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teddieh · 3 years ago

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It’s 3 in the Mornin’ and I’m Tryn’a Change ya Mind

Summary: Yeah so I listened to the full version of “why’d you only call me when you’re high” by Artic Monkeys. The slowed and reverb version? Couldn’t get this idea out of my head so... I’m not sorry. Pure Smut, no real plot.

Rating: E - NSFW - Dom!Fem! AFAB! Reader

Word Count: 5,530

I couldn’t quite pick a character when writing so, its your fave! But the people I had in mind are listed below. As always, all characters are 18+:

IC: Eren (Aot), Itadori, Megumi, Kirishima, Denki, Sero, Natsuo (BNHA), Kuroo, Daichi, Ukai, Tanaka, Suga, Atsumu, Oikawa, Tengen (KNY), Mista (Jojo), Nero (DMC), Noctis (FFXV), Axel (KH), Trevor Belmont (Castlevania), Alucard (Castlevania), Trunks, Anakin Skywalker (Clone Wars show), Dean (Supernatural), Eddie Brock, Jason Todd,

Honorable Mentions (Almost but not quite IC): Rengoku, Tanjiro, Gojo, Inumaki, Iwaizumi Hajime, Tendou Satoru, Hinata Shoyo

The lights of the room flicker a hazy golden, his skin glowing under the light, shadows dipping over the muscles of his chest and abdomen as he breathes, chest rising like quiet mountains, falling in shuddered breaths as his eyes map along the curves of your body.

The shadows dance across the silken red stockings covering your thighs, leading up to the rose lace trip hugging the curves of your hips. Connected to the hem are straps attached to the bottom of your panty garters, the bottom half hiding the warmth of your sex.

The softness of your laugh graces his ears as you watch him stare. “See somethin’ you like, hm?” You coo, carmine colored lips curving into a smile as he licks his own. The heat his body radiates only intensifies as he shifts beneath you. You’re almost straddling his chest, just barely allowing your thighs to graze his sides, knees digging into the plush of the mattress beneath the two of you.

You drag your hands up from the straps to the high waist of the panties, the daisy designed lace hugging your curves. Fitting, you think, for daisies to be part of this piece. His hooded eyes flicker back down to follow your hands as you slide them over your covered stomach to the bottom of your push-up bra’s cups. You trace the lace of them, and he watches, his chest caving slightly as he holds his breath.

One of your hands rests flat on the bed as you lean closer to his face, the other continuing upward. You tilt your head at him, allowing your fingers to grace the lace on the outside of the cup, traveling up the v-neck, trailing over the curve of your breasts, then over the elastic bands curving over the plumpness of them that leads up and over your shoulders. His eyes follow every movement of your white, almond french tip nails as they trace up the curve of your neck. A long finger parts the softness of your lips. You speak again, eyes lowering as you trace the angles of his face. You move your hand from your own face and curl your hand under his jaw, tilting his head to look straight in your eyes, caressing his bottom lip with your thumb, gently pressing on it with your nail. “I asked you a question, lover boy.”

The breath he’d been holding releases, his chest shaking slightly as his glossy, dark blown eyes finally focus on your face again. “...You’re ethereal.” he huffs, cheeks warming beneath your touch. You can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in your chest, a soft intake of breath as your eyes roll. He watches the soft flare of your nose, the dip of your neck, down into your cleavage where the cups cover you from his view. His eyebrows furrow just slightly before you give a gentle tut and his eyes immediately flick back to your face, wider and at attention.

“You’re cute, especially like this, you know?” You lean closer, so close he can smell the orange, jasmine, and the rose of your Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. His tongue flicks over his lip, brushing against your thumb as you lean down to gently nudge your nose against his own. You slide your hand down from his lips, tracing down his jaw to wrap around the expanse of his neck. You don’t squeeze, simply hold with a light pressure and you feel him swallow beneath you, his adam’s apple bobbing as his breath fans over your lips.

You eye him for a moment, leaning so close your lips almost brush and his eyes flutter close in anticipation of your plush lips against his. You don’t give him the satisfaction as you lean up and back, sitting on your knees above him instead of hovering and pulling away all the warmth you’d given him.

He whines immediately, eyes fluttering open as he chases the warmth of your body. His shoulders and biceps flex as he leans up to chase you, but the hemp rope, tied in a double column tie, holds both his wrists back and is pulled up to the headboard. It only lets him bend slightly up at the waist, chest rising off the mattress before he huffs in frustration and flops back down, his body rustling the plum and magenta sheets. He’s careful not to tug too hard, knowing if he truly tried he’d be able to break the restraints, or slip free from them. He breathes hesitantly, a shuddering breath that skips a few beats before he gazes at you again, eyes hooded once more and thighs flexing beneath you.

“You’re so good to me, sweetheart.” You purr, sitting back on your knees and resting on his thighs, avoiding the warmth straining his boxer-briefs taut against his hips, and the obvious girth of him within. You reach up, gently dragging your nails down his chest, not enough to scratch but applying enough pressure that he feels the tips against his skin. He groans, head tilting back into the pillows beneath his head as your nails drag over his pecs, down the curves and dips of his abdominal muscles, stomach sucking in as your fingertips graze past his belly button and inch closer, closer to his pelvis, his dick jumps, pulsing as a wet spot stains the tip. His breathing hitches, “God--”

You giggle and reward him with the flat, warm press of your palms against his sides, dragging them up the length of his body, up his muscles, over his pecks, over his shoulders, applying pressure as you go. “It’s just me here, baby. But I’m flattered.” You suck your bottom lip in behind your teeth to hold in the excitement cursing through you. He looks so good like this, underneath you, at your will and whim. It’s one of the few times when you’re completely in control, and you get to coax the reactions out of him instead of the other way around. You figure you’ve teased him quite a bit, and you could reward him just a bit more.

He tilts his head to look down at you again as you lean forward and crawl closer, pressing your body down against his. He shudders, pressing back up into you and relishing in the bit of skin to skin contact that he can get around your lingerie. You reach your right hand up, stroking your fingers through his hair and giving it a gentle tug. The groan he releases vibrates so deep within his chest that you feel it. “I think you deserve a kiss, hm?”

“God yes--”

You brush your lips against his, and briefly note the flex in his bicep beneath your arm as your left hand traces down his chest and over his left nipple. His breath hitches only for a moment before you tilt your head and slot your lips against his. The moan he lets out is swallowed up in the glide of your lips, the warmth of the room, your breaths, the drumming of your hearts.

The kiss starts slow, sensual, lips locking, softly releasing with gentle pecks before his hips shift, pressing closer to you then spreading outwards so you can slot your leg between his own. You do, pressing the softness of your thigh against the bulge running up and along his waist. You gently grind your thigh against him and he breaks the kiss only for a moment for his breath to hitch. His fingers flex, wrists turning slightly within the rope before he leans forward and captures your lips in a kiss again, more urgent, more passionate. His lips dominate yours as he presses his own thigh up between your legs and you moan into the kiss as he flexes it, your clit pulsing in time with your heartbeat, walls clenching around nothing as the cotton inside presses up against your lips. You press yourself further into his thigh and roll your hips forward, and he takes the moment to swipe his tongue along your bottom lip.

It’s easy to see his control gaining and yours waning, and in response you gently tug his nipple between your thumb and forefinger and when he gasps, you slip your own tongue out to grind against his own. He huffs through his nose, the air fluttering your lashes as you smirk against his lips and take the time to taste him and dominate the kiss yourself. The Coffee-tea you’d brought him earlier is still strong enough to leave a light buzz on your tongue.

When you break away, both your lips swollen from the kiss, you trail your lips down the curve of his jaw, feel the shiver that wracks through his body as your lips trail further downward. “W-why do I feel like this is payback from the hickey last week?” he chuckles breathlessly, cut off into a sharp inhale as you nip his jugular gently, then soothe it with the soft pass of your tongue. “You know..I forgot about that until you mentioned it. Maybe you do deserve punishment.”

He snorts at that but lets out a grunt as your lips attach to his neck, right below his ear, and you attach your lips to the spot, sucking softly first, then harder, gliding your tongue around it as he groans, hips twitching upward and thighs shifting further. You press your hips into his to pin him to the bed, using your hands to pin him as well, and then ghost your lips down his neck, stopping at the junction of his shoulder to suck a dark colored mark into the skin. You switch your attention to the same spot on the other side of his neck, and he turns his head away from you to give you more access.

Once you’re satisfied, you press kisses down the center of his chest and then grin up at him cheekily, shifting your own body down to lay half on him and half on the bed. He raises an eyebrow at your antics as you smile at him, right hand coming up to trace circles on his chest. “..What’s that look for?”

“I’ve just wondered if you’re sensitive here.”

“Where?”

Instead of replying you swipe your tongue over the soft perk of his nipple and his entire body shivers once, thighs tensing inward. “Here.”

“H-hey-!”

“Hey.” You smirk, finger tips gliding down his body to tease at the happy tail leading into his dark underwear. His stomach sucks in, dick twitching as your nails dip beneath the fabric and trace circles on his pelvis, against the neatly trimmed curls above his dick. Your lips blow gently on his nipple, the cool air after the wetness perking it up as you latch your lips and give a gentle suck, tongue swirling around the tip and his areola before you switch and give the same attention to his other nipple. He doesn’t moan, but his heavy breathing and the soft jerks upward of his hips, rolling beneath your touch as you press your palm near the base of him is enough to tell you he’s enjoying it.

“S-shit” His breath hitches when you gently press your teeth around the perk of his nipple, you soothe it with a gentle swirl of your tongue, a kiss, and then begin trailing your lips down his abdomen, tongue dipping into the curves as you crawl down the length of his body. You shift again, sliding his legs further apart as you settle between his legs and tap his hips to get him to raise his knees. “Let's get on to the main show, hm?”

He bites his lip instead of replying, eyes watching you carefully. He’s sure if he says what he’s thinking (You’re just going to tease me more when they come off..) that it would not give him the results that he so hopes for. In fact, he’s almost sure you’ll only tease him worse after, so instead he resigns himself to lifting his hips when you grip his waistband and begin to tug down, shivering at the scratch of your nails down his hips and thighs as you slide them down. His dick jumps straight up, girthy, giving a slight twitch, with precum beading at the tip. You smile at him, sitting up and swirling his underwear through the leg-hole and waistband on your index finger. “You know, with as many times as you’ve kept mine,” you coo, leaning forward and lowering your voice just a bit, “maybe I should keep a pair of yours too?” The teasing lit to your tone isn’t lost on him as he rolls his eyes and shifts his hips. When he turns to you again, he’s almost pouting with the flush to his face. You laugh and toss the underwear, raking your nails up and down his left thigh to feel the muscles tense and jump.

“Okay okay, maybe next time.”

“It’s not like you don’t already take most of my clothes, a pair of your panties doesn’t hurt, does it?” He’s breathing heavier, and his face falls slightly as he sees the grin spreading across your face. He realizes he’s said that out loud. You tutt at him, shaking your head. “And here I thought you were doing so good…” Your fingernails dig into his thighs hard enough to leave indents, but not break skin. His hisses softly and bucks his hips up,

“Okay okay, I’m sorry. Just-- touch me?” He asks, though from the soft shake of your head as you lower yourself back down onto your stomach, (his eyes following the curve and arch of your back, the jutt of your butt waving in the air), he knows you won’t do it without him begging.

Your lips hover over the tip of his shaft, and you can feel the heat radiating off of him like a furnace. He’s so hard, and seeing you in front of him like this causes his dick to twitch. You blow on it gently and his knees twitch in. “Good boys beg.” You say, eyes flicking up to him as you lay your arm over his left thigh, leaning on it and letting your fingernails trail the length of his shaft. His whine goes straight to your pussy, and the heat and wetness of it, the way the crotch sticks to you with your arousal is becoming much too warm. But you have to bear it, just to hear him beg, to see the way he shakes and trembles when he’s close.

You wrap the warmth of your hand around the girth of him and he lets out a sigh, hips trying to buck into your hand and you push him down with the arm you’re leaning on. “Ah ah…Be good now.”

He huffs, flexing his muscles as he tries to relax himself.

The warmth of him pulses in your palm, your thumb tracing up the vein and curve of him, watching the way his eyebrows furrow in and he bites his lip. You twist your wrist gently as you give him another stroke, tightening your grip just a bit to watch his hips pull in. You giggle, pressing a wet kiss to his inner thigh, so close to his balls that they jump. You move closer, tapping your thumb pad over his wet tip and watching his hips buck as the precum sticks to you. "Feel good?"

