing and puffing breaths through his open mouth. Oh, he was worked up.

“What did he say?”

You pursed your lips and you shook your head back and forth in shallow passes.

“Well…Not…much, really. And nothing bad.” Your staggered words had him reeling and when the elevator doors opened, you stepped inside quickly; standing against the back wall. The very picture of innocence.

“Oh my god. He’s up to something. He’s scheming. I just know it. I don’t trust it. And now you — you won’t even tell me what you two talked about —”

He was going now. Really, really giving into the whiny, put-out mood he’d been in since the confrontational chat with his dad about his love life. You knew you had to give him something just to ease his worries a little bit — if not, to save your eardrums. This was not the place to reveal everything that had been discussed in that top floor office.

“It was just kind of an upper management check-in, Baekhyun. Nothing out of the norm after a project wraps or after a high profile employee, such as yourself,” you motioned with a hand over the length of him, “moves onto another department. I gave you glowing reviews, of course. And I meant every word.”

He had been covering his whole face with his hands when you started speaking. Once you were done declaring the whole father-secret girlfriend talk ‘no big deal’ with a flippant hand wave, you renewed your focus ahead of yourself with a newly formed interest in watching the descending numbers on the elevator’s digital display, Baekhyun’s hands had fully fallen to his side and he was watching your profile with what some might consider a suspicious eye squint.

He did not respond to you in any way. He merely watched your face and you were extra careful to keep your focus on the numbers that any moment now, would halt on your floor and give you an excuse to exit this little box of deceit.

You weren’t cut out for this. Not with him. You couldn't stand not being able to tell him every single thing that happened, and frankly the excitement that was bubbling up inside of your chest threatened to spill out all over his crisp white dress shirt.

Not only did you have his father’s encouragement and blessing, but inside of you, you felt the kind of euphoria one might feel after receiving their very own Presidential Pardon. Which in a way, you kind of did. Ever since you started working closely with Baekhyun, you’d shared nearly everything with him. It didn't even take much for you to spill. He could usually sniff you out based on your body language alone or you would spill the truth of any situation with him simply because he was your ally and if you didn’t share it with him; what even was the point of having a trusty assistant.

After the relationship started it was a no-brainer. You told him everything because you wanted to. You loved him and you wanted him to know the things you knew. You were pretty sure it was mutual because oftentimes you’d catch yourself listening to some long rambling story of his. Him detailing something mundane, while you being completely transfixed just feeling pleasure from the sound of his voice and not even minding that, if you were in your right mind, you would have zero interest in the temperature of the soup served in the work cafeteria or the ratio of noodles to shrimp (it was one. One single, lonely shrimp in the entire bowl of noodles) in today’s stir fry.

You could not lie to Baekhyun. You could only run away.

And run away you tried, the elevator dinged and the doors began to open and you were out of there before those doors had even parted enough for a single, normal person to exit. You squeezed through and your feet were carrying you with a remarkable quickness.

Halfway through your journey away from him, you realized that rushing made you look so much guiltier and by the time you reached your office and pushed your door open, frantic eyes behind you told you that he wasn’t even chasing. In fact, he was taking his time walking in between the cubicles without even the slightest bit of urgency.

Perhaps he just … bought it?

Maybe he actually believed that all you and his father talked about up there was his recent performance as an Assistant.

Of course you would tell him the truth. The moment you both had any significant amount of time together you would spill it. The second you had his pretty face in your sights and his hands inside of your hands; the strands of his hair raked through your fingers and the smell of his warm skin floating over your parted lips as you breathed him in.

You knew it had to wait until you had him alone. You could not trust yourself after you told him this news. You could not be held responsible for what you might do.

The moment you entered your office, you were greeted by the smiling face of Assistant Cha, who up until this very moment you had simply forgotten existed. The surprise of finding her sitting inside your closed up office made you jump and you gasped out in shock at first before you tried to recover as quickly as possible; replacing the look of surprise with a friendly smile and following the startled, “Ahh” with hastily covered up, “Ahh -Ohh—hello…there Assistant Cha.”

It took a good ten seconds to recover and a few deep breaths later you had found some words for the girl.

“Have you been waiting long? Assistant Byun should be around any moment—”

“Sunny, did you finish? Already?” Baekhyun’s voice broke through your words, paired with the sound of your office door being thrust open and you whirled around to see his head poking through the opening and his abrupt words directed at Assistant Cha.

You watched his face, expecting to catch some hidden look from him, perhaps a secret eyebrow raise or at least a bit of that smile but you received none.

His focus was only on Sunny, who was standing with her arms filled with stacks and stacks of papers and a whirlwind of an overwhelmed expression in her eyes.

She received a wide and beautiful smile from him. A sweet reward for all of her efforts.

“Of course you did!” He sang out through the breathtaking smile and he was pushing a rolling chair across the open office, through the open door for her to set the stacks of papers on. He was telling her things like how she could go home early today and how he would likely see her around the building next week and they should maybe do lunch after they get settled into their new roles.

It all felt very purposeful. He was getting rid of the girl. He was getting rid of the only link to reality you’d both desperately clung to all day long, the only thing that so far had worked to keep you both away from each other for long enough for any actual work to get done.

As much as you’d wished for her to leave the two of you alone all day, there was a dryness building in your mouth to watch her leave.

You inhaled a breath through parted lips, swallowed away at nothing, and bit down on your bottom lip, chewing lightly on the flesh held between your teeth and you watched him take two careful steps through the threshold of your office and turn around to close the door behind him quietly.

You didn’t know what to do with yourself. Whether it was the after affects of keeping the secret for the past probably six hours, or so it felt like — a quick glance at the clock on your wall confirmed that only ten minutes had passed since you’d run away from your boyfriend with your guilt eating you alive from the inside and, Jesus Christ, the realization that you hadn’t even lasted long enough to enjoy a coffee break before you began to self combust was a shocking reality check — whether it was the filthy lie, or the fact that this beautiful man had just closed you both up alone inside of this office after you’d been denied the touch of his hands and the taste of his lips for an entire eight-hour work shift; you did know know which breathtaking effort you were finding more difficult to withstand.

He moved slowly and you swear to god you could hear an overwhelmingly frantic thumping well inside of your ears. The sounds from outside of this private space were cut off with the click of that door and the silence was so very loud.

Baekhyun took his time. He moved with careful and deliberate steps, even pausing his journey through your office to look down and run his fingertips down the length of his necktie, straightening it out and then running hands down the length of his suit jacket, from his broad chest to his cinched waist, smoothing out wrinkles that did not exist.

Your hands gripped each other tightly in the center of your hips and you were thankful that you were already leaning against your desk because you weren’t certain you wouldn’t drop to your knees the moment he stood in front of you.

To beg forgiveness or…

Baekhyun hadn’t spoken to you since he closed the door and at least he seemed to have reached a destination. He sat down on the end of your sofa, closest to where you stood — or leaned — whatever; and at last he turned his face, his big brown eyes looked up into your face and he stared into your eyes without speaking a single word. You closed up your mouth and pulled your arms tight over your chest and lifted your eyebrows in his direction.

In your mind, you liked to think you looked at least a little strong. Maybe a touch formidable. A challenge he would struggle to overcome. Perhaps.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he spoke very suddenly and very softly. Nearly under his breath, “I am annoyed with you right now.”

He did not blink as he said it. His face did not falter.

You held your breath and felt your eyebrows tremble once over your eyes. Swallowing didn’t seem to help much with dryness in your mouth and you nearly couldn’t stand to maintain eye contact with him. You glanced down at the floor once before working up the nerve to look into his face once more.

“Not annoyed enough to matter,” he conceded the moment he had your eyes again. “I’m more amused by this right now. By how uncomfortable you look, Noona. You really cannot lie to me, not even a little bit, can you?”

His lips pulled into a smile the longer he looked at you and you felt every bit of your resolve crumble with the deep sigh that you pulled into your chest and exhaled through your parted lips.

“Fine,” you said, “I’ll tell you.” You said it with your eyes closed and the defeat evident in your tone.

When you opened your eyes he was leaning forward with his forearms resting over his parted knees and he was looking at you with his eyes wide open and his tongue inside of his mouth messing with his teeth. You could see the movement in his jaw. After a few moments he bit down on his lips.

This hopeful and expectant stance had you feeling a certain way. Perhaps just a little bit indignant that he would read you so very easily about every little thing. Were you not allowed to have any secrets from him? Were you not a human being too?

Sure this was directly related to him and directly involved his father and basically his entire life, but the man was just so difficult to keep in the dark about anything.

“For the record, I was going to tell you,” you lifted a hand. It felt like a defensive stance. “I was always going to tell you. I was getting ready,” you emphasized the word, “to tell you.” You closed your lips up and he leaned back on the sofa, swallowing with a visible bob of his throat and blinking his brown eyes slowly at you, “when we were alone.”

“So the talk with your dad went well,” you lifted your eyebrows and looked around the room without any real focus before you danced right back into his eyes. You filled your lungs, feeling like you couldn’t quite get enough air for this.

“We did speak about you — that was the truth. I did report about how you’ll be transferred out next week and how great and awesome and handsome you are — wait. I didn’t say that at first.”

His eyes widened as you stumbled a bit over your words and he ticked his head slightly.

“Noona,” he mumbled, a slight alarm on his voice. You raised a hand to shush the man while you tried your best to put your words together.

“Okay so first, I did give him the report.” You weren't quite sure why you kept returning to this point, but it felt so much safer than the next part of the talk you were desperately trying to just get out of your mouth, while also hoping you didn't actually need to say outloud.

“Second, he asked me to—” you waved a hand around, palm up, shrugging your lips with a little head shake, “asked me to, maybe consider?”

You pulled your lips wide, baring your teeth, “a-asked me to seduce you? And steal you away from this mystery woman you’re going to marry?” The upward inflection definitely made your words sound like several questions and you winced once your own words hit your ears.

You had to cover your own face with your hands.

His mouth had fallen open and his shoulders had sagged as he watched your face with wide brown eyes.

You uncovered your face and he was still staring at you without speaking a word. You were compelled by some unknown force, probably directly related to the insane butterflies that you felt fluttering around inside of your stomach with having to actually say this out loud.

He wasn’t speaking, but boy, were you.

“I don't know? I don't know.” Your eyes were wide enough to pop out of your head. You dropped the hands from your face and felt twitchy all over. A hand returned to covered over your mouth and you felt those same butterflies threatening to burst free.

You felt a small giggle come out of your chest, “he says I’m his favorite. I think I might have told him I found you lovely,” you said through a hopeless laugh, “and attractive too, I definitely said that. I’m pretty sure he believes I am going to take my assignment very seriously, and take that other woman down. I might have only imagined that part. Is it hot in here?” Your skin felt humid. You uncrossed your arms and pulled the suit coat off over your shoulders and tossed it into a heap onto a chair.

Baekhyun had both of his hands covering his open mouth and you heard the first sounds from him in the form of a quiet gasp before he was speaking.

“Noona —” his mouth opened wide but no additional words came out. When he stood up from the sofa it was to wave his hands around in front of himself with a sort of speechless wonder in his eyes, “fucking, WHAT?” He finally exploded with his noisy question, followed by the breathy, humorless laugh of genuine disbelief that broke free from his chest.

“Oh my god.” His body was in motion even though his feet stayed firmly planted in place. This revelation rolled over him from head to toe and he moved from the waves of it. His skin turned flushed and you could see the half amusement half disbelief on his expression. At last his hands lifted to cover his face with another, drawn out, “oh my god, this is so—” His voice grew muffled and from under his hands, out came, “so, so embarrassing. What the hell, Dad?”

His hands lifted. His eyes were wide and that pinkness was still coloring his cheeks, making the flush of his skin look quite pretty and you responded with a wide smile that you had no control over.

He was looking into your face and the movement in him seemed to settle the longer he looked at you. It took a few moments of it for your wide smile to even out and you looked into his face with tiny remnants of that delight returning with tiny twitches at the corners of your lips.

On his face, you witnessed the opposite happening, his embarrassment faded and with the quiet observations of you that he so openly partook in, you saw the first small hints of a smile beginning on his lips. He breathed through an open mouth and his lips pulled incrementally wider with each puff of air from his lungs until a genuine and breathtaking smile colored his beautiful face.

It was your favorite smile on your favorite face belonging to your favorite human being.

“So what is your plan?” he asked. “How will you manage to seduce me?” His eyes dropped slowly over your face to touch on your lips the moment you bit down and pondered this new task of yours.

“Do you think you can really do it?”

“Hmmm…,” you lifted a finger to your chin. His brown eyes followed the movement and his smile widened before he reined it in with an inhale through his nose.

“Well, probably,” you shrugged. “Doesn’t seem that hard to steal you away.”

A laugh broke free from him and he took a step closer to where you stood.

“You sound very confident. What makes you so sure?”

You straightened your spine, lifted your chin, and you took a step, allowing yourself to lean just a bit closer to him and the movement pulled his brown eyes over your face once more. They lingered again down on your lips.

“See,” you said in a whisper. He swallowed and pulled his eyes slowly up into your smug ones, “you’re already thinking about it.”

“What am I thinking about? You and I are just talking,” he said, “besides, I’m going to marry her.”

This had you smiling. You had to turn your face away from him and you lifted your left hand, placing your fingertips over your bottom lip briefly.

“I hear she doesn’t even wear a ring,” you said as you lifted an eyebrow, “can’t be that serious without a ring.”

You were joking of course. It had only been one day. Just last night you’d spontaneously agreed to marry him, and he had, of course, spontaneously asked you as you were both caught up the moment. Your joke had his attention though and you heard a sharp inhale pulled in through his nose.

You caught motion in his mouth as his tongue ran over his teeth and after witnessing the evidence of a few of his internal struggles he broke all eye contact with you and looked somewhere behind you where your office desk was.

