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dawn-moths · 10 months ago

Text

"Epitaph"

Undertaker x Female Reader

word count: 15,900+

(requested by @anxious-chick // After running into the mysterious guest known as “Undertaker” at several of Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive’s weekly parties, the two of you eventually take an interest in one another, even if your part in that begins as somewhat reluctant. However, over time, as you grow more comfortable around one another, you find perhaps there's a reason you two were destined to meet, starting with the fact that he's the first one to show you physical touch isn't something to be afraid of.)

disclaimer/content warning: 18+ content! minors dni! plot heavy in the beginning (sort of slow burn) with smut at the end, loss of virginity, best way i can describe this is like a one-sided reluctant acquaintances to lovers lol, bittersweet ending, some mentions of drinking/alcohol.

*ao3 mirror*

***

The cemetery beyond the mortuary was empty at this time of night, the small, early morning hours just beginning to creep over the horizon, staining the dark velvets of night with a fine veil of ghostly greys, the moonlight breaking through the thick shield of clouds overhead. Through the latticed windows of the kitchenette, silver beams slipped through the glass to lay on the cool tile floor, the table by the sill where you used to sit and read your mystery novels now overgrown with houseplants.

It was all he had left of you— ferns and pothos and calatheas.

Houseplants, and the loop of your hair that was preserved behind the glass of his mourning lockets.

Out of the countless bodies he’d seen through death, tended to and prepared to be placed perfectly in their eternal resting place, you had been the most beautiful and the most heartbreaking.

It had been years since he’d shed even a single tear over one of the deceased— decades— maybe even over a century— but for you, after all this time, he guessed he still had a few lingering shreds of humanity left in his crypt of a heart after all. No matter how far he tried to bury his grief, his mourning, your passing had finally been the thing to unearth it.

Standing before your headstone beneath the kitchen window, facing the direction of the setting sun, your favorite time of day, tracing the letters of your name with his sullen chartreuse gaze, slivers of emerald slipping through the gaps of his curtain of silver bags, he just let the tears fall. If anyone else had been around to see, they would’ve never believed the funeral director was actually crying over one of his corpses.

But you had been so much more than just a body, once upon a time. It haunted him to think one day he might be the only soul left to remember you’d even existed at all. But then again, those were all memories he still held dear. He could recall them as if they’d occurred only yesterday, could see the curve of your profile from across the room, feel the way the dip of your waist fit perfectly into his palm, hear the lilt of your laugh, able to amuse you with anything he said if he really wanted to once he’d finally deciphered your sense of humor.

Those days were over for you now, but he could still relive pieces of them, their echo reverberating through his mind as soon as he plucked the first string on one. No matter how melancholy the tune, the melody was still just as sweet.

Strolling away from your resting place, venturing further into the garden of graves that lay beyond, he began to hum a quiet song to himself, one he’d heard time and time again back when you two had first fallen into each other’s orbit. Despite the sadness, it made him smile. He wished he would’ve asked to dance with you sooner, danced with you more, once he’d finally gotten the chance.

He could almost feel the waltz welling within him, doing a turn and imagining your hands clasped with his, twirling you gracefully, allowing you to unravel just far enough to give the illusion of breaking away only to return to him, wearing that mischievous smile he so adored.

How he longed to revisit those nights in more than just his memories— the mysterious gatherings, the lavish parties, no matter what menagerie of wealthy, well-bred guests were in attendance, his interest always locking in on you.

But even he couldn’t have guessed, back then, that he would’ve ever grown so attached as to weep for you once you were dead…

***

It had all began at one of the Phantomhive’s illustrious, notorious nighttime banquets, each and every guest hand picked and carefully curated, placed strategically within the mansion’s hosting perimeter, down to the seating arrangements at dinner and the order in which the carriages arrived to deliver you all home at the end of the event.

The first few times you’d been invited, you hadn’t a clue why you were there. Because what could Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive possibly want to do with a local news column writer such as yourself? They’d barely spoken to you upon your arrival, too busy mingling with the more important guests, but as you’d awkwardly skirted the corners of the room, the neglect had given you the opportunity to do what it was you were best at.

Survey the crowd.

People watch.

Discover the strengths and weaknesses of your fellow party-goers all while remaining anonymous and tucked away into the shadows.

It was how you’d quickly began to rise through the ranks of the journalists at your press department, sniffing out mysterious stories and the savage truths behind them before anyone else even had the chance to pick a direction to start in.

To yourself, you thought it just made you a good journalist. To others, it made you dangerous.

And if anyone besides the hosts of the evening knew just exactly how lethal you could become with a pen and notepad in your hand, they’d all be anxiously vying to convince you they weren’t like other arms dealers and black market traders or any other less-than-ethical variety of underworld rat skittering through London’s secret mazes.

But that had all been a part of Vincent and Rachel’s plan. Have you stir things up just enough to have the vermin scatter, then all they’d need to do would be to divert them towards the trap.

By the fifth time you’d accepted their ominous invitation— why you kept returning despite the uneasiness it all gave you, you weren’t sure, other than your innate curiosity and just so happening to have most nights free from your busy work schedule— your hosts had finally found it appropriate to introduce themselves to you personally.

Even before you’d begun attending the parties, seen the infamous Phantomhive’s with your own eyes, you’d heard the rumors— not just of their wealth, but of their beauty as well.

Rachel and Vincent both bore striking appearances. They had this air about them, something you just couldn’t put your finger on, that made you both weary and trusting of them on sight. Like a siren singing from a rock near the shore, they lured you in with their elegant charms, but get too close and you’d find yourself drowning.

“Ah, there she is,” Vincent had said as he and his wife gracefully approached you. “The woman of the hour. Welcome, welcome.” You gave them a respectful courtesy, bowing your head and clutching your skirts, hoping to hide how your hands had begun to shake, your nerves getting the better of you.

“Thank you for having me,” you replied, trying to sound actually grateful instead of skeptical. You were going to keep your confusion to yourself, just let it go and enjoy being able to attend while it lasted, but then something inside you decided against it and you asked, “But— and excuse me if this is out of turn— why, exactly, have I been invited…?”

Rachel and Vincent both laughed and, for a moment, all air of intimidation seemed to disappear from them. Until they’d looked at each other, then looked back at you, smiling like cats who’d just caught a mouse and intended on teasing the poor creature for a bit before sinking its fangs down into the rodent’s throat.

Vincent leaned in, close enough to make you flinch, close enough to raise a slight heat into your cheeks. “Because, my dear journalist…” he’d whispered, “Rachel and I have a very important favor to ask of you.”

The favor in question, as it turned out, was more so a job. The Phantomhive’s couldn’t be discovered as double agents or else their entire cover operation would be blown, so naturally they sought out second hand services. But your willingness to spy on their guests for them didn’t come for free. They’d never even dream of inferring that you work without compensation of some kind. So, in exchange for your services, they were willing to put in a good word for you at the top newspaper in all of London.

“Just take your pick of the columns,” Rachel had said with a sly wink. “Any one your heart desires, do this for us and it shall be yours.”

At first, it almost seemed, and felt, too good to be true. But you were tired of getting stuck with the inane, mundane, and oftentimes completely domestic stories handed off to you by the other men at the office. If you came in with a headline worthy story, it was always one of them who got to claim it, making you do all the work only to sign it off with their name, as if any one of them could ever even hope to be half the writer— half the detective— you’d been with half the time in the game.

It was tempting, though, what was it they said about temptation again? Something about surrending to it in case it never came your way again?

Perhaps that was the reason you’d been so inclined to accept their offer in the end. Because, if they really were the sirens you suspected them to be, this opportunity felt like a liferaft tossed out to sea. You’d already made the mistake of drawing too close to the beast. Now all you could do was grasp onto the first thing that could help you escape the icy waters unscathed.

So, from there on out, every event of theirs that you attended you made sure to stay diligent, deceptively demure as you shied away from the thickest crowds, wearing clothes that looked nice enough to blend in but not so extravagant as to be the center of attention, your hair fixed into an elegant, albeit modest updo, always seeming to be holding a glass of whatever alcohol was being served that night that never found itself empty. Although, unlike most of the other guests, that wasn’t because the servants kept coming around to refill it. You had to stay focused, so, raising the rim of the crystal to your lips, you merely pretended to drink, yet another way to blend in.

However, despite the fact your eye for booking someone as shady or salacious was a very sharp, very skilled one, there had been one guest that, no matter how hard you studied him, how carefully you watched, gave nothing— absolutely nothing— away as to why he belonged in the room among the rest of the guests.

You were supposed to be the secret outlier, you thought, and the man’s presence haunted you from one week into the next. By your second soiree as a spy, you’d already gathered ample information on the ones you’d deemed guilty, still keeping a watch on the others out of the corner of your eye while you continued trying to dig a deeper hole for the rats to fall in, but at the end of that night drifting around the manor like your own kind of phantom, you still came up empty on your mystery man.

Until the very end, just as you were about to head out to the carriage arranged to take you home.

“I must say, Vincent,” his gravelly voice sounded from a little further into the main foyer, the remnants of a laugh fading off the end of his words, “If the Queen knew her watchdog had such a sense of humor, I think she’d prefer to take you on as her personal entertainer instead.”

You stopped, pretending to search your purse for something as you listened in.

The Earl let out a devious chuckle of his own, going on to reply, “Yes, but if I did that, then who would be around to entertain you, Undertaker?”

You clasped your purse shut with a muted click and continued towards the carriage. For tonight, you had all you needed. And though it was just a title, barely even a name to know him by, the moment you got home and scribbled down the ten letters of Undertaker onto your growing web of information gathered from these parties, you could already sense that he was the key to the biggest mystery you’d been faced with yet.

***

Though you couldn’t see his eyes through the thick silver curtain of his hair, from across the room you knew— could practically feel it as a fresh wave of chills spiked up your spine— that Undertaker was staring straight at you. You stared back, lips slightly parted as your next breath caught halfway up your throat, his silent acknowledgment of you making you feel suddenly naked, vulnerable under his recognition.

He offered you a mischievous crack of a smile, all teeth, and a playful, waggling wave of his black-nailed fingers. You felt your cheeks heat, feeling startlingly self-conscious, though not entirely sure why, and turned to excuse yourself to the nearest washroom to collect yourself.

Staring down your reflection in the mirror, you reminded yourself why you were here. To investigate. To uncover. To expose. Not just for the promotion that had been generously promised to you, but for the sake of the common good as well. Or, at least, that’s one of the stories you’d started telling yourself to make your duplicity to all the people who you’d pretended to enjoy the company of a little less guilt-tripping.

Besides, the Phantomhive’s also knew you couldn’t resist a cause where injustice was being done, and while it sort of made you sick to watch this group of miscreants chatting and laughing like they’d never harmed the orphaned or the sick or the poor week after week, you knew, in the end, their evil would not prevail.

Resolute in your mission here once again, you exited the washroom, intending to migrate back into the lion’s den, when all of a sudden that familiar, bone-chilling voice sounded from behind you, making you flinch.

“You know…” Undertaker began, who’d been leaning against the nearest wall before pushing off with one shoulder to lessen the gap between you, the layers of black fabric he wore lightly billowing behind him with each heel-to-toe step. His arms were crossed, and his shadow began to creep over you, seeming as if it could swallow you up at any moment. But still he wore an amused grin like he was about to tell a charming joke and was simply awaiting the perfect moment to deliver the punchline. He continued, “The guest list of these parties changes every week, yet, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are only ever two who get invited every single time…”

You had noticed that actually, keeping the little tidbit of information close to your chest, sometimes purposely acting like it was your first time attending such a gathering if you noticed the roster was entirely fresh, but he was right.

The only other person besides yourself who graced the Phantomhive manor on a weekly basis, other than the Phantomhives themselves, of course, was the silver shadow known as Undertaker. The man had been nearly as elusive and calculating as you had thus far, but now, it seemed, he wished to show part of his hand.

Undertaker cocked his head to one side, seeming to study you through the shaggy fringe concealing half his face like a mask, and said, “Sort of odd, don’t you think?”

And it really wasn’t his sudden and unexpected presence that had caught you so off guard. You were used to potential targets confronting you, whether to try and scare you off from a possible story they were at the root of or convince you there was nothing to see here. This, however, was different. Because the increased pounding of your heart and the sudden loss for words didn’t seem to be out of fear, but, perhaps, out of the kind of flustered intrigue that comes with finding a stranger very, very attractive.

“I, uh…” was all you had time to say before Vincent Phantomhive was approaching from down the hall, seemingly with something urgent to discuss with Undertaker, giving you a smile and a nod as if to say keep up the good work before he and his guest continued down the hall and disappeared around the next corner, all that black fabric fluttering in his wake.

You spent the remainder of the night distracted, off your game, growing frustrated with yourself and with him for having your thoughts interrupted by that shining scar that cut diagonally across his pale face, the lilting hum to his tone that had indicated something you didn’t even dare explore, even within the confines of your own imagination, and all those long strands of silver that looked like threads spun from moonlight.

Needless to say, you didn’t gather much intel that night, and you were honestly just counting down the hours until it would be time for you to go home. But as each guest departed, one after another, their carriages formally announced to be awaiting them, something else strange and rather off-script happened to you.

Normally, you were among the middle group to say your thank yous and goodbyes to the hosts before exiting through the grand entrance, heading down the curved double staircase before being whisked away back into the grey-toned city. But tonight, after watching the last of the guests thank the Phantomhives for their glittering hospitality and departing the manor, you found you were the final guest that remained.

You, and, much to your dismay, surprise, and general curiosity, Undertaker as well.

You were sure your carriage would be pulling up any moment now, and so you hung close to the doors to search out the horse pulling it through the dark. You hoped this served as an indicator you wished to be left alone with your own thoughts, but, alas, that looming shadow of a man who’d suddenly and quite unexplainably taken an interest in you was hovering by your side again like a crow waiting for you to drop some crumbs.

“Do you think it’s true?” he unceremoniously prompted, voice hushed to a low, sultry whisper, making the thin hairs on the back of your neck rise with suspense.

You cast him a glance over your shoulder, trying to act indifferent and completely unbothered. “Do I think what’s true?” you asked, an edge of irritation splicing through your forced boredom.