He hums, nodding and flexing his hips as your lips trail over his balls, a gentle kiss, and then a soft suckle on the taut skin there, a bead of precum leaks down his shaft at that, and when he looks down at you to see your soft eyelashes fluttering, the pupil blown, soft eyed look on your face and it has him clenching his fists in his restraints. "S-shit.."

Your tongue grinds firmly against his sack, hand continuing its stroke, using his precum as lubrication. You huff through your nose, sliding your palm up to the head of his dick and pressing kisses up the length of him. You slide your tongue out, gliding it along his length and press a kiss to the tip, licking your lips of the slightly salty substance. “Words, baby. Feel good?” You ask, blowing gently over the tip as you shift, free hand coming up to cup his sack and gently massage his balls.

He tilts his head back into the pillows again, and you watch his tongue lather over his lips, the redness of his bottom one from worrying iit between his teeth. “Y-yeah..s’good.” You’re smiling at how easy it’s been to work him up. You glide your right hand back down to his base and glide your tongue over his slit and he hisses and bucks his hips again, the tip kissing your lips. You coo, mouthing gently against him, “If you want me to suck, you beg.”

You give him a steely gaze, despite the blow of your pupils, the plumpness of your lips, the flush and heat of your own face, the dampness of your panties, the perk of your nipples grazing your bra. You need him to know who’s in control, and as he looks down into your eyes, his own face flushed, panting slightly with the soft part of his lips. He swallows, and your eyes follow the movement of his Adam's apple before your gaze flicks back to his face. You smile against him, low and curled. He shakes his head, knowing it’s easier to give in now than to have you keep teasing.

You’ve been doing it all day, trying to convince him that he should let you take the reins this time, even after teasing him throughout the day. Your fresh set of nails stroking and gently grazing against the hair on the nape of his neck. Your lingering curved touches, the embraces from behind, the trailing of your palms over his chest, using him to put your heels on with your cleavage exposing the top of the lacy bra you’d worn earlier beneath your dress shirt before your night out. The delicate hand rested on his upper thigh as you’d laughed with your mutual friends at the bar earlier that night. The soft pecks, hushed promises for more and yet tugging away. Then the way you’d completely ignored his own advancement of your teasing when you’d gotten home, stating you’d only participate if you were in control, and only at the deepest hour of the night, bordering close to morning.

He knows he can’t keep this teasing much longer, and he knows that once your little game is done, he can repay the favor tenfold. The thought creates a heated tightness in his chest. He knows he can make you beg and shake and squirt after. A promise. He nods his head. “Please..” He says, voice cracking at the beginning with the lack of use. You can’t help the brighter smile pushing into your cheeks and the way he rolls his eyes and shakes his head, then tries it again, firmer this time. “Please? There’s nothing like your pretty lips around me.”

The confidence, the promise in his words makes your walls clench, desperate for release and you know you can’t deny him when he speaks like this so you give in, opening your mouth, relaxing your jaw, and sliding your mouth down the length of him. The long drawn out groan, the way his toes curl just a little, the sound of the ropes shifting, the way his balls draw up for a moment in your other palm all only encourages the throbbing of your clit. You decide it’s not worth playing with him too long, you’re starting to get desperate to feel him too.

You sink your mouth down around him, hot, wet, warm. Your tongue glides down the length, and you relax your throat to take him further in. He’s hot and heavy on your tongue, dick twitching once as more pre pushes its way out of his tip. He’s been good enough so you move your hand away from his shaft and press it flat on his stomach and give a very gentle squeeze to his balls, moving your head further down his shaft until his head touches the back of your throat. You breathe through your nose, eyes watering at the thickness and length of him, keeping yourself still to keep calm, and press down until your lips are wrapped around the base of his shaft. He twitches down your throat and as you blink up at him, eyes bleary, you can see the way his muscles strain with the rope as he hisses through his teeth. His eyebrows pinch in, eyes closed tight. “Fuuck…’S’so good to me..shit..”

The praise lights in your belly, and you drag yourself back up the length of him, coating him in your saliva and swirling your tongue around the tip as you suck. His hips buck and you press down on his pelvis to keep him still. You glide your tongue along his frenulum and his thighs shift up once and he grunts. “Shit!” and you’re pleased. He can feel the curl of a smile on your lips as you sink your head back down his length, thumb gently grinding over his sack.

He’s shaking slightly, thighs becoming tense beneath you. “I-if you keep that up I’ll cum..” he grunts, especially as your tongue grinds circles on the head of his shaft on each upward stroke. When you take him in the last time to the hilt, lips around his base, you huff once, twice, through your nose and then you hum. The vibration comes from deep within your throat and he throws his head back, and for a moment, his strength kicks in as he groans and his hips press upward into your mouth. You hold him there, feeling the way he pulses and his legs start to shiver and then you pull up and off of him with a wet pop. His dick twitches twice in the cooler air.

His eyes slide open, glossy with pleasure as he watches you wipe the tears from your eyes and crawl as you sit back on your ass, fingers popping the straps from your panties and your thigh highs. You hook your thumbs into the waistband of your panties and he watches the jiggle of your ass and thighs burningly as you tug it down and lift your hips. He gets the perfect view of your wet labia, slick sliding down from your hole, the way your body shakes as you tug the panties off and fling them in the same direction as his boxers. He smiles, licks his lips, and even struggling can’t stop himself from asking “You’re so eager for me?” but it comes out so breathless that it doesn’t even sound like much of a threat.

“If I’d have continued you’d have cum, and I’m sure you want to feel me just as much as I want you in me.” Your words are less silk, more satin and full as you straddle his hips, reaching between your legs and grasping his length. He jerks in your grip and he groans. “Y-yeah..Can’t wait to feel you..”

His submission falls forth so easily that it makes you give a huff of a giggle before you drag the head of him between your lower lips, collecting your own arousal on him, knowing it’s always a bit of a stretch without his fingers or tongue on you first. You shift downward to grind yourself along the length of him, and the both of you moan as his head bumps and nudges against your clit. You roll your hips, the friction sparking up your body as your thighs twitch inward each time. “Fuck princess, don’t tease us both..” he groans, eyes glued to where you’re lining the two of you up.

You shift slightly so the head of him catches on your entrance, and you shudder, palms coming up to rest on his chest as you push yourself down. The stretch is there, but so is the pleasure and the pressure of his hot length finally stroking the fire you’ve burned within. You’re moaning, walls squeezing tight around his shaft and he’s biting his lip hard to keep his hips from thrusting all the way in. “S’so tight..shit…”

You shift your hips once and then take a breath before sinking yourself the rest of the way down onto him, your hips flush with his and you’re moaning at the fullness, the sound caught up in your throat and your walls flutter around him, tightening and squeezing and refusing to let him go. One of his eyes is screwed shut and the other is hazily staring at where the two of you are connected. “F-Feels like home every time..”

You’d laugh at his cheesiness if it didn’t feel just as good for you, the thickness of him filling you so good, the heat and weight of him, how deep he felt in this position. You roll your hips gently, shuddering at the way his tip grinds against your walls and they clench him in response. He hisses softly, biting his lip. “R-relax sweetheart..I’ll cum just from that at this rate..”

The whine that flows from you makes his eyes snap up at you, the way your eyes are hazy as you grind against him, and for a moment he really thinks you might lose control and he’ll get to take over. But you tilt your head down towards your chest, take a shuddering breath, and relax yourself enough that you can move again and then raise your hips an inch. When they fall back down onto his, both from your own movement and gravity, the both of you moan, heads tossed back in pleasure. “Fillin’ me s’so good…” Your voice is heavier, breathier, and his eyes flutter open to watch your expressions. “Y-yeah..? Good for you, right?” He huffs, licking his lip and poking both for the praise and for more.

“Mhmm..so good f-fah!” Your sentence is interrupted by the buck of his hips, the length of him grinding up into you and your head falls back on your shoulders. You huff, he’s playing dirty so you rake your nails down his chest. He groans, hips retracting slightly as his dick twitches and you lift yourself up to drop back down on him, then grind your hips forward once, twice, and then lift again.

A slow but deep rhythm begins as his hips pull back into the sheets and the both of you meet in the middle, the bed frame creaking slightly with the movement. The heat of his eyes trailing flames up the length of your stocking clad thighs, where he stuffs you, and up the smooth softness of your belly and hips, up your waist, your covered breasts, the old bruises of the hickies he’d left on your neck, and then the way your lips part in a whine as you angle yourself to make him brush your g-spot. Your pussy flutters around him at his gaze, at him filling you, at the steady increase of your hips.

You plant your palms against his chest, rising up more than just a few inches, until only a third of him is left and then drop your hips back down and a choked moan forces its way through your lips. Your palms slip to rest instead in the sheets beneath his armpits, palms curling into fists as your pace increases, and the wet smack of your coupling, along with the heavy smacks of your skin meeting grow louder, mingling with the sound of your shared moans.

The heat between the both of you, the warmth of the room, the candle lights flicker, cause perspiration along your bodies as your hips meet. The heat makes the straps of your bra dig uncomfortably,and as you grind your hips in circles on your next downward stroke, you unclasp your bra and fling it off. The sight of your breasts bouncing free, then the jiggle with the thrusts of both of your hips has him groaning and flexing his muscles against the rope again, pulling the rope tighter before flexing his fingers. “Lean down, wanna feel you against me.” He huffs through his nose, flexing his hips up into yours again and you comply, laying your body down on his, breasts flattening against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the stutter of his heartbeat as your lips connect to his.

He shifts, sliding his thighs up to hook beneath your own, and planting his heels into the mattress to get more stability so he can he ruts his hips up into yours, the smacks of your thighs louder and your body bounces against his, your lips parting to whine into his mouth. He shoves his tongue in, grinding it against your own as he deepens the kiss, the smacks of his hips increase as his balls smack against the underside of your ass. Your shared moans grow louder, the coil in your belly tightens and you reach a hand up to bury it into his hair from the base of his neck, gently tugging it back to hear and feel his groan into your mouth.

“Fuck, gonna cum--” He grunts, his dick twitching within you, and the constant rutting and grinding of his shaft along your walls, the friction of your clit grinding into his pelvis, and the stimulation from the skin-to skin contact drove your own orgasm closer and closer to his own.

“F’fill me--inside! Make me cum--!” You whine, babbling against his lips as you grind your hips back down into his with each thrust, free hand sliding up the length of his bicep and arm, over the tie, to lace your fingers with one of his hands. He squeezes back as he breaks the kiss to grunt into your ear with every thrust, his eyes squeezing shut, hips driving into your own with a hard plap!plap!plap! as your lips trail down the length of his neck, moaning into it as the hand holding his shoots down in favor of rubbing the hood of your clit in quick circles, your legs beginning to shake, thighs quaking as your whines heighten in pitch--

“Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!” He huffs, your pussy tightening and fluttering around him as you cry into his neck, the dam in you breaking as your teeth bite into his neck and he lets out a strained groan, his head tilting back, neck straining as he fucks you through your orgasm, your walls squeezing and milking him into his own as he lets out a ragged gasp and his own orgasm breaks. Thick ropes of his cum fill you, your hips continue to move to ride your orgasms, the creamy ring of your cum, along with his own, coats his shaft, your wetness dripping down his balls.

His thrusts slow to a stop, your heart ringing in your ears as the two of you settle down. You’re breathing heavily, and his chest is heaving before he swallows his spit and rests his temple against your head. Your thighs tremble a little still from your orgasm and his thrusts, and the fuzzy feeling of the high of your orgasm is still buzzing your brain as you nestle your face into his neck. “Mmn..” you grumble, and he brushes his lips over the top of your head as you rest against him. The two of you allow your breaths to calm, bathing in the afterglow.

When he goes to wrap an arm around you, he’s stopped by the hemp rope and he nuzzles your head. “Babe..the rope..” With heavy arms you reach above you and untie him from it. He rubs his wrists gently, luckily they weren’t chaffed or rubbed too hard, just sore, and then winds them around your body.

“Thank you..You were so good...” You mutter, pressing your lips to the hickey you’d left earlier. He shudders, fingertips gently gliding over the length of your back.