“That’s just because she hasn’t looked inside the right drawer of her desk yet.” His eyes pulled back into yours and your mouth flew open in genuine surprise. You gave a small head shake and looked behind toward your desk.

He couldn’t be serious.

The little bubble that was this little charade popped in an instant and you looked into his face. He had the smallest smile there.

“Are you kidding me right now?” You were back to yourself; taking a step to walk away from him so you could round the side of your desk. You pulled at the desk drawer handle, finding the upper smaller drawer completely empty save for a few flat documents in yellow folders. You gave a little whine from the back of your throat and closed it up.

Baekhyun’s face was blank now; completely devoid of any clues as to what sort of a trick he was playing on you.

Your curiosity had grown to be too much and you reached lower, having to bend at the waist to pull the bigger bottom drawer open and inside sat a small bag; a strikingly familiar bag; the same bag he had been carrying with him when he came back from lunch and had received a delivery from one of your favorite bakeries down the corner.

You grabbed the bag and peered down inside, seeing one very delicious looking chocolate cake slice in a completely clear plastic clamshell container without anything else at all concealed inside the bag.

A motion to your side nagged at your focus and a sensation that gripped ahold of your empty left hand pulled your face out of this bakery bag with nothing more than a slice of cake and you searched for him for any clues at all about what he was playing at.

What you felt was something small pressed with his fingertips into the palm of your left hand; something cold and metal and heart fluttering.

You felt him lean into you then; the warmth of him touched your cheek and his lips pressed lightly against your earlobe as you heard the rasp of his lungs as he inhaled to speak to you.

“Excuse me, I think you dropped this,” he said into your ear and inside your hand he left a ring behind. You felt the trembling in your limbs as you lifted your hand to see it and you had to place the bakery bag down on your desk because it was rattling in your grip.

With your left hand lifted and cradled by your right hand you held the precious little thing up to your face; somehow not quite convinced you weren’t actually dreaming right now. Sure you knew he had asked you and yes you had agreed but there was a different more certain emotion that was bubbling up inside of your chest right now as you looked down at the sparkling diamond and you couldn’t help the tiny question that broke from your lips, “Baekhyun are you serious? This is mine?”

He was moving then. He reached for the ring with his fingertips and his other hand gently gripped your left hand and turned it over and you watched as he slid the diamond into your ring finger. It was beautiful. The center stone was enormous and the trailing diamonds that lined the band threw sparks as you moved your hand. You couldn’t pull your eyes away from the undeniable sparkle and opulence that you saw in this thing. You didn’t even want to imagine how much he had paid for this. It was so much more that you had even anticipated

“When did you even get this? We’ve been together all day and even all night; how did you do this?”

“Don’t ask me how long I’ve had it, or how long I’ve been carrying it with me,” he said as he watched your face. Inside his eyes you were caught in a myriad of emotions that were clear and evident. You were captured by the sincerity with which he spoke these words to you.

It took what was left of your breath away, “Just know that for as long as I’ve known of your existence in this world, you have been the one. I was always going to marry you. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life, as I am about you.”

[to be continued]

Links: Part 1, … Part 16, Part 17, Part 18

[llamamamarisen92]

The writing prompt:

Here we go with a little God Gale fanfic:

Shinurah was in the kitchen washing dishes. Despite being the consort of a god she still treasured mundane tasks that reminded her of a life that was much simpler. Gale was often gone to attend to his realm. His time in the Heavens stretching longer each time he disappeared.

"He still loves you." She reminded herself as she took time to dry off a plate before stacking it with the others. He promised to make her a goddess and she kept faith he wouldn't break that promise. But he insisted it would take time. Her life consisted of serving as high priestess in his tower in Waterdeep. It had been converted to a temple and the center of his worship. Three years had passed since they conquered the Netherbrain, Gale claiming the Crown of Karsus for himself. She placed the last fork back into its place and dried her hands off. It was almost noon.

She made her way down the hall way to the ceremonial room. In the center was a large statue of Gale as he is now. When she looked at it sadness filled her. It didn't resemble the kind, gentle wizard who she fell in love with. Warm brown eyes replaced by glowing stones of silver. His salt infused dark hair that she loved to run her fingers through were now strands of untouchable light that never fell out of place. He strove for an image of power and perfection.

A supplicant walked through the temple door and she quickly wiped her tears away. She smiled as she welcomed the stranger in.

"How may I be of service to you?" She held out her hand for the elf to kiss in supplication. He remained bowed as he spoke his desires. She hardly paid attention as he proclaimed his desire to curate the worlds grandest collection of gems. She took his offering of coin and rare scrolls and placed them on the altar below Gale's statue. Her chants came out half hearted as the elf grinned. When she was done her chanting and lit a candle to confirm that his prayers were heard he thanked her profusely and left.

Vapid desires. All of his followers only seemed to desire such surface level things. Rich household or the ability to rule some island she couldn't bother to remember the name of. After her days work in the temple she walked up the tower steps to her bedroom. She would be the only one to occupy the bed tonight. As it was for many nights. Her only desire. Her ambition. It was just to spend the rest of her life falling asleep in Gale's arms. She stood at the window and looked up at the constellation that hovered above in the night sky. A collection of stars that stamped his symbol into the heavens.

The sound of electricity filled the air. It turned out she wouldn't be spending the night alone. Turning around she saw him standing there, his arms outstretched to her. He smiled down at her. Not the smile of a man in love desperately seeking her company. It was the same look one would give a favored pet. She tried to hold herself together as she walked towards him. The last time she brought up her concerns he had vanished for six months. But when he kissed her all of her composure dissolved.

She fell to her knees and tried her best to stifle her cries with her hand. He placed his hand upon her head, stroking her hair in an effort to comfort her. But he never got on his knees. Dekarios the Divine never got on his knees for anyone. Not even for her.

"What's wrong my love?" His voice sounded like thunder across the sky. He no longer bothered to hide the annoyance in his tone. She should be happy and grateful for the life they had. She should be thanking him every day that she was able to share the bed of a god. The chosen whom he would elevate to goddess at the right time.

"I just.. I know we have been over this.." She whispered in low tones, not trusting her voice. "I just miss how things used to be."

He scoffed at her. "You mean the days where we were dirty and desperate? The days we were barely able to survive? The days that I was weak and pathetic. Basking in the shadow of a goddess who crushed me under her thumb." He began to walk away from her. Not willing to hear her.

"No! I miss sitting around the campfire and listening to your stories. Curled up under the stars, brushing my fingers along your chest as you whispered sweetly in my ear. I miss stupid little mundane things like cleaning up after everyone at the end of the day or reading a book in our tent." She got up and reached out to him. But when she touched his shoulder she quickly removed her hand as an electric shock hit her finger tips. He didn't stay to listen, dissapearing again.

She collapsed on the bed, trying to form images in her mind of the life she would never have with him as she cried herself to sleep.

[whtpluto]

Okay, this is insane, but a combination of A/B/O posts and posts about those new genshin characters have me thinking deranged stuff and it’s my duty to share it.

Warnings - Hybrid au, slight predator/prey, slight body horror (bite marks), degrading, animal behaviors, slight edging, frotting, size difference

thinkin about those hybrid AU’s with Gojo and Geto, you know the ones, snow leopard Gojo and black panther Geto. thinking about those two, apex predators… and fox/inari/kitsune reader. something very interesting about a romantic dynamic between predators and a predator of a different size. with ears and tails to match.

They’re big, huge even. with sharp teeth and agile bodies and techniques to rival gods. but your nothing to laugh at either. easily a 1st grade sorcerer, a predator of small size, with trickery in your veins and a playfulness that demands satisfaction. A natural survival instinct and a brilliant head for strategy and mind games. your teeth may be tiny but their sharp. and you may be small, but your still a predator.

i think Satoru and Suguru would be so charmed by you, taken aback by your defiance. Your refusal to just back down to them. Your funny too. Easily understanding their little pranks and habits of mischief. you get along with both of them alone too. Kitsune are sometimes considered messengers between gods, if makes sense you look so good between then.

if your in a relationship with these two animals (lame, i know) just imagine the things you guys get up to.

i think they tower over. no matter your height. their builds accentuated by their hybrid nature, and they love to point it out. how they can both lift you like you weigh nothing. how Satoru’s long fingers can meet when his hands wrap around your waist. Suguru loves how tiny you look in his shirts. the excess fabric bunching above your tail, showing off your perk ass. he’ll tug up the fabric if it falls down. sometimes when he looks at you, you swear his eyes turn to slits and he just wants to devour you.

Maybe they tease you. oh no they definitely tease you. with sharp toothed grins and wicked eyes, blue and brown respectively. they love prying open your tiny mouth and looking at your sharp sharp teeth. well, sharp to everyone but them. You’ve got sharp teeth but small bite strength. maybe one day you get sick of it, sick of the way Satoru’s fingers rub over your incisors and make you shudder, and you bite him. i think he’d laugh. Suguru would laugh at him, and probably praise you. it didn’t really hurt, not to a big bad predator like him, so it’s funny too.

Thinking about how foxes sleep way less than leopards and panthers. Cuddle piles that, on days you don’t have missions, turn into a comfortable jail cell. With your smaller body sandwiched between the two, Suguru’s arm wrapped around your hips, pulling your lower half towards him, and Satoru grabbing at you with both hands at your shoulder and chest. mindlessly fondling one of your breasts in his sleep. After a few hours, you may have gotten your share of rest, but these two big cats are still sleepy. and they can’t sleep without their little fox, now can they? you try to get up, sneakily get out of bed, but two pairs of large hands are quickly and efficiently pulling you back into their pillowy paradise. Manhandling you into their arms again. i think Suguru would wrap his slim tail around your calf. Satoru would bury his head into the back of your hair, his breathe coincidentally hitting your ears, making them twitch in a way that makes Satoru giggle.

Speaking of ears… god… thinking about how Satoru and Suguru would know that your ears are an erogenous zone and just… continue teasing you anyways. wether in public or the privacy of your bedroom, Satoru lives to make your cute little fox ears twitch. blowing against the sensitive insides or scratching at the backs. he loves the way your eyes widen and your cheeks flush when he plays with them. Think he totally exploits them in bed. Suguru likes to play your little white knight, telling Satoru to stop, but he’s just as bad. Whispering absolute filth into your ears as you fuck, living for the way you flutter around his dick. They know they can get you close just by playing with your ears, it becomes a favorite form of edging for them. They love seeing how wet your panties get just from some words and scratches to those pretty ears. I think they exploit your tail too. but that’s a different story.

I think they left a mating bite on you. And you on them. Your neck is graced by two large overlapping bite scars, which look violent on your delicate neck. i think Satoru was worried he’d kill you when he did it, a little spooked and turned on at the same time with how his jaws could fit around your neck. Suguru was more calm about it, but he definitely enjoyed licking your wound when he was done. Don’t worry, you got your comeuppance. cause on the back of their necks, they’ve got two bites too. One, large and wide (from each other), and then your smaller one, perfectly inside the big one. a permanent reminder.

[rontra]

Tell us about they/them lesbian Cinder with text to back it 👀

askfbhs okay but this post is like 2000 words long

statement one: doing a reading of a text, and then using that analysis to draw a particular conclusion for one's own enjoyment, is largely disconnected from the authorial intents that created said text. it's common for a piece of text to be able to be read in many ways, and for those readings to be able to used as supports for a multitude of conclusions. by no means should this post be framed as a comment on what "the canon text Means", because that is fundamentally not what we're trading in. we're not "proving" anything

statement two: cinder's character is complex, deftly written, and can be mined for a lot of meaning, much like all of rwby. there's a lot going on at all times in this show, and many parts remain to some degree an open question since the story hasn't finished yet. you can draw dozens of readings from almost everything in this work. by the same hand, some parts of this post were necessarily abbreviated for time lmao

statement three: cinder's relationship with gender SPECIFICALLY is genuinely textually interesting no matter where you go with it in the end, so if nothing else, at least enjoy Thinking About It... 😌

the core idea here is actually really simple hahaha. we'll take a scenic route though, to affix that idea into a more complete picture. a Pattern if you will

cinder is very strongly characterized by two linked ideas: the fear of being powerless, and the annihilation of the previous self that was powerless. the outward face of cinder's identity is very unstable because of the latter; a lot of conscious effort is expended trying to erase the cinder fall that once existed--the one that was at other people's complete mercy (and received nothing of the sort). cinder is always in "survival mode", trying to achieve some sense of personal safety and to avoid being perceived as weak and vulnerable. that terror and hunger nipping at cinder's heels is what leads into salem's claws--into a new grip of abuse, of course--because salem promises to solve it and give all the power cinder could want and more. yeah?

the most easy-to-track manifestation of those twin drives is, of course, where they intersect with a major piece of rwby's own thematic language: weapons! in rwby's language, weapons are closely tied to their wielder's identity--"They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us!", famously! (v1e2)

(...which also gives us very funny little unrelated nuggets like the eternally faceless and repressed "i was the machine, just following orders" winter having weapons whose names--if they even have any--we don't know. but that's a knowing smile for another day)

cinder was trained by rhodes to wield two swords, an idea that's later combined with archery into what we consider "cinder's weapon", Midnight. in the flashbacks of v3e7, Midnight is in its earliest and most ordinary form. this Midnight is made of normal weapon stuff like metal lmao and cinder uses it very effectively in taking down amber. HOWEVER, as soon as cinder lays hands on half of amber's power, this version of Midnight is thrown aside and destroyed: the pyre that destroys Midnight is used to demonstrate cinder's power and intimidate the Fang. after this—for the duration of the beacon arc—cinder instead uses glass to form a replica of Midnight. this "imitation Midnight" lasts until cinder is maimed by ruby atop beacon tower (and presumably medevac'ed by one of salem's other guys LMAO)

after 1) suffering this defeat, and 2) obtaining the rest of amber's power, cinder flat out stops using Midnight. beyond this point, cinder solely relies on magic to create an ever-changing roster of weapons as needed. with the completion of Autumn's power, so too is the killing of Midnight completed: as far as cinder is concerned, the "self" that was connected to Midnight no longer exists. the part of cinder's story and identity that was in Midnight has been buried and no one will ever know about it again. preferably everyone would just act like none of it ever existed and cinder has Always been powerful (and did NOT just get rent asunder by a teenager! please and thank you!)

the incremental deaths of Midnight really show the crutch that power is to make cinder feel safer and more confident, and the urge to destroy the past/the version of cinder who was not as powerful. once cinder has the maiden power, Midnight is unnecessary. it's also interesting to see that many of these magic-made weapons are visibly fractured, fragile, and expendable, which i'm sure in the Weapon Symbolism Show doesn't mean anything its fine 😭😂

anyway in this new era of relying completely on magic we start to observe another quirky aspect: rather than drawing on personal identity, cinder will frequently imitate other characters who were in some way "powerful" (or at least "impactful"). see: floating array and miló. cinder imitates people who left an impression of strength or skill; in endlessly chasing "power", cinder is nabbing pieces of what makes other people powerful and cobbling them together, to cover the "flaw" (heavy quotes) that is cinder's own identity.

without you, i am nothing.

still, what does cinder keep falling back on, like a habit you can't shake? the original! and when cinder defies salem's orders in v8, what do we finally see again, for just a brief moment? hey, i thought you were dead! for as much as cinder wants to pretend the past is dead and buried, it sure seems to be Haunting us: right there underneath the paint, as soon as cinder stops thinking about copying someone else, or is defiant of salem's control and has to rely on Just Cinder (god forbid!), there it is again.