Undertaker breathed out a knowing chuckle, something from beneath his wide sleeves clinking and chiming together lightly before he applied more pressure to silence it. He then cleared his throat and said, “This place, they say it’s haunted, you know.”

“And?” you pressed, and though you were trying to make it seem like you couldn’t have cared less, your skin was crawling with the anticipation to know more, more, more.

“And,” he mimicked, leaning in a little closer to you, testing to see how far you’d let him invade your personal space, “do you think it’s true?”

You turned to face him, scrutinizing him now, a crooked mask to hide your true intrigue, wanting nothing more than to reach up and gently push his bangs away from his eyes just to discover what color they were beneath the curtain that so carefully protected that information. You wanted to trace the lines of his scars, especially the one wrapped around his neck like a collar, a chain, a reminder of something horrific he’d once endured, and learn the story behind every single mark.

You wanted to learn his name, his true one, not just his job description or whatever morbid title Vincent had given him as part of some kind of inside joke they shared.

You opened your mouth to say something— what, you weren’t entirely sure— but just then, the feeling in the air seemed to change, an energy charged in the small space between your bodies, the scent of a storm carrying on a breeze, an invisible electricity sparking through you, lacing through your bones and frizzling your brain.

“They say sometimes you can feel them touch you,” Undertaker continued, and for a moment, just a mere hair of a second, you swore you could see a glint of light shimmering from behind his bangs, a flash of emerald here and then gone again before your eyes could even register the color. “They say it’s heavy, and cold as ice, like a stone lifted from a freezing sea, the sensation coming and going as quick as a breath in a winter’s breeze…”

The first time his pale, cold hand had brushed against the dip of your waist it had already been too late. His long, lithe fingers had lingered there for but a moment, just long enough to allow the shape of his touch to drape itself upon your body, the memory of it a thrilling, frightening thing. But when you’d flinched away, drawn in a sudden, sharp gasp under your breath, he retracted. Still, despite the new distance put between you two, he wore that mischievous smile, his broad shoulders shivering with the containment of some kind of mean laughter.

It was then that your carriage arrived, the Phantomhives’ butler announcing this to you, but just before you could turn and leave, Undertaker said, “Remember, miss journalist, sometimes the answers to our biggest questions are found in the things we can’t see…” as he slinked back off into the dark, leaving you standing in the center of the foyer alone.

If you hadn’t seen Vincent interact directly with him just earlier that evening, you would’ve deduced that he was the very spirit he’d warned you of, but then, about halfway home as the carriage traveled over the country’s uneven terrain, you realized something even more terrifying.

You’d never told him you were a journalist. The Phantomhives had assured you that no one besides themselves were to know, lest your cover and this whole operation they’d gotten you involved with be blown.

It kept you up at night, his words, his scars, his touch. But now you had an entirely new mission, one that was all your own.

And that was to discover just exactly who, or perhaps, what, this man called Undertaker truly was.

***

Some time passed before there was another party, what with the celebration of the Phantomhives’ sons’ birthdays and the Christmas holiday falling a little under two weeks apart. But, with the arrival of the New Year of 1885 quickly approaching, you weren’t surprised when you received yet another one of the crisp, cream and gold colored invitation cards in the mail announcing a grand celebration event at the manor.

This would be the biggest crowd you’d hidden amongst thus far, though, surely, you thought, the Phantomhives didn’t intend for you to be working too hard on such an occasion? Besides, you’d already turned in the extent of information you’d been able to gather on their people of interest. As far as you were concerned, this case, or at least your part in it, was closed. They’d already assured you they’d hold up their end of the deal as soon as you chose your desired position at the new press company you’d be working at come the new year too. Now, all you had to do was sit back and relax as the hours ticked down until midnight.

At least, that’s what you would’ve been able to do if not for the incessant appearance of him.

All night, Undertaker seemed to trail you like a shadow. No matter how many times you tried to slip out of one room and into another unnoticed, tuck yourself within a new crowd, folded between different nobles, it was only a matter of minutes until you looked over and saw his pale figure swathed in layers of black. A few times, he even dared to give you one of those cheeky grins and teasing waves, as if tormenting you was his most favorite game, and every time you met the gesture with a huff of a frustrated sigh and a swift turning on your heel, heading off to pick at the many food options set up around the different rooms or grab another drink as a servant carrying a tray of them passed by, not pretending to sip this time but actually allowing yourself to indulge.

But you should’ve really known by now that showing your back and trying to ignore him was probably your worst bet at actually being left alone. He was like a naughty child, continuously doing that which would get him the most reaction or attention, despite the consequences. And, like the tired parent who would do just about anything to get the child to behave, you eventually caved in and gave him exactly what he wanted.

“What?” you asked, walking right up to him where he was leaning against a wall, your arms crossed and attempting to wrestle your features into a look of grim displeasure rather than fluster-fueled nervousness. It was like a spell had suddenly been released into the air once you two were standing face to face, your prior agitation slowly but surely melting away until all you could focus on was the way his silver hair caught the dim light and those scars that just barely peeked out from his collar and curtain of bangs as if too shy to properly say hello.

“Good evening to you too, miss journalist,” he sarcastically greeted, though you detected no hint of malice, merely an air of teasing charm. Instead of irking you that time, the sentiment made your cheeks heat. You pretended to cough and look away, hoping it wasn’t showing too clearly on your face. He gestured to the party encircling you both, an endless, overlapping barrage of laughter and conversation filling the room, and asked with a slight raise to his voice, “What a wonderful way to ring in the new year, don’t you agree?”

Frankly, you realized you were still far too sober to be in this situation right now, but when you searched the room for any more of those silver trays holding flutes of bubbling liquid, you found, for once, there were none in sight.

“Listen,” you said, lowering your voice despite the loud chatter that tried to drown it out, clearly still in the investigation mindset despite your earlier resolution to enjoy a night away from work, “let’s just stop with the smalltalk. Off the record, why don’t you just tell me what it is you want and why I have to be a part of it?”

When he found it appropriate to laugh at this notion, one of which you were sincerely serious about, you found yourself flaring more towards anger than intrigue. “What’s so funny?” you hissed, suddenly wanting nothing more than your own shadow to hide inside of when you glanced around and noticed a few other party-goers trying to listen in on your conversation. You were used to coveting and collecting gossip, not being the source of it.

But Undertaker seemed largely undisturbed by the growing sets of eyes landing upon your shared corner of the ballroom, flicking one black-nailed finger beneath the hem of his fringe to wipe away a tear of amusement before replying through a chuckle-laced breath, “You are, my dear. Simply hilarious.”

Wanting to turn and stalk away from him again, you resisted the urge, now determined to beat him at his own game, the rules of which you still weren’t entirely clear on. “Oh, so you like jokes then?” you baited, a smirk beginning to curve up on your lips now. “Well why didn’t you just say so? How about you and I make a deal then?” At this, Undertaker’s expression turned comically inquisitive, regarding you with a new kind of focus, his silence prompting you to continue. “If I can tell you something funny enough to make you laugh before the end of the night, you leave me alone after that.”

“And if you lose?” he posed, beginning to circle you until it was your back towards the wall instead, a hunter closing in on its prey. “What do I get if I win?”

You took a moment to think about that. You didn’t have much to give, if you were being honest. So you made the mistake of asking him, “What do you want?”

The smile that carved across his pale features then sent another one of those cold, electric shivers down your spine, and instantly you regretted allowing him so much freedom in choosing his prize. Tapping his chin with a finger as he pretended to sort through his options, he quickly and proudly settled on, “How about you have dinner with me?”

Aghast, you truly didn’t know what to say. Wanting to play it cool, not show how ridiculous the idea seemed to you when stated so shamelessly out of the blue, your throat bobbed with a particularly hard swallow and your voice shook slightly as you began to say, “That’s really what you want?”

Undertaker nodded, his smile not faltering. “That’s what I want.”

Not happy with the consequences but still clearly up for the challenge, you steeled your expression and agreed with a semi-confident, “Alright then. All I have to do is make you laugh before the clock strikes twelve,” and then I’ll never have to be bothered by you again. Should be easy, if he thought you were so hilarious without even trying.

However, as you searched the far corners of your mind for a joke or anecdote you thought would knock him out on the first try, you suddenly found your temporary confidence dying like an ember fading out in its hearth. You resided in the world of logic and facts, not entertainment and tomfoolery. You had a sense of humor, sure. Someone in your line of work had to, once in a while, lest they go mad when constantly being reintroduced to the bleakest parts of humanity.

Finally, you recalled a particular story that you’d nearly cried at upon hearing the first time, you’d laughed so hard. Surely, this was the one. You remembered it perfectly too, only, the further you ventured into telling it without so much as a twitch of a smirk appearing at the corner of Undertaker’s lips, the more you began to sense that you’d been lured right into a trap.

“Amusing,” he stated, monotone and mocking you. “But if you want to win, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”

You stood there, staring at him, seething, knowing this had all been according to his plan all along. You figured you could always just find a moment to slip away from the party and into one of the carriages already lined up outside before the new year rang in, perhaps voiding this odd and informal little contract you two had entered into together, but a part of you also knew that, whether a week or a month or a year from now, you’d find yourself faced with him again some way or another. Perhaps it was better to just keep trying even if only to prove to yourself you’d fought instead of running away.

“Oh, don’t worry,” you taunted, some of your indignance slipping through the vengeful grin spreading across your lips, “I’m just warming up.”

Undertaker tapped his wrist, miming where a watch would be, if he wore one, and said, “Tick tock… Only five more hours till midnight.”

And thus the game began.

***

Every hour that passed, with every attempted joke that was told without the desired reaction, the more dejected you began to feel.

And now, with less than half an hour to go, you’d already accepted your imminent defeat.

There had been a few times you could tell he was seriously having to hold back, the promise of a chuckle choked out behind his teeth or a burst of a laugh strangled somewhere deep in his chest before it had time to rise from his lungs. He had a lot more self control than you would’ve originally given him credit for, that much you couldn’t deny, but it almost seemed the brunt of his amusement came from how each attempt you made became more desperate, some of the words leaving your mouth shameful enough to make your mother faint had she been around to hear you say them, digging up the darkest, most shocking lines you’d ever uttered in your entire life.

You were a few drinks over the limit of caring if any of the other ladies in attendance that night heard you saying such depraved things in public, and to a man you barely even knew on top of it all, but one thing was for certain.

Undertaker was cracking.

You’d nearly gotten him on a few of the last ones, suddenly grateful for all the horrid things you’d heard the men exchanging and laughing about in the press office— another place you were used to acting like a shadow within. Though, even if you felt like you were maybe getting closer to winning, your dignity would lose regardless. You felt as if you were stooping to some unacceptable level you’d normally turn your nose up at, behaving in such an undignified way, yet the itch to prove him wrong and reclaim your pride was hard not to scratch, and right now there was only one way to do so.

“You know,” Undertaker said, only fifteen minutes to midnight, “I will admit, you’re really starting to make me regret entering the mortuary field and wishing I’d gone into journalism instead. Do your colleagues truly say such audacious things?” Just then he nearly made himself laugh, though you figured that wouldn’t count.

By now, you had a few cards left to play, having saved your best ones for the final hour, just in case, though that bank had nearly run dry. You had one last ridiculous tale left up your sleeve before you’d truly have to hang your head and admit defeat, and for a moment, you let hope get the better of you. It truly seemed this would be the one to best him, and as you loudly and, thanks to the several glasses of champagne flowing through your veins, very confidently delivered the perfect punchline, you counted the seconds until he’d inevitably burst with laughter and be forced to forgo his mission to unexplainably irritate you.

But he swallowed it down, dousing it with his next and final gulp of champagne, having drank nearly as much as you throughout the night, probably more, yet somehow unaffected, and as he sighed out a satisfied exhale, sans the expected howl of laughter, your expression of victory crumbled down to forlorn.

“Are you kidding me?” you confronted, clearly fed up— with him, mostly, but also with yourself— before you began stammering out a mess of jumbled syllables proclaiming how this entire thing had been rigged in the first place.

“Technically there’s still a few minutes,” Undertaker reminded you, nodding towards the grand clock adorning the mansion’s foyer. “Though if I were you…” he leaned in, so close his lips were practically pressed against your ear, his breath tickling the side of your exposed neck, “I’d just count myself lucky you didn’t wager a kiss at midnight in the case of your defeat.”

Between the warmth of the alcohol and the dizziness those words had just washed over you, you feared for a moment you might faint, your posture suddenly swaying before Undertaker instinctively reached out to help steady you, both his palms pressed firmly to your waist, reminding you of the night he’d tried to spook you with ghost stories and gotten a little too close for your comfort.

Only this time, you didn’t flinch away instantly. Instead, you allowed his hands to stay there for a moment, staring up at him with perhaps the softest expression you’d worn all night. You felt your mouth opening, though again found yourself unsure what you would say, when suddenly, faster than you were ready for, the chorus of counting down the seconds until the new year filled the room and startled you back to reality.

You pulled away from his orbit, smoothing down your skirts with your sweaty palms, and turned your gaze to the smallest hand on the clock, barely mouthing the numbers of the countdown until it was only ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

“Happy New Year!” Undertaker chanted, shouting out with the crowd but looking straight at you, as if the celebratory words were meant for only one person in the room. He raised his empty glass your way, wearing one of those sinfully sly smiles, and said, now only loud enough for you to hear, “How’s next Friday at seven sound, hm?”

You could barely understand what he was talking about. You were already too far gone. All you could remember at that point was the sinking feeling of dread laced with a familiar sense of excitement, as if you’d just been the key witness to a very important event and now had the chance to give the first testimony of the case.

But isn’t this what you’d wanted all along? A way to get closer to him and uncover whatever it was he was hiding— because you knew he was hiding something.

Your initial intrigue had never really faded, no matter how much you’d tried to convince yourself you loathed him, that he was insufferable, more trouble than he was worth. But, then again, if it was answers you wanted, it should be easy for you to get them.

You’d always been good at solving mysterious events. How would solving a mysterious person really be any different?