He lets out a huff of a laugh, “You were good, princess..” his voice a little hoarse, just as yours is as he tilts your head up with one hand to press a kiss to your forehead. You nuzzle your nose to his cheek. “Can’t believe you kept it up..” He laughs and you hum. “I told you I was gonna change your mind..I can dom..” He smirks, and you can hear the smugness in his voice as he cups the back of your neck and angles you in for a gentle peck of the lips. “I didn’t say you couldn’t..Just said I’d get payback when you were done,”

He cooes, half-hard length pulsing gently in you before he rolls the two of you over and his calloused palms slide up the length of your arms to lace fingers with yours and pin them above your head. “and I hope that you’re ready for your turn.”

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adheidth · 2 months ago

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Dainty hands clutch at the bow around her neck, evoking an image of a lady clutching at her pearls. Alice's brow furrows.

"Kh-! Those devils! They should be ashamed of themselves."

In turn, she scoops a handful from her pocket, showing Matthias her own paltry collection.

"As a lady, it would be unbefitting of me to not share when I have more than you. 'tis the duty of the wealthy to share with the poor, after all! Make your pick, and then share with me who you suspect."

A pause, a little huff.

"I think Randal has been lying to me."

more tricks than treats

toajuicy round 3 || cont.

#toajuicy

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izaswritings · 3 years ago

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kh fic - the sum total | chapter two

Title: the sum total

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts

Synopsis: In another world, Lea and Isa succeed in breaking Subject X out of the castle. Some things change. Others stay the same.

Chapter Warnings: cursing/strong language, mentioned past imprisonment, child abuse, dehumanization, human experimentation… the usual KH things. If there’s anything I missed, please let me know!

AO3 link is here.

First Chapter | Next Chapter

chapter two: the second day

It takes a while for them all to calm down. Their friend keeps on crying, even when she tries to stop; Lea, now that they have had a moment to truly breathe, looks like he might pass out right here in the alleyway. Isa keeps his hands on both of their shoulders, holding tight. He isn’t sure what else to do.

He can hardly believe they’re here at all.

They can’t stay here, but Isa isn’t sure where to go. He’s not sure where they are, except somewhere vaguely southwest from the castle, far from the section of the city where Isa and Lea live�� and they probably shouldn’t go that way, either, especially after the scientist and guard both caught them fleeing. So home is out.

We were supposed to have a plan. The thought rises, sudden and sharp; he grips their shoulders a little tighter. Isa was supposed to be ready for this, for breaking her out—instead he feels more unprepared than ever before. He keeps trying to plan where to go next, and instead he just keeps thinking stupid things, like, I have school in the morning. How long until my parents notice I’m gone? Wasn’t there a group project due soon?

Useless. School and his parents and annoying his classmates are the literal least of his worries now. But somehow, it’s all he can think.

He doesn’t know what to do. The frustration burns.

“We have to keep moving,” he says, at last. Lea exhales a heavy breath; their friend sniffles and tries unsuccessfully to stop crying again. At least she isn’t hyperventilating anymore. That had been awful, and the whole thing had nearly made Isa start crying too. “We can’t let them catch up.”

“We should hide,” their friend says, voice rough. She wipes at her eyes again, breathing ragged. “I… I don’t know if I can keep running like that for much longer.”

Anxiety twists in his chest—but she is shaking, and her face is bloodless, and on second thought, she looks a little like she might pass out too. His own feet are stabbing with an aching pain. Isa swallows his objection back down. “Okay,” he says.

“What about the warehouse district?” Lea wonders, and shrugs when they look at him. “We’re close by, I think. We could hide out there.”

Isa presses his lips, but… he can’t think of anything better. The warehouse district is closer to the edges of the city, by the empty fields used for flight testing and such. Big, empty… and it’s mostly for storage, right? If they find one run down enough, it might not even have an alarm.

It’s their best bet. Isa pushes to his feet and holds a hand out to their friend. She takes it gratefully.

On the ground, Lea groans. “Come on, man. No hand for me? Did I make you mad or something?”

Isa kicks at his boot, scowling. “I’m not mad.”

“You look kind of mad.”

They don’t have time for this. Isa turns away. “Let’s go.”

“Isa—”

Their friend holds out a hand for him. Lea huffs and takes it, and then gives Isa a look, like, see?

Isa resists the urge to kick a rock—he is not going to be the one that gives away their position—and starts making his way to the warehouse district.

Behind him, Lea lingers back. “Need some help?”

“Yes, sorry… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Locked up for a year is what’s wrong with you. Here, give me your arm. We can shuffle-walk.”

She laughs, surprised into it. Lea grins, and slings her arm over his shoulders.

Isa winces, and slows down. Their friend is walking stiffly, pain tight in the corners of her eyes; she steps lightly, like her feet are on fire. She doesn’t have any shoes, Isa realizes belatedly. She has been running barefoot all this way. It’s a wonder her feet haven’t started bleeding.

The guilt sinks deep in his chest, sharp as a blade. He looks away, and keeps going—but this time, he keeps Lea and their friend in the corner of his eye, and lets them set the pace.

(He was supposed to be ready.)

They creep their way through the shadows and the back-alleys, inching their way to the edges of the city. The burning adrenaline from escaping the castle has left him, but the fear stays, knotted tight in his chest. The air burns cold, and the darkness settles; every odd noise makes him flinch. It’s as if the world had been whited out and faded as they fled—and now that they’ve slowed down, it has returned with a vengeance. Every flicker of a light makes his breath catch.

But somehow, by some miracle: no scientists round the bend. No guards follow in their footsteps. They make it to the warehouses unseen, hidden by the unyielding dark.

When they pass from the well-lit streets into the inky dark of the warehouse district, their friend shivers. But she doesn’t tell them to stop.

The warehouse district is almost pitch-black—the lamps are set sparse and far-apart, and the shadows are dark and deep. There are almost no lights here at all, and the clouds still hide the stars; he can hardly see at all. They don’t have light or time enough to be choosy. Isa takes a breath and squints through the gloom. Not the first few warehouses, that seems too obvious… someplace they can run from, if they get cornered…

There’s an open flight field fenced off, and a row of big, hollow structures settled about half-way down the row. The flight field is old and getting overgrown—the warehouse, near decaying, well-worn. The lock is rusted and old. Isa scans the building best he can. No way to tell if its alarmed.

No other options, either. Isa takes a deep breath, and starts looking for something to break the lock.

One broken pipe and a lot of effort later, the lock is broken and the door is open. Isa pushes Lea and their friend through, and then drags the warehouse door closed behind them. It’s dark. It’s so dark he can’t even see his hand in front of his face, and when something grabs at his shoulder he jumps.

“Just me,” Lea whispers. His voice sounds thin. “Come on. Lets find a corner.”

Isa reaches out. Lea takes his hand, and then someone else takes his other hand—their friend. Her hand is as cold as ever. He can feel her shaking.

“I think I’m by the wall,” she whispers. “I’ll lead.”

He can feel her limp with every step.

They reach the corner after what feels like ages—boxes just barely avoided, pipes on the floor and the smell of oil thick in the air. Lea almost trips more than once; every noise feels amplified, made echoed and damning by the space and the silence. Their friend hits the far wall and then slides down to sit, dragging Lea and Isa down with her. They kneel there in the dark, all three of them—just sitting. Just breathing.

He can’t see a thing, but he knows they’re there. His hand is starting to sweat; Isa holds on tight anyway. It is all beginning to catch up with him. Everything they’ve done— everything they’ve left behind.

He falls asleep right there, in that endless darkness, holding tight.

He’s not sure how long he sleeps; when the door of the warehouse slides open with a bang, daylight streams through bright as a beacon. Isa jolts awake with a snarl already on his face. Lea mumbles, and rolls over.

Their friend slams herself back against the corner of the warehouse so hard, even Isa can feel the impact. Her face has gone white.

Realization dawns a second too late. Isa scrambles to his feet, no longer breathing. Lea grumbles again, turning over as if to snuggle into blankets, and then blearily pauses when he smushes his face into concrete instead.

“Damn shit lock!” says a voice at the warehouse door, rough and heavy and thick with an accent. Their friend isn’t breathing anymore; she’s tucked herself so far into the corner she seems entirely taken by the shadows, and her face is tight with pain. She is blinking too fast at the daylight. Isa stands, trying to hide her as best he can. His mouth has gone dry.

There is a man in the warehouse entrance— stooped back and oil-stained clothes, with pale yellow hair cut close to his scalp and a pinkish, squinting face. He shoves the door open further, grumbling. Then he turns and sees them.

“The fuck?”

Isa scoots back. The heel of his foot smacks into Lea’s side on accident; Lea yelps, lurching upright, and says, so loud it makes Isa flinch, “Geez, I’m up, I’m up! What’s your—“

Lea’s voice abruptly dies in his throat. Color and irritation both drain from his face. He scrambles to his feet, stiff and wired, eyes a little too wide. He looks to Isa and then snaps his head back to their friend, and then whirls on the man in the doorway, fists clenched, hands shaking.

The man pauses. His scowl darkens to a frown, and he looks at them for a long moment. He shifts. Daylight glances through the door; their friends makes an involuntary noise of pain, and then smacks a hand over her mouth, looking horrified.

Lea glances back; Isa’s fingers dig into his palm. He keeps his eyes on the man in the doorway. His mouth tastes like ash.

The man has heard the noise too. He goes very still. A strange range of emotion crosses his face, and then he lifts a hand and drags it over his eyes. “Shit,” he says, lowly. “Damn fucking fool, not replacing the lock, checking out the damn alarm… should have just stayed in bed. Bah.”

He turns and exits back outside, still muttering. Isa blanks. What?

He looks at Lea. Lea looks helplessly back. Their friend is similarly frozen. How nice that they are all on the same page.

Reason reasserts itself. Isa bolts for the door. “Wait—”

The man is already heading back inside the warehouse. Isa just barely keeps from slamming into him. “Don’t tell the guards,” Isa says, fast, trying to sound sharp and mostly just sounding desperate even to his own ears. “We’re leaving now, so don’t—”

“Calm the fuck down, kid,” says the man, and then, “Shit. Crap. Da—Dang it all. Calm down. I ain’t calling any dam—dang guards.”

“Yeah right,” says Lea, incredulously, from the back.

The man already looks irritated; somehow, the irritation deepens. “You know my mind better than me now, kid? I said I ain’t calling the guards, so I ain’t calling any guards!”

Isa takes a moment to consider that. “I… I don’t understand.”

The man mutters something under his breath and shoves past him. There’s a box in his hands, dented and rusted—dull red paint and a peeling logo of a staff with two snakes. A first aid kit, Isa realizes, belatedly. Beyond the door he can see a beat-up truck; had the man left to grab it?

Lea has thrown himself in front of their friend, arms outstretched. “Don’t—”

The man huffs and puts down the kit on the ground. Lea stops mid-sentence, faltering. There is a long moment of silence.

“Hm,” says the man, looking sour, and then he turns away from Lea and their friend and heads back for the door. Dust drifts through the air, glowing in the sunlight; in the shadows of the warehouse, crates pile high, surrounding an open space in the center of the room where a strange aircraft rests, half-covered by a molding tarp. Beyond the door, there is a rusted truck and painfully blue sky, too bright to bear.

The man pauses in the doorway and then glances back to survey the warehouse. Isa stares at him. The man catches his gaze and crosses his arms. “What?” he snaps.

Isa doesn’t say anything. The man’s mouth twists, and then he shoves past Isa for the door again. “Don’t touch anything, you hear?” he calls back. “If the Shera has so much as a scratch I’m taking it out of your hides. And I will know.”

The man looks at Isa as he says this. Isa stares back. The silence stretches. Outside, somewhere far away, a bird titters.

“…Got it,” Isa says, at last, weakly.

The man grunts. “Any allergies?”

“I— what?”

“I said—”

“No allergies,” Lea says, cutting him off. His hands have lowered back to his his sides. He gives the man a very strange look, and must find something—because then he grins, crooked and sideways. “Not very fond of spicy things, though. And—” He glances back behind him, their friend hidden in the shadows. Isa can’t see her. Lea turns back. “Um.” He clears his throat. “Can we get… something warm? Like, fresh bread, or something.”

“Do I look like a damn restaurant?” the man snaps, but his eyes trail behind Lea and his frown twists. “Whatever.”

An awkward pause. The man directs his frown back at Isa again, says, “And not a single dang thing out of place, you hear me?” and then, before Isa can even think to respond to that, the man turns away and drags the warehouse door closed behind him.