"okay, that's fine," you might be saying, a few million words into this gigantic post, "but what does any of that have to do with cinder fall's gender". listen to me. this was all setting up very important context for the funniest thing about cinder fall.

like, anyone that's even half-awake while watching rwby will notice the huge differences between how cinder acts and looks in the beacon arc VS how cinder has acted and looked Since Then. beacon arc cinder is smooth and in control and mature and dangerous. and of course, she's feminine. i've seen people outright call this incarnation of cinder a femme fatale! and i guess i can see why; she has mystery, beauty, a little bit of seduction to sway people. she plays manipulative games. and of course, she's dangerous. cinder in the beacon arc is exceedingly threatening because of how good she is at being the underdog; when she has to use cunning instead of brute force and scheme her way uphill in both directions, she kills it! literally!

--hey that was a lot of she/her all of a sudden. hmm. let's talk about women (audience cheers) NO I MEAN. evil women (audience cheers louder)

cinder's life is strongly marked by two women in particular: the madame and salem. both of them exert an immense amount of power over cinder; when we talk about situations where cinder has been powerless, these two people are the ones that spring to mind. in cinder's world, which is very coldly divided into people who Have Power and people who Do Not Have Power, both madame and salem very much Have Power. they have maybe the Most Power It's Possible To Have, by cinder's math. this also makes them Very Important figures for our examination, because what they are will reflect back onto cinder's malleable self.

madame and salem are both feminine, both older, both powerful; examine these two and suddenly you start seeing the pieces being stolen. the mature shade of red the madame wears. salem's levelheaded control paired with her distance and mystique—(trying not to say "and her cleavage")... v8e6 even places explicit focus on the sound of the madame's high heels as a herald of incoming danger.

their bearing, their ways of navigating the world, the way they dress. their… oh my god… their gender presentation!!!

the thing about cinder fall is that the mimicry of power does not stop at weapons. this is a Pattern that extends BEYOND merely "doing the floating array trick". the entirety of beacon arc cinder, including gender presentation, is mimicry. because in cinder's mind at this point, the most powerful thing a person can be is a mysterious older femme.

to cinder, ideas traditionally associated with femininity, specifically the femininity of adult women, are explicit markers of power and threat; and these things can be picked up and worn and imitated. these things can be performed. but there's never a sense that cinder owns these things or is particularly attached to them (i mean, beyond cinder's conception of Power). furthermore, cinder doesn't fully understand how these two women operate, and (being far younger) lacks the experience to fully embody them.

(--the way cinder handles emerald in particular is very revealing of this disconnect, as the dynamic shown as early as v2 is a clear attempt to wrangle her the way salem does her own minions; but cinder fails to understand and execute the crucial part, which is tapping into what emerald actually wants. because cinder, living in their own "survival mode" priority list, can't understand or relate to what emerald wants from them. the attempts made to replicate salem's affectations only push emerald away and strain her loyalty.)

but goddamn if cinder doesn't think power is stored in the gender!

it's interesting, then, that after the beacon arc blows up and a huge L is handed to Femme Cinder, they gradually drift further and further away from this; the illusion has broken. in lockstep with their drift from salem—cinder's exile, then intentionally testing the ice to see how far salem will let them stray—the further they go, the more they assert themselves, the further they also stray away from those "markers of power" associated with salem and madame. in the era of the blink-and-youll-miss-it flash of cinder's own identity, of Midnight, we also witness the ever-increasing straying from the performance of femininity that the beacon arc cinder clung to. huh!

so, let's see, we have a very intentional and consistent streak of cinder attempting to annihilate their own identity and replace it with something else (something strong) (something no one can hurt); this theme is visible both in their armory and wardrobe. cinder is terrified of who they'll be without these masks, because that person has been victimized, betrayed, and abused by every person who had power over them. the solution cinder has in their mind is to Become So Powerful that no one can do that to them ever again, no matter what they have to do or sacrifice to get there. and a lot of that conflict is slathered in this layer of Gender Stuff! this is INTERESTING!!!! no matter what people take from this post i at least hope you can find this aspect interesting, especially if you hadn't really thought about cinder's mimicry before...

anyway the very Gendered tension in their character comes bearing down twice as hard when considering that madame verbally invokes ideas about "being ladylike" while she's abusing them, reinforcing this mental link between Being Ladylike = Having Power, Not Being Ladylike = Not Having Power (= being crushed under the (high) heel of those that Do). cinder's femininity is ungenuine at best and coerced at worst; in my opinion, that much has been gestured at pretty overtly

from here, you can draw whatever conclusions from it that you please; e.g. would cinder LIKE to claim femininity for themselves in a genuine way, or would they not? do they feel attached to it, or not? in the Midnight glimmers of cinder's own real human self—the one they try so desperately at every turn to kill and bury, by directly coöpting pieces of other people they think are powerful—what do you see there? that's a conclusion for you to draw, of course…

you've no doubt twigged by the pronoun heehoos happening in this post that i'm quite fond of they/them cinder lol. i like my non biney lesbian struggler (the lesbian part Specifically i don't have a whole post locked and loaded for, that's just because im a lesbian and i like it<3). i rotate the disconnect between cinder and their identity and their performance in my mind and go "huh! your gender is Lesbian. congrats sweet prince" well anyway i think salem shoulda been cool FOR ONCE and offered to give them top surgery when she was gluing them back together after beaconSJHBHBNSDHB

of course, there's a myriad of ways to take this and make it serve whatever gender and pronouns headcanons you like, so i'm not saying it definitely means exactly what i personally like. like i said at the start, i'm not interested in "proving" anything or whatever. i'm just observing that it's interesting, and then im applying it to beef up headcanons i personally like... so you do as you will, too 😌

but to me, no matter what final conclusion is drawn, gender is a performance and cinder fall is trapped on the stage! goodluck up there!

[ave09]

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I really love your Harvey Dent fanfics (gk). They are really good, and basically, I've read the all! I was wondering if you could write a little something. Maybe the reader is in a relationship with Harvey and is the only one that can snap him out of being Harv? If not, that's totally okay, just wanted to shoot my shot! Thank you!

for sure

gk!harvey sent x wife!reader

note: i have been such a busy bee, and this has been sitting here forever, and i’m so sorry for the delay!

this is a bit rushed-but i kinda like it-also, peep the newsie reference in the end for any fansies reading this, i’m back in my newsie phase lol but enjoy some harvey!

— —

chaos had fallen upon gotham. 

wayne tower had fallen. 

the gotham knights had saved the day.

turner hayes was dead.

harvey dent was unaccounted for. 

you were sick with worry. you’d gone everywhere, and yet there had been no sign of him. did he even survive? you could only hope.

it had been two days since the incident. you continued your search. you were in the city from dawn til dusk in search for your missing husband. 

and yet found nothing.

it was a thursday night. you returned home late, dropping your bags at the door after entering your apartment. 

god how you hated it here. without harvey, everything felt empty, like there was no meaning to it anymore. harvey, despite his own flaws, was the light to your darkness, and you were drowning without him.

you entered the kitchen, ready for a tall glass of wine, but froze at the sight of a shadow lurking in the corner.

“hi doll.”

“harvey?”

the figure chuckled lightly, “not your harvey, but a version of him. it’s nice to meet you in person, it’s been a long time.”

you could only see half of his face, the right side hidden from view. 

but immediately knew something was wrong. mainly by the way he was speaking. sure, this harvey’s voice was already gravelly. but there was something different in how specific words were being pronounced. 

“step into the light.” 

he clicked his tongue. “tsk, tsk, tsk. i don’t think that’s the best idea right now.”

something was most definitely wrong.

“step into the light.” you reiterated, your voice firm. “i thought we could have a little conversation first, sweetheart.” 

sweetheart. that was harvey’s name for you. he used many, but, that was the one. and hearing this version of him say it irked you so much to the point that you exploded.

“godammit, let me see my husband’s face!” 

he seemed surprised by the sudden outburst. you half-expected him to taunt you more. but instead, he hesitatingly took a step forward. 

then another.

a scream tore through your throat at the sight. 

the flesh covering the right side of his face was melted, it could be compared to the wax of a candle. the side of his lip was gone, revealing his pearly whites and burnt gums. the mangled skin continued down to his neck, disappearing beneath his ruined suit. 

and then there was his eyes. those beautiful cerulean eyes used to match. and now, one was a milky white, disguising the beauty underneath.

it was horrific. 

tears sprung to your eyes immediately as your hands flew to cover your mouth, choking back sobs. 

“i told you it wasn’t the best idea..”

you let out shakey breathes, taking a step towards him. you stood before him now. glancing up, as though asking permission, slowly, he nodded, his eye never leaving you.

carefully, you lifted a trembling hand, your fingertips grazing over the mangled skin. the man flinched slightly.

“i-“

“it’s fine-“ 

but it wasn’t fine. nothing was fine.

you let out a shaky breath, letting your hand fall. 

“let me talk to him.”

the imposter harvey smirked a monstrous smirk, which was hardly even a smirk at all.

“no can do dearest,” 

“why not?”

“because,” he took a step closer, “i’m in control now. ya see, harv was in some serious shit, and now here i am. i saved his life—your welcome—“

“i want to talk to him-“

“nope-“

“goddammit—you’re going to ruin his life-“

“ruin? sweetheart, i’ve been saving him for years! jane tried to kill him—and our daughter—she’s been handled already-“

the blood on his coat—jane’s blood.

your head was spinning. all you wanted was to talk to your husband. “let me talk to him.” you repeated.

“yeah—how ‘bout no? ya see, that husband of yours kept me locked up for years. i ain’t doin’ that again.” 

you let out a shaky sigh. there has to be some way to get to him, the real him. 

“2007. a beach.” 

“what?”

“you wore a tux. and a stupid pink tie that i ended up loving so much.”

“what are you doing?”

“it was small, but cute,” 

“stop that.” 

he knew what you were doing now. you were trying to coax your harvey back into the light. he couldn’t allow it. 

“we danced, we laughed, it was the best day of my life.” 

harvey took a step back, engulfing himself in the darkness again, “goddammit woman, shut up-!”

“i have never been happier! then when i am with you!”

“i said shut up-“

“i promised that day that i’d be by your side and that i’d-“

“never leave.”

his voice was soft. fragile. broken.

tears stung your eyes. “harvey?” you murmured, unsure now of who she was truly speaking too. 

“it’s me.”

“oh my god-“ you took a step forward, engulfing him in a hug. but he pushed away, “no-no-stop-“

“harvey-“

“look at me-at this monster i’ve become-this-this thing in my head-its killin’ me-“

“listen to me-“

“i can’t stay here. i can’t.”

“then we leave.” 

he was taken aback. “what?” 

“we leave,” you repeated, “we leave gotham-we run-i don’t know where-but we just go-“

“i can’t ask that of you. you have a whole life here.”

“you are my life, harvey. and anywhere you go, i’ll be there by your side.”

he was silent for a moment—before smiling—as much as he could.

“for sure?”

“for sure.”

[havendance]

@androxys this is all your fault. I had a Cass fic I was going to work on tonight but then you had to infect me with your brainworms grump grump grump (affectionate).

Anyway, I'd like to write more for this later, but for now:

---

Barbara doesn't like this. If there was any other way she could get out of this, she would. But Black Mask has got her tower surrounded and her agent down there at the mercy of his mob. It's Barbara's fault he's in that mess. She's not just going to sit here while the mob attacks. She will defend herself.

She steadies the rifle in her grip, aims carefully. Dad... oh, Dad, forgive me... He'll understand, she hopes. That this decision is already rotting in her stomach. That she didn't have a choice.

Black Mask is counting down.

This is it. Now or never. Her finger rests on the trigger. Barbara fires.

--

Protect the Tower. Don't be seen. Those were Batman's orders.  Helena knows she can't do both. She'd honestly like to see Batman try under these circumstances. Still, she waits as long as she can.

"Five, four, three..." Black Mask counts down.

She has a couple batarangs, a smoke bomb, and not much else. Maybe if she starts at the edges-- If she uses the smoke bomb first as a distraction-- Helena hesitates for just a second too long.

"One," Black Mask says.