***

You’d upheld your end of the bargain and joined Undertaker for dinner, which had been stranger than fiction but a rather good story to file away for your personal collection. Much to your surprise— and perhaps slightly to your disappointment— things had started and ended with dinner. Just dinner. You’d tried to pry, tried to get him to open up, learn more about him, but somehow he always found a way to seamlessly direct the topic of conversation back around to you.

You’d decided he maybe wasn’t so bad afterall, had even agreed to do it all again sometime.

But now, a year later, there were no more parties.

All that had been left in the wake of the once pristine and lively Phantomhive manor was ash and the crumbing, scorched remains that had outlasted the fire. Not even the children had survived, and though you’d only seen them a handful of times as their nanny had led them up the grand staircase by the hand to put them to bed just as the first batch of guests were beginning to arrive, it still made your heart twist with the tragedy of it all.

At least they’re together, you tried to console yourself as you stood before Rachel and Vincent’s graves, your previous hosts reduced to nothing but a matching set of stones sticking out from the cold earth. You wouldn’t exactly have considered them friends, per se, more so something closer to employers, but you couldn’t help it. You’d grown more attached to them than you’d originally intended.

“Do you think it’s true?” a familiar voice suddenly asked from right behind you, making you jolt and turn to face him. You’d already known it was Undertaker, yet, as you tried to meet the glimpse of green you’d once caught shielded behind all that silver, you still found a part of you was surprised to find him standing in the same graveyard, as if having completely forgotten he was, after all, a mortician.

“Do I think what’s true?” you asked, a slow wave of deja vu rolling through your mind.

“That humans really go to a better place after they die…?” The way he said it, gazing almost longingly down at the tombstones as they lay still and heavy on the frost-laced grass, made you start to see him in a new light. He was holding a shovel in one hand. You realized he’d probably been the one to dig the ditches and then bury the couple six feet deep.

Instead of giving him an answer though, you instead turned your view back to the graves, reading their names, their dates of birth and death, and then, carved beneath the proof that there were indeed people sleeping beneath the slabs, the matching epitaphs marking the smooth stones.

“Potentia Regere…” you repeated, more to yourself than anyone else. “What does it mean?”

Stabbing the shovel’s sharp tip down into the ground, Undertaker simply stated, “Power to rule…” It was the Phantomhive’s motto, in a sense, the latin words appearing on the family’s coat of arms. You were just about to make a comment about how surreal it all seemed, the fact that something that quickly had become so commonplace in your weekly schedule was now no more, but then the gentle clinking of a mysterious sound you’d heard before interrupted your reminiscence.

“What is that?” you asked, searching for the source. When Undertaker gave you a confused look, you clarified, “That sound? I’ve heard it around you before…”

“Ah…” he answered, a small, sad grin cracking on his lips. Then he pulled a brassy strand of several lockets from beneath his coat, the mementos chiming together more aggressively as he dangled them before you. “That would be these.”

As if requesting permission to take a closer look, you shyly cupped your hands out before you, allowing him to settle the chain into your palms for further investigation.

“They’re beautiful…” you sighed, inspecting each one individually, reading the names spelled out in neat cursive scrawl, the different shades of the hair tied into simple loops and pressed beneath the glass. Some of the dates engraved went back far before you were born, and, though his age often presented itself as ambiguous, definitely far before Undertaker could’ve been in this business. Though, instead of inquiring about this curious detail, the journalist part of you always hungry for answers, for the truth, you just swallowed and said, “There’s so many…”

In reply, Undertaker offered, “Well, I’ve known the Phantomhive family for a very long time.”

You handed the lockets back to him, watching as they disappeared back between the many folds of black fabric, and then the two of you stood in silence before the graves for what felt like a long time, the only sound the quiet whisper of the winter breeze.

Without even realizing, you found yourself crying, crystalline tears welling in your eyes, sparkling on the edge of your lashes, and then rolling down your cheeks in pairs. You tried to stay quiet, as if that alone could hide the emotion from the man standing directly beside you. And he wanted to reach out the moment he’d seen the tears welling, toss his shovel to the side and pull you into his chest, just let you cry into all his dark clothing until you had no more tears left.

But he remembered how you’d flinched the first time he’d tried to touch you, withdrawing from his proximity as if it were a plague. So instead, he settled for reaching for your hand, which was clenched into a fist and trembling by your side. That time, you didn’t pull away. Just shot him a sort of terror-struck look before your gaze softened and you used your free hand to cover your mouth, catching the first sobs that escaped through your lips, even giving his hand a squeeze as if to help ease your own pain.

Sensing that, perhaps this time, his touch was actually offering you some comfort, he decided to chance gently pulling you into his side, one long, slender arm snaking across your shoulders and back, hand rubbing up and down your arm as your body continued to shake with sorrow.

“I don’t even know—” you began, voice cracked and broken as you sucked in panicked, gasping breaths, “why I’m crying. I mean— they were— I was— it’s just—”

I know, he wanted to say, giving your shoulder a light squeeze, hoping the message was still delivered despite being unspoken. I know, you’re in pain right now.

And I’m sorry.

Human lives were so fragile. The only thing more delicate were their emotions.

Once you were finally able to catch your breath and calm down a little, you seemed to register his touch and quickly, albeit much more elegantly than before, distance yourself from it, clearing your throat as you settled your stance across from him, unable to meet his eyes— or at least the space that they should’ve been— that time around.

“I suppose we won’t be seeing each other quite as often anymore,” you noted, trying to force a smile, but it just came out crooked and sad. “I know we didn’t start off on the right foot but…” You paused, feeling yourself wanting to hold the rest of your sentiment back but then forcing yourself to say it anyway. “I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m glad we both skirted the edges of those parties before.”

Now you allowed yourself to look up and offer him a new kind of smile, this one bittersweet and almost apologetic. And he could feel you already trying to sever the invisible tie that loosely stretched between you two, the purpose of your shared proximity suddenly gone and therefore pointless.

You were just about to turn and bid him farewell when he spoke, more urgent than you’d heard him yet. He said, “Would you like to join me for some tea?”

You considered him, as if this were another one of his games, a riddle to solve. “Wha— Now?” you asked, as if it were the most preposterous proposition anyone had ever presented you with.

“If now suits you,” he said, trying to regain some of his composure, pulling his coat tighter over his shoulders as the wind picked up. “I can’t say it’s as grand as the Phantomhive manor, but where I live isn’t too far from here.” He smiled again, soft and soothing, as he continued, “Though, I can promise the quality of the tea is just as refined.”

It was his last ditch attempt at making a joke in the current situation and, over the more personal time you’d spent with him, you’d come to gain a new appreciation for his dark sense of humor, so you gave a timid nod and said, “Alright then. Lead the way.”

He dropped the shovel and started walking, you trailing beside him over the stone spotted hills.

***

Undertaker’s living space was indeed a far cry from the luxurious, spanning halls of the Phantomhive manor. It couldn’t even really be considered a house, as far as you could tell. It was, in all honesty, a mortuary practice that just happened to have a small kitchenette and an even tinier bedroom hidden behind a curtain in the back. You supposed it made sense when he’d said he didn’t live far from the cemetery, when that was his workplace. But you didn’t care right now. The tea in the mug between your palms was hot, the aroma sweet as the steam rose from the surface of the liquid, Undertaker generously leaving the small jar of sugar cubes on the table before you to scoop in to your preference.

He was sitting across from you, your legs nearly intertwined under the cramped table, Undertaker more relaxed while you just tried to stay within your own personal space. Again it occurred to him, your aversion to physical touch, and he took a moment to study you, as if tracing the features of your face beneath the thin black netting of the mourning veil or the intricate lace detailing of the collar of your dress— black, to match him for once— could uncover your truth to him, your past.

“Been to a lot of funerals in your time, I imagine…” you commented, suddenly overwhelmed by the pressing silence, the steady ticking of the wall clock unbearably awkward. “If I may ask, what made you choose this line of work to begin with?”

Undertaker took a sip of his own tea, which tonight was bitter and black. It would’ve surprised you to learn he usually stirred several cubes of sugar into his tea, no matter the strength or blend of it. Looks could be misleading, this you knew first hand from all the undercover work you’d done, as well as the many apparently innocent faces that had turned out to be gruesomely guilty. But also, on the opposite hand, some people really did show you exactly who they were right from the start.

You were starting to think maybe he was nestled somewhere in between.

“It’s a solitary kind of life…” Undertaker replied, masking loneliness under a grin. “I suppose, at the time, I was suited to it.” He gave a shrug as he raised the cup to his lips again, like that answer didn’t pave way for a hundred more questions.

“At the time…” you repeated. “Meaning, not any longer?”

You weren’t even sure what the purpose of that inquiry was. Normally, every question you posed was carefully chosen, hand-picked in order to serve a specific purpose that would paint a broader picture of the overall story.

Undertaker’s picture had so far just been one big canvas filled in with black, a few streaks of silver, and a flicker of green. There was no clear shape, no clear narrative, but suddenly, by slipping into something a little more specific, something to fulfill your own personal curiosities rather than that of straightforward facts, it was like you’d decided to take your own brush to an artwork you’d only ever been an observer of.

You were not a painter, but sometimes even an inexperienced hand could craft a masterpiece.

Undertaker’s smile didn’t falter, but something in the lines of his figure tensed, as if you’d shone a light into all that darkness expecting a gruesome beast, only to find there was something vulnerable living inside after all. Something genuine. Something lonely. Something you could relate to.

“How about you answer me something…” he began, pitching his weight slightly forward to lean closer to you over the table, his chin now resting in his palm. “You don’t like being touched…” At first, he said it more as an observation than a question. Then, after allowing discomfort to fill you during the pause, he concluded with a curious and perhaps even slightly sympathetic, “Why?”

At this statement, you felt yourself stiffen. Undertaker didn’t so much as flinch, just continued to consider you as if you were a puzzle he was trying to solve, working through every angle before making his first move. After a while, with you offering no answer or comment to this, he added, “If you’d rather not talk about it—”

Your throat bobbed with a thick, dry swallow, as if you’d just been caught for a crime you’d tried desperately to cover up, like the word GUILTY was branded into your forehead. Your mouth opened and closed and opened again, some excuse or alibi withering and dying on the tip of your tongue. Then you said, “It’s not that I don’t like it, I just…” You were absentmindedly toying with a piece of frayed lace off the hem of your sleeve, searching for a believable story to tell him that wasn’t a complete lie, but also wasn’t the entire truth either. But then you sighed, defeated, and looked him in the eyes, that glint of emerald peeking through, and admitted, “It’s just hard for me. I’m not used to it, it’s… complicated.”

The legs of his chair scraped softly against the uneven hardwood as he leaned in even closer, his arm draped over the surface, palm facing upwards, beckoning you to reach into it, to give him a chance. You glanced from his hand, a scar crossing over the love line etched into his alabaster skin, then back to his face, wishing you felt brave enough to take his invitation, wanting to, but finding the fear of physical contact swelling inside of you like a balloon that was one breath away from bursting.

It was so hard for you to trust. It always had been. Had only gotten harder since you’d entered into your current line of work, all of humanity’s ugliest sides revealed to you on a weekly, sometimes even daily basis. But what did you do when you got scared while chasing a story?

You felt the fear and you did it anyway.

So, hesitantly inching your hand closer to his open-faced palm, merely hovering there for a moment, as if trying to figure out whether this was some kind of trap or not, you finally allowed yourself to make contact, fighting the urge to pull back upon the first flinch of his fingers beginning to curl around your own.

Once his hand had completely closed around yours, it was as if all the tension gathered within your frame burst like a firework, the glittering embers giving way to something uncharted. Something new, and slightly nerve-wracking, but pleasant all the same, once you actually allowed yourself to enjoy it.

Undertaker stroked his thumb along the top of your hand, his long, cool fingers brushing delicately against your soft skin, and you felt your next exhale stutter, eyes threatening to well with tears for an entirely different reason now.

“Perhaps I can show you…” he said, the words merely a whisper on his pale lips, “that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

When you met his gaze then, it was like seeing him for the first time, both of his emerald eyes on full display, as if he’d just decided you were worthy of his trust, to know and keep his secrets the same as he seemed so intent on knowing and keeping yours.

There was still a small part of you that wanted to protest, that had the urge to pull away and put as much distance between you and him as possible. But that voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well now, distant and unintelligible. What took over was a voice you’d never heard before, one you didn’t even think you had, and all it was telling you was to allow yourself to fall. That he would be there to catch you when you did.

***

Your breath hitched before his fingers even made contact with your skin, eyes fluttering closed, like you thought not seeing would make accepting what was about to happen any easier.

“I’ve got you…” Undertaker murmured, the cold press of his palm finally reaching your cheek. He gave you a moment, patient with you while you allowed yourself to relax against his touch, your gaze slowly opening and glancing up to meet his eyes. Being this close, you came to realize they weren’t just green, like you’d originally thought, but laced through with a webbing of ambers and golds, a thin ring of teal rimming the edge of each iris. You’d never seen eyes like that before, dangerously entrancing, enticing, and it once again resurfaced the notion that the question wasn’t necessarily who he was, but what.

“See?” he smiled, not a hint of malice or mischief tucked into the corners of his mouth that time, only gentle reassurance. “I’ve got you.”

You placed your hand around his wrist, grip light, just to let him know you wanted a little more time to let this sink in. He was right. There was really nothing to be afraid of. Only, your quick-fire heartbeat still seemed to want to convince you otherwise.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, you kept repeating in your mind, nothing to be afraid of.

You let your view of him slip shut again as he slowly moved his fingers further back to lightly comb through your hair, finding the pin that had been holding it in place and pulling it free, your locks spilling down from the tightly wound coil of a bun that had been perched at the back of your head.

He’d never seen you with your hair completely down, every Phantomhive party that you’d attended making sure to tie it back, keep it out of your way, so you could stay focused on your job and not find yourself fiddling with it. He gently combed his fingers through it, disturbing a few loose knots, smoothing it down and laying it over your shoulders after removing the veiled hat from its place on your head.

“Such a shame…” he remarked, voice still low and soothing. “You’ve been hiding such beautiful hair all this time.” You remembered his mourning lockets, the different shades of strands that had been encapsulated behind the glass. You wondered if anyone would ever grow to love you so much as to always keep a lock of yours on their person. The notion made your lonely heart pulse with a dull ache.