Silence. Isa can hear the man muttering as he walks away. Isa… doesn’t move. He feels a little bit like he’s been slapped.

Just. Just— what?

Behind him, Lea sighs heavily. Then there’s a muffled thud as he apparently falls boneless to the floor. Isa turns to look at them. Lea has fallen to his back, arms out, eagle-spread on the ground. Their friend is still frozen and blank-faced in the corner.

“That went well,” says Lea, to the ceiling.

“…He’s hiding us?” their friend says, quietly, uncertain.

“I…” Outside the warehouse, he can hear a car start, and then drive away. Isa clenches and unclenches his hand. “I don’t know.”

The uncertainty locks in his throat. For a moment he feels— he is not sure what he feels. He is not sure of anything. Their friend is free, but... they were supposed to be ready, Isa thinks, and the thought burns bitter behind his eyes. His hands clench. Instead they’re hiding out in a random warehouse, no plan and no destination, nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. They couldn’t even escape right; that one-eyed guard had seen them, and what proof do they have he’ll stay quiet? He couldn’t even— they couldn’t even hide her for a day. Already, someone has found them.

What if it hadn’t been that man? What if it had been someone else?

Lea sits up, looking at him now. “Isa?”

Something flares white-hot in his chest. Isa presses his lips against a snarl and marches past, not looking at him. “I’m fine,” he says, clipped, and heads for the corner. Their friend is still staring at the warehouse door. “Are you okay?”

She blinks, then looks up at him. She seems almost dazed. Cold, too—she is shivering—but of course she is, Isa thinks. Barefoot and wearing nothing but the white patient’s clothes the scientists had given her. Of course she’s cold. He should have expected that. He should have been prepared.

“I—I’m fine,” she says, belatedly. “The light, I… I wasn’t expecting it.” She goes quiet. Something bitter casts across her face, what little of her he can see in the shadows. “It’s so bright.”

“Definitely a different experience to the lab lights, huh?” Lea is on his feet again; his voice is light, but there is something angry about the set of his shoulders. Isa doesn’t look at him. Lea doesn’t look at him either, just approaches their friend and holds out a hand. “…Wanna take another look?”

“Take this seriously,” Isa snaps, unable to stop himself. “That man—”

“Look, man, what do you want from me?” Lea glares at him. Isa looks away. “The guy sells us out or he doesn’t. It’s not like we have anywhere else to go. It’s morning, the streets are crowded, the stupid apprentices are probably looking for us— what else are we supposed to do?”

Isa doesn’t say anything. Lea makes a muffled noise in the back of his throat. “Whatever,” he mutters. He turns back to their friend. “So? Ready to go into the light?”

From the corner of his eye, Lea can see her hesitate. Then she reaches up and takes Lea’s hand. “Is that a reference to something?”

“I mean— it’s a dumb joke, never mind. You okay to walk?”

She stands gingerly, testing her feet. “I can make it.” Lea nods, heads for the warehouse door. She goes to follow—then hesitates. Isa can feel her eyes on him; he stares at the wall and doesn’t acknowledge her. His chest feels wound tight.

“Isa,” she says, softly. “Are you—?”

“Fine,” he snaps. He sounds cold to his own ears. He clenches his fist, frustrated.

She is quiet a beat too long. She looks as frustrated with him as he feels; Isa hunches his shoulders.

She exhales, hard. “Fine,” she echoes. He hears her walk away.

Isa stays where he is. The shadows of the warehouse seem too deep. For a moment, he looks into the darkness and wonders.

They have been spotted; they have been found. But where, exactly, can they go? Lea is right. The sun is up. The city is awake. If they leave now… they will be seen again.

He doesn’t know what to do. Behind him, he can hear Lea and their friend, speaking quietly— (“Should I like… crack the door open? Would that make it easier?” “Mm… maybe?” “Or we could blindfold you.” “Lea. Wouldn’t that would just make it worse?”)— but the shadows hold no answers, and for once, their voices at his back bring no comfort. They are in danger. They are all in danger.

But no matter how hard Isa tries, he can’t think of anything.

Isa isn’t sure how long it takes before the man returns. It feels like an age, but in truth the sun has barely budged in the sky. Lea and their friend experiment with the light until she bows out and backs away, eyes watering. All that time the cell, in the shadows, with only those washed out lab lights… it makes sense. Her eyes are slow to adjust. It does not stop the bitterness in her voice when she admits this, and neither does it help the frustration, rootless and undirected, tangible in the air.

(They should have gotten her out sooner, they should have waited, they should have… Isa is not sure what they should have done.)

But the man does come back— they hear the rumble of his truck coming, and in any other circumstance it’d probably be funny, watching Lea and their friend literally scramble away from the door. It isn’t funny, though. Their friend has gone still again, barely breathing—and Lea is standing in front of her, like that will do anything at all, if someone really is here to harm them.

Isa positions himself by the door, in the shadows. If he has to, he’ll throw himself against it. Buy them some time, maybe.

But when the man walks back into the warehouse he is alone— and there are bags hanging off his arm, a duffle and a paper shopping bag. He gives Lea and their friend a long hard look, and then tosses them the duffle. Lea yelps, and barely catches it.

“Name’s Cid,” says the man, gruff, and then frowns. “Where’s that third one?”

Isa hesitates—and then steps out. “What’s in the bag?”

“Motherfucking—” The stranger— Cid—nearly jumps out of his skin. “Fuck! Make some goddamn noise, would you?”

“I just did,” Isa says.

“Pah,” replies Cid, and shoves the paper bag at them. Isa looks at it. Cid shakes the bag irritably. “It’s bread. Not a damn— dang guard.”

Isa has no idea why the man keeps trying to censor himself; they’re fifteen, not eight. He still doesn’t take the bag. “Why are you doing this?” he says, unable to help himself. “Why—”

“Why are you still here?” says Cid, cutting him off. Isa snaps his mouth shut. Cid looks at him. Looks back over at Lea and their friend. No one says anything. He mutters, wordless, then clears his throat.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he says, and when Lea opens his mouth, adds, “And I don’t want to, shit, don’t tell me.” Lea closes his mouth, grinning. Cid scowls.

“…But you’ll let us stay?” their friend says, stepping out from behind Lea. She is still squinting a little from the light of the door; she is standing taller now, though, and her feet are firm on the ground.

Cid’s eyes turn to her. For a moment he is very quiet. Isa stays still too, suddenly struck. It is stupid, but— this is the first time, he realizes, that she has ever stepped toward the light. This is the first time Isa has ever seen his friend outside of the shadows. Her eyes are a lighter brown than he realized.

She is barefoot and dressed in the white clothes of a hospital patient; she is pale in a sickly way, and in the daylight the shadows under her eyes look like bruises. Her hair is tangled with split-ends; even now, in the daylight, she is still shivering. For the first time, Isa wonders how they appear to this man— Isa, and Lea, and their friend. They have barely slept. Lea has dust in his hair and dirt ground in his clothes; little bleeding scrapes from their crash through the gardens. And Isa…

Isa doesn’t know what he looks like, right now.

“There’s some proper clothes in the bag,” is what Cid says, at last. “And use the damn first aid kit already, shit.” He turns for the warehouse door again. This time, Isa doesn’t try to stop him.

“Bring us stew for dinner one night, old man!” Lea calls after him.

“I said I’m not a goddamn restaurant!” Cid bellows back, and slams the warehouse door behind him.

“He says all that and brings us fresh bread anyway,” Lea says, once the sound of Cid’s footsteps have vanished. He is already digging through the duffle. “Hey, there are clothes in here! Sweet.”

Isa looks at the warehouse door for another moment. Something has lumped in his throat.

Footsteps, behind him. Their friend says, a little wary— “Isa?”

He swallows hard. Then he turns away from the door. “Fresh bread,” he says, and tries to keep his voice even. “Want the first bite?”

Even in the shadows of the warehouse, her smile lights up her face. Isa does his best to smile back. Lea, pulling a shirt from the duffle, shouts, “Check if there’s jam!”

Nothing has changed, really. They still have nowhere to go. He still doesn’t know what to do. But maybe, even if only for today… maybe they’re safe. Maybe.

Isa can only hope.

They spend the day in bated breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never does. No guards knock on the warehouse door; even Cid stays away. They crack open the first aid kit and duffle bag both; their friend changes in the shadows. The t-shirt is like a dress on her, the old sweatpants rolled up at her ankles. The socks swim on her feet. She gives a little twirl when she’s done dressing, and both Lea and Isa clap. The clothes don’t suit her at all, and yet— they suit her better than the hospital clothes ever did. She seems more solid. She seems more real. The relief in her face is unmistakable.

They eat fresh bread and jam with their bare hands, and somehow it is the best thing Isa’s had in a long time. He can still barely swallow it.

The sun sets. The warehouse shadows grow long. They cluster back in the corner, the duffle bag as a pillow. Lea and Isa shoulder to shoulder, their friend curled next to Isa with her back against the wall. Night falls slowly but surely. The silence is comforting, for once. Isa watches the shadows until their friend’s breathing finally evens out, soft and steady in sleep.

“Lea,” he says, quietly.

He can feel him inhale. Lea keeps his voice quiet too. “Isa.”

He doesn’t know what to say, suddenly. “…You awake?”

“I mean, obviously.” He doesn’t sound angry though— just sort of amused, and Isa can feel him shift against the ground, sitting up a little. The floor is cold against Isa’s back, hard and uncomfortable. He’s never slept on the floor before. He aches all over already.

A moment of silence. At last, Lea says, “You ok?”

Isa closes his eyes. “Yeah.”

Lea snorts.

“…Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” He can feel the duffle bag move a little as Lea shifts again, the fabric dipping as he leans back against it. “I mean… we’ve all been on edge. It’s whatever.”

Isa holds himself very still. Their friend’s breathing hasn’t changed at all, dead weight on the bag. The words bubble up. “We were supposed to be ready,” Isa says, unable to stop himself. “We were supposed to— to know what to do, where to go—”

Lea sounds tired. “Yeah.”

“—and I just…” Isa stops. He’s lost the words for it; he grits his teeth, and then sighs, harsh and frustrated.

“I get it.” In the darkness he can just barely see an outline of him, Lea’s hunched shoulders, one knee drawn to his chest. “But we couldn’t wait.”

Maybe we should have. But he can’t say it. He can’t even make himself believe it. Shame burns in his throat. “I know.”

“…Yeah.” Lea goes quiet too. The warehouse district is a silent place; something creaks from far-away, and the wind rustles the latched shutters of the windows. No birds, though. Isa rarely hears birds at all these days, even in sunlight. Never at night.

Mostly all he can hear is their breathing. The floor of the warehouse burns cold against his back, but their friend burns warmer still. The fact she is there at all—it feels like something from a dream. It has been almost a year now since they first met her, and yet in all that time Isa has only ever known her behind the cell door, in the middle of the night, in secret. To see her outside of the lab’s cold shadows—to have her here, back to back to with them… it feels right. It feels fragile. It feels like something they could so easily lose.

“We can’t go home,” Lea says, at last, into this silence. “Can we.”

Isa stares up at the darkness. “No.”

“…It’s funny,” Lea says. His voice has gone really quiet. “I mean, I always kind of figured… I mean, the moment we decided to break her out, you know? Like, you can’t just go home after that. That’s the first place they’d look for us. And I definitely got that memorized, but—“

Yeah. Isa gets it. “It’s different,” he says. “Actually doing it.”

“…Yeah.” Lea sighs a little. Isa can hear him lean back against the duffle. “Well. No need for our folks to keep worrying about our grades dropping anymore, at least.”

Oh, yes, because their children vanishing is clearly a better thing to worry about. Isa shakes his head, biting back the sudden and inappropriate urge to laugh. It really is just… so silly. All this time, all these months of sneaking into the castle at night and sleeping through their classes in the day; all this time Isa has spent utterly apathetic to his parent’s rare disapproval and the way the teachers tutted at his failing grades. Hasn’t he already made this choice? Hasn’t he always known, deep down? They had promised to get her out, but that was never a promise they could make without losing something else.

It had seemed so easy, back then. Because what did it matter? His parents’ anger, the falling grades, the future he’d once imagined for himself— it was nothing, in comparison. There were people locked beneath the castle and their friend lived in a cage. Held up against that… nothing else had really seemed all that important, anymore.

They made their choice long ago. So it shouldn’t matter now, Isa thinks, and yet—

And yet.