Suddenly there's a crack. A spurt of red. Black Mask crumples to the ground. He's dead. For a moment, everything is still. Everyone is staring. Helena's first thought is that it must have been one of the Blue Boys except they look just as shocked as anyone else. The shock only holds for a moment and then everyone's moving again.

Black Masks mob is falling apart rapidly. Half of it's charging forward and the other half's trying to run away. The Blue Boys are going for cover while trying to keep between Mask's men and the tower. People are looking around. No one knows where the bullet came from. Helena doesn't either, but bullets are rare in No Man's Land and this is her chance. She throws down the smoke bomb and slips into the fray.

Maybe she can get out of this without being seen after all.

--

Jim's in yet another argument with Sarah when Montoya runs in and shuts them both up.

"Commissioner," she says, "your daughter!" And Jim's blood runs cold.

He hates this, he thinks as he runs after Montoya down the streets. He hates that everyone abandoned them. He hates that they're alone. He hates that they all have to turn into their worst selves to survive. He hates it all and he hates that Sarah seems to think he isn't doing everything he can.

"There was an attack," Montoya is saying. "Someone shot Black Mask."

The fight's over by the time they get there, reinforcements at their back. Black Mask's men are scattered. His body is lying in the middle of the street. Lowell and another man are leaning against the side of the building. Both of them look injured. The other two men are nowhere to be seen.

"Commissioner!" Lowell says as he runs past. Jim ignores her.

He goes up the stairs two at a time, Montoya behind him.

"We're coming in!" he shouts. No answer.

They break down the door.

Barbara is sitting in her chair at the table next to her window. There is a rifle in her hands.

Jim runs over to her.

"I'm okay, Dad," she says. "He didn't get me."

He pulls the rifle from her hands. She lets him take it. It's unloaded he notices, still warm to the touch. The bullets are on the table.

"Babs... what happened?" He asks. He already knows the answer.

"I'm sorry," she says.

The rifle goes on the table. Jim holds her tight. "You're alright," he says. "Thank God you're alright."

"--might have seen the Bat," Lowell is saying when he comes back down.

"We got no idea who shot Black Mask," Harvey tells him.

"Don't worry about it," Jim says.

"Hey, I don't want to be the next person shot full of--"

"Harv, shut up." Montoya says.

Harvey shuts up.

"Let's get this place cleaned up," Jim says and doesn't wait for any questions.

[naisilla]

The Emperor's New Muse Part .11

Odyssey Kayn x Reader

content: you need to stop Kayn. you die...

Was this crazy? Absolutely.

Did you really have much of a choice? Not at all!

With how dire of a state the Morningstar was, the closest planet that you could refuel or even better, hijack another ship, was the same planet you were fleeing from less than an hour ago.

Demaxia_Alpha was THE WORST planet you could possibly retreat to. It was the Demaxian capital, home to the king's palace and thousands of soldiers with the order to shoot you on sight. Only an insane person would return here and Jinx was out cold.

Even though your head was pounding from the stress of escaping the space battle, the adrenaline from the fight still left your hands shaking. It wasn't until now that the panic set in. The sheer insanity of even attempting to land on the Demaxian capital with a half-broken ship and two unconscious crew members. Shaking your head, you realize there is no turning back now. The only choice you had was whether you'd survive this mission or not. Turning your focus back to the controls, you took a deep breath and began searching for a place to land.

The air space and atmosphere of Demaxia_Alphas orbit was oddly vacant. You were sure that there would be fleets of military ships patroling the area with what is currently going on Kayn would have probably launched every ship they had to prevent your escape, so why weren't they here?

Even if this was some sort of ambush you had no choice but to go in and land the Morningstar next to the Palace.

The Morningstar sputters as you descend, coughing out plumes of black smog, the entire frame rattling like an elderly with Parkinsons. You bring out the landing gear only for the ship to give up and fall the last few meters as it finally dies.

The crash jolts you, making you fall to the floor of the mangled ship with the wind knocked out of your lungs. You scramble back to your feet and punch the dashboard button that opens the main door. You rush out into the demaxian palace grounds. The royal military station was abandoned, and not a single sign of life was to be found.

There was no time to stop and think about what that meant, you sprint through the base in search of any ship to commandeer. Just your luck that there were rows upon rows of fully operational Demaxian military vessels, always with the overproduction of everything with this Empire.

Running up to the closest one you immediately board it, or at least you try to, for there was no manual access to the ship entrance. Most likely you would need some sort of ID card to board anything as high tech as this. Cursing under your breath you spin on your heel and make your way to the control tower across the other side of the base. It took precious minutes of your time to be running back and forth like a lost chicken, you needed to stop Kayn and here you were fumbling around not even in orbit yet while he was already across the galaxy approaching the Ora Gate.

Hot tears of frustration and pain began to spill down your face as all your bottled emotions began to pour over the edge, Malphite is dead, Sona is dead. Kayn is winning. There was a physical urge that was tempting your body to collapse right there on the ground and just sob but you need to focus to stop Kayn and keep your remaining friends alive.

Sprinting to the control tower you skid to a halt at the automatic doors that remain closed upon your arrival, you grab the doors, sticking your fingers between them, and frantically try to rip them open. They refuse to budge and you kick the doors utterly infuriated while letting out a frustrated scream. Huffing you whip out Jinx's pistol and shoot at the door, one bullet, two bullets. Your face contorts, wrinkling in anger as you let out all of it's magazine, now aiming at where the door is meant to open from and finally, it is destroyed enough to bust through.

You run through the tower, now breaking your way through every wall and door that got in your way from the control panel. Alarms and sirens were sounding off with every violation the tower's interior received. Eventually, you burst through and into the control center. There was a ridiculous amount of stations with their own numerous monitors and elaborate keyboards.

Your eyes were peeled for any sign of one that authorized the aircraft and to your luck there was one station with a demaxian ship on its monitor. Rushing over you click through the software, checking every step with haste until you were rewarded with a clearance to take off. You memorize the ship's ID and continue on your sprint back to the aircraft bay to board your newly acquired spaceship.

After getting inside you have to navigate your way to the cock pit, finally things were moving along. You steer the ship and drive it over to where you had left the Morningstar, you had to drag both Yasuo and Jinx from one ship into the other but finally you could properly treat them using the medical a.i at your disposal. Now that they were treated, they could rest and recover while you began the high speed chase of your life.

Since Kayn had taken off he would have traveled an immense amount of lightyears across the galaxies and with no idea where the ora gates were you had zero input as to what direction to take off. That was the case until your ship's computer started to play some sort of message directed to all Demaxian Military. It was without a doubt Kayn's voice rambling through your sound system and by the sounds of it Kayn had completely fallen off the edge.

The reason why Demaxia_Alpha was abandoned? Because Kayn had ordered for all of Demaxia's military to surrender their current post and duties to meet him at the ora gates. Fortunately for you, the coordinates had been automatically assigned to every ship's navigation systems. Now that you were in space, the directions had activated and you were being auto-piloted towards the ora gates.

With your hands now free your mind was able to focus on the message that played on repeat. Kayn's voice was rambling on about how all should come bare witness to his ascension, how he was chosen for this destiny. The longer he talked the more deluded he seemed, it seemed that Rhaast had truly corrupted him beyond the point of redemption. Kayn's mind now weeps in the abyss between oblivions...idiot. What fool could think they could ever conquer the dark entity that is Rhaast.

After a while of listening to Kayn's voice on repeat a large hand comes into your view, clicking off the message. You flick your eyes to the side where Yasuo looks back at you, his gaze soft and comforting desire the grimace the rest of his features bare.

"How is she?" You ask.

"The treatment procedure is complete, she's fully healed but she's still out cold."

A pang of worry makes itself restless in your heart. "You don't think she's-"

"No, diagnostics confirmed she isn't in a coma. She's just sleeping."

You breathe out a sigh of relief. "Thank the universe."

"She was calling out to Malphite in her sleep." Yasuo mentions, his eyes cast towards the ground.

"Poor thing." You whisper, your chest tightening in empathy for Jinx. As the ship auto pilots you towards the Ora gates you are left with nothing to do but wait with your emotions stewing. They stirred in a pot that you forced the lid over while retrieving this stolen ship but now the lid was gone and your emotions begin to boil up and pour out over the edges, tears cascading down your face once more.

A dry hiccup draws you away from your second meltdown and you look back at Yasuo who just like you can no longer hold his tears back. "I let him down, Sona died in vain just like Yone."

Your hand reaches out to find its placement on his shoulder, you wanted to comfort him, tell him it was going to be ok. Have the perfect dialogue that could fix him and make everything better. But you had no words of encouragement or comfort and the silence hung between the both of you.

Instead, you chose to lean against him. You were right, there were no words that could fix the deaths of your friends. No friendship speech would bring them back. Your hand goes towards his belt and you grab at his hip flask, bringing it to your lips and taking a swig of the Vodka while looking out into the stars beyond. After a few sips, you look up at Yasuo and tilt the flask toward him.

He glances down, his eyes flicking from you to the bottle before shaking his head. "Now is not the time to give up drinking asshole." You wiggle the flask the reflection of its metal finish bouncing off of your tear stricken face.

Sighing Yasuo takes the flask from your hand and takes a swig from it.

"Better?"

"Fuck no." Yasuo snorts and leans back against you.

You both continued to indulge in the alcohol in what was otherwise a silent and solemn moment between the two of you. It helped, somewhat, to numb the pain of the entire events that had occurred thus far, but you couldn't help but feel as though it was only temporary.

The Demaxian Empire's capital planet Demaxia Alpha was swiftly approaching as the auto-pilot navigated towards the Ora gate. As you both continued to drink and stew in silence, you could only wonder what was to become of you both now.

Time passed, as space travel wasn't as instant as it's portrayed in movies. Even with light speed and wormhole hopping, it took hours before you approached your final destination.

You didn't need a GPS guide to say you were close when you could feel it for yourself. The air was thick, as your ship entered it you were hit with the pressure of the atmosphere that blocked your ears. The feeling made you stir and you stood up straight, pulling away from Yasuo who also seemed to be affected by the sensation. By now your tears had dried leaving your eyes dry and raw which only made the shining light up ahead sting more.

The light poured out from the structure up ahead. A golden glow illuminates the empty space, its shining rays stretching out far into every direction of the universe. It was ethereal, heavenly and warm, you couldn't help but be mindlessly drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Yasuo's eyes were blown out in sheer amazement after he finally adjusted to the light and could see what it was producing such beautiful light.

A void that drew you into its pull. Drawing out feelings of vulnerability and insignificance from your hearts as if feeding off of it. A gaping maw that drifted idly in the darkest corner of the universe. Your eyes strained to focus on its shape, it was round, then it was angular, then it was twisted. It was like staring into a heat haze or a shimmering mirage. But there were two things that you were positive about the Ora Gates. First they were massive and Second, it was gold.

There was something about them that was both unsettling and incredible to witness. The glowing light that poured out from it was warm and inviting, yet at the same time it felt as though it was beckoning you towards a horrible fate. But despite that fear, there was also a lingering sense of fascination and awe that drew you to them.

Your ship is pulled in towards the hoard of Demaxian ships gathered before the base of the Ora gates. Now, up close to it, you could finally make out details. It was like staring up at an ornate golden picture frame that slowly spun on its axis, its surface shimmered of the ora essence it is made of.

And there before it was Kayn's ship, hovering above the rest of the fleet, centered as the focal point. Once you got in range of him your dashboard glitched and opened a livestream hosted by the Fractal Shear. Kayn's face was suddenly broadcasted before you and every other Demaxian ship, basking you and Yasuo in the glow of its hologram projection.

"My fellow comrades! I am honored you would all come here today! In the wake of our fallen King our great Empire has gone into a dark age with no ruler to lead us towards eminence. With no heir to assume the throne I've taken it upon myself as the High Ordinal, Jarvan's righthand man and his closest friend to follow in his footsteps and embrace the role of Demaxia's new Emperor!"

Kayn speaks with an overly confident tone, his pupils are narrowed into tiny unstable pinpricks and his lips are curled into a wide, sinister grin. It was almost embarrassing to watch how overdramatic the Ordinal had become, no doubt he was teetering off the edge of sanity.

"Demaxia was ruled by a weak man. Jarvan lacked what it took to make our empire great, he was too soft and because of his weakness we still have outliers such as rebel groups, the syndicate, and the templar order standing against us."

“Demaxia deserves to be led by a strong hand. A hand that can eradicate any obstacles in its path. Demaxia, Deserves. Me.” Kayn’s arrogance and prideful tone continued ramping up the more he spoke. In his mind, he was truly a force to be reckoned with, a being that would propel the empire towards its glory.

"Our empire is already the greatest monolithic force known to the universe! But with my rule, will begin the era of the Demaxian Empire reborn. One that could truly live up to the power and potential that Demaxia truly possesses!"

Your eyes are drawn away from the hologram and out the window towards the ora gate where Kayn now floated before in the zero gravity of space.

"What the fuck? With no spacesuit?" You stare in disbelief as Kayn defies the law of physics.

Kayn basks in the moment, it was the rising action before the climax. The bridge before the chorus. Things were only going to get better and Kayn was savouring the feeling of success. He had already won, Demaxia- no, the universe and everything beyond was now his to rule.

A dark chuckle reverberates from the scythe still equipped in his hand, the vibrations running up Kayn's arm and resounding in his core. "Finally you have proven yourself worthy, with all the ora you have harvested you have become fully unbound, you are one with Ora Kayn can you feel it?"

"I can Rhaast, now I wield unlimited power!"

The Ordinal was truly unbound from his previous human form, with pure Ora coursing through him, Kayn's body was almost tearing at the seams with how supercharged on power he was. His eyes which were once a steely blue have been taken over by the golden glow that now shone from out of his sockets, his veins that spidered up his arms now resembled cracks of lightning that pulsed with the same golden glow, every time his mouth opened light would beam out from his insides.