Letting out a stuttering exhale, you now set your view upon the cascade of silver that framed all those black clothes of his, the strands almost sparkling under the low light as they shifted from white to grey and back again depending on how he moved. What you wouldn’t give to be able to carry a strand of it around, secured in a locket and resting against your heart, like capturing a sprinkle of stardust to call your own.

“Can I…” you began to ask, trying to swallow down the slight tremble in your voice as you gingerly reached one shaky hand forward. “Can I touch your hair as well?”

At this, Undertaker let out a silky hum of a chuckle, his long fingers finding the nape of your neck and resting there as he replied, “But of course.”

You let your fingertips brush against the silky silver, threading your fingers through and lightly dragging them down, not a single tangle or knot to be found. You wondered how long it had taken him to grow this much hair, how often he must have to brush it to keep it so pristine, how many others had admired or envied it the very same way you were now.

“Would you like to come closer?” he asked next, catching you a little off guard. You let your hand fall back to your lap, his returning to rest on his knee, and your eyes filled with uncertainty. Then he added, “Only if you’d like, of course.”

You scanned his form, unsure exactly what he meant by come closer, though, based on the way he was sitting, you could only really think of one possibility and the mere suggestion alone was enough to make your cheeks heat and your head spin.

The embarrassment must’ve shown on your face, because a quiet laugh trailed after his next exhale as he assured you, “If that’s too much for you you’re still welcome to sit by my side…” And then, knowing you had a habit of accepting challenges, he added on, voice sultry and only slightly sinister, “Though, if you’re worried about your skirts getting in the way, I’d gladly assist you in removing them and—”

“Oh, just hush for once, will you?” you cut him off, growing a little indignant and far more flustered than before. Even so, you still found yourself standing, eying his lap wearily as you approached, both hands curled into tight fists around your skirts, lifting them a little as you went to settle over the tops of his thighs, having to take purchase on his shoulders for balance halfway through assuming this position.

You’d never been this intimately close with another body before, not since you were very small and your mother had scooped you up in her arms and carried you off to bed, your little legs lightly wrapping around her waist and not wanting to let go, wishing she’d let you sleep in her bed to help keep the nightmares away.

But now, being at this age, in this body, and feeling the press of him as you relaxed with your legs straddling his hips, things were much, much different.

His hands brushed against your waist, hovering there before finally settling, giving you time to adjust to the foreign touch. “Is this alright?” he asked, his voice a mere whisper. “If you need more time, I can—”

“No,” you interrupted, your voice also quiet, forcing your gaze back up to his, as if to defy your hesitance. “No, this is fine. I’m fine.”

“You know,” he murmured, his lips pressed close to your ear, his breath fanning featherlight over the shell of it, and you could practically hear the way he was suppressing a smirk, “I must say, it really is a surprise how a woman as striking as yourself has gone this long without being spoken for. So which is it? Too particular to find the right partner or too spoiled by being overwhelmed with choice?”

You coughed out an abashed chuckle. “No, nothing like that…” you said. Then, falling more somber, “It’s more like… Being alone has just always been so much easier. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I don’t have to pretend. I get to do as a please whenever I please and…” You flashed him a guilty look. “I guess I never saw myself as the marrying type, so…”

Undertaker stared at you, all that chartreuse alight as if finally seeming to uncover what he’d long been looking for. Then his expression softened and he said, “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Before you had time to think up some kind of rebuttal or rebuke, his fingertips were tracing the hem running up the side of your funeral dress, the dulled touch registering on your hips, then your waist, through your clothes, sending a gentle, ebbing wave of chills over your flesh, a delicate ghost of a gasp just barely sighed through your lips. His other hand came up to caress your neck, thumb brushing tenderly across your jaw, your cheek, allowing you time to decide you enjoyed it and sink deeper into his palm, the cool touch of his skin helping to soothe you.

And then, before you knew it, he was kissing you, taking the rest of your breath away as the hand that had found your waist began to roam, the careful path of his contact curving around to the small of your back, up towards your shoulder blades, your collar bones, down your arm to find the sensitive skin of your inner wrist, brushing against the faint thumping of your wild pulse just to feel the life humming from inside of you.

What surprised you even more was that you were kissing him back, leaning into the warmth of his mouth, chasing his tongue when he playfully tried to pull away, testing to see if you’d follow, if you’d try to seek him out once you got a taste. He let out a low chuckle, putting only enough space between your lips to look you in the eyes, see the way your pupils had blown wide with lust all from some simple touching and kissing alone.

“I wonder…” he murmured, that lilt of mischief stitched back into his tone, “if the other men who attended those parties ever fantasized about having you like this…” He then lightly took your chin between his lithe grip, slowly turning your view to face an old, dusty mirror perched against the wall, exposing the reflection of you straddling his lap, his hands touching you in a way you’d never let another man touch you before, and you felt your entire body catch flame, molten embarrassment welling from within the pit of your stomach and flooding up towards your head, the sudden, stifling heat making you dizzy with desire.

Undertaker sighed a puff of a laugh against the side of your neck before his lips found your throat, sucking a light bruise there, making something within you flutter, arousal flaring to life before settling to a slow, steady roll. And despite wanting to look away, shame halfway to choking you, you couldn’t tear your gaze from the view of your two bodies intertwined like this.

All this time, you’d thought it would be scary, being this vulnerable with someone, giving up that kind of control, but it wasn’t. It was like floating, rising from your body and leaving all the worry behind, allowing your world to become merely yourself, him, and the small, dimly lit room.

It was simple.

It was nice.

And, for once, everything just felt right.

But as his kisses became more messy, more urgent, and his hands were reaching under your skirts to knead at the bit of bare skin available on your upper thigh, his eager fingers hooking under the hem of your stockings, you felt yourself tensing, slipping from the moment as the fear of moving too fast flashed across your thoughts like a lighthouse beacon— just quick enough to warn of the oncoming danger that would befall you if you ventured too close to the rocky shore.

“Is this alright?” he asked, slowing down a little then, and you swore you heard something almost insecure flicker in his voice.

You took in a deep, grounding breath, nodded, and said, “It’s alright… I’ll tell you if it’s not,” and that was all the validation he needed to continue, his cool palms a relief against your heating skin, hands continuing to knead at the plush of your upper thigh, though a little more gently this time, fingertips nearly brushing against where you ran most hot and needy for him, causing a broken whine to escape your throat. Undertaker wondered if you’d ever heard yourself make those kinds of involuntary, beautifully obscene sounds before, if you’d ever pleasured yourself late at night once you finally found yourself alone, or if even the idea of that had been too much for you to bear.

He intended to introduce you to each and every one of your lovely, lustful notes tonight, wanting to discover just exactly what he could do to elicit specific moans or whines. You’d be upset with him if he told you his plan, surely, yet still, he couldn’t help himself.

Similar to how you couldn’t deny yourself a challenge, he had a habit of overindulging himself with his games.

“Wait…” you murmured, pulling away from the cradle of his chest just a fraction. “I want you to…” You swallowed, finding a lump in your throat that stuck like a dry pill, afraid to say what rested on the tip of your tongue. You looked at him through your thick curtain of lashes, almost feeling like you could cry again, so many intense emotions to face in a single day mixing together in your head. “I want you to take my clothes off…” The last half of your request all but withered and died into a pathetic whisper by the time it left your mouth, averting your gaze then.

Part of you expected Undertaker to tease you for your request, to try and rile you just to see the adorable look your face made whenever you were mad at him, but he didn’t. Instead, he hummed out a satisfied note, beginning to strip you of the many layers of your funeral attire one by one until all you were left wearing was your silky underclothes and stockings. He went to remove those as well, but you stopped him before he could, growing bolder in asking for what you wanted when you suggested he let you undress him first.

Unlike you, this was not Undertaker’s first experience with sex. It was, however, the first time he’d allowed someone to see all his scars in the fading daylight, usually preferring to hide them behind the shadows herded in by nightfall and the dimly candle lit rooms of London’s most high-end pleasure houses.

But he supposed this put you both on more equal ground, so he didn’t mind. Plus, he hardly thought you’d find them newsworthy enough to go around sharing to anyone who might ask. He also supposed, like you, he had some things that were complicated to explain too…

“Kiss me…” you sighed, your hands lightly settling back on his shoulders as you now stood mere inches apart, breathing in each other’s oxygen like the thick opium smoke that wastfed though the East End.

That time, neither of you seemed to hesitate. Hitching one of your legs up, a big palm splayed under the back of your thigh to keep it in place over his hip, Undertaker had your back pressed to the wall, the hard length of him that seemed to be growing more impatient by the minute nudging further into you until he couldn’t help but grind against your lace-clad core, pulling one of those delicate, delicious whines from your throat, swallowing it down into his own mouth and trading it for one of his choked-out groans as he pressed his erection even harder against you, both of you hungry— starving— for one another’s bodies by now.

You hadn’t even realized your hand had migrated down between his legs, just barely beginning to cup the bulge of him in your inexperienced little palm, until you felt him twitch beneath his underwear, suddenly gasping and going a little rigid with uncertainty again.

He was kissing you deep, the fervor of it all dying down a little once he sensed your hesitation. “Go ahead,” he panted, holding your chin between his fingers, searching your gaze, pleading with it. “Touch me. It’s ok…”

So you did.

You attempted to stroke what strained through the thin fabric until he just couldn’t take it anymore and reached under the waistband himself to free his cock from its confines, hissing through clenched teeth once it was in his hand, soon passed off into yours.

Truthfully, you were only half sure of what you were supposed to do. You’d heard some of the few ladies you’d grown close to occasionally share— or perhaps overshare— some of the details of their marriages, sex lives included, and whether they were bragging or complaining or just making a comment in jest, you’d picked up bits and pieces here and there throughout the years.

Whatever you were doing though, you seemed to be doing it right, because before long, Undertaker seemed to be losing any composure or control he had left. He braced himself against the wall with his forearm, hunched over you as a thin sheen of sweat began to break out over his pale skin like glazed alabaster, grunts and growls and groans slipping from his lips while you gripped him in your palm, hand sliding easily along his velvety length as more and more of his pearly pre-cum gathered and began to drip down the shaft.

“Fuck—” he swore, and for a moment, you feared you’d hurt him in some way, pausing and looking up at him with an apologetic worry tugging at your features. But then he was smiling at you, chest still heaving with labored breaths, but wearing a glow of pride. He’d meant it earlier when he’d said you kept finding ways to surprise him, but this was on an entirely different level. If he hadn’t already known what you did for a living, he would’ve guessed you hailed from one of London’s aforementioned brothels, the ones that only served the elite or those tied to them.

Though he was sure you still had some things to learn, he was glad he was laying claim to you first.

He’d be lying if he said he’d ever be willing to share you with anyone else after this.

“Don’t look so afraid, my dear,” he cooed, slowly beginning to guide you towards his tiny bedroom nook, your eyes locked on him, trusting he wouldn’t let you trip as you walked backwards, holding his hands to help steady you. “We’re only just getting started…”

Before you knew it, the backs of your knees were hitting the edge of the bed, you collapsing back to the mattress as Undertaker climbed atop you, all that silky silver hair creating a canopy around you as he admired the way you looked splayed out beneath him. It was too bad you were a fragile human, your years so numbered when compared to the countless ones he’d already lived and the countless more he’d experience long after you were gone. He wished there were a way he could keep you like this forever— so beautiful, so his— but he knew that living souls weren’t as easily frozen in time as things like mementos and photographs.

If only he’d met you a few decades from now. Perhaps by then, he’d have found a way…

Before he could dwell on it for too long though, he became distracted with removing more of your clothes, the last shred of his lost somewhere along the short distance from the kitchen to the bed, and seeing you fully exposed to him now, presented in your rawest, ravishing state, it took his breath away.

He’d seen many bodies in his life, living and dead, only a handful of them on both sides that he’d truly considered stunning. But yours…

Yours was nothing short of divine.

He wanted to touch every inch of you, learn your figure in a way he’d never forget. He wanted to know that, even long after you were gone someday, he’d still be able to remember the exact shape of your breasts, the raise of your ribs as you drew in breath and the dip of your waist, the soft curve of your tummy and the plushness of your thighs.

He wanted to be able to rewatch this night over and over again in his head, rewinding the film reel until it frayed, each and every frame already burned into his memory.

“Hey…” you spoke, quiet and concerned as you reached up to cup your little palm to his jaw, tracing the line of the scar that cut diagonally across his face by his cheek. “Is something…?”

Before you could utter the word “wrong”, Undertaker cradled his hand over your own, sinking closer into your touch now, soaking in its human warmth, and smiled for a moment, attempting to mask the melancholy behind amusement. “Are you sure you still want to do this?” he asked you, and it was then that any and all lingering uncertainty you had went out like candle flame swallowed by a strong breeze. You nodded, told him you were sure.

A part of you was still scared, but not of him. Just of the unknown.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

You were choosing to trust him, but once you’d made up your mind about it, there was no going back. That’s just the kind of person you were, the kind of person he’d discovered you to be.

So, trying to help you further relax, he continued to reintroduce you to his touch, discovering the places you liked best and paying special attention there, earning more of those sweet, lilting mewls and whimpers that he’d quickly become so addicted to, until it came time for him to explore the most intimate parts of you, preparing you for what was to come.

“You’re beautiful…” you swore you heard him sigh, your pounding heartbeat drumming in your ears and drowning out the quieter sounds. As soon as he so much as brushed a teasing finger through your soaked folds, still careful to be gentle with you, you let out a choked cry, gripping his biceps for support, needing something— anything— to anchor yourself to.

“Just relax…” he said, voice low and soothing as he applied a little more pressure, spreading your growing slick further around, marveling at the way your sensitive little bud was already pulsing in pleasure, tight hole fluttering in anticipation. But you took a deep breath and tried to follow his instruction, allowing your body to sink further into the mattress. Praising you as he began to massage slow, skillful circles onto your clit, he said, “Just like that… So good, my beautiful girl…”

And then that thick, sticky heat was filling you from the inside again, threatening to spill out. It was unlike anything you’d ever felt before and you didn’t want it to stop. For a moment, you wondered if this was all somehow some sort of very vivid dream, a fantasy, fearing you’d wake up to find you’d never even gone to visit the graves at all. But the way the sensation gripped you, body and mind and soul, was telling you otherwise, every nerve alight with the intensity of it all.