He will likely never see his parents again. His teachers, his school, his other friends. His whole life, everything he’s ever dreamed for himself… derailed, utterly and entirely, from this one choice.

But their friend is here, beside them. He can hear her breathing in the dark. Only earlier today they saw her in sunlight; they saw her smile. And earlier still—the three of them, in that back-alley, hiding in the shadows. His hand on Lea’s shoulder and their friend clutching at their sleeves. Together. Together, all three of them, no bars or cells and cold metal walls and—

And he can’t regret it. He can’t. No matter what happens next, Isa never wants to regret that moment.

“Lea,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“…Thanks.”

He cannot see him in this darkness, but Isa can imagine his smile.

“Don’t worry so much,” Lea says, and this time Isa can hear the grin in his voice, too. He closes his eyes against the warmth. “No matter what happens, we’ll face it together. Got it memorized?”

He can feel their friend shift. She takes his hand. Isa stills, eyes widening, something like shame locking in his throat— how much has she heard, how long was she awake, was she listening?—but all she does is squeeze his fingers.

Isa doesn’t move. His breathing shakes. He swallows hard, and then he squeezes her hand back.

“Yes,” he says, quietly. His voice is rough. He clears his throat. “Got it memorized.”

Lea laughs—sharp and surprised, a little sheepish. Fabric rustles; a second hand finds his in the dark. If their friend burns cold then Lea has always burned warm—holding his hand now is like cupping a flame. It is comforting. It is familiar.

“Together,” Isa echoes, and the word settles in the silence like a promise.

#kingdom hearts #kh #khux #lea #axel #isa #skuld #subject x #siax #kh fic #iza fanfic #fic: the sum total #celestial trio #reblogs and comments are always appreciated!!

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aealzx · 4 years ago

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It's funny. I was gonna to ask about Ephemer sooner or later, but it seems I was a little late as we now know. So.... maybe a stupid question, but whats Ephys condition (like what happened to him and stuff)? And you say Vanitas shot Strelitzia? Geez thats rough. These poor children i wanna hug them! 😭

Reaching out to gently rub Ventus’ back as Strelitzia held him, Riku wasn’t sure what had just happened other than it seemed to have been one of those points where Ventus remembered something. Only this time it seemed that Strelitzia knew about it too. It was like there was an instance that had been shared between the two of them, but it was hard to imagine what. As far as he knew no one had ever kidnapped Strelitzia before. And also as far as he knew until Terra’s team had rescued the boys Ventus and Vanitas hadn’t gotten to see much freedom before. It was probably a little insensitive to ask about what Ventus meant by Vanitas having shot Strelitzia, so instead Riku exchanged that question for another one. “Who’s Ephemera?” His gaze when over to the young man in the bed, assuming that was the owner of the name but not sure.

Blaine’s voice came from behind Riku in the doorway, causing the younger one to flinch. “... Hey,” Blaine then offered as a greeting, and shifted forward to kneel in front of Ventus. For a moment Blaine just examined Ventus to see how he was doing, gently brushing his hand on the boy’s hair.

“You remembered something scary, huh,” Blaine said quietly, giving a tiny huff of attempted mirth at the end. “I didn’t think you would, it was a while ago and you weren’t doing too well.” When Ventus ended up lowering his gaze to the ground, Blaine sighed in relent and got back up again to place the vase of flowers he’d brought on the table in the room. “Ephemera is this guy here,” Blaine began to explain, fluffing the flowers a bit and nodding towards the comatose lad. “A long time ago he and I grew up together. A bunch of silly adventures and all that. There used to be this company that would provide fake murder mysteries and such for people to solve. Ephem and I used to love those, and the idiot had a hero complex that also meant he loved helping people.” He spoke fondly, but kept his focus on the flowers for now. After giving a sigh, he stopped fussing with them and exchanged the task for sitting on the bed, putting his hand over Ephemera’s.

“A couple years ago… like six years or something, we got lost trying to solve one of those mysteries, and ended up finding a real one instead,” he admitted, bringing his gaze over to Ventus again. “A couple of little boys trapped in a cage through the window of a building we had no idea what it was. Of course Ephem couldn’t leave them alone. And unfortunately while he was able to get the cops to listen to him, he also found out they were planning on moving the boys in a few days. Soooo we all got the bright idea to rescue them ourselves. A bunch of dumbass teenagers thinking they could stand up to big thugs.” Rolling his eyes at how dumb they had been now that he could see the event in hindsight, Blaine shook his head in disbelief. “And we actually did get them out. But the blond one wasn’t doing so well, and couldn’t really run very fast. Even with his brother helping from behind. The bodyguards eventually caught up, I assume, and everything went downhill from there. All we heard was a gunshot, and then we found Ephem and Strele unconscious and bleeding in an alleyway. It wasn’t until a few months later that Stele was able to tell us that Vanitas was the one who shot her. Having picked up the gun from the bodyguard after Ephemera hit him over the head with a crate. And… unfortunately Ephem hasn’t woken up since then…… We’re not sure exactly what happened to him. But… he got pretty hurt.”

Letting that be the end of the story, Blaine looked absently at nothing while his foot betrayed his unease by swaying side to side. He tried to make lighter of it, but it was easy to see he still had lingering guilt over all of it.

_______________________

Ephemera was a hard one to fit in because for a long time it was really vague what happened to him in the canon KH story XD. It just didn't seem to fit quite right for me to put him as one of Eraqus staff like the others, so eventually after thinking awhile I came up with this.

Obviously Strelitzia didn't die in this AU, but I wanted to keep that part of the story in, and that resulted in Vantias just shooting her without killing her.

Vanitas actually hinted at this situation in a different post, but I just realized that it's in the one I put a gore warning on XD.

Here's the clip though where he mentions them:

“…..It’s common for people to do terrible things in the mind of self preservation. You felt threatened, so you performed actions that would keep your captors from harming you. The fault lies with them.”

“Even for the girl I chose to shoot on my own?” Vanitas asked, a smile splitting his face when Vincent’s fingers twitched. “You know, we actually got out once. Some do gooder hero broke us out of the cells. But then there were the bodyguards behind us, chasing the little girl with pigtails as she ran with Ventus. She wasn’t going to get anywhere like that, dragging his half functioning body around. So when they caught up to us I took their gun… and I shot her, for being so stupid. That should have taught her a lesson for ruining everything I built up. Her and the other guy. Can’t say I know what happened to them, for they took us back soon enough.”

#My art #kingdom hearts #khau #htau #heart transplant au #blaine #goldenwitherphoenix13 ask #long post

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allycryz · 4 years ago

Note

2. Open your eyes. for either all of the ot6 or just emet-selch x y'shtola.

Surprise, I found a way to do both :D

Post SHB, A Beach Episode With an Extremely Vague KH Reference

Rated: T-ish for implied sex

Y’shtola approaches from behind and lays her hand atop his head, fingers sinking into thick hair. “Close your eyes, Hades.”

He goes still and quiet beneath her. The only sounds are the wind, the waves, and distant shouts of laughter from their loves. She pushes at the limit of her aether sense to perceive them: Thancred and Nerys on Haurchefant and Urianger’s respective shoulders, fighting to knock the other off into the water. ‘Tis late for such games, given the setting sun and the dangerous undertow but…

...There is a reckless quality in all of them that draws her. Perhaps because it means they’ll accept that same trait in her. She has spent a lot of time pondering the forces that draw the six of them together. No easy answers, but many promising theories.

Hades sits on the porch in his shorts and open floral shirt, dark glasses pushed up into his hair. Much of the garment’s pattern is lost to her–she recognizes the distinct aetheric signatures of purple and black dye, vague flower shapes, and gaps the pigment variations are too subtle to catch without concentrated focus (It is rare for him to be understated in his clothes. She suspects a floral print at the beach needs subversion before he will don it.)

She spends a moment assessing the correct point of entry before perching herself in his lap. At once–as expected–his hands seize her hips to steady her.

“May I open them now, darling?” His eyebrows shoot up to the hairline and glasses, but his lids remain firmly shut.

“Not yet.” One hand continues holding the plate she brought from inside their rented beach house. The other runs over his cheek. The skin feels slightly warm. Hades had been diligent in applying and re-applying sunscreen...until Urianger started a sandcastle contest.

Nerys was the one to remind him, noting he was getting pink all over. Which sparked a debate about whether the time spent re-applying would be taken from the two-bell time limit. (They ruled against him and also against the use of magic. He still won.)

He caresses her hip, rubbing the fabric of her sarong between two fingers. The other arm locks firm about her waist until her bathing suit top presses against his shirt and bare chest. Y’shtola goes very still, not giving him the slide of bodies he clearly wants.

Hades sighs. “Cruel sorceress, you’ll drive me to distraction.”

“It seems you were doing nothing before I arrived. What could I distract you from?”

“Why…” He leans forward until his mouth finds her forehead. “Watching our lovers of course. It’s cute Thancred thinks he stands a chance.”

“Ah but Thancred need only give one of those smiles at the right moment. And then he can push her into the water.” Y’shtola smiles. “Nerys can only resist such prettiness for so long.”

“I’m aware. How do you think I won her over?”

“I’m certain…” Y’shtola gives her driest tone. “That wasn’t the sole reason.”

“Believe what you will.” His mouth drops down, intent on pressing against hers. She slips the free hand between them, so that his lips press to her palm. Hades huffs a chuckle and slides his tongue over her skin.

“Now,” says Y’shtola. “Eyes stay closed. Open your mouth.”

He gives her a look as best as one can with their eyes closed. But he obeys, full lips parting. There is some type of balm upon them. Possibly darker than the natural shade. If it were more pigmented, the energies would feel different.

She takes the offering from her plate and presses it to his lower lip. Hades follows the cue and takes it full into his mouth, chewing it slow as he savors it. Juice clings to her fingertips and she offers them in the same way. His tongue slides over, practiced enough to know how to avoid her clawtips.

“Is this…?”

“Open your eyes.”

He does, smiling at her and then at the plate. The fruit atop it is so vibrant a red-orange she perceives it as clearly as its star shape and the pith she peeled away in the kitchen. “So that’s where you were this morning. You did remember how dangerous I said the trek would be.”

“Of course. It meant I was well-prepared for the terrain and the monsters. Besides…” She picks up another piece of the fruit. “You knew exactly what you were doing, telling two aetherologists about an aether-rich fruit. And all four of them are hungry for the types of stories you said went along with it.”

“Five of you.” He plucks the fruit from her hand and presses it to her lips. “You cannot pretend you were not captivated.”

She hums and takes the offering, returning the slide of tongue over fingertips. Sucking lightly at the tip of his longest finger. The arm about her waist tightens, presses her nearer.

“But tell me, darling. Why go by yourself?”

“Because we came here specifically to relax. Not to take quests and errands. I went so that the others can enjoy the…” She wrinkles her nose, realising the unintended pun about to come out. His chuckles says he guesses at it. “So they can enjoy the fruit without the strain. They deserve it.”

“Ah, but don’t you also deserve a reprieve?”

Y’shtola shrugs. “To tell the truth, I found the trek great fun. And I know-” She touches his lips to silence the comment bubbling from his mouth. “That Nerys and Haurchefant would say they also find quests enjoyable. But neither of them know when to pause or relax.”

“Pot, kettle.” He stands, lifting her in his arms. She clutches at him with her free hand, frowning a little at the sudden gesture. (At least she kept ahold of the plate.) “It seems once again, I must save you from yourself.”

"If you drop me into the ocean I will not be held responsible for the consequences."

"Tempting but no, I've something else in mind." He walks into the house, clutching her to his chest.

"What have you two been up to?" Thancred asks, poking his head into the bedroom. There is a raucous hubbub below, snatches of Haurchefant and Nerys giggling.

"Guess." Hades says, drawing his hands over Y'shtola's bare back. She shivers under the touch but does nothing else, says nothing else. For once, she is utterly languid.

"Room for one more?"

Hades sniffs. "Wash the brine and sand off of you and maybe we'll allow it."

"Spoilsports." But he steps back, just as the other three crowd the doorway. Well. Nerys and Haurchefant do. Urianger hangs back a little.

"Shtola!" Nerys sounds both awed and stern. "We found the fruit in the kitchen. This morning, were you-"

"She was," Hades answers for her. "Would all of you please go wash up instead of tracking sand into the bedroom?"