"Open the gate Kayn, and unleash your power!"

With a manic grin Kayn lifts one arm, his hand reaching out towards the Ora gate. As if commanding it with telekinesis the Ora Gate responds to him. A loud and low groan reverberates from it causing the demaxian ships before it to tremble from the vibrations.

It's slow rotation begins to pick up, the rings begin to spin faster as if warming up. Crackles of lightning flash from within the ring and the low hum begins to turn into a gradual whirr.

Suddenly a bullet flies by Kayn's face, barely missing the side of his cheek. Kayn's head snaps toward the insolent being who dares interrupt his moment.

"YOU AGAIN!? I SHOULD'VE KILLED YOU WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!"

Kayn turns to look at the one rouge ship that dares to approach him, unsurprisingly it is piloted by you and Yasuo with its firearms activated. All the other ships immediately turn on you with their own weaponry trained on you. Kayn clicks his tongue and gestures for his fleet to cease.

In a blink Kayn appears right in front of the both of you, he now stands on the nose of the ship looking into the flight deck window. It was surreal seeing a man outside of a spaceship breathing and living in the vacuum of space, but Kayn wasn't an ordinary human anymore. He stares down at you with his glowing eyes.

Yasuo is quick to position himself in front of you. An intense glare is shared between the two men. You press down on the intercom button and project your voice towards Kayn. "Get away from the Ora Gate you don't know what you are doing."

The Demaxian fleet watches on from their ships in silence. You weren't surprised, everyone watching this wouldn't know what to do. Too scared to interfere with the Ordinal being so unstable.

"What are you doing Kayn? You're wasting your time with these insignificant pests! Just open the gate already!"

Kayn sneers at his scythe. "The gate WILL open."

Your perception of the Ordinal is challenged again as he steps through the window and into your ship, his body glitching out as he passes through the barrier that once separated you. You quickly draw out your pistol and don't hesitate to fire a round at Kayn, to your horror it merely passes through him and hits the windscreen behind, burying itself into the glass.

Kayn without even glancing back, makes a gesture with his hand and suddenly you feel a force weighing you down. You feel like you're underwater and the pressure of its depth is slowly crushing your organs inwards. Your finger loses control of itself and it uncurls allowing for the pistol to slip out of your grasp. You are paralysed and Kayn chuckles.

"You like that little trick? I can control the ora that is within any being making every living thing my puppet." As Kayn clenches his fist you feel a sharp pain internally. Kayn laughs at your suffering.

Yasuo growls his face contorting into an expression of unbridled rage and foolishly rushes Kayn. Not even sparing him the attention Kayn flicks his wrist and the telekinetic force throws Yasuo to the side, propelling him to crash into the side of the cockpit. Yasuo lets out a pained grunt and you watch on helplessly.

"You will sit here and watch me open those gates, feel grateful you get to witness this astronomical event."

Kayn then slips through the ship and repositions himself before the Ora gate, conducting it with his hand to make the Gate spin faster. It generates a loud resounding hum that grows in volume. You would try to ram Kayn with the ship but thousands of fleet ships had reengaged their firearms at you, any sudden movement and you would be vaporised by the entire Demaxian armada.

Something crashing from behind alerted you to Jinx's presence as she stumbles into the cockpit, barely awake. "Guy's? Why are we in a..." Jinx's confused voice dies out as she looks ahead.

The ora gates had gone from a gradual rotation into a whirling vortex, the acceleration now turning the beautiful details of the gate into a golden blur. The once empty centre of the gate was now swirling with a strange cosmic aura, it was like looking into an otherworldly mirror with a reflection made of a nebula.

Meanwhile, Kayn was calmly standing in front of the portal as he observed the vortex with a satisfied grin. "yes! YES! I COMMAND THE ORA GATE! ALL OF THIS UNIVERESES POWER WILL BE WIELDED BY ME ALONE!"

Yasuo's hand finds solace with yours as you link together. Jinx walks over to join the both of you, seeking shelter under your free arm which you use to embrace her, bringing her close to your side. You, Yasuo and Jinx watch on as the ora gate begins to flash as if fully charged.

"This is it, we lost" You murmur a sinking feeling pulling your heart down.

"Not entirely, maybe there's a chance Kayn fails-"

"Fails with what!? He's activated the gates! They are open! We're all going to die!" Jinx wails fresh hot tears streaming down her face.

A loud bang snaps everyone back to the Ora gates that were now open. Kayn draws closer and closer towards its entrance. "I CAN HEAR IT! I CAN FEEL THE ORA CALLING TO ME!"

"TAKE IT KAYN ENTER THE GATES!"

Everything went silent the moment Kayn vanished through the portal. It was the kind of silence that permeated an entire battlefield after a deadly assault. The ora gate had come to a hault and its center was filled with an inky blackness that drained the surrounding light. Was Kayn dead? What was going on in there??

The entire demaxian fleet were still, no one was willing to approach the ora gate to go after Kayn. Murmurs of the insane ordinal meeting his demise spread between the Demaxians. Your ship was still caught in the thick silence that suffocated each of you. Your breath refused to escape pass your through and your lungs began to burn as you waited in anticipation for anything to happen.

Jinx was latched onto your arm squeezing it tight in her grip in an attempt to ground herself from shaking. Yasuo continued to grip your hand tightly aswell, his features sunken with an internal dread. All eyes were transfixed into the void before you.

A low rumbling resounded from within the portal, one that was louder and deeper than before. It traveled through space and rattled the interior of the ships with its frequency shooting chills up your spine. It groaned and creaked, then it began to shake, like something inside was stirring.

You watch in awe as someone emerges, no, not someone, something. You wouldn't be wrong to assume it was a person as whatever it is was roughly the same size and build as Kayn, but this wasn't Kayn.

From the void came a being, a fractured and violent adaptation of Kayn. It's skin was made of darkness with a glowing red center held together by the ornamental shards that adorned its body. Upon his head was crowned an imposing set of arched horns and his ordinal uniform was gone expect for the torn pants. This being was no longer Kayn but the vessel reposessed by the sentient alien scythe, Rhaast.

Rhaast emerged from the ora his voice bellowing out across the galaxy for all to hear. "The test has ended. I am victorious! I am the herald of oblivion! I! Am! Rhaast!" The creature cackles in victory before approaching the Demaxian fleet before him.

 "Kayn is gone. What is left is ruination!"

You turn to Yasuo in a panic "We need to leave, get us out of here!"

"But I'm the adventure pilot-"

"NOW IS NOT THE FUCKING TIME JINX." You regret snapping at her harshly but urge Yasuo with a push to take over the control center. You begin to break away from the hoard of armada ships as Rhaast approaches at an alarming speed.

Rhaast hovers before the fleet his serrated scythe glinting in his hand. "What an honour, Kayn. To watch me slaughter everything you wished to rule." And then Rhaast lunges to attack.

You watched in horror as the human sized being was able to tear through army space ships thosaunds of times his size. One ship, he sliced in half with one swing of his scythe. Another ship, he burrowed into, tearing a hole through, forcing Demaxian soldiers to be pulled though the opening into the vacuum of space outside. Their bodies torn and spat out. The next ship is invaded through his phasing abilities and Rhaast tears through the soldiers, ripping them apart.

Rhaast's slaughter is vicious and insatiable as he hops from one ship to another, slaughtering them faster than they can react. The surrounding fleet have also taken their chance and floor it, everyone is scattering into random directions. But Rhaast is an unstoppable force that can chase anything down. Other ships chose to fight as they draw their firearms to shoot at Rhaast who simply laughs at their attempts, he is simply too fast for them and the Demaxian armada end up hitting one another with heir own fire.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?" Jinx shrieks drawing your attention towards the Ora gate.

Two giant, clawed hands creep from the blackness of the gate and perch themselves onto the corners of the portal. Something was coming through the gate and into your world and it was massive.

Suddenly your ship jerks from something strong hitting it hard and you are forced to look at Rhaast who has landed on the nose of your ship in front of your windscreen. Just like Kayn he is able to pass through the glass that separates you and he steps aboard. Now you could see his face in greater detail.

His face was featureless except for a toothy maw that is plated in gold forming segmented mandibles, the rest of his head is made of a polished globe with a nebula swirling within.

He approches the three of you and you make a point to step in between Rhaast and Jinx with an arm guarding her back defensively. But both of you knew you stood no chance against Rhaast.

Rhaast walks up to you, his tall frame towering over yours. "It turns out the scythe was evil and wants to annihilate all reality. Who could've guessed?" You take a step back and Rhaast cocks his head to the side in amusement.

"What happened to all that fire you had Y/N? You were filled with so much anger that field your passion. That's what I liked about you." Rhaast turns towards Yasuo and throws his scythe at him like a throwing knife that embeds itself into Yasuo's chest. You cry out for Yasuo as Rhaast walks over to the fallen captain and wrenching the scythe out of his chest causing Yasuo to bleed out onto the floor.

Jinx trembles and hugs you from behind, burying her face into your back. But Rhaast is quick to rip her away from you and tears her head off right in front of you, letting her head drop to the ground with a dull thud.

Now it is you and Rhaast, you had lost the only family you had come to love and care for and your entire life and existence was now about to be ended.

"Why?" Is all your able to croak out.

"Because I live to reap chaos and violence." Rhaast lunges forward and slices at your already wounded torso and then he disappears. You fall to the ground and clutch your wound, looking around confused. You can't see Rhaast but you can feel his presence, your body feels cold and something inside you stirs.

"I'm sick of being the one trapped inside a mind, how I was forced to witness to Kayn's thought's." Rhaasts voice echoes within your mind. "That idiot was an ambitious fool, he had delusions of grandeur. All he could ever think about was ruling the universe as a cosmic emperor, constantly I had to witness these fantasies of him being the greatest threat to the universe that's all he thought about, except for you. Whenever he wasn't obsessing over the ora gates or his duties he was thinking of you, I had to suffer seeing you live in his head as a source of obsession. Albiet one he never acted upon but something about you fascinates him...I don't see it." With that Rhaast finishes his ultimate move, bursting out your body, instantly killing you.

You fall to the ground lifeless and Rhaast gaze lingers on you before looking towards the giant figure that pulls itself out of the ora gate. Finally, his brethren have arrived.

"Bare witness to the Dark Star! Bare witness to Rhaast!"

Bad Ending: The Dark Star.

Took forever but I pulled through once again! For a long time, I've criticized Odyssey Kayn's skin. It is, in my opinion, his greatest skin of all time. It genuinely has the best voice lines and interactions that Heartsteel Kayn just doesn't have (fight me) and the idea/concept was groundbreaking compared to his previous skins. Anyways here's a shitty half assed redesign to his base form's uniform because I'm a fashion snob:

No, I'm not 100% proud or think that it's complete but it's been sitting around for MONTHS, might as well share it.

Part Twelve: coming soon...ish.

[mt-musings]

The Last Silverboughs

Halsin struggles to put his past to rest, but it's haunting him in more ways than he realizes. He'd thought his time in the Underdark was long behind him, an unpleasant pitfall of youthful hubris, but remnants of his captivity remain, the youngest of which unwittingly stumbles to his rescue.

Lythra can't stop running from her past--hasn't, since she managed to make it out of the Underdark. She has no love for Menzoberranzan, or her House, or anything she left behind in the dark. Or nearly anything.

Still, she'd rather die than return--a prospect all the more likely with a tadpole jammed behind her eye. But perhaps, with the help of a renown druidic healer, she can go back to what remains of her half-life in the sun.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

Read on AO3

Lythra froze in the operating theatre, her blood turning to ice in her veins. All the sudden all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears and all she could smell was the copper tang of blood, just like back in her mother’s laboratory. She was once again small and scared and made stupid with venom, not sure whether to pray to survive, this time, or to die, and let it finally, finally be over.

It never mattered either way, because no Gods were listening. 

She cried out as one of the undead Sharran nurses sunk a blade into her thigh. Karlach pushed her off, glancing at her from beneath furrowed brows. 

“Come on soldier, get your head in the game!”

Lythra nodded—or she thought she did. She was still half in that awful tower, half chained to that vivisection table, half a scared child who hadn’t yet learned not to cry for her father. 

She—she had a sword in her hand, or a dagger. She was in the Shadow Cursed Lands, she was Above, she was fighting—supposed to be fighting. Something tore across her chest and she whirled, reeling away, her blade falling from her hand in her haste. She stumbled, falling flat on her face. She flipped over, panic constricting her throat, only to see the Sharran doctor above, smiling at her in false benevolence. He jammed—something—into her stomach, something like a thousand needles, and it hurt. She tried to lash out with her magic, not caring about the consequences, but it it sputtered impotently as he drained her of blood more efficiently than any vampire. 

The room spun nauseatingly above her, growing darker with each stuttering heartbeat. This was it—all those years of running and she’d still die at the end of some lunatic’s scalpel. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to watch her dismemberment.

“Get away from her!” Someone yelled above her, and there was the twang of a bowstring maybe, but she couldn’t, everything was muffled and she, and she—

Something was smacked against her teeth, a hand roughly grabbing her by the scruff of her neck to force her into a sitting position. Liquid poured down her throat, scalding it.

Her eyes fluttered open only to see Astarion glaring at her, furious. 

“Get up,” he snarled, and her stomach roiled, even as the room ceased spinning. She tried to listen, she tried, but her legs wouldn’t support her. They gave out and she smashed her knees to the tile of the floor, the impact knocking the breath from her. 

He looked at her, disgusted, before he turned and disappeared into the shadows, focus back on the nurses, on that monstrous doctor. 