Warning you what he was about to do next might be a little uncomfortable at first, Undertaker slipped one of his slender fingers inside of you, causing you to wince at the slight soreness the sensation provided, but as he slowly pumped it in and out of you, helping you get used to the feeling, eventually you were wet enough that he could insert two, the stretch from his fingers alone causing a small squeak of pain to escape your throat, but still you didn’t want him to stop.

As he began to carefully scissor his digits inside your tight cunt he continued working on stimulating your clit to distract you from the discomfort. The mix of pleasure and pain was almost enough to put you over the edge, your back arching off the bed and your neck craning as you felt the coil winding tight within your core threatening to snap. Gasping out a curse, legs trembling as the crescendo crashed over every nerve in your body, you came undone for the first time that night, the high that filled your veins mixed with the fading adrenaline making your brain melt into a hazy, sated state.

He was whispering something to you then, pressing gentle kisses along your forehead, your temples, your nose, your jaw, as his sweet sentiments were lost amidst the thumping of your pulse between your ears. You exhaled a shuddering sigh, eyes fluttering closed, feeling as if you could drift right off to sleep. But there would be plenty of time for rest later.

Undertaker still wasn’t done with you yet.

Sliding his thick cock between the dewy petals of your folds, he guided you back to the waking world, being the most tender he had with you yet. “Are you still doing alright?” he murmured, brushing a few stray strands of your hair away from your face and behind your ear. He was gazing down at you like he couldn’t even believe you were there, with him, like this, the angel he’d lured into his underworld.

You gave a feeble nod, gasping when you felt the tip of his cock catch on your fluttering little hole. In all truth, you weren’t sure how he was going to fit. You just hoped he’d prepared you well enough, though knew the first time would be the most trying.

“Just breathe…” he instructed, interlocking his fingers with yours, your hands pressed into the mattress on either side of your head. “Take as much time as you need. Just relax…”

As the first inch or two fought its way into your tight entrance, your body reflexively tensed to combat the pain. The stretch of him took your breath away, fragile, sensitive skin feeling as if it were about to tear to allow him more room, teetering on a razor’s edge of arousal and agony. But he was talking you through it, whispering reassuring praises into your ear, waiting until he felt your body adjust to him, rigidity melting away as he continued to pepper featherlight kisses across your skin, letting you squeeze his hand as hard as you needed to until the sensation subsided.

Inch by inch, he worked his way deeper, and when you needed him closer, needed his chest pressed to yours to feel the stuttering beat of his heart, he obliged, scooping you up to straddle him again, both of you upright, face to face, him helping you begin to bounce lightly on his cock.

As the pace began to pick up speed, nearly every thrust into you had one of those melodic moans or lilting whines clawing their way up your throat, mouth remaining agape with silent cries as you felt yourself once again approaching that steep edge. With your head thrown back, neck exposed to him, Undertaker took the opportunity to suck a few more bruises into the column of your throat, his teeth grazing your racing pulse, choking on his next growl as your cunt clenched around him painfully tight.

He gave one more harsh thrust upward into your wet heat, feeling you come undone, glistening arousal staining you both, before forcing himself to pull out, finishing no more than two seconds later as his warm, sticky seed spilled over your stomach and thighs, mingling with the sheen of your pleasure as it mixed between both your bodies.

Both of you were panting, shallow, ragged huffs fanning against each other’s skin as you slumped over him, completely spent, and he wrapped his arms around you, keeping you close, never wanting to let you go.

He’d have to, eventually, but for now, he allowed himself to pretend you couldn’t be touched by things like disease or disaster or death, erasing your mortality from his mind, even if it were just for the duration he’d have you in his arms.

Suddenly, he was speaking your name, a gentle breeze of syllables leaving his lips as he rubbed soothing circles against your spine, coaxing you back to consciousness. Without lifting your head from his shoulder, all your limbs heavy, blood flowing slow and sweet as if your veins had been filled with honey, you nuzzled further into the crook of his neck and breathed in his scent.

His question barely registered to you, causing you to mutter out a sleepy, “What…?” which caused him to quietly chuckle, feeling the light mirth rumble through his scarred chest.

“I said,” he repeated, “Are you feeling alright?”

You felt more than alright. You felt fantastic, but not in the loud, excited, energetic kind of way.

More like waking up after a long, much-needed sleep, still floating off the edge of your dreams, feeling tired but fulfilled.

Once the high faded, you were sure you’d feel the soreness, a dull ache already beginning to pulse between your legs, but you didn’t necessarily mind.

It would just be another reminder of him and the time you’d spent together.

And, truthfully, there was so much you wanted to say then. Like how you’d never thought you’d be able to connect with someone in this way, feel completely safe in their hands, even feel— dare you say it— loved.

But instead, all you managed in reply was, “I’m ok…” before you felt sleep swooping back in to claim you.

As you drifted off that time, you briefly wondered what a life with him would be like. If you’d eventually have to learn to call this curious place home, a cemetery sprawled across your backyard, a closet full of funeral clothing. Or if perhaps he’d be willing to trade some of his darkness for the pale light of your apartment, if he’d remember to water your flowers while you were at work and leave scraps out for the stray cats that came begging by your front door.

And if those within your circle— the ones who were always badgering you about when you were getting married or if anyone was currently courting you— would be surprised if you told them that, yes, you’d started seeing someone despite the numerous occasions you’d written off such partnerships as just not for you…

They’d surely have some opinions on the matter, and that would even be before they saw him standing at your side.

But let them gossip, let them talk, you figured.

You didn’t care what people said, what they thought. You just wanted to be able to see him again, to be with him again, and for a little while, at least, discover all the things fear had once convinced you that you’d never get to experience for yourself.

***

A few years after your first night spent with him, having had many more in all the time between, fate had called you away, choosing to relocate further up north once your mother grew ill, spending her remaining days by her side. Once she was gone and you found yourself back in funeral blacks, for some reason, you’d decided to stay. You’d written Undertaker, of course, and for that first year apart the back and forth correspondence had been quite regular.

You awaited his letters with a childlike giddiness, excitement unfurling its wings within your heart whenever a black envelope sealed with shining silver wax appeared among your mail, already beginning to tear it open before you’d even gone back inside from retrieving that day’s delivery from the mailbox down the hill from your late mother’s home, the house you now called your own.

You’d sit down to write him back the moment you finished reading the last word of his looping cursive scrawl, elegance and sharpness somehow occupying the same space.

But then, after so much time away from London, away from the life you’d grown so accustomed to, you’d found yourself growing lonely. Only, this time, instead of the dull ache your former solitary life had nurtured within you, the pain was now a knife’s stabbing edge, carving a hole out in your heart until it nearly became too much to bear.

Until you’d eventually met someone. Another man whose hair was just beginning to grey at the temples, yet nothing like Undertaker’s silver shine, and whose eyes were a deep forest green, not the startling chartreuse of your former lover’s gaze.

Six months later, you wrote back to London to inform Undertaker of the wedding that would be held in the spring. He’d congratulated you, though was glad it was only on paper— if he’d been forced to fake a smile and sweeten his words to you in person you would’ve known it was a lie, seen the heartbreak etched onto his face as obviously as one of those jagged, shining scars— and after that, the flow of the letters slowly came to a halt.

You had ten beautiful years with your husband until death’s kiss touched him, leaving you a widow and, once again, alone.

By then, the north had become so small, its claws closing around you until it began to resemble a prison, a cage.

You fled, returning to London, unsure whether you were running from things you wanted to forget or towards a flame you thought you might rekindle.

But in all that time away, you’d gotten married. Perhaps it was unfair to assume Undertaker hadn’t done the same.

However, once you found him, grateful the funeral parlor was still right where you’d left it nearly fifteen years ago, you entered the shop, expecting to be greeted by a man who was all at once familiar to you and also not, surprised to find him just as you’d left him like an image out of an old photograph.

You’d expected time to have touched him, run its fingers through his hair, turning silver to ivory, leaving the first signs of laugh lines cupping his smile and crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes, similar to the ways it had begun to touch you. The sight should’ve brought you comfort but instead you found yourself feeling…

Uneasy.

The years had passed for Undertaker as quickly as the season’s had changed for you. But as you inched, slowly but surely, towards the winter of your life, there wasn’t even so much as a veil of frost creeping in to cover him.

Somehow, he had remained exactly the same, no matter how many days, weeks, months, or years went by.

You’d planned to smile and say something like, “It’s been a while, so I understand if you don’t recognize me,” but what came out of your mouth instead was a gasp and, “You’re—” before Undertaker stopped you.

“—Just about to sit down for some afternoon tea,” he filled in, his grin widening as if he’d been expecting you. And then, before you even had a chance to process the theories that were beginning to blossom in your brain, each one more ridiculous and paranormal than the last, he asked, “Would you care to join me?”

Your mouth hung open, any and all remaining questions dying on your tongue, a few sputtering squeaks catching in your throat before you closed your lips, cleared your throat and said, “Alright then.”

The time you spent sitting at that little table, legs nearly intertwined once more as you sipped at your cup of Earl Grey, two cubes of sugar stirred in, made you feel like no time— not years or over a decade— had passed at all since you’d seen him last.

Nothing had changed— truly nothing. Not his looks or his humor or the way being around him just made you feel calm.

He’d been in the middle of regaling some amusing tale to you from while you’d been away when all of a sudden you realized your eyes were welling with tears. His bout of laughter died down to a stark stoicism once he noticed, leaning forward, reaching out to rest his hand over yours, the familiarity of his cool touch only making more tears race down your cheeks in shimmering pairs. He asked, “My love, whatever is the matter?”

You choked on a sob, gave his hand a squeeze. “I just missed you…” you admitted, trying to smile, though it just came out crooked and sad.

With his other hand, fingers partially warmed from holding his cup of tea, he lightly brushed away your tears, rubbing the back of your hand with the pad of his thumb, soothing you until your sobbing subsided.

Then he said, “I’ve missed you, too… In more ways than you can even imagine.”

You felt a new wave of sorrow threaten to wrack through you. Something akin to guilt. To shame. To mourning the life you could’ve had if only you’d come back sooner. If only you’d stayed.

“But please,” he continued, gazing upon you with concern now. “If you’re weeping on my behalf, don’t. Now that you’re here, we can just pick up where we left off… A human life is only so long, after all…”

You looked at him, half confused, half afraid, and he almost told you then. Told you that he wasn’t like you, wasn’t burdened with the fragile shortness of a mortal life. But he didn’t.

He wanted you to ask first. Wanted to hear you say the words you’d been wondering since the very first night you met.

And you would, eventually.

But for now you just wanted him to hold you while you finished your tea and try and make up for so much lost time.

***

Twenty years later, you were unmarried, plagued by the illness that had claimed your mother, and had long given up tracking down shocking stories to fuel your own morbid curiosities.

But you were not alone.

You’d remained in the funeral shop, though made several more cozy additions to its decor over the years— a couple little houseplants dotting the windowsills, your mother’s cookbook placed up in the cabinets of the little kitchenette, lace hems and embroidery on the pillowcases fluffed upon the freshly made bed.

This place had become home before you’d ever even made the decision to stay, though perhaps that was more due to Undertaker’s proximity than anything else.

Even as your joints grew stiff and your movement became sluggish, your hair greying and your eyesight failing, Undertaker still remembered to remind you how beautiful he thought you were, how much he loved you, how you’d always be his most favorite girl. He’d dance with you by the light of the moon, leading you in a lulling waltz as he hummed out a melancholy tune. He’d carry you to bed when he found you sleeping in a chair, whatever mystery novel you were reading open face-down on your lap.

To experience love in this way was the greatest gift either of you had ever received, the devotion binding at times, yet there was still one last secret you had to uncover before you didn’t have the chance to anymore.

It wasn’t until you were nearing your life’s end that you finally asked him, “What are you?” and he actually gave you the truth.

“So you’re the dark cloaked figure who comes to guide souls into the afterlife, are you?” you joked after he’d given a surprisingly detailed explanation of what he was— what he’d been, before he’d defected— and what he’d continue to be no matter how long he tried to hide behind the mask of the eccentric funeral director. You coughed out a weak chuckle from where you lay tucked into bed, reaching out to run your rigid, wrinkled fingers through his long silver locks. Dreamily, quietly, as if only to yourself, you muttered, “I should’ve known…”

“I wanted to tell you…” he admitted, “Before, I mean…”

“No,” you said, “it’s better you didn’t. I don’t think I would’ve understood back then. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

Now, with your death so imminent, learning his identity actually made the thought of your final breaths more comforting. Because you now knew dying would feel like falling asleep in the arms of a lover, gentle and safe. Protected. Cared for.

And when that fateful day finally came to pass, it was Undertaker who claimed your soul, wanting to be the first and last person to lay their hands on it, not intent on allowing any of those dispatch drones to touch it with their sharp tools and sterile indifference.

He dressed your body, laid you in your coffin, and dug your grave. Though it wasn’t in the cemetery among all the other headstones. It was right outside the kitchen window, where your houseplants continued to grow, the sun rising to shed its soft golden light upon the room through the eastern window and bathing the place in deep amber as it lowered below the horizon in the west, your favorite place to sit and drink your morning tea and read in evenings.

Losing you was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but whenever he was feeling lonely, he’d wander out and look down at your name etched into the smooth, pale stone, read your dates to himself, reciting them like a prayer.

You had been so much more than just an epitaph, once upon a time, but at least now Undertaker could come visit you as often as he liked, and tucked beneath his coat, pressed safe behind the glass of his lockets, was a strand of your hair, a piece of you he could carry with him for the rest of his days.

***

(A big thank you to @anxious-chick for your request! I hope it’s ok I sort of took your concept and ran a marathon with it lol, but once I started developing some plot I just got really into it and couldn’t help myself haha. Thank you for being so patient with me as well, I sincerely hope it was worth the wait.

Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading. I’ve been wanting to write for Undertaker again for a long time and I’m glad this opportunity presented itself. Hope everyone has a good day and remembers to be kind to themselves. See you next time <3)

#kodis requests #undertaker #undertaker x reader #undertaker x you #undertaker x y/n #kuroshitsuji undertaker #undertaker black butler #black butler undertaker #black butler #black butler fanfiction #black butler x reader #black butler x you #black butler x y/n #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji smut #kuroshitsuji fanfic #kuroshitsuji x reader #kuroshitsuji x you #kuroshitsuji x y/n

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leonw4nter · 6 months ago

Note

HAIII!!! I saw that ur requests r open!! Can u write a death island x gn!reader where the reader squeezes his cheeks n' it's all fluffy n' cute? I feel like behind all that muscle is baby fat that's just MEANT to be squeezed - 🐰

It Only Takes Half A Bottle of Whiskey

DI!Leon x GN!Reader

“Details of the mission coincide with the objectives laid down to consider this mission a success and therefore, I would like to consider this case closed and marked successful. Congratulations to our very own agents Kennedy and L/N.”

The room erupted in claps, lips spreading into relieved smiles. The last mission was not easy, many undertakings taken in order to see the mission to its success and one of the many measures taken was a false marriage between you and Leon, complete with a wedding and wedding bands, as well as expertly fabricated marriage certificates in order to pass as ordinary newly-weds who had normal jobs as IT technicians. The entire ordeal took almost 2 years, which seems plenty to the average person but an incredibly short notice to agents assigned on this demanding commission. Despite the mission being over, you two still had to uphold the married couple facade and keep working on the IT company before drafting letters of resignation in order to not rouse any suspicions with the people who had grown to know and be familiar with you and Leon. One of the procedures involved coming home together holding hands as you passed through the exit, getting in the same car, living under one roof, and retiring in the same bed.

As soon as you two get home, you rush over to collapse on the couch with a loud exhale before taking the glasses off of your face and setting them beside you. You recline your head and run a hand through your hair, eyes shut as you try to block out the noises of the world. Leon removes his dress shoes and walks around the duplex in his black socks, his shoes in one hand and your shoes in the other as he returns them to the shoe cabinet before walking back to the couch and sitting beside you. He takes your glasses and sets them down at the coffee table in front of you and takes his seat, letting out a loud sigh of his own as he gets the remote and turns the TV on to a cooking channel. Shrugging his jacket off, he turns his head to observe you for a moment only to see your eyes staring into the white ceiling of the dim living room.

“You tired?” He asks as he folds his jacket and places it on the arm of the couch, too tired to get up and place them in the bedroom or think of changing into loungewear. You nod, sitting back up as you wipe a hand across your face before reaching to get your glasses and put them back on.

“I need a drink after all that shit,” you groan as you undo one more button of your button-up. Leon hums and turns his attention back to the chef cutting the carrots, which is short-lived as he tilts it again to face you.

“I’ll help you to bed, how’s that sound? It’s better than alcohol.”

“Help me to bed after I have a nice, cold, glass of double-black whiskey.”

With that, you get up from the couch and walk up to the alcohol cabinet to get the glass. As you open the cabinet, you feel a warmth press against your back and see a strong arm reach up for 2 glasses. Leon closes the cabinet door with his free hand and sets two glasses down. His action scared you for a little bit since he walked with virtually no noise and you only felt his presence when his muscled front pressed against you, effectively trapping you in if he planned on hurting you but thank god he didn’t. He takes a jug of apple juice and pours it into his glass instead of the whiskey, which you aren’t too surprised about; he’s been 3 months sober. You just stare at him, admiring the way his arms looked amazing with crisp white sleeves rolled up until his elbows, a hand resting on the marble as he takes the glass and drinks the juice. He raises an eyebrow when he spots you staring in his peripheral, setting the glass down with a small clink against the kitchen counter.

“Like what you see?” He asks with a lazy grin and a wink. You turn your attention back to the glass he set in front of you, staring at it so intensely you would have shattered the glass with the daggers you were shooting with your tired eyes.

“You wish,” you retort as you pour the dark liquid into the glass and toss in a block or two of ice before taking a swig and feeling the liquid burn its way into your system despite the coldness that the ice offered. You hear Leon softly chuckle before having another drink of his fruit juice, his soft gaze watching over you as you take sips and loud sighs after you swallow the amber liquid. You take the tall bottle and your heavy-bottomed whiskey glass and sit down on the wooden floors, placing them down beside you. You take another swig and look at Leon, patting the space beside you.

“Sit,” you say.

“You’re saying that like I’m a dog,” your ‘husband’ responds.

“C’mere, boy! C’mere!” You teasingly say in a higher pitched voice, clapping with both your hands to beckon him to sit beside you.

Leon rolls his eyes but sits beside you, propping one knee up to rest his hand on as he looks at your glass.

“Good boy,” you say with a sly grin.

“Okay you’re a freak,” he says as he jokingly begins to sit up again but not before your free hand shoots up to grasp at his wrist.

“Okay, I’m sorry I won’t do that.”

“Right.”

“Please? Please? C’mon Leon, don’t be boring.”

“Fine.”

You smile and chuckle softly as he sits back down beside you, knuckles occasionally brushing against each other. You two sit in complete silence, the silence interrupted only by the sounds of breathing and sighs. Your gaze fell on the gold band wrapped around the base of your ring fingers, studying the way the light reflected off of the smooth surface. Eventually, your gaze flitted to Leon’s right ring finger to admire his own ring.

“It looks damn good on him,” you thought to yourself. “Damn, marriage is a good look for you, Kennedy.”

He absent-mindedly fidgeted with his ring, tilting and adjusting it; that’s what he always did when he was deep in thought or bored. You noticed it became a habit as soon as you two had to wear these rings everywhere, even on side missions. Although he could remove it when you two were in your own home, he chose to keep it on which you followed suit since it only felt right.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

The whiskey soon started tasting like water and now you were down to unbuttoning the second button of your work shirt. It was a little harder to keep your head up now and your lids were threatening to close. You leaned your head on Leon’s shoulder, not missing how you felt him tense up despite your inebriated condition.

“Leon, ’m sleepy.”

He looked at you, seeing how the whiskey caused your cheeks and ears to burn pink like a Fuji apple. Your lids were droopy and your eyes were glossy, an obvious sign that you were drunk and done for tonight. He chuckles softly as he adjusts you so he could carry you to your shared room.

“I’m fine, Leon.” you confidently slur as he lifted your frame up and out of the kitchen.

“Nope, you’re not. We’re going to bed now.”

“C’monnn… I can handle my… liquor like a champ...”

Leon gave you a stern look before setting you down on your side of the bed before making a quick trip back to the kitchen to fetch you a glass of water and pills to take. Despite the frequent jokes he made to make you feel a lot more comfortable in his presence, you would be lying if you didn’t enjoy this authoritative side of him outside of the field. He comes back and sets them on your bedside table, making it near enough without making the water prone to spilling due to your uncoordinated state.

“Anything else you need?” He almost slipped up and called you ‘honey’.

“Bath.”

“Gotcha.”

Since it would prove to be too difficult to get you cleaned up right now, he settled on finding a basin and a rag to wash you with. After asking your permission, he removed your garments before wiping you down to let yourself feel a little more clean before a proper bath in the morning and dressed you in a clean shirt and sleep shorts before freshening himself up to get in bed with you and calling it a night. After a few minutes, he got on his side of the bed but still kept some distance so you wouldn’t feel like your privacy was being invaded. He shifted, moving as gently as he could so the mattress wouldn’t move along with him and disrupt your sleep. He finally managed to lay on his side, his arms crossed and his eyes shut but he still kept his ears active. He suddenly remembered something and opened his eyes again; he turned around and glanced at you.

“Good night,” he said.

Normally, he’d add a sappy nickname like “sweetheart” or “honey” at the end to make his husband act feel more natural for him but he decided not to this night since he felt weird. Weird in a way that if he said it, he’d jump out of bed and dive out of a window and plummet into a pool of pink and red heart balloons while glitter bombs went off around him. He knew what he felt but he didn’t want to give it a name and properly label it; he wasn’t even sure if you saw him the same way he saw you. When you didn’t give any kind of response, he turned around and sat up to look at you through the dark, the white streetlights being the only source of light beaming in through gray curtains. He inched closer to see you and placed a finger just underneath your nostrils, hoping to feel a soft gust of warm air be expelled. When he felt that, he placed a finger on the pulse point of your neck before concluding that you really are fine, just deeply asleep.

He chuckles to himself, smiling softly as he extends a hand to brush some hair away from your forehead. Before he can stop himself, that small gesture turns into him adjusting the duvet so you wouldn’t sweat under warm bundles of fabric sometime in the night. Now, he’s trapped in your arms when you quickly extend your arms above you and yanked him down to your body. All while your eyes were still shut.

He could easily escape and retreat back to his side of the bed and really call it a night this time but he doesn’t. He decides to stay like that for a bit and he knows why but then again, he doesn’t want to name the reason.

“Y’think you’re so slick, Kennedy,” you groggily mumble. His head is pressed against your chest, his arms extended from his side in an awkward position, and he subconsciously holds a breath in.

“Jus’ tell me if you wanna cuddle,” you slur. “I know y’wanna coz I wanna too.”

You pull him off of you and lay him back down on his side of the bed, frozen in shock and baffled at how things have taken for a turn. He lays still and watches you silently with wide eyes, observing you. You crawl near him and stare at him at the side… well, an excuse of a stare since your lids were drooping and you couldn’t seem to get your eyes to focus nicely on him. You sat up and placed a hand on his stubbly cheek, gently rubbing on the bristly cheek with a soft thumb. He tensed at the delicate feel of your hands on his face, handling it with so much care as if he’s a fragile piece of artwork. A pop of color spreads on his cheeks and the tips of his ears as you look him in the eyes as if you’re trying to count all the specks of gray he didn’t know his eyes had while trying to fish out a well-hidden feeling within his weary soul.

“Ow!” Leon yelps when you suddenly pinch a cheek of his just as his eyes were about to close and savor the wholesomeness of the moment. “What’d you do that for?!”

“Y’ve got… puffy cheeks. I love that in a man.”

“Puffy cheeks?”

You give his cheek a poke before pinching them again, this time much softer than the first since we voiced out his discomfort. You continue poking and pinching the skin bristly with coarse hairs, occasionally squishing them together to make his lips puckered up. He relaxes eventually, letting you knead and feel his face. He probably had more wrinkles on his face than most men his age do and he knows he doesn’t have the best skin ever and he’s thankful that you’re drunk enough to not notice the blemishes on his face. He wants to let his hands rest on your waist and just let you do your thing but he decides against it; you’re drunk and you aren’t in the clearest headspace right now. Although his intentions with wanting to perch his hand on your waist is nothing sexual, he still doesn’t want to proceed with that.

“Gosh, your spouse after me is going to be sooo lucky,” you mumble. “You’re so sweet, kind, sexy as fuck… you’re also intimidating sometimes but you’re like a teddy bear.”

“Teddy bear, huh?”

“A teddy bear with… a teddy bear strapped with guns, bullets, and knives.”

“A teddy bear that can’t get through airport security, basically.”

His response makes you laugh a little louder than it should have, a hand falling to your chest and you throw your head back. Leon didn’t think his joke was that funny until you laughed and chortled, grinning and beaming like it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore if no one else laughed at his lame jokes as long as you did. And what did you mean “spouse after me”? Would he be able to find someone else after your “marriage” is dissolved? He fears that he wouldn’t love as truthfully and wholly as he does with you, that his soul would always look for you in the people he’d see. What if he wants his spouse to be you, even after this mission? “Agent L/N” is for everyone to praise but at the end of the day, Y/N will be his to love. You adjust yourself and nearly plop on his side, tucked underneath his arm with one hand still on his face. Slowly, you grow drowsier as sleep pulls you deep in its embrace.

“Just… for yawn tonight,” you softly whisper while safely tucked into his side.

“You can… forget this, if you want.” Another yawn before you totally fall asleep again.

“Gosh, that hangover is going to kill you tomorrow.” Leon whispers as he adjusts the sheets over your sleeping frame again.

He shifts in the bed, making sure the arm you’re laying on is still; he wants to move it around and get circulation back in that arm again but he’d deal with a purple arm in the morning if it meant giving you a nice rest before the alcohol in your system hits you like a train tomorrow. He gazes at the ring on his hand one last time and feels a surge of joy and pride in his heart, hoping that you feel the same when you look at your own ring.

NOTE - Before I update y'all with stuff going on in my life rn, I just wanna thank 🐰 anon for this request, I hope you liked it <3 OKAY. So I was gone for almost a month because so much happened in the time that I wasn't posting much-- I passed an entrance exam to a school I will transfer to after this year is over (I'm still in the process of passing requirements), I decided to start a Chris Redfield mochiposting IG account, I got lost in another town with my classmate while walking to a groupmate's house (a man was following us both but luckily nothing bad happened to us), I got sick twice in a row in a single month (1st time: screamed too much during a sports fest, did not drink water bc there was no water around the place; 2nd time: I was running low on sleep and did not have time for a break bc of the things I was doing), I had two infections in two different systems in my body (the same time as I got sick in the aforementioned stuff :3), and had my first ever sleepover at my BFF's house (slept at 4am cb we were eating and cooking so much while watching Demon Slayer). I also nosebled while watching filmvxq's (on TT) edit (the one w Take My Breath Away as the audio) and got really lightheaded... this isn't the first time btw <33 I also nosebled over a Vergil edit and I don't know how I keep doing this <33 My neck hurts so much and I have a crippling sushi addiction. SPEAKING OF SUSHI (what I'm about to say next has no relation), I got this TikTok about tubifex worms in a dirty sewer just before I took a bath and I was so disgusted, I was fighting for my life trying not to think about the worms while I was drenched in water. Also, my grades release next Friday and I hope those grades are somewhat sexy bro I can't go to another school with the nastiest math grade... I'm very number stupid... NEWAYS, that's all and thank you for reading my fics!!!! I <33333 UUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!

The dividers are made by @cafekitsune , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).