"If it wouldn’t make the sheets gritty," she hears Haurchefant mutter. "We could go in now and track sand all over him."

"To the shower," Urianger says. "And then we shall see about the bed."

"Ah Uri, my sweet prince, you are the kindest of us."

"Mayhaps not, for I am sore tempted to vex Hades with my sandy feet upon his person."

Y'shtola laughs, pressing her face to Hades’ chest. The other four move on, voices muffled by the closing of the bathroom door.

"...that shower and the bath are rather large," Hades murmurs. "Do you want to join them?"

"Another time." She says, eyes falling shut again. "I'm resting now."

"I'm pleased to hear it, darling." He strokes the back of her neck and she melts against him, sleepy and content.

#food cw #big heroic ot6 #y'shtola x emet-selch #y'shtola rhul #ally writes #nerys eluned #emet-selch #thancred waters #urianger augurelt #haurchefant greystone #ffxiv

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atomic-taco-muffin · 2 years ago

Note

Ff7 and kh pacifist alternate timeline:

Anya: *huffs in an "I told you" way before walking out*

Hana: to be honest, the thought of pushing a baby out of me is terrifying

0 notes

arcanescholar · 4 years ago

Text

Hard To Find The Right Words

Omori Post True Good Ending Spoilers.

Aubrey having a tough time, etc etc. Enjoy maybe??? Might get more chapters later if I feel like it???????????? FUCK????????????

Ch 2

On the long, long list of “shit Aubrey’s had to put up with” for the past few days…

This special, insidious sort of dizziness has gotta be a new one. Seriously, give a girl a break right? Who the fuck is able to handle this many highs and lows at once? It’s enough to make her head spin, and the hospital taking her bat away wasn’t helping matters.

The words that tumbled from Sunny’s placid, stony expression, his singular eye barely betraying the shaky, unsteady difficulty in handling recounting the story, made her stomach turn.

Shit, what a time to be thinking about what she had for lunch. If it comes back up right now she might straight up die of embarrassment y’know?

She couldn’t even turn her attention to Kel or Hero but, with the way the younger had to take a step back and struggle to find any words, and how the elder seemed to freeze like a statue, she had a feeling they were in just as bad of a spot.

“… and, that’s what happened.”

Sunny finally finishes recounting his story, and before he can say another word, Hero is already lunging, Ken barely able to snag his less-in-shape brother before he gets the chance to do whatever he was about to.

Aubrey, though…?

Years of anger, years of hatred and fury and bottled up impatience, a near lifetime of bitterness bubbles in her gut and sends her vision swimming.

Huh.

She just remembered, it was pizza.

Weird, why is Sunny getting so much taller? Kel? Hero? How come her knees started hurting suddenly-

Oh.

Oh, her legs gave out. That makes sense. God, her hair’s getting in her eyes, was it already starting to lose its color? Why is it so hard to focus on anything right now? She should be pissed! She should be picking up hospital equipment and chucking it out a window right now! So why can’t she move?! Why?!

For once, Aubrey can’t summon up her anger. For the first time in who only knows how long, she feels like the scared little girl that had to hide away when holes got punched into walls, that covered her head in her room and squeezed herself into a corner with her rabbit when the arguing got too loud. Her breath catches in her throat and refuses to let up. Is she going to die?

She can’t handle this again. Not now. She’s not strong enough, she’s not tough enough to deal with this-

….

Pap

… A hand rests against her head. That brief touch is enough to peel back the veil and drag focus back kicking and screaming into reality. She almost reflexively goes to turn and smack the hand out of the way, only to realize part way through her turn that it was just Basil’s arm, flopping out from the mattress and accidentally brushing against her head for a moment. The boy was still asleep, still a mess of injuries that made her nearly throw up seeing him in that state.

She might have bullied him, fantasized about beating him to an inch of his life, thought about crushing that bat of hers against his skull more times than she could count. She might have turned that weapon on Kel and Sunny both at least once before, but…

Seeing him like this, seeing Sunny with that eye patch, having lost sight in one of his eyes for what might be the rest of his life?

…

She takes Basil’s hand in hers and carefully stands up. Hero and Kel had been shouting for at least a minute now, she’s not sure how long it’s been since they started processing what happened in their own way. A shove is all Hero needs to finally get out of Kel’s grip, giving him time to damn near sprint out of the room, tackling the door hard enough to almost knock it off of its hinges before dashing out of the room.

Almost without thinking, Kel dips out, rushing after his brother with words that only come across like muffled noises in Aubrey’s ears.

… … …

There was a time when she confided in Mari, a time when she spoke to her about what was happening back at home, she remembered the pain in the older girl’s face, and the words she told her as she let Aubrey rest her head in her lap one quiet afternoon, just between the two of them.

“It’s not my place to say, but… If I could, I’d adopt you right now and give you the biggest welcome to the family hug I could…! Family should never hurt family. No one should ever raise a hand to a loved one and mean it, and the fact that they’re scaring you like that just isn’t right…” The older sister murmured at the time. Aubrey remembers now, Mari brushed her fingers through her hair in a really specific and special way that she almost forgot about.

It was like tracing little circles into her skin with her fingers, like trying to massage the fear from her brain, reaching in deep and grasping the wellspring of her despair and coaxing it out to let her think clearly again…

“When you get older… When things seem tough and scary and you don’t know what to do, that you feel like you’ve got nowhere else you can turn to. You might want to get mad, you might get really furious at having to deal with so much as a kid, but… Promise me, you won’t turn that anger on your friends, okay? Take a breath-”

… Haaaaahhh…

“-center yourself-”

Aubrey gives Basil’s hand a light squeeze. She can hear the hum of medical equipment and the sound of Hero and Kel’s footsteps retreating again.

“-and remember all the precious people you have in your life.”

She wasn’t the sort to pay the most attention to school, but, in this moment, a line she read in a book she had to read a few weeks back crosses her mind again.

“They asked, ‘do you love her to death’? And I said ‘speak of her over my grave, and watch how she brings me back to life’.�� (1)

Funny how things dredge up in your memory at the weirdest possible moments, she thinks. For the first time, she’s starting to understand at least some of what those words really mean.

…

After a moment, she carefully tucks Basil’s hand back into the bed, before letting loose a light huff through her nose. He’s still sleeping, if a bit more fitfully from all the noise.

“… Kh. Don’t gotta remind me like that y’know? Puts a bad taste in my mouth…” She nearly spits, trying to mask herself with bitterness.

It wouldn’t be long before hospital security came to drag Sunny back to his bed and cut this conversation short, she had to act fast.

She steps forward, and without hesitation, reaches up… and presses her hand on Sunny’s head, rubbing her fingers through his hair, tracing circles and massaging with a silent, stony expression that matches his own. She was still sick to her stomach, her balance was still terrifically uneasy, but…

“… I’ll come talk to you again later, okay?”

She pulls her hand back, and gives him a light punch to his shoulder before stepping out of the room.

“For what it’s worth…” She says, pausing in the door frame as she hears the sounds of shoes squeaking against tile flooring as the hospital staff finally approaches to do their damn jobs.

“I kinda get it. I understand it. I’ve been there. I’m not good at talking about this kind of thing, but, if you need to talk, I can give listening a try... this time.”

Sunny was going to leave after he recovered enough for the hospital to let him loose with his frankly fucking negligent mom. There was nothing she could do that would change that, but…

At least for now, at least while he was still recovering in the hospital, she could finally, actually speak to him.

“… Thanks for opening up Sunny. Give Hero a bit. That guy’s so strung up trying to be the best of us that I guess even he’s gotta snap at some point right?”

Says the girl trying to play mom-friend to the most broken-ass friend group in the tristate area. Christ, trying to be a decent person sucks. How the fuck did Hero pull it off for so damn long?

“Aubrey…”

“Yeah Sunny?”

“… thank you. I’m sorry.”

“Kh, fuck that, I almost drowned both you and Basil. If I started whining about accidents that happened in fits of rage I’d be the worst hypocrite in history, y’know?”

“…”

“Talk to Basil and let him know what happened if he wakes up before the staff drag you back to your room or something. I’ll let ‘em know you need a sec.”

With that, she carefully shuts the door.

What she says to the staff, what kind of look she gives them is growled with enough force and tinged with enough protective violence that it gives them just enough pause for the young boys to exchange an all too important smile of mutual understanding.

Even if Aubrey never saw it, that little moment of clarity between them saved both of their lives in a way she’d refuse to take credit for helping make happen, knowing her.

A busted, crappy, cracked-screen phone buzzes to life as she walks past the staff. God, she fucking hates it here. The way her shoes hit the tiles, the way the equipment sounds, the fact that every time she’s come here, she’s ended up crying for some reason or another-

Shit, here come the water works now. Damn it Aubrey, at least make it out the door first-

A trip and a tumble nearly sends her falling straight to the floor but, she snaps out her hand just in time to snatch onto a handrail on the side of one of the hallways, her head still spinning as she sags against the floor, her phone toppling out of her jacket’s pocket and landing on its back with a loud, spinning clatter, settling in upside down to her perspective. Tear drops spatter onto the screen, distorting the light and scattering rainbow patterns across its surface. Gah. Add that to the damage. This just isn’t her day.

Behind a call notification, her background shows the cork board in her room with the pictures she yanked out of Basil’s album after saving them from their near ruined state, mixed in with pictures of her and her other friends she made in the time that passed since. A little bubble on the screen bounces about, showing a picture of Kim flashing a peace sign with a bright eyed wink that reflects in Aubrey’s tired eyes, refracting as it passes underneath her teardrops. “… Hhfffhh…”

She eventually picks her phone up off the ground and answers it. A hospital staffer looks about ready to tell her off for using her phone in the hallway but, lets be honest.

The kind of glare Aubrey gives off as she very deliberately swipes her finger across the screen to accept the call is the sort that would give most adults pause.

“… Hey.”

“Aubrey!!!! You finally picked up!!!”

“…”

“I was so worried when I heard about what happened! Kh, stupid hospital not letting us in…!”

“…”

“… Aubrey? Are you there? I can kinda hear you breathing so you probably didn’t butt-accept the call or something!”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m here.”

“Jeez, how come you weren’t saying anything? Did those ner-”

An audible pause. Kim clears her throat after a second.

“Sorry, uh, did those guys get out of the woods okay…? I kinda only caught the cliffnotes of you going to the hospital from that text you sent me so…”

“They’re fine.”

Aubrey steps outside the hospital’s visiting center doors and finally breathes fresh air for the first time in what felt like days.

“Or… They’re as fine as they can be. Sort of. Kinda.” She continues, stepping over to one of the benches outside and taking a seat, drinking in the sounds of chirping birds, gentle breezes, swaying trees, and the sensation of warm sunlight… It was a beautiful day, and she didn’t feel nearly good enough to appreciate any of it.

“That’s good at least yeah? Uh… Hrmggh. I’m bad at this kinda thing but… Uh. If there’s anything you need to talk about, you can hit me and the others up at any time yeah?”

Kim’s voice was surprisingly tender, tender enough that it manages to draw a sniff out from Aubrey, forcing her to bring a hand up to her eyes and rub it across them to make sure she didn’t show any tears yet god damn it-

Ugh. Where’s Kel’s Taurine soaked brain anyway. He’s better about handling this kinda energy! Does- shit, does he even like energy drinks?

“Aubreeeeey, if you keep going silent I’m gonna think someone kidnapped you y’know. Gotta pull the whole gang together, beat up on the nearest creepos till we find you! The Maverick’s got a Style Meter App on his phone that does those shouts from that one game so we’ll even get t’ have our own hype-men-”

The thought of Michael in a parking lot with a buffer sword in one hand and a phone in the other trying to do combos for a video to put on his Way Too Many Social Media accounts hits Aubrey with a second hand cringe that nearly brings her to her knees.

“UGGGHHHH!” Aubrey finally cracks, a doofy grin hitting her lips despite her audible mental suffering, slumping back in the chair and nearly sliding out of it entirely, a few tears finally trickling down her eyes as her body releases its tension at last.

“I can’t believe that try hard seriously sprung for something like that. If he tries that shit in public in front of me I’m making’ his screen look like mine.” Aubrey finally grumbles, adjusting her bow. “… Right, I left my bat at home. Ugh.”

“There we go! Now you’re talking’ again. Jeez, way to make a girl worry… Charlene was getting ready to find some flowers to give to you too, the sweetheart.”