She needed to get up. She needed to or she would be left here to die—or worse, to live as they took her apart, again and again. She scrambled back, pulling herself up with a bookshelf, letting it support her weight as she dug with shaking hands for her crossbow. She managed to load it just as one of the nurses leapt at her. She fired and missed, only hitting her in the shoulder as she rushed her. She prepared for the impact, the pain, but before she could reach her, Astarion was back, ripping his dagger across her throat. The nurse dropped lifeless to the ground. 

He didn’t move this time, instead he stood, half crouched in front of her, daggers drawn. He glanced back, brows drawn together before turning back to the fight. 

She wretched up the healing potion, sliding back down to the floor. Her head was pounding, her mind slow, stupid. She watched as Karlach and Lae’zel felled the doctor, making quick work of the last remaining nurse. She expected Astarion to begin picking through the corpses, but instead he turned back to her, kneeling at her side. He dug through his pack, pulling out a Greater Healing Potion. 

“You need to drink it, you’re still bleeding like a faucet,” he said, uncorking it.

“I don’t—I don’t—“

“You have to. Now,” he spat, grabbing her jaw and forcing her mouth open to pour it down her throat. It burned and she choked on it, but he only dug for another, doing the same. 

She felt the worst of her injuries knit back together, felt the bleeding slow to a trickle before she was forced to wretch the potions up. She sat back, pushing tangled hair out of her face. Astarion still stared, furious.

Karlach crouched down, giving her a once over. She made a face

“We should get you back to camp. The doctor didn’t have much on him, just an amulet and this,” she said, showing her an old battered lute. She squinted at it, noticing the initials carved into the face.

AC

“Can I have that?” She asked, reaching a shaking hand for it.

“How about we wait until after we get out of the blood-soaked murder-hospital before we start learning a new song? Hmmm?” Astarion said exasperatedly. 

“We should take the Waypoint back to camp. This one is in no condition to travel,” Lae’zel said in her usual harsh cadence, though her eyes flicked to the blood that had pooled in her wake. 

“A fine idea,” Astarion said. “Can you stand, darling?”

“I—“ she said shakily, voice barely more than a whisper. “I need a hand.”

“Of—“ Astarion began, but Karlach stooped and picked her up with hardly any effort. 

“There you are, Tiny. Let’s get you back,” she said, and Lythra couldn’t help but lean into her warmth, shivering. 

She hadn’t realized just how cold she was before she’d felt it.

Karlach set her down gently as they arrived back at camp. The others that had been gathered around the fire, leapt to their feet, eyes wide.

“Hells—I thought you lot were merely going on a scouting mission!” Wyll said.

“We were. That town is overrun with malevolent undead,” Lae’zel said. “It will take us another day to scout the path to the Towers.”

Shadowheart immediately cast a mass Healing Word and crossed to her side. Lythra couldn’t help but flinch.

“These aren’t healing right,” Shadowheart said, examining the wound on her stomach. “I can try—“

“I’ve had enough Sharran medicine for today, thanks,” Lythra retorted, sharper than she meant. Shadowheart shrunk back slightly, though she glared at her. Lythra opened her mouth to apologize but then just shook her head, limping off to the river to clean away what she could. 

She still couldn’t shake off the dregs of her trembling, the fear that constricted her heart. Just seeing such instruments had been enough to render her fumbling and useless, but having them used on her again—

She’d thought she’d outgrown such foolish childhood fears. She wasn’t a child anymore, wasn’t strapped to her mother’s vivisection table any longer.

It had been years. She should be long past it.

And yet, she’d frozen, useless, subjected to more of their horror for her weakness. 

~~~

Halsin looked up to see Lythra push through the door of the infirmary, limping heavily and looking even more deathly pale than usual. Her hair was wet from bathing and she wore no armor, only loose camp clothing. He could smell the iron tang of blood on her, even through the soap she’d used to try and wash it away. He crossed quickly to her side as she swayed slightly, her eyes taking a moment to focus. 

“What happened?” He asked, helping her to a cot. He could feel thick bandages wrapped around her abdomen, under her shirt. He sank a powerful healing spell into her skin, frowning when it hardly seemed to make a difference. Black blood started to run from her eyes, her nose, like when she used her dark magic. He sunk another into her skin, and she flinched away, swiping at the blood on her face. She opened her mouth, a haunted expression flickering across her face, but just shook her head. 

She dug into her bag, pulling out an old, battered lute.

“I think this belongs to him,” she said quietly, nodding at Art in the bed. “Maybe—m-maybe it might jog his memory.”

“By all means,” Halsin replied, hope warming in his chest for the first time since he’d begun trying to rouse Art from his stupor. Perhaps playing would calm her, too, from whatever horrors she’d just faced. Lythra looked at him a moment before swallowing hard, shaking her head as she passed him the lute. 

He couldn’t help but note how her hands shook.

Halsin strummed a few notes. Art woke with a start, shouting for Thaniel.

“Calm, breathe,” Halsin said, his heart catching in his chest. This was it—this was what he’d been searching for, longing for, for a century, a way to find his lost friend. “You’ve been trapped in the Shadowfell for a century. Take a moment to clear your mind.”

“A century,” he said, eyes far off. Surely he was thinking of his old life, of everything he’d ever known, now long dead. He turned to peer at him, brows furrowed. “You’re Halsin. Thaniel said to find you. You must help him—please.”

“I will,” he swore. “But I need to know where Thaniel is. If I venture into the Shadowfell blind, I will never find him.”

“I’m not sure I can put it into words. The landscape there shifts and changes,” Art replied slowly. 

“Was—was there anything that didn’t change?” Lythra asked softly. “Anything that could act as a marker?”

“Lavender. Whenever I saw Thaniel, I always smelled lavender.”

“I can work with that. Rest, now,” he said. Art settled back into bed as Lythra pulled herself back to standing by a bedpost, no doubt to slip away again, just as she’d done the last time she’d handed him a break in his quest, just as when she’d rescue him from the goblins. She forced a smile, giving him a nod. 

“Let me know, what you will require. I—I’m afraid I must rest, now. We were meant to scout the Towers today, but were waylaid. Tomorrow, hopefully, we will have a better handle on their plans,” she said, making for the door, but she was slow, still limping. He crossed to her side, wrapping an arm around her to alleviate some of the weight on the injured limb.

“I’m alright, Halsin. You have much more important—”

“I will see you back to camp, and take a look at your injuries. They are not responding to healing as I would expect. Now tell me, what happened?”

“It was bad,” she said quietly, looking down. “I—I froze. It was my fault.”

“It’s not your fault somebody hurt you, little one. That’s never your fault.”

She didn’t respond and he knew she didn’t believe him. The walked in silence back to camp where he lead her to take a seat outside his tent while he fetched his medical supplies. 

“Did Shadowheart attend to you?” he asked as he took a look at her bandages for the first time and found them spotted with blood. It should have been a bright red color, but it was closer to black, like what she coughed up after spending too long in the Shadow Cursed Lands. 

“I—she tried, but I—I was rude to her. It—they were undead Sharrans we fought.”

Halsin nodded. He didn’t blame her—it was exceedingly uncomfortable, traveling with a Sharran, especially through the lands blighted by her god. He kept it to himself as much as he was able, but it was grating, to say the least. He was far too familiar with their cruelty, with the destruction they wrought and he’d lost too many of those dear to him to their number. 

“Where?” He asked.

“In Reithwin, in the House of Healing,” she replied, nearly spitting the last word. “They were—the Sharrans were killing people there, killing survivors. We found records before—“ she broke off, looking away. 

Halsin’s heart clenched. He was sure the experience had brought up no small number of bad memories, especially after unwrapping her bandages. Her wounds all had the same odd surgical look as her scars, no doubt created by similar tools. 

Tools that were meant to heal. 

He tried another, stronger spell on the the wounds on her abdomen, they knitted back together slightly, but not as they should. Lythra made a face, taking in a sharp intake of breath.

“Did that hurt?” He asked. It shouldn’t have, it could be uncomfortable, sometimes, but not painful. The worst side effect he usually saw was itching. 

“It’s fine,” she said, turning her face away to try and sneakily wipe the blood trailing from her nose. He caught her hand, gently. 

“Answer me honestly.”

“It’s bearable.”

“Then it does pain you. And it’s not working nearly as well as it should. Is this new, since we arrived in the Shadow Lands?”

She shook her head. “It’s just worse.”

So the whole time he’d forced her to sit still and allow him to heal her—he’d just been hurting her too. 

“And potions—?”

“They’re worse. I—I can’t keep them down.”

Halsin furrowed his brow, reaching out with his magic to try and determine what could be causing such a reaction. The potions—it could be an allergy, though he hadn’t heard of anyone developing one before. The spells though—

That had implications that were uncomfortable to consider. 

~~~

There was blood in his mouth, but it held none of the delectable sweetness, only a nauseating film of copper over his tongue. There was pain, so much that he could begin to place is source and the light around him was too bright, washing out the features of the figure standing above, cruel silver instruments flashing in their hands. He knew they were a mage but didn’t know how he knew.

It was only then that he realized that he was tied down to stone slab, that he couldn’t move as knives were dug into him, as he felt fingers inside of him, felt his organs being prodded and examined and shifted about. There was another pang of shock when he saw the mirror hung above the operating table, a mirror that reflected back the horror happening to him on the table. His flesh flayed open as if he were a corpse, his skin ashen and flecked with crimson, the white of his hair soaked in it, but it couldn’t be him, he had no reflection—

And besides, the figure on the slab was so small, diminutive, even. He tore his eyes from the horror of the torso to find the face, only to freeze, eyes widening. 

It was a child tied to the slab, a tiny elven girl with a crude gag shoved in her mouth, tears streaking down her pale cheeks even as her eyes burned with fury, with murder. She couldn’t have been more than ten, but her eyes held the weight of lifetimes, familiar, pale eyes, though here they looked almost green—

He awoke with a start, sitting straight up as he attempted to catch his breath. His head ached in a now familiar way that let him know the dream had been the tadpole’s doing, though even without it he would have known. It wasn’t the first time they’d connected the lot of them without anyone meaning to, wasn’t the first dream they’d intruded on. Usually they were boring, scraps of faces and voices that meant nothing to the rest of them, a swirling mass of nonsense, but this—

Lythra never spoke about her past. They hadn’t even know she was a drow until she’d let it slip when sweet talking their way out of a tight situation on the way to the goblin camp, something she hadn’t taken kindly to him making light of. 

Her reaction today, in the operating theatre, now made horrible, awful sense. It must have been like walking into that nightmare and they’d just torn into her. 

He got up before he realized what he was doing and pushed out of his tent, eyes searching for the familiar spot of moon-bright hair besides the fire. She wasn’t curled up in her usual place by the far side of camp either, her bedroll empty. He stood a moment, wondering where she would have taken off to. 

Only then did he hear the near-silent sound of short, panic-quickened breaths which he followed to find her crouched at the far edge of camp, well out of sight from camp, her skin ashen and slick with sweat, tears cascading down her cheeks. 

“Lythra, darling—“

“Just—just go away,” she croaked out, not bothering to look up. Part of him wished to heed her, to retreat back to his tent and forget what he’d seen, forget her terror, terror that felt all too familiar. He remembered how it felt for terror to make him sick, remembered when it would fill him so wholly it made his teeth ache. He’d never thought he’d meet another that might understand, another that wasn’t one of the poor sods that made up his ‘brothers and sisters.’ 

He crouched down, offering her what remained of his wineskin. She hesitated before taking it and finishing it in one go before handing it back, squeezing her eyes shut. She took a shuddering breath pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. 

Astarion hesitated a moment before speaking, trying to dredge up the right words, the sort of words people were supposed to say in these situations.

“I—if you wanted to talk—“

“Don’t,” she shot back, voice sharp. 

“Don’t what?”  He snapped, annoyed. He was trying to be nice, after all. She just never let him.

She laughed, the sound strained and humorless. “Surely that must have been but a Tuesday with Cazador. I don’t want your pity, pretend or otherwise. ”

She wasn’t wrong—Cazador was oh so creative in his cruelty. He stared at her and she avoided his gaze, wringing her hands in her lap, brows furrowed. 

She’d been so small, in the memory.

“How old were you?” 

She was silent for a long time, long enough that Astarion had begun to think she wouldn’t answer at all. When she finally spoke it was so quiet he might not have heard it, but for his heightened hearing.

“Do you mean the time you saw, or when it started? Because I don’t remember when it started, I was too young, but I know she didn’t start flaying me proper until I was nine. I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.”

Astarion balked at her. “Grateful? Grateful? I can hardly imagine you and your bleeding heart doing anything to deserve that. Whatever that was, anyway.”

She stared hard at the ground, intent on avoiding his gaze.

“What do you want, Astarion? Do you want all the gory details, how I’d get slashed and sliced up and put never quite back together? How she’d make sure to only use paralytics that didn’t numb the pain? How it was my fault, for being a girl and a szarkai, and an utterly talentless sack of skin? How I’ve been free for five years and I never grew out of being a terrified, useless little thing?” She replied, and he knew the words should have been sharp and angry, but they just came out flat and tired. She took a shuddering breath and wrapped her arms around her knees, staring unseeingly into the darkness. 

It was easy enough for him to see the effort it took to keep her breaths level, to clock the tension in her muscles, the way she balled her hands up in fists to disguise the shaking. 

He stared at her, his undead heart lurching painfully. He hesitated before reaching out to pull her into his arms. She stiffened for a moment, and he thought she was going to pull away, but instead she buried her face in his chest, a sob ripping itself from her lips before she could stop it, as silent as those he’d seen by the river. 

“Oh, darling,” he said, pulling her closer in a way he prayed was comforting. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her breaths coming too fast. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said, repeating it over and over as he smoothed a hand over her back, doing his best to comfort her. He wasn’t used to comforting anyone, but it didn’t feel as foreign and uncomfortable as it should. He didn’t know how long it took, but eventually she calmed, her breaths evening out, her body falling limp against his as she drifted off to sleep, tears still wet on her cheeks. He sighed, relieved before he was faced with a dilemma.