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crguang · 2 months ago

Text

wasted with longing, part 4

In the face of such deep hurt, you have no choice but to come to terms with your feelings.

friends with benefits, f!reader, 6k words

A/N: don't really like this chapter cause it feels like a nothingburger but there it is... i swear i didn't mean to end it like that but the next block would have been too long to be in the same chapter so i had to chop it in two, forgive me 😞

also, it’s definitely still the weekend on the west coast so i am not late!!! we’ve officially written like 20k words for this series when it was supposed to be a couple crack fics, what even is going on

part three

Every so often, tremors travel through your legs to reach your twitching fingertips like a hundred tiny earthquakes along your limbs while you sit there, passive and morose. You stare at your open palms and observe the natural disaster occurring beneath your skin. Past the white walls of your apartment, the sun continues its ascent among the clouds but its warmth is fought off by the thick curtains of your living room and the heaviness settling inside of you. The blow of previous revelations has made your organs twice as heavy and has brought an ache to your trembling hands, birthing a sense of lethargy only the lost are familiar with. Not for the first time, you don’t know where you’re heading. For the first time, none of it matters; there is just the weight of your body rooted to the couch and the lines of your palms staring back at you, forming crooked letters that disappear with a blink. Your thoughts are a mess devoid of rationality focused on the sting of betrayal that you can feel at the corner of your eyes. She doesn’t deserve them, your tears. Then again, there is a lot that she didn’t deserve that you still gave willingly: your time, your attention, the flutter deep in your abdomen at the sound of her genuine laughter or the naive hope that you mattered more to her than you believed. Your mind is a whirlwind of possibilities that will never come to be and feed the dejection in your bones until your vision blurs at the edges from tears you refuse to let fall.

You recall the nonchalance with which she addressed her actions, the excuse of destiny as if you were all merely pawns in the hollow of its cold and detached hands. Some things are inevitable and all possibilities are already written. You wondered once what kind of life she must live to be so carefree, you understand now that it stems from a lack of responsibility and a distance between herself and accountability. Her nihilism reduces her to a footnote in a published novel, a droplet in the raging ocean; it takes away enough of her to make her believe that whatever she does is not a choice she fully makes herself. It feels like an excuse to justify not only her existence but everything she undertakes, blaming consequences on fate will always be easier as it relieves her from the pressure of guilt. In a way, it’s not so much carefreeness as passivity. You swallow to soothe the tightness of your throat. Some part of you pities how she lives and you wish you could choke it out with a pillow. Even now, you can’t snuff out feelings that have taken months to develop and solidify within you, and they feel like stones obstructing your blood vessels. It hurts this much because you unknowingly carved a seat for her inside the walls of your heart with her pocket knife, the same one she used to cut you. You can no longer differentiate then and now, whether you started falling for her the last time she left your bed or the first time she kissed you. However, you can’t deny that you’ve got her under your skin and the realization could not have happened at a less opportune moment.

This sucks. You don’t count the minutes you spend staring at your hands like they hold answers to questions you won’t get to ask in the future. At some point you find yourself laying on the couch again, looking ahead while your phone lies on the coffee table, undisturbed for the time being. Hours pass and your eyelids eventually grow heavy, each blink slower to come than the last. Your mind, perhaps to torture you, replays some moments you didn’t remember before this instant; falling asleep as she lights up a cigarette on the balcony outside your bedroom, moonlight stroking her hair and smoke blurring her face; nimble hands undressing you layer by layer with a patience that borders on reverence. The first time you met, your impression of her was that she took care of appearance and found it very important how she presented herself to the world. It was because of her clothes, partly, but mostly the confidence she radiated. She didn’t say too much or too little, and looked at you with a smile you selfishly wished was just for you. Her attention felt like a treasure not many were deserving of and her taste in fashion matched yours, she helped you pick out some clothes then you exchanged phone numbers in front of the store. You went your separate ways after that, but receiving a text from her an hour later turned you into a schoolgirl with a crush.

You thought you were making progress yesterday, that her seeking you out meant something more than a refusal to see a medical professional. The look in her eyes when she stared up at you in the bathroom… you wish you understood it, but something screams that it wouldn’t have changed a thing. You reminisce and ruminate until your eyes close and unconsciousness generously gives you a reprieve from the assault of your mind.

It’s almost 11 in the morning when you wake. Your neck is stiff from the armrest and your legs beg to be stretched after staying bent for hours. You rub the drowsiness out of your eyes with one hand and sit up slowly, brows furrowed and lips in a frown. It takes you a moment to do anything else, your phone buzzes with a notification three times in a row but you only look at your lock screen blankly. You don’t feel like doing anything, and after remembering the events of earlier today, you dread checking up on work. Still, your concern for the colleagues you get along with eventually wins out. You pick up the device and sift through the messages that were left unanswered yesterday, replying to your friends to assure them of your safety. Your thumbs travel across the screen mechanically, like you’re writing a professional email you have no interest in, but you are genuinely relieved to find out that they’re fine. You hesitate over Himeko’s contact name. She surely hasn’t heard of what transpired yesterday unless there was an IPC broadcast about it. You hope she hasn’t. You want the truth to come out of your lips, not some news network. Worry makes you bite the inside of your cheek as you stare at her last text from the evening before. Himeko is one of your best friends, she’s understanding, compassionate and an expert at comforting others. You’re not worried that she’ll put the blame on you, just that your feelings will come to the surface once you start relaying everything that’s happened in detail.

You steel yourself, swallow once, and press the call button under her contact name. You bring your knees to your chest. The line rings a couple of times in your ears before the call connects and Himeko’s joyful voice sounds through the phone.

“Hey.” she greets you with a smile you can hear, “are you okay? You hung up on me yesterday.”

Your suspicions are confirmed, Himeko has no idea what went on the previous night.

“Sorry,” your own voice is strained from sleep and you cringe before clearing your throat. “Something… came up.”

“Is everything alright?”

Your stomach churns uncomfortably. You look at the floor and inhale quietly to calm the unease slithering up your trachea. “There was… an incident at work,” you say hesitantly. “A serious one.”

Himeko picks up on your tone and hers softens with her next question. “Are you alright? What happened?”

The words spill from your mouth all at once and Himeko doesn’t interrupt you as you give her a retelling of what you read in that article this morning, Kafka’s identity as both a Stellaron Hunter and the woman you’ve been “seeing”, how she showed up at your door injured yesterday and the moment you found out the truth just hours earlier. The line is silent save for your sometimes faltering sentences. Your eyes fall shut in the middle of your story and your fingers clench the phone in your hand, the knot in your throat tightening near the end of it. Saying it out loud, you realize how stupid you’ve been even if the clues weren’t obvious; you should’ve been more suspicious of her absences and deflections, shouldn't have been blinded by her attention and the way she made you feel, should’ve… You feel like an idiot in the face of Himeko’s silence. She digests the information you dumped on her before it’s even noon, and after a minute of quiet she finally speaks.

“Where are you now?”

“Uh, home,” you stammer, blindsided by the question. You half-expected her to lose her mind at the situation you find yourself in considering she was the one who tried to discourage you to enter a friends-with-benefits relationship, and now people have died by the hands of the woman you have feelings for. You pointedly omit the romantic feelings part for now.

“You should stay at a friend’s house, to be safe. The Stellaron Hunters are very dangerous and you could easily get wrapped up in their dispute with the law and the IPC. Take precautions and be safe, please.”

“Is that all you have to say…?”

“What do you want me to say, ‘I told you so’? You were manipulated, that’s what Kafka does. She bears all the blame here. And I’m sorry you were caught up in her schemes.”

You pause, staring at the coffee table in front of you. Her reassurances bring you no comfort. Your reply sounds small in your ears, “...A lot of people died.”

“I know…” You can almost picture the soft look in Himeko’s eyes. “But it wasn’t your fault. Whatever they had planned, they planned it long before you were brought into the picture. You couldn’t have stopped anything from happening.”

You nod slowly even though she can’t see you. You do your best to internalize that, but guilt still swirls within you and makes you nauseous. You stand from the couch to make your way to the bedroom, footsteps quiet along the wooden floors. You let the morning light envelop you once you reach the glass doors of your balcony and slide them open so the fresh air can enter your lungs and chase away the unpleasant feeling.

“No wonder you didn’t know anything about her,” Himeko continues, an edge to her voice, “it’s easier to play mind games when you’re kept in the dark. She’s truly despicable.”

You think of what Kafka said this morning about the source of her injury, how she got it looking for you amidst the chaos. You lean on the railing, observe the circulation of cars and pedestrians down below, but say nothing.

“I hope she never contacts you again. Did you block her number? Is it even her real one?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“You should block it anyway.”

She’s right. You put Himeko on speaker and let out a breath as you open your contacts, scrolling through the list and finding Kafka’s contact among it. For a few seconds you feel weak for your hesitation, thumb hovering over the “block caller” button, then you shake your head and press the red letters. You won’t make yourself available for her anymore.

“I did it,” you tell the woman on the other line and redirect your gaze to the buildings on the horizon.

“Good. What are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will you… eventually work there again?”

“Ha. Not a chance.”

You don’t know what you’ll do, you haven’t planned this far ahead and were still on the fence about quitting your job before everything went down but there’s no way you’re going back to doing office work after today. In a way, the incident gave you the push you needed to do it. The price to pay for it was far too high.

You talk to Himeko for another half hour before she has to bid you goodbye to take care of the Express. She reminds you to pack a bag and go stay with a trusted friend, and she makes sure to be certain that you’ll take care of yourself before hanging up the phone. She’ll call again when she can, but in the meantime, you’re on your own. You don’t tell her that you don’t think Kafka means to put you in harm’s way and that you don’t feel comfortable leaving your apartment now. Knowing that you could have been one of yesterday’s victims if you had simply gone about your daily routine worsens your anxiety, and even if Kafka’s been inside your apartment countless of times before, you still feel safer within familiar walls.

You spend the day in low spirits, half of it sitting on your balcony with your knees to your chest and the other half laying face down in bed. You tell yourself that your free time will be dedicated to finding out what you want to do with your life. Then another day passes you by and when the third one comes around you still haven’t gotten out of the gray bubble you’ve unconsciously created for yourself. Your thoughts are repetitive and oppressive, so you sleep for hours to escape them. You avoid going out by ordering food or groceries. Your phone is constantly on ‘do not disturb’ because you can’t handle the grating alerts about funerals and financial compensation, you only pick it up to talk to Himeko once a day. She encourages you to see your friends, to not let yourself be swept away by the waves of negative emotions, and you don’t have the heart to tell her that you’re just not in the mood anymore. You make promises you don’t intend to keep in order to alleviate her concern and the guilt nesting in the pit of your stomach grows bigger with each one. You’re not helping yourself, you know, but it feels like all you can do is sit in your feelings as they ripple around you and you stare at the disturbances for hours, crestfallen.

In the evening, you await the takeout you ordered 30 minutes ago. You’re laying on the couch despite the TV not being on and feel drowsiness creeping up on you from doing absolutely nothing all day. Who knew inactivity could be so exhausting… You reach for your phone on the coffee table and tap the screen to see if your driver is nearby. He’s parked in front of your apartment building, so he should reach your door soon. You close the phone and wait some more until you hear firm footsteps on the other side of your door. You only stand up after a couple of minutes have passed to make sure he’s truly gone and won’t see you bringing your food inside. Opening the door reveals an unexpected find; the takeout bag lies next to a rectangular package that wasn’t there in the morning. You pick up the bag but stare at the box with a crease between your brows. Outside of food, you haven’t ordered anything else from the internet. You wonder if it’s a misplaced item and bend down to check the postal information. There’s no return address, but yours and your full name are written black on white. You decide that you must look like a weirdo, inspecting a package in the hallway with takeout in one hand, and you pick up the box before retreating inside.

Putting down the brown bag on the kitchen counter, you think perhaps the package is from a colleague or a friend, maybe even from Himeko since her return address is hard to find. You look for scissors to cut the tape holding the box shut and lift the lid. A pair of black velvet gloves lie on a similarly coloured coat, the inside of which is a dark shade of blue. The material is expensive judging by the gentle sheen on the fabric in the light, and you blink in confusion. It’s beautiful and a piece you would definitely feel compelled to buy if you saw it in a store, which means it must actually be meant for you. You pick up one glove to find that it fits perfectly with the size of your hand. It’s soft to the touch, you bring it to your cheek to feel the material against your skin. You spot a small card sticking out from one of the coat’s front pockets bearing only three words written in curvy letters: ‘Thought of you, K. <3’

The glove falls from your hand like it burns your palm and lands on the floor without a sound. Suddenly, the clothes aren’t a thoughtful gift but a mocking gesture meant to get a rise out of you. You tear the card into pieces. If anything, one could admire her limitless audacity, not you, but someone out there. She’s playing with you, taunting you to see how far she’s allowed to go before you lose your mind completely. That, or she deludes herself into thinking that she can buy your forgiveness with meaningless peace offerings. Either way, her obvious lack of care for your feelings hurts more than it should, and you’re once again reminded of your own weakness. You know that she doesn’t care, there’s no need to twist the knife in your already infected wound. Does she only see you as a toy for her entertainment? Is she incapable of even a bout of empathy or do you simply mean that little to her? The thought rotates in your head endlessly until you put everything back in the box and throw it in the trash.

Two days later, you find another package on your doorstep; two expensive pairs of slacks and three tops that are all exactly your size and your style. The note has only a handwritten K and a slim heart on it. You donate the clothes to a thrift store in the afternoon. It's the first time you’ve left your house since you learned the truth about Kafka’s identity.

Next Thursday, you accept a friend’s invitation to go out for drinks. Kafka’s stunts made you internalize what you've been telling yourself for weeks; you won’t pull the brakes on your life for a broken heart, certainly not for her. Being hung up on somebody who isn’t thinking of you at all is embarrassing enough, to allow her such a place in your mind after what she’s done is just pathetic. Despite your heart still not being it in, you dress up in clothes that always make you feel pretty and let your friends drag you to a bar where they dance for three hours and flirt with strangers for two more. The loud music makes it impossible to hear any words that aren’t shouted or whispered in your ear, its bass reverberates uncomfortably through your chest like a second heart. The night goes by with a drink in your hand that is replaced by another the instant its last drop lands on your tongue. Inebriated and surrounded by sweaty bodies, you forget all about the world beyond the cheers of your friends as you make out with a woman on the dance floor and the flavored liquor on your lips. The events that occurred between midnight and 3 AM are a haze when you wake up before lunchtime the next morning, body halfway off the couch and head throbbing so intensely you think you might pass out before you reach the bathroom for some aspirin.