“She’s more of an angel than Angel is…”

“Right?! Maybe we should make Angel give up on his nickname-”

“Don’t bother, Charlene’d never let him do it.”

“You’re so right it’s actually kinda annoying.”

“She’s the best of us, y’know.”

“…”

“So, can you like, talk about what happened at all now or…?”

“… Hang out spot, by the lake, be there in 20.”

“Should I bring the rest of the group-”

“Not this time, Kim.”

The call ends without another word, another ping showing on her phone’s screen showing string of texts from Kel.

JrangeOoe: hey!!!!! ;v;

JrangeOoe: sorry i left you alone with sunny and basil there, hero was having a really bad freak out

JrangeOoe: mom and dad and i are workin with him now, gonna try to calm him down will be back at hospital to give basil and sunny another visit later

JrangeOoe: gonna be honest, this is giving me a little time to figure this stuff out too so, thanks hero for the panic i guess??????

JrangeOoe: ugh no that’s not fair

JrangeOoe: anyway, if you need to chill and get some ginos later i found 10 bucks in a visiting center couch and was trying to hide it but

JrangeOoe: today’s a “spread the wealth” sorta day

It took a couple of moments of hesitation, but…

headhooligan: dinner, maybe

headhooligan: fuck this whole dumbs week

headhooligan: i got some spare cash so i’ll chip in too to get hero something if it’ll help

headhooligan: also what the fuck how are you so calm about this are your parents not trying to work you through this too or something?!

JrangeOoe: uh

JrangeOoe: no but i think hero needs it more right now!!!

JrangeOoe: i dunno how i feel, i guess i’m just to worried about everyone else to think about it?

JrangeOoe: *too

JrangeOoe: i’ll catch you later for dinner tho, if i can get hero to calm down enough to feel safe leaving him be with mom and dad

JrangeOoe: get a feelings jam up in here

JrangeOoe: pizza and ice cream or whatever

JrangeOoe: not at your place tho tbh your mom kinda freaks me out like a lot

headhooligan: >:/

JrangeOoe: what? it’s the truth!

With a roll of her eyes, Aubrey stuffs her phone away, wrenching her bike out of its lock from the hospital’s parking lot bike rack and mounting up. She takes one, final, long look at the hospital’s monolithic facade, and thinks about just how high up that building goes before shaking her head, and pedaling off.

The whole ride home, all she can do is play back today’s events again, and again, and again. Hear the same story in Sunny’s stilted monotone, again, and again, and again.

Every instinct, every trained gut reaction, every beaten in urge and desire tells her she should hate him.

He stole her from everyone, he murdered her, broke her skull against the floor like some raging animal then strung her up like a horror show for everyone to see just to avoid consequences with Basil’s help-

… But…

That panic that gripped her chest when Basil fell in the water from her shove just a few days ago, the terror at taking not one life, but two when Sunny jumped in after him, still unable to swim.

“…”

Her pedaling gets harder, more forceful, making the aging, damaged frame of her hand me down, fourth hand bike creak and groan in protest, hair billowing behind her in a tangled mess of poorly kept locks…

What should be anger gives way to an oddly calm understanding, what should be hatred and fury and violence wraps itself so tightly in its own chaotic energy that all she can do is…

…

There’s not a cloud in the sky, but raindrops spatter on concrete and asphalt where she rides, leaving a trail of sorrow four years in the making, finally given “closure”, finally released.

—-

(1) Credit to Mahmoud Darwish for this legendary line.

#omori #omori aubrey #aubrey focused #spoilers #omori spoilers #omori good ending #omori good ending spoilers #hard to find the right words #chapter 1

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spidermilkshake · 3 years ago

Text

Tenebrionid (Chapter 6)

:) Another Kingdom Hearts-y deal that I figured I should also put here. Heavily headcanon'd, fits with my other KH stuff. Organization XIII centered!

Genre: Fantasy/Mystery+Suspense

CW: Fantasy combat, mild swears

Word Count: 5000+

(Previous: )

(Next: )

Chapter 6: Perceptual Anomaly

Day was waxing on.

Geographically speaking, the World tentatively marked on interspace maps as “Gaul”, was very close to the triad of Elvish Worlds. In terms of technology, social advancement, and universal knowledge Gaul was an elvish World’s opposite. The isolated, dangerous nature of such a place was just one more reason for the stealth functions of the Black Cloaks; it would not have taken much scrutiny for any number of these inhabitants to latch onto an aggressive fear on the sight of the Rurcelan. It would not have even taken any knowledge of his powers, his Nobody status, or even what he actually was to inspire the possibility of torches and pitchforks.

If not for the Black Cloak, Xaldin could not have been more visible. Suspended above what had once been a well-maintained moat, now a damp and empty ravine, upon one of the lichen-encrusted grostesques that jutted out from a castle’s outermost ring of walls, the Rurcelan Elf was a heaping black shape against the blues, grays, and mild lavenders of the fortification’s features. With hood up, however, his distinctive braids and elven ears were hidden and he truly became as any other moody shadow on the castle of “the Beast”, blending easily.

And were he spotted in this wraithish ambiguity by anyone of this World he would be ignored. Another ghost story from passersby of the cursed castle; another optical illusion brought on by weariness and doubt. Xaldin was free of these at the moment—and he was looking back. Bright purple eyes scoured the thick forested basin surrounding the former moat. Leaning back on one elbow and twisting to check over his shoulder he leveled the same laser focus over parapets and into the open courtyard. Movement—confirming what he’d heard—of two small forms ambling through the paths between raggedy rose plantings. Arguing (again).

He blew a relaxed huff through his nostrils. Just the human clock and the human candelabra. Weird for some (and admittedly also for Xaldin), but mostly just anticlimactic.

Xaldin returned to his tense watch over the pine canopy but kept those two presences in mind. They could easily turn into liabilities. Especially if the nerves clawing at him to remain on guard were correct this time. There was a vibrating to the air, each breeze that managed to swirl into the cul-de-sac of his hood making every whisker, even the tiniest hairs on his chin, bristle up.

He’d felt this before. It was here, somewhere.

His gaze flicked back to the south. A strain of fabric echoed from his high perch as his gloved hand tightened on a ridge of the carved stone.

Crack!

Xaldin’s head whipped across to view a swathe of the forest. He glared down at it with the intensity that threatened to spark fire, and yet nothing revealed itself. His eyes darted around.

Crack!

He zeroed in. That was it—the sharp twisting and severing of half-rotten wood. Miniscule snaps of the same kind radiated outward, imperceptible to human ears. Snaps intensified into harsh shatterings; finally, some visual sign of the turbulent happenings showed through the thick knit of trees as one of the peaks of the spindlier pines listed violently, crackled, and then toppled into the embrace of another cluster of its neighbors.

Xaldin stood, and as he did his will reached out: Two Dragoon Nobodies responded to the silent order, leaping through bursting swirls of dark portals from their standby positions. They landed, cat-like, and rebounded with their lances held high.

“Cover the wall,” he grunted to them. One boot balanced on the grotesque’s head, the other bracing against the carved figure’s shoulders. One hand opened, then tightened—he frowned, “Don’t let anything through. Something’s happenin’g out there…”

He ripped his hood down, slinging his head such that his wild, long plaits freed themselves of the disguise. One of the Dragoons started.

Sir, you’ve—

“It’s fine,” the elf cut him off. At this point, to hell with covert. I know this thing. This would never stay covert. His gloved hand tightened again, this time summoning from the aether the Lindworm—at least, one of them. Two more appeared hovering a few inches from his other open palm. He left the other Nobodies with a tremendous jump, a backdraft of air ruffling the straps of their armore and disrupting the placement of leaves and debris on the wall.

The gray elf was carried by gravity, arcing over hundreds of meters of wooded canopy before dropping. A buffer of a powerful gale split the boughs apart in front of him and both he and the three lances passed through untouched. He never quite landed—not on the forest floor, that is. A wake of air blasted a crater of loose pine needles and twigs outward as Xaldin lingered a foot or so over the ground. What lay before him hardly surprised him.

Lurking in the Worlds and across Realms were thousands, and even thousands of thousands, of Heartless. Few were like this one; an Organization leader such as Xaldin may not have been shocked by the presence of such a horror, but few others would have felt anything but horror—maybe some measure of premature grief for their self and deity(s) knows what else.

Its form was nebulous. This was of course its primary attribute. The Shadow Stalker—or Dark Thorn, or whatever other hideous and accurate monikers it had been given—was presently a twisting, twining mass of black, red, and a luminous green. Portions of it had sunken halfway through several of the trees and logs, with the rest either balled into a bulk or writhing aimlessly in front and behind it. Half-embedded and dangling from parts of it were weighted chains; the balled-up portion had two bulging points of sickly light bursting from its seams. Its jaws were no less disturbing. Occasionally a crooked tear in the wriggling length and width carved open further, teeth of the same blackish shade as its body erupting outward. Sometimes, for a second at most, the tendrils formed together into a flicker of an arm, a leg, a wing, even a face. This was a Mobius strip of a monstrosity, one Xaldin had come to know very well. It had been the thing which had morphed out of his own Heart the moment it had been forced out of his body by that fateful, involuntary corruption.

Nobody and Heartless simultaneously gauged each other’s arrival, and simultaneously bared teeth at what they saw.

“Didn’ I kill you twice already,” Xaldin’s snarl was guttural. It wasn’t a question. As he whirled his pair of crossed lances forward he wordlessly promised a third time.

The Heartless emitted a piercing howl. Vibrations rattled through whatever it touched. And then a pine log, covered over with deteriorating spiky remnants of branches, lurched upright with the green and black tendrils lacing through it. Swinging sideways, those branch remnants were infused with a black ooze, melting outward and hardening into even sharper hazards.

With two lances already swooping forward Xaldin intercepted the blow before the possessed log gained much momentum. The blades hacked the decrepit wood apart, three large chunks scattering and breaking into several smaller pieces as they fell against treetrunks. What parts of the creature that had intermingled with the object burst apart into a black mist, and the Heartless recoiled. The elf kept up the forward glide, now twisting to bring the third lance around for a thrust.

“Urf!” he was staggered for a moment by more of the monster’s mass striking him from behind, this time molded with a hill of soil, roots and moss which had boiled up and elongated into a turf tentacle. His grunt of effort coincided with his summoning a new current about him, deflecting force from the possessed ground’s slam. His own force suffered, and his stab was now slow enough the Heartless shrieked and slunk sideways, clamping its teeth onto the polearm as it neared.

The monster reared, pulling the spear and its wielder upward, and swarming arcs of semi-translucent red and black crowded after the man. He glared, not at all hindered by being ripped from the ground. Furious growls were uttered with each sweep of his lances—now four had appeared, and now five and then six, the latter group not even pretending to shadow the tension and motions of his arms. The assault of morphing pseudo-flesh abated as a blur of spearheads kept up a rhythm of slicing piece after piece off.

Two lances embedded deep into the resinous trunk of a massive pine as the Heartless withdrew into a roiling mass—through and around the thickly packed woods. Xaldin dispersed these, re-summoning them out to each side and diving around the forest obstacles in pursuit. A warbling bellow wrenched out of the monster as it sank backwards into a stony bluff. The Whirlwind Lancer drew up short, balanced atop a single Lindworm with the other five retracting to form a wall of spear orbiting him.

He’d seen the trick many times before, and was wise to keep a wide berth. The bluff opened two jagged holes in itself, the bulbous, yellow lamps of Heartless eyes leering out. With a shattering of rock and a ripping of roots the maw appeared—and the Heartless which had commandeered the landscape itself warped its vessel upwards into a massive head, brutish shoulders, and rock-studded torso. Smashed trees and scree flew from it, and the remains of life and rock clung on like a coating of quills, lashed here and there with chains. Xaldin clenched his teeth as the shadow of this hulk rushed over him, a roar pulsing out from its gaping stone-mouth.

He replied in kind. A shout of concentrated effort and his lances froze with a quiver, whipping around to cross at his front—blades between the horror and himself. Gales howled around the epicenter of the approaching clash, tornado winds fast enough green and white slashes of visible light flared out. A millisecond more—wait for it—anticipating the last possible moment when the titanic beast would be as close as possible. The thing’s tentacles, teeth, and glaring eyes surged in—until the lancepoint most forward nicked the most forward-jutting fang.