He couldn’t very well leave her out in the brush. Well, he could, and it’d be the easiest thing to do, but it felt—wrong, he’d guess? She was that fragile thing tonight, the thing he’d seen by the river. 

He swore to himself and picked her up, surprised at just how light she was. He thought about setting her back in her bedroll, but that too sat poorly with him. Instead he carried her into his tent and settled the both of them into his bedroll. 

It would be fine, for one night. 

She pressed closer to him, snuffling pathetically in her sleep. He ran his fingers through her hair—beautiful hair the color of starlight with perfect waves even though she barely even ran a comb through it some days. 

Another infuriating thing about her, to add to the pile. 

Still, he tightened his hold on her, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head. It would be alright, for one night.

[miraclesnail]

kronus AU, title still pending

chapter 6, 7

First chapter, previous chapter, next chapter

6 WILL

Will has this super cool, super handy, innate ability to tell when someone is about to pass out, especially if it’s from overexertion. Especially if it’s overexertion from using one’s power. He has a lot of experience with it actually. From newbies discovering their parentage to his friends having to do whatever it takes to survive in the thick of battle to his boyfriend Nico di Angelo shadow-traveling every single chance he gets. 

See, it’s like this. 

The body throws out so many warning signals that Will picks up somehow, kinda like a signal tower. And Travis? Literally blaring them out like a fire siren.

Blood pressure dropping. Heart rate increasing. Body core temperature rising. Increase in C-reactive proteins. Inflammation around the throat and the brain. Muscle tissue breaking down. Creatinine kinase, myosin, and myoglobin levels rising. Nausea, dizziness, developing fever, chills, more to boot. This guy isn’t doing too hot. And entirely unrelated, a random beep of info that his Will-signal-tower picked up, there is severe lack of iron and vitamin B12 reserves. Which…is weird. Those take months to years sometimes to deplete and last time he remembered, Travis didn’t have any disorders that would impair absorption of either those substances or severe bleeding that would lead to iron deficiency. Maybe he’s getting the signals from someone else. 

Nico sometimes calls him a living, walking, non-invasive analyzer with all these lab results that just pop up in his mind. Not that he replaces an actual half a million dollar analyzer that spit out an actual number. He can’t produce anything specific like that, just a general sensation of the enzyme or protein, whatever it is, rising or falling. Wouldn’t that be a dream though? He can save his patients hundreds of dollars worth of lab tests if he can just poof a number into his mind. 

In short — ignoring how he wishes he was more, how he wishes he was better, how he always falls short of actually being useful — Will knows when someone is about to pass out.

And Travis, this weird-Travis, maybe a spy Travis, maybe not even Travis, this god-stabbing guy in front of him? Will gives him a minute or so before he’s out. 

“You should lie down,” Will says in between Clarisse's incensed yelling and Annabeth’s exasperated questioning, eyeing the side-table Travis is dangerously close to. That’s definitely a hazard when Travis faints. “Like, on your side or back. And you should do it now.”��

As expected, Travis ignores him like he did with everyone else, continuing to stare at the ceiling in silence as he digs a hand through his side pockets. 

Well, Will can’t say he didn’t try. 

As long as Travis stays right there, sitting against the wall, then he should be safe from banging his head against—

And of course, Travis stands right then and there, doing the exact opposite of what Will asks. The idiot nearly falls over too, but he stabilizes himself with a hand against the wall and another hand on his knee. And you know what? Will should have expected this. The Travis he knows can’t sit still for long and his ability to follow directions? Just as bad as Nico’s. 

What’s even worse? 

Travis is hobbling his way over to the table where they took out all his sharpened blades and they’re still frozen. Calypso is maybe capable of moving two or three inches forward and Nico an inch, but the rest of them? They’re as still as a rock. Even Connor, Travis’s match in every way, is just as immobile and confused and lost as the rest of them. Maybe it’s time to panic. Maybe it’s time for someone to do something before they get a knife in the gut. 

“Hey Travis,” Piper tries to charmspeak again, her lovely voice not showing even a hint of unease. “Why don’t you just stay right there. You’re tired, aren’t you? Sit.”

It didn’t work. It didn’t even stall Travis that much. Maybe just the tiniest hint of a pause, but it’s not enough. Travis makes it to the weapon table and grabs — a generic orange pill bottle? Will wracks his brain for what’s inside. He wasn’t the one to unload everything, more occupied with making sure Clarisse is fully healed, but it’s just a regular bottle, isn’t it? 

“That’s enough, right?” Travis says, voice faint and just barely above a whisper, eyes clenching shut as a hand goes to rub his throat over the turtleneck. “Then, I’m going—”

Travis’s consciousness leaves him. Will feels it go and this is the absolute worst place for Travis to pass out over! But before the son of Hermes can fall over the table of sharp pointy weapons, a hand slams down on the table’s edge, definitely conscious again. 

Huh. 

Guess Travis did not pass out. Will wonders if his lack of sleep and exhaustion is catching up to him because now he’s now smelling ozone. 

Oh hey, he can move. 

Ever the opportunist, Annabeth springs forward to snatch the phone back, but Travis all but tosses it to her. Annabeth fumbles with the phone, almost dropping it.

“Wait for their call,” is all Travis says, teeth gritted, nails digging into his neck, before popping open the pill bottle and dumping out four non-descript, oval pills into the palm of his hand. 

Warning bells fire through Will’s head as his god-gifted, everything-medical textbook tells him what it is without needing to test it. 

Cyanide. 

But there’s no way that Travis is going to—

In one swift motion Travis gulps it all down, swallowing and clamming both hands over his nose and mouth. 

7 I should try out for the Olympics

Not to flex or anything, but Travis is so good at running. 

Not only is he running in the dark, he’s running from a levitating, man-eating, manic zombie in a war-torn, rubble-strewn terrain while he himself is screaming on the top of his lungs and not once taking a single breather. 

“I can’t see where I'm going. Oh gods I don’t know where I’m going. Stop following me. Leave me alone! Why are you trying to eat me? I thought we were friends! I am telling your mom about this, Lou!” 

Like that’ll do anything. He doesn’t know Hecate. He never met Hecate. He was hoping just the threat alone would be enough to snap Lou Ellen out of whatever haze she’s in, but nope. No such luck. 

He doesn’t know if it’s all skill or all luck or part skill and part luck but he is keeping a good distance between him and Lou. He’s surviving! He is surviving! 

He hears the arrow whistling first before it snags him exactly at the heel of his sneakers and he’s tripping face first into the floor. 

Travis admits his memory of his long since dead co-counselor (and now recently proclaimed ex-friend) is a bit effy but was Michael always this pin-point accurate? He was literally speeding around like Sonic himself in this pitch darkness!

Travis hisses when his hands grind against something sharp and pointy in his attempt to cushion his fall. He’s sure he’s bleeding and in severe need of a tetanus shot. But Lou Ellen is seconds behind him and there's no time to waste. He picks himself up and keeps running.

The problem is where to run to because he has zero idea where he's going. 

So far he’s retracing the path he took when he ran from Weird-Connor because he knows for sure there is no dead end but he’s about to hit the area where he popped into this dystopia and then after that? What then? Fight? Pray? Talk it out? Cry and then pray?

“You know what? I’ll get there when I get there!” Travis settles on, hurdling over a toppled folder cabinet. 

Lou Ellen hasn’t tried that gravity defying magic trick of hers yet. Zero ideas why, but Travis is grateful for it. 

Just in case though he snags some stuff off the desks of the abandoned office. Some pens. A couple paper clips. A bulky stapler which he hurls at Lou Ellen. It lands squarely on her forehead but there isn’t even a single flinch or misstep as she continues to half-limp, half-jog after him. 

Which brings him to his next problem, how can a zombie with one busted leg move so fast?!

And how can zombies run? 

Aren’t they supposed to be shambling hunks of meat barely kept together by ligaments and tendons with zero regeneration abilities whatsoever? 

“Stop running!” Lou Ellen yells in a very clear, very unmistakable way. 

And what kind of zombie can talk?!

“No! You go away! Leave me alone!” he yells back. 

“But we’re friends! How can you talk to your friend this way?”

“Friends don’t try to eat each other!”

“Come on. You’re being a bit dramatic. A little bite here and there never hurts anybody.”

An arrow snags the flaps of his khakis and pins him to a toppled swivel chair. 

“Screw you, Michael,” Travis shouts, desperately pulling the arrow by the shaft to dislodge it. “You and your cabin are going to have the worst summer of your life! I’m doubling down—No! I'm tripling down on the amount of pranks I have in store this summer! This will be the worst summer of your and your cabin’s life!”

He manages to pull the arrow out but the few seconds wasted is enough for Lou Ellen to catch up to him. She tackles him, knocks him onto his back, and straddles him by the waist. 

Up close her smile is no less deranged. 

“Can we be friends who respect each other's boundaries by maintaining a six feet physical distance?” he suggests quickly, tackling on a shaky grin.

And in response, Lou Ellen opens her mouth and leans down. 

Travis panics, slamming the heel of his hand hard against the underside of her jaw. Bones definitely crunch underneath his palm and Travis winces with guilt. With all his strength and demigod adrenaline backing him up, he unbalances Lou Ellen and flips their position. He breaks the arrow into two and stabs the jagged ends deep in the eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really sorry.” 

Then Travis stands and starts running again. 

He doesn’t really get far. 

Probably only ten feet before a trap snare snags his ankle and Travis is flying to the ceiling, dangling 20 feet from the ceiling. He’s disoriented, vision spinning as he blinks hard to get his bearings stable. 

“Whyyyyy,” Travis groans, grunting in effort to reach the rope tied to his ankle. But every attempt to reach up results in him flopping back down and swinging more than ever. And every swing he does? The ropes dig more and more into his flesh. His ankle is supporting his entire weight and crap does it hurt. 

“You haven’t fallen for that in years,” Michael comments perched in an open air duct like a Hawkeye wannabe, one leg up and pressed against his cheek and one leg swinging freely. 

“You know, I really hate your guys right now, Mike,” Travis says as he swings back and forward upside down, glaring the best he could. He hopes it looks threatening. Annabeth told him he looks like an angry kitten when glaring. 

Michael stares for a moment before snorting with a silver of fondness. “You look like a child when you do that.”

Fondness. So Michael doesn’t hate his gut entirely. Travis can use that. 

“Come on, Michael,” Travis pleads again. He has been doing a lot of pleading today actually, “Aren't we friends? I’m Will’s 4rd, maybe 5th BFF outside of his siblings and boyfriend. Once he knows how you treated me, you are in sooo much trouble.”

At Will and at siblings, Travis knew he screwed up his chance. Michael’s eyes harden in regret and grief before turning away. He breathes in deeply, hands squeezing his crossbow tighter.

“I’m sorry, Travis. I’m not sure what’s going on with you. But I can’t let this opportunity pass.” Michael glances down at Lou Ellen, one eyeball free now, grinning up at them. “If it's any comfort, I’ve seen Lou Ellen kill before and she’s relatively fast. The pain should last for a few minutes tops.” 

“I don’t want to die, Michael,” Travis tries again. Don’t mention Will. Don’t mention Kayla or Austin, he chants to himself. “There’s so much I haven’t done yet. I haven’t told Connor the wonders of college and how much it sucks and how everyone in Rome University all have sticks in their butts. I haven’t… I haven’t… Okay, I don’t have many goals but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to live and make some goals!”

Michael turns away. “I’m sorry, Travis.”

Travis looks down at Lou Ellen, now arrow free, and levitating up to him. Is she drooling? Oh gods she is. Travis wiggles harder than ever to no avail. The rope is tight against his ankle and unrelenting. 

He doesn’t really want to use any of his abilities with people around but it looks like he might have to if he wants to survive. Maybe if he distracts Michael and blind Lou Ellen again … but he needs an opening to do that and all he has are the pens and paper clips he stole. 

Are you seriously going to let yourself die because you don’t want people watching you fight? A little incredulous voice that sounds a lot like Annabeth and Will and Connor sighs at him. Get it together. 

Travis hooks his finger over his bracelet, a hand-woven gift from years ago. But before he could pull it free, a girl’s voice, deeper than Lou Ellen, bellows from below him, “Hey! Enough, Lou! Get away from him.” 

Travis throws his head back to see who but he hears Michael cussing first. 

An arrow whistles above. 

The rope snaps.

“Ah, shoot,” the girl says. 

And he’s falling head first 20 feet to the ground. 

He read somewhere a fall from that height, head first, is death or complete, utter paralysis. Okay, maybe not read. Maybe told. Maybe lectured. From Will and Annabeth after a prank gone wrong and he nearly ended his life. Either way he’s falling and about to land head first. 

Travis flails desperately to right himself, to at the very least land feet first or knees first. But it's not working and he braces himself for impact. He crashes and bounces, not on the hard tile like he expected, but someone more soft and squishy. Mushy even. And … wet? With this distinct smell of decay too. 

Travis opens his eyes and tries to get to his feet but his fingers are sinking into what he is now recognizing as someone’s eyeballs and he pulls away screaming. 

Is this just penance for that time he pranked Malcolm 7 years ago with the fake Goliath Birdeater spider? He paid for that already!! After stopping Malcolm from nearly burning down his cabin, and after Annabeth restrained Malcolm from murdering him and his brother, Travis had the worst time of his life that year in training. 

Malcolm? Absolutely terrifying when angry. Would not recommend pissing off. 0/10. 

Not that it stopped Travis from pulling a similar prank with cockroaches dangling over the doorway. 

“Sh! You’re being too loud!”

“Well, excuse me but I just grabbed a handful of someone’s eye—” the rant dies on his lips when he feels a hand grab a chunk of his shirt from behind. 

And suddenly, he’s being lifted.

The dirty tiles are disappearing. 