The sky broke open. In the meter remaining between gray elf and sinister creature there was a blinding green-white flash. Cyclonic aftershocks bent the pines all around the battle, but the major force here was at the cost of the bluff itself. The hurricane had been tightened and tightened until it was unleashed in a shape much like a gigantic lance. It drilled into the possessed form, expelling it apart, mouth-first. Horrendous noise echoed in the basin, hollowly up the nearby castle’s walls, as the Heartless cried out as a shower of pebbles, branches, and boulders crashed all around. Xaldin reached up with one lance flick to deflect a large stone which came back earthward. But he did not relax. Not yet. His glare shot about, hunting for the telltale signs of his enemy.

His left ear twitched. He turned sharply in place. That wasn’t any sound a Heartless could make; that had been a groan.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he called out, knowing right away from the continued grunts and scuffles where this person was, “Get out of here. Get lost—go on!”

From behind a pile of twisted deadfall, crawling out from the space under a few leaning trees with bits of moss and dirt clinging to cloak, shirt, breeches—came an ordinary human. Small squat, with a plum-shaped nose and a coif-like shock of black hair. The little man sniffled yet staggered upright, taking in the wreckage of the site with a dazed look in his large eyes.

Xaldin felt every hair on him raise up; the air pulsed faintly. He stepped down from the pole of his Lindworm and close on the bystander with a speed that surprised him—based on the man’s startled whimper.

“Didn’ you hear me?” he said, looming over in a way he seriously hoped was frightening, “Go. Get out. I don’t care where—just not here.”

A squalling roar announced the Heartless’s return, and at the worst possible second. Xaldin had time to suck in a breathy curse and rally together his weapons before the monster’s face and two wiry, clawed hands phased up from the littered debris. Hooked talons grabbed onto the Nobody’s ankles, sinking through the boots and just pricking flesh. The elf’s yell of pain and anger had the little man staggering back, eyes bugged in terror at the hideous glowing orbs rising from the earth under the Black-cloaked warrior. With a high-pitched scream he finally took Xaldin’s advice—booking it as fast as his short legs could.

The monster rose higher, swinging Xaldin around and flinging him with supernatural strength back across the destroyed zone. He threw his hands back, speedily calling on his Lindworm and a cushion of spinning air which slowed him before he would have slammed against a second, taller bank of rocks. As his feet planted again he snatched up three of the spears in his usual stance. The other three crossed and interlocked in front of him at his will, catching the charge of the Heartless with a harsh clang of teeth gnashing on metal. He replied with a wide sweep that snapped at the monster’s claw—stinging it in mid-swipe—and a whirling slash of the paired lances in his other hand that forced it to lurch back. Xaldin blinked, squinted. His own Heartless had always been of another tier altogether (just like the rest that had spawned of those like him), but it was now stronger, and smarter. It fought with a raw, automatic intellect similar to programming. Worryingly, that “programming” had somehow gotten more sophisticated. He had some idea of what could do that. He prayed he was dead wrong.

Four sets of claws erupted from the red-and-black pseudo-flesh at once: The first two were amputated with reflexive swings, the third was pinned to the nearest tree with another two lances, and the last reached so swiftly that Xaldin had to arch backwards to avoid it raking his face. He whipped out a backfist—clenched around his lance, to push the creature’s limb away and throw it off-balance. The thing was undeterred—the place where legs should be instead being a mass of spiny chains and tentacles, wound into the ground. A bead of sweat was flung from the Whirlwind Lancer’s brow as he slipped out of the side of the corner the Heartless was trying to pin him into. Multiplying arms was new. Perhaps it was mimicking him, arms for lances. This too was a new ability. Teeth bared, he kicked off from a rotten stump with his orbiting spears thrusting through tendrils and arms as they sought after him—leaving him three more for a secondary charge, downward. It nearly deafened him with a searing bellow as the blades lodged halfway into the place between its eyes. He abandoned the lances and shot up on a jet of wind, avoiding the thrashing it set up and the many limbs that now protruded from every inch of its body. Even the eyes and jaws. Talons and tentacles wound around the grips of the Lindworms and started to pull them free; Xaldin landed heavily on the top of the bluff, taking the break however brief to pant for breath. The monstrosity had the lances out and had cast them aside, where they vanished in a series of bright wisps. They reappeared all around Xaldin, two floating in place within reach of his hands as the elf’s eyes widened with focus. There was only one way this was going to end, and it was something he had extensive experience with. He’d been rattled before, but now he centered and every strand of fury and zeal was honed in. Above him the clouds shifted and merged in an unnatural speed, flexing in on one point overhead. A steady wind picked up; its speed was rising, whistling. The pine boughs started tossing with violence.

Xaldin’s form grew sharpened and black against the muted day as an aura of pale green wisps began to seep around him. His eyes glinted, and he hunched as if weighted and straining with the sheer energy he contained.

The Heartless was charging, an endless stream of claws along a torrent of black chains, two sickening lamps blazing as it snarled up at its foe. Xaldin held out his Lindworm; the four behind him twitched and slanted, ready to lash forward.

He had almost leaped, but then—

—a bright bolt; a comet-like dart of golden light. With a building winnow it zoomed out of the near distance and all but vanished as it was buried into the back of the Heartless’s head. He was tempted to take a step back and search for the source of the surprise attack, but a combination of his near-berserk power and his combat discipline led him to only manage a dull blink in alarm before taking full advantage of the distraction.

“Stay dead,” his rough growl echoed outward as he came down at much greater than terminal velocity, lances first and a stomping boot following. The Heartless crumpled, claws and chains splaying out, now not making a sound. And for good measure, as it twitched and writhed, the remaining lances whirled, each end’s blades and points chopping and slashing until it became unrecognizable, red and black mass flooding out into sooty dust and mist. A few flares of pink, gold, and green with gleams of every other color on the spectrum rose up past Xaldin before it seemed to invert and vanish into nothingness.

Eyes still humming with power, sharp and bordering on enraged, took a pause to follow the meandering path of the relinquished Heart. When it disappeared, the gray elf lowered his head, sucking in a deep breath. His eyelids flickered closed, releasing the breath; the greenish aura dimmed and faded, gales dropping to a pleasant breeze and distorted clouds drifting apart.

Now—to that literal bolt from the blue!

--------

“Why did you do that?”

Exra had lowered the glinting mechanical bow from the exacting form he’d taken to fire. Its gems still buzzed, one gear that wound and amplifier string still ticking as it returned to normal position. Peering over his shoulder his eyes widened—their youth intensified with his confusion.

“He—that was a Heartless,” the light elf stammered, a finger pointing across the open canopy towards the ground zero they could see from atop the village’s church tower, “What—was I supposed to just let it go after him?”

“Yes,” Elias Amad kept his arms crossed, gaze flicking back out towards the lessening storm of battle. “We’re not here to engage in any way. We’re here to see for ourselves what that DiZ was going on about.”

Behar kept her attentions fixed on the final exchange between Nobody and Heartless. She leaned heavily on her elbows, half-hunched over a lacquered wooden railing. As the glowering skies became more peaceful, she let her eyelashes dip down and her nose twitched in a pensive look.

“Looks like the guy didn’t need your help, kid. He certainly took it, though.”

Exra hitched his shoulders a bit uncomfortably as he turned back. Now all three were watching, witnesses just at the moment the member of Organization XIII lifted his head and locked onto the group. Elias, being human and an elder at that, was at a disadvantage due to the distance but even he could make out the Black-cloaked form: Muscular and tall, with a tied-back collection of long braids reminiscent of those worn (in one way or another) by most Rurcelan Elves of their traditional yet mutable faith. There was also no missing the long, violet-gray shapes of large-headed lances. Too many lances—and most of them needing no grip at all to remain faithfully suspended near the wielder, or following subtle motions and silent commands. The younger of the pair of elves gasped as their target stepped up and set one foot apiece on a flying spear’s haft, the entire group and their owner riding atop lifting dozens of meters into the air. Only clear skies now lay between the mysterious fighter and the trio observing him. First Behar met his gaze, then the stranger hesitated and glanced over to Exra. The youth shivered. He remembered what their equally strange informant had said of these people… or, not-people? Empty shades—easily mistaken for what they once were—and “all that matters is they have dark power that corrupts”. Or at least, that is what DiZ had said. The Lusciridian saw a gray elf, with a face bearing maturity somewhere between his tutor Behar and his elder Master Elias, purplish eyes glinting as they passed back and forth over each out-of-place rubbernecker. Braids shifted across broad shoulders as his head tilted slightly.

“Do you think he’s gonna confront us?” Behar glanced sideways. Elias uncrossed his arms at last. He shifted his weight.

“If he does…” the worry lines worn into the Master’s face intensified. Exra’s brows raised; one finger fiddled at one of the smooth pegs that controlled some of the magical mechanisms of his longbow.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. Whispered, suddenly aware of the obvious fact that the Nobody could possibly hear them being a fellow elf. “I’m sorry—I know now I was so stupid to shoot. I blew our cover.”

“Don’t blame yourself now,” the old Keybearer grunted with a shake of his head, “It’s too late. At least now we can test something.”

“And that is?” Behar’s left hand arched back, fishing in her back pocket.

“What these beings’ intentions are, when faced with Keybearers,” Human limits to vision be damned, Elias seemed to have detected the Nobody’s eyes scanning him back, and he now leveled a hardened stare in return. “Should he approach… be ready if he really is this malevolent force. With that kind of strength and skill with wind magic it could take all three of us to stand a chance.

“But if he approaches and decides notto attack then we can still learn something,” he murmured. “As that DiZ described these ‘Nobodies’, we should be able to find some… some tellthat hints at the dark corruption.”

“And, er,” Exra shuffled, ears ticking, “What if he doesn’t approach us?”

“That could imply all kinds of things, but probably not cowardice,” Behar said, straight-faced except for a smirk as she finally got out a little brass device, something halfway between a smoke filter and a roach clip, and sparked it up with a tiny button on its side. Elias shot a scathing look at her.

“Now is not the time for that.”

“So I should just stare blankly?” she chuckled, “He comes over here you won’t see me antagonizing. Relax—watch and see.”

-------

The Whirlwind Lancer’s appraisal of his until-recently-secret audience was similarly confused, uncertain.

And, as odd as it sounds, with no less of a thread of fear weaving through and pinning it together. Two who didn’t seem to be armed, a third with the sort of high-powered mana-enhanced longbow that might be expected from an elite Elven sharpshooter, and none of them he recognized at all. Perhaps the latter was for the better—he clenched his jaw as he remembered he’d removed the damn hood in order to fight at his best. The two elves, at least, had gotten a clear look at his face.

Though, as they continued to ogle from afar, he considered they probably did not recognize him either. They were clearly also not of this small World, but it was a huge Realm. And a bigger universe.

The gray elf’s hands met and clasped behind his back. There was something off now between the oldest and the Elveshmean. The elder’s voice had raised, tone disgruntled or maybe a tempered form of outrage. Just loud enough it reached his decurled ears from over the treetops, but still quiet enough the words were muddled. He strained his senses; he had to know.

His eyes widened when the older man twisted back around to face him and a flash lit the tower’s top from one large, gnarled hand. Though he’d never seen this unique form of the weapon before he knew right away what it was. Keyblade. One of the heavier type—a sharp central bar with two parts helixing about it until joining at the point—one side “toothed” and the other with a form mimicking a bird’s head. Though stunned beyond anything he expected, Xaldin still caught the tail end of what the Keyblade-wielder had barked in irritation to the dark elf:

“…and I at least will be ready..!”

Xaldin rumbled to himself, brows lowering. Hanging around here was looking like worse and worse of an idea. With the high-power Heartless destroyed and these mystery Keybearers around his work was more or less done. Immediately he bade his Nobody followers to retreat too:

Dragoons, back to base and out of sight. We have unknowns here. Distantly he sensed them depart, popping into the briefest Dark Passages and returning to the bleakly-named headquarters. With a sigh, he followed suit, simply backing into one of the purple-black rifts he’s summoned behind him, his lances vanishing into the oxygen. It was best he ensure he was last to leave—the many Nobodies unfortunate enough to have been so disfigured did not often earn the mercy of “distant observation” when first sighted.

And now he had someone in mind to relay this happening to, even before the official report to the Superior. After a rest, and after his wounds were tended.

#kingdom hearts #headcanon #heavily headcanon #fan fiction #Organization XIII #chapter story #chapter 6 #Xaldin #Keyblade Masters #Keyblades #Elias Amad #Exra #Behar #Organization XIII as protagonists

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