The dim lights are gone. 

He’s being carried. He’s flying. He’s soaring. He’s falling. He’s crashing into the ground. He faceplants into the tile at rocket speed and slides shoulder first into a solid wall. 

“Oh my gods, why do you feel 100 pounds heavier?”

Normally Travis would jest back, but everything he ate is coming back up … which was nothing except for that banana and apple but it still feels like shit coming up. And he feels like shit now. His vision is spinning. The world is upside down. The world is whirling at max speed. The world is out to get him because this is not his freaking day.

He feels a hand patting the back of his shirt and weakly Travis tries to wave them away. He must look so pathetic. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

He waits to make sure nothing is going to come out before attempting to stand. The last thing he wants to do is to vomit on the girl who saved him.  He wobbles for a bit, the girl supporting him with a hand on his upper arm. But once he’s sure he isn’t going to throw up and isn’t going to fall back on his butt, he turns to face her. A whole speech was on his lips — something about saving him from becoming dinner or something — but it dies when he looks at the girl and how familiar she is. 

Black hair that ends at the shoulder, with bangs that barely just graze the top of her eyebrows. Black eyes with high cheekbones and an aristocratic curved nose. Pale, almost ghostly face.

Just style the hair differently and this girl could be mistaken for Nico. 

A really long time ago, before they found Chris in the labyrinth, before Nico even left the camp the first time, when Nico actually stayed with them for a couple weeks as a happy, clueless 10-year-old, he saw her a couple times, hanging out with the Hunter of Artemis. No… as an actual Hunter of Artemis. They gave someone in their group something. A shirt spiked with centaur blood. Phoebe, if he remembers, so Percy could go. This girl went with Percy and never came back. Nico ran away from them because she died. Nico’s older sister. Nico’s dead older sister. 

“Travis? You have to talk to me. Are you okay?” Bianca di Angelo says, alive and breathing and well, eyes squinting as she tiptoes closer, her crown just barely passing his chin. 

Travis may have, may not have gawked at Bianca for a minute or two. 

Like… Bianca is supposed to be dead. Dead! She died! Almost four or five years ago! And she chose to be reborn! So how, why is she still here? 

Bianca snaps her fingers in front of his face and he flinches from the sudden sound. 

“Hey! What was that for?” He steps back, but two hands stop him by the arms. Two very rotten hands attached to two very dead people with falling hair and sunken cheeks and one eye between the two of them. But they hold him with remarkable strength for two dead guys. 

Bianca unsheathes a knife with grace and fluidity that must have come with tons of practice. None of that awkward, hesitant inexperience he remembers her having. He appreciates it for a second before dissolving into frantic struggling.

A knife is used for many things but never ever for a friendly greeting. At least in his humble opinion, knives are never used for a friendly greeting. Who knows. Maybe the Big Three children do things differently. 

Bianca strides up to him with her knife in hand. Despite looking like a skeleton with her twigly arms and legs and her pale, bony face, she is terrifying. There’s this air of a commandeering presence, of authority, of ‘you-mess-with-me-and-off-goes-your-legs’ aura. 

She stops before him, a hand raising, and Travis flinches, closing his eyes and bracing himself. He feels fingers on his neck, feather light, lightly tugging the collar of his shirt down. Travis opens his eyes tentatively to find Nico’s sister frowning. 

“You can’t be Travis,” Bianca says.

“What? Y-yes I am!” he squeaks, but Bianca is not convinced. She nods at her two henchmen to hold him tighter, the grip almost painful. A palm rests on his forehead and Travis, with his admittedly very limited knowledge about children of Hades’s powers (Hey! Nico is a secretive person and Travis isn’t dumb enough to get on Nico’s bad side right now but maybe one day…when Nico is more chill, maybe he’ll try his luck), stills in terror. He pictures a skeleton bursting from his skull, maggots running down his eyes, his whole body disintegrating into dust. But Bianca frowns some more and pulls her hand back. She pats him down, reaching into his empty pockets, pulling out his beaded necklace out under his shirt with a blank stare, completely glossing his weapon ike they all do, and then going lower to his shoes before traveling back up to his waists, frowning more and more. 

“You’re not dead,” she mutters. 

“I am very much alive,” he agrees with her.

“Your wounds are gone.”

“Ambrosia pulls all sorts of miracles,” he lies. 

Bianca stares at him, wide-eyed. “You found ambrosia?! Really? That’s awesome!”

And holy cow. That is the stare of someone who believes him entirely. Normally, not a single person takes him seriously. Is this guilt he’s feeling? Why does he feel like a shit person?

“Sorry. I was fibbing.” 

“Oh.”

Travis wishes he could sink to the ground as Bianca’s hope wilts and burns but the two skeletons hold him up. 

Bianca steps closer to stare at him with curiosity. He can really see the similarities she has with Nico. The high, royal cheekbones. The pale, almost sickly white of their skin. Black hair as dark as Hades’ soul. The intimidating gleam of their cold eyes. The dimples when they smile— wait, smile. Bianca is smiling. Nico doesn’t do that at all. He has been doing it more and more ever since he started hanging with Will but still not really enough. 

“Oh well. You’re alive and not hurt. That’s all I care about. I saw you fell into that trap by the way,” she says with a grin, almost teasing-like if Travis looks into it enough. “I’m never going to let you live that down.”

Then Bianca whips to the right and Travis finally notices the second person standing there, obscure in the dark not helped at all by the black attire they’re wearing.

“Hey—” Lightning flashes, illuminating everything for just a second. “—Silena, you missed it. Travis—”

He’s not sure if it’s the following thunder or the blood roaring in his ears but he didn’t catch the rest of Bianca’s words. 

Silena Bearuguard, another friend who should be dead dead dead, stands there with something pressed to ear.

“What…” the girl with Silena’s face whispers in Silena’s voice and in a very Silena-like way, tucks a strand of her black hair behind her ears that immediately comes undone. It draws his eyes to the long scar running alongside her cheek horizontally and ends at her ear. 

“S… Silena?” he croaks, not wanting to believe it's her but it's definitely her. Just with shorter hair and scars where there shouldn’t be scars. 

Silena stares at him the same way Bianca and Michael did, eyes going to his shirt first and neck second. She grows rigid. Her hands shake. He hears voices coming from the thing pressed against her ear. A phone. People. Screaming. Silena flinches, bringing the phone a bit away. 

And Travis hears it. 

Connor’s on the other line and he’s screaming for help. 

Her eyes come back to him and they’re anything but calm. But the way the words flow and come out so strong and solid, Travis wouldn’t have guessed nothing else but calm. 

“Sleep, Travis. Sleep.” 

He doesn’t even remember hitting the ground. 

xxxxx

Someone pulls his hands away from his mouth and nose. He opens his eyes to make sure. Not his own hand. But someone else's. 

No. Wait, stop, you don’t understand.

Someone rubs his back. 

Wait, don’t help me. Not when he’s awake too. 

Someone is speaking. Will’s voice. A hymn. 

No, wait. 

And he’s vomiting, all the pills he just swallowed in a small pile of mucus and bile. 

“Travis? Travis, hey buddy. It's going to be alright. Let’s just talk it out. There’s no need to do that. Come on, here.”

He smells it before he sees it. Brownies from his favorite bakery back home. Nectar. In Will’s hand. Just enough for a sip, just enough to not feel like shit but not enough to heal. His mouth waters. His hand is snapping forward to grab the drink and he slaps it away before he could raise it to his lips. The plastic bottle bounces once, twice on the hardwood, gold droplets scattering across the polished floor.

He told him he got this. He said not to worry about it. He can’t fail. He absolutely cannot fail. 

His head snaps up to find Piper, far away, behind two other demigods, all staring at him. 

“Piper. Piper, you have to—” his vision blackens as he hears a distant laugh. A wall of fire that’s circling him. He can see Piper’s face over the walls of flames, horrified. He can hear Leo’s voice, yelling at Piper to let him go. More yelling. More screaming. The fire spreads faster and closer. Until it’s at his feet and ankles and crawling up his army pants to his thigh and torso. It’s just a memory but he still remembers. The overwhelming pain. The excruciating heat. That terrifying lack of freedom to move. 

He digs his nails into his neck until the memories fade away. There’s no fire. He’s not there anymore. He’s not burning in that circle. There’s no pain. Everything’s okay.  

“Piper, charmspeak,” he grits out, pushing down more memories that want to surface, “Put me to sleep just like that first time. But twice. Say it two times.”

Piper shakes her head in confusion. “I… what was that?” 

“There’s no time to explain. Just do it please.” That sounds too much like a plea, too much like how he pleaded back then. He could feel more memory itching forward but he pushes it down just like the rest. 

“That was… me and Leo… but I don’t remember… when did that…”

“Piper, just—”

But he can see she’s not going to react in time, still hung up on that memory. The laughter, the roaring is getting louder and louder. Any minute now and he won’t have full control anymore. 

Another charmspeaker then. But Piper is the only one he sees. No Drew or Silena. 

Swallow the pills again? But Will will just make him barf it back up again. 

His eyes snap up, and spots the phone in Connor’s hand for some reason, not Annabeth’s. He knows Bianca doesn’t want him to call, wanting to pull some theatrical rescue. But Silena is his only option. 

Just… why did it have to be in Connor’s hands?

If he runs from me, it’s over. So full speed. 

He launches himself forward at Connor. And overshoots too far to the right by about a foot. A year and a half in this body and he still can’t get used to the bursts of speed he’s capable of now. He whips around back to Connor who squeaks and backs away, tripping over his own two feet and falling flat on his back, displaying not a single ounce of that usual gracefulness he has come to know. If he had time, maybe he would stop to question it but the phone is loose in Connor’s hand. It’s never going to be easier than this. 

He swears he was aiming for the phone. 

But his hand wraps itself around Connor’s neck instead. 

He panics, leaning down and biting his bicep enough to taste blood. He isn’t sure if it’s himself, or if the pain really did make his grip loosen, but Connor wiggles free from under him. 

His head pounds and screams in protest. There’s a mumble jumble of indecipherable garbage bouncing around in his mind. His left arm is completely out of his control and he can feel his left leg about to go too. There’s no time to wrestle control back. Not with this many people around him, not with all the variables it poses. ***

Silena. He needs Silena. 

He doesn’t remember when but he must have taken the phone while Connor was leaving. His hand is shaking as he unlocks the password and finds her contact in favorites. ***

He doesn’t remember what he said, or when she picked up or why she sounds so confused. 

All he knows is that at the first sleep, he’s out and under. 

[daisychainsandbowties]

Tomb Raider AU: without a radio on her, Ava tries to leave messages to Bea.

She can't leave any clues on how to actually find her, since there's over a hundred people with bad intentions looking for her and only one Bea, but she still spends a significant amount of her time trying to create little tokens of significance from basic survival gear, the junk she finds on the island, and the few personal possessions she has left.

She can't say "find me here," but she can say "I'm still alive, don't give up," and if she can somehow find the right combination of symbols and hidden meanings in the private language they share between them, maybe she can even manage "I love you."

(And then all she can do is pray Bea will find some of them *while* she's still alive.)

ava with her bow and her arrows and her improvised crutches untangling an old parachute from a tree, winding up all the strings and separating them from the ruined harness. she tries to ignore the traces of blood on the many straps and buckles.

she's good at that now, stepping past the blood.

it takes her an hour to rig the big rippling expanse of half-shredded parachute, letting the strings trail from the bottom and attaching some pieces of wood to the ends, as anchors.

first, ava sets it down on the forest floor, takes out the sharpie she always kept in her back pocket, mainly so she could write “lilith sucks my dick” on every possible wall and/or countertop back on the ship. cap between her teeth, legs twinging but letting her kneel without too much protest.

she’s been leaving messages on walls, picking the driest sections, using sharpie and deer blood to write out vague messages. just in case.

she saw the flare go up over the radio tower, but it could have been anyone. never mind that the streak of reddish fire made her stumble, looking at the comet-tail shape like Odysseus looking at the shore.

it was beautiful, but that doesn't mean it was her.

beatrice could be dead, washed up in the surf and picked over by crabs, birds, wolves.

there’s no reason to think she isn’t, except that ava’s not sure what she’s fighting for out here, if it’s not to get back to bea.

to the way she’d sit on her bed and offer one earphone to ava, scrolling through her playlists with a deft flick of the thumb. how she’d fall asleep over her books and put her boots up on the bed.

her secret stash of cookies and protein bars for when it was lilith’s turn to cook.

ava was just as bad, dumping plain tomato sauce onto spaghetti and then burning it to the bottom of the enormous pot, but bea always turned up to eat.

“you don’t have to pretend it’s good, just to make me feel better.”

bea, shrugging, “no i-i like it.”

she has to believe that beatrice is alive, because no one else would understand the messages she's scattered in her wake

‘miss your mint oreos <3’ and ‘i can’t believe you still listen to dubstep’

‘lilith sucks my dick’

this time, ava has a plan. she takes out her sharpie, writing in big broad strokes. the parachute ripples in the wind, trying to tug out from under her.

when she’s finished, she wraps the whole thing up into a careful ball and sticks it into her backpack. it’s bea’s - plain and black and mended in a couple of places. she stitches like a pro.

ava carries it up as high as she can climb, to a cliff with an old tori gate or something sticking out at the end. there’s a view from here down through forest, all the way to the ocean.

she smooths out the parachute, careful not to let it catch the wind. kneels down with it and presses her lips against the fabric, “please let her see this.”

and then, holding one side of the gate for support, legs sore and shaky from the climb, ava casts her line out over the island.

the strings whistle through her hands as she stands, waiting until she feel the ghost of an enormous tug before letting the little blocks of wood on the end fall through her hands. they’re not heavy, but they’re enough.

the parachute holds shape, whipping out over the forest, showing its message huge and bright against the morning sky.

hey bea, it reads. i’m alive