You stumble into the room, squinted eyes barely seeing two feet in front of you, and fumble with the small plastic bottle of what you believe to be your magic pills. You swallow a couple of them and bend low to take a few sips of water directly from the running faucet. Your skull feels like it’ll split open with any strong enough stimulus. You sink to the cool floor and close your eyes, breathing as steadily as you can through your mouth to relax a little. You think you fall asleep for a while, leaning against the cabinets while the medicine does its job of reducing your headache to a dull pulse. Three firm knocks on your front door wake you up abruptly and you jerk away from the sink in surprise. You wipe the corner of your mouth. Blinking away remnants of drowsiness, you shakily stand on your bare feet and run a hand over your face as you walk to the entrance of your apartment. You hope you don’t look as bad as you feel, but you know that’s likely the case. Still, you adjust your clothes and your hair before opening the front door.

A mailman is waiting for you with a package in hand and thrusts a form in yours after a disingenuous greeting. You sign the paper confirming whatever delivery you just received, a little out of it. He leaves once the small square box is given to you. You walk back inside, turning the package over in your hands before tearing it open. A glittering necklace lies inside, nestled in suede. The gems embedded into it easily catch the light and would make a strong statement resting on any person’s collarbones. You stare at the jewelry, puzzled. Checking the package again reveals no return address, and if your mind was less hazy from this hangover, you would have guessed who the gift was from immediately. Your cell phone pings with a text, bringing you out of your confusion long enough to find it on the floor in front of the couch. You press the message to open the private conversation. The recipient has no caller ID and is texting you like you’re supposed to know who they are. You lay the jewelry box on the coffee table and reply quickly.

“Who the fuck is that…?” You slowly ask no one in particular, brows twisting in a frown.

You type in a text and send it. The reply you receive sobers you up like an ice cold shower. You rub your eyes with one hand and hold your phone a bit farther from your face as if it poses a threat to your safety, disbelieving. The nerve… There’s a familiar flutter in the depths of your belly but the sensation is uncomfortable now, eating at you and forcing you to take a deep breath.

You block the number before another message can pop up. Frustration bubbles up inside your chest, Kafka’s dedication to remaining a part of your life like a coffee stain on a white tablecloth is seriously messing with you. Make amends? She can’t be this dense. The gifts, her promise to send more— is her image of you so shallow that she believes you can be bought with fancy clothes and jewelry? None of these have been thoughtful or paired with a note that contains more than three words. She’s hurt you more than she understands, clearly. Your issues with her behavior are evident, you don’t believe the idea of them not computing in her mind, she’s smarter than that. She’s kept key details of her life from you, lied to you and caused over a dozen scientists to lose their lives for a component that could surely be found elsewhere, not to mention her treatment of you afterwards and her lack of remorse for the emotional damage she’s inflicted on you. Your feelings are more than justified and run deeper than petty grievances. You don’t understand her at all, and at this point, you don’t care to.

An offended scoff escapes your lips and your first reflex is to tell your best friend about the situation, looking to vent your irritation to a person that’ll stand by you no matter what unlike Kafka’s fickle attitude. You video call Himeko’s number and wait until she picks up at the last ring. Her fiery hair is slightly disheveled, held up tightly in a ponytail. She’s not wearing her usual elegant clothing and is instead clad in overalls with a plaid shirt underneath. Motor oil stains her cheek and fingertips as she waves at you through the screen. You think you can see engines and steam behind her, you can definitely hear hissing noises in the background.

“Uh… Are you busy?” You ask, taking in the dark stains on the front of her overalls. “Are you working on the Express?”

Himeko makes a sound of agreement. “Don’t worry, I always have time for you though. How are you?”

“Hangover. What’s wrong with the train?”

“Nothing as of three minutes ago. I just finished fixing some issues but it wasn’t anything too serious. I’m due for a shower. You said you’re hungover? You do kind of look… disheveled.”

“I appreciate the euphemism,” you sit cross legged on the couch. “I woke up not too long ago and immediately popped some over-the-counter medicine.”

“So you went out last night? Or were you drinking alone?”

“I went to a bar with some friends, took your advice and drank until I passed out.”

“That was not my advice.” Himeko’s frown makes you smile. “At least you left your house and returned safely. I told you it’d be good for you not to stay cooped up in here.”

You hum absentmindedly. “I don’t remember most of the night, honestly. I think I made out with someone for like… twenty minutes, four songs. But that’s not why I called— I got something in the mail today.”

Before Himeko can ask what it is, you reach for the jewelry box on the coffee table and hold it up to the camera so the necklace is in full view. You tilt it this way and that, the outside light reflecting prettily on the clear-cut gems. You watch Himeko’s eyebrows raise as she moves from her spot in the engine room, likely headed to her room for that shower she mentioned a few minutes ago.

“Wow, that’s gorgeous. Did you try it on?”

“No.”

“Is that a treat for yourself? You deserve it, you had a really rough week and it’d look good with that fancy low-cut top you have— the silk one?”

Maybe it would, too bad you’ll never wear it.

“I didn’t buy it, I got it as a gift,” you put the necklace down next to you and close the small box, making sure to put an emphasis on the last word.

“Oh? It must have cost a small fortune. From who?”

“Kafka.”

The easygoing smile Himeko wears disappears in an instant. She stops moving somewhere in a hallway, near panoramic windows that show the galaxy beyond them. Tiny creases form along her brows and she stares at you intently, worry and affront clear in her gaze.

“Kafka sent that to you?”

You nod. “She’s been sending me stuff all week, clothes mostly, but this one really took the cake because she texted me from an encrypted number afterwards.”

“Why won’t she leave you alone?” Himeko looks vexed on your behalf and you shrug, relieved that your feelings are validated by her anger. “What did she say? Please, tell me you blocked the number immediately.”

You hesitate a couple of seconds too long, Himeko’s shoulders slump and her lips part to reprimand you but you interrupt her readily, “I blocked her! I swear. She said she wanted to ‘make amends’ and it pissed me off so bad, I blocked her number again. Can you believe her ego? Does she think my world revolves around her, that I’m just waiting for her to make it up to me before I take her back with open arms? We didn’t even have anything. We used each other for sex and despite the semblance of good-natured relationship we had, she still chose to betray me!”

Himeko studies the hurt in your eyes at your outburst and pauses, her gaze flitting across your face for a moment. You exhale, willing yourself to calm down. Your heart rate has picked up a few paces and you despise how easily Kafka gets a rise out of you without even being in the room. The redhead leans on a nearby wall.

“You have every right to be as angry as you feel,” she starts, meeting your eyes with a knowing look in her golden ones, “but… You’re this angry because you have feelings for her, don’t you?”

“W-What?” Your stutter sells you out and Himeko tilts her head in a silent gesture to not lie to her.

“I had my doubts. You talked about her a lot, I don’t even think you noticed. And your word choice just now; ‘betray you’?” You wanted to trust her and hoped she'd let you in, but she manipulated you instead. It’s normal to be hurt, and while I have… opinions about that, you can’t help what you feel.”

You look away from the screen, lowering the camera in resignation. There’s no use in arguing Himeko’s point because you both know the truth already and you’re too out of it to fight the obvious. You don’t say anything so the line is silent for a while, Himeko resumes her walk towards her cabin and gives you a moment to gather your thoughts. You didn’t know you talked about Kafka this often but the information doesn’t surprise you, she made your days exciting and you genuinely liked her for more than sex. You used the latter as an excuse to justify the former countless times. From the beginning, you were attracted to more than her body, and from the beginning, you were more attached to her than she was to you. Even though these are facts that you’re aware of, your throat tightens at the reminder.

“I hate it,” you say quietly after a while, facing Himeko’s figure in the camera.

“I know, sweetheart. Nothing’s easy about what you’re going through right now, but it’s not the end of everything. I’m here to help you through it and you have your friends that are there for you too, just don’t isolate yourself while we figure out a path forward, okay?”

“What if she contacts me again?”

“Then you tell me immediately.”

“What, you’ll come to beat her up?”

Himeko laughs softly. “I don’t resort to violence without at least a conversation first, but….”

Her long pause brings a white toothed smile to your face and Himeko’s eyes crinkle at the corners at the sight.

After assuring you that she’ll text you in the evening, Himeko hangs up the call. You run a hand over your face, chest heavy. You’ll donate the necklace once you feel less like a wet rag that’s been wrung until no moisture is left. Someone will probably be happy to stumble upon a find like this one, and if Kafka’s ill intentioned gesture can bring happiness to one person then perhaps that cancels everything out.

The next afternoon, you find yourself in a clothing store that resembles the one you first met Kafka in months ago, browsing the racks for whatever catches your eye. Shopping for clothes relaxes you; feeling the different fabrics and textures under your fingertips, finding a piece that resonates with you, admiring the craftsmanship and creation process of the items on display are all things that take your mind off the mundanity of your life. You’re not that well-versed in fashion, not really, even if it interests you. You’re approached by one of the store’s consultants and it’s as you politely decline her help that you realize that this is something you could do. You could take classes about a subject that actually matters to you and work in that domain afterwards— maybe you’ll learn how to make your own clothes and sharpen your personal style. The idea makes you smile among elegant blouses. You can deal with your parents’ expectations of you if it means you won’t spend another day in an office researching mechanical components for projects you don’t care about.

You pass by your local thrift store to donate the necklace, but they won’t accept it. The employee’s eyes widens after one look and drags her manager to the front, who in turn adamantly refuses to take such a precious item from you. They wouldn’t know how to price it and its value is a few zeros too many to belong in a thrift store. You leave the place a little dejected, you don’t want to make any money out of it or it’ll feel like Kafka did you a favor in the end. You look at the box in your hands for a minute, then make up your mind. You’ll pawn it and give the money from it to the families who lost their loved ones during the incident last week. It won’t bring them back, it might not alleviate their families’ grief at all, but at least they’ll be set for years in the future and that’s something, right? That’s one thing Kafka would have (indirectly) done to make amends.

You decide to pawn the necklace after doing a bit more research about it to make sure you don’t get ripped off. You put it back in your bag for the time being and make your way back to your home, shopping bags around both of your wrists. By car, it takes less than half an hour to reach your apartment building. You carefully park in the designated spot and struggle to carry all of your bags to the elevator. Maybe splurging on clothes wasn’t the best financial decision when you plan to return to school and are currently unemployed. You repeat the phrase “I deserve it” like a mantra all the way to your floor. Standing in front of your door, you’ve almost completely deluded yourself that you do, indeed, deserve five new pairs of pants, nine pretty tops and two jackets you’ll wear at most three times in the next year. You’re not too sure about the pairs of shoes you bought afterwards…

You free one hand to turn the key into the hole and push the door open. Picking the shopping bags back up, you step into your apartment with a sigh, wondering how you’ll begin to start this new chapter of your life. The door hasn’t fully closed behind you that you freeze where you stand, assaulted by the various colors and fragrances of flowers resting on every surface of your home, some in bouquets twice as big as the other ones and all of them transforming your apartment into a disorganized greenhouse. Your mouth opens, bewildered. You can’t count the different kinds of flowers that are there, you only recognize a handful of them. You’re so shocked by the sight that you don’t notice the figure stepping out of your kitchen until she speaks and a sharp scream of surprise flies from your lips.

“Hey– It’s just me,” Kafka lifts her gloved hands in a gesture she means peaceful.

Stupefied, the bags in your hands fall to the ground with a soft thud. Your heart races widely in your chest and you cover your mouth with a palm, eyes closing with the next shaky exhale that you let out. It takes you a minute to slow the drumming of your heart enough to utter words that aren’t strained.

“How did you get in here?”

“You didn’t change the locks. Seriously, it’s like you wanted me to show up again.” Her joke lands flat and her smile falters an inch at your glare. “Not in the mood for jokes, alright.”

She walks to the couch and picks up an item your eyes previously skimmed over. It’s an intricate hexagonal vase with a soft brown tint, clearly meticulously made. The glass looks very fragile judging by the way she carries it and outstretches her hands towards you, presenting it to you like a gift.

“For the flowers you want to keep,” she says.

You’re going to break it over her head.

#honkai star rail #hsr kafka #kafka x reader #hsr x reader #hsr #kafka x you #hsr x you

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fanaticsnail · 11 months ago

Text

Chapter 1

Masterlist here, Mood Board here.

Sapsorrow Masterlist

Word Count: 6,020+

Song Accompaniment: La Petite fille de la mer

This is the first part to a multi-chaptered series. Thank you @feral-artistry for brainstorming with me and shepherding me into the right direction.

Themes: enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, forced proximity, lord and subordinate, one bed trope, apprehension, mutual pining, obligation, slow burn, eventual love, protective, "where is my wife" trope.

The cobblestone steps greeted your eyes with an iron and intimidating intensity, your future as uncertain as the words that were addressed to you regarding your newest undertaking. Two wards under the care of the Lord of Kuraigana were allegedly in dire need of training in the art of navigation as they began interacting with the upper classes. At risk of embarrassment, Lord Dracule Mihawk had humbled himself with his carefully and hastily composed words and sent them through to meet your eyes only.

Clasping firm the address within your fingertips, you reopened the rolled scroll to once again read over the words Dracule Mihawk had written to you. You smoothed over your formal title with the pads of your fingertips, reading the carefully crafted words beneath to ensure you did not misunderstand any minor detail:

“I hope this letter finds you well.

I will not dance around the issue at hand with formalities and fluttery words. I need use of your abilities as a trainer and governess.

Your resume speaks volumes, and your many debutants and young lords you have presented under your guiding hands have captured my attention with their attuned supremacy in handling all manner of circumstances. Although my wards are not of debutant age: both much older than the appropriate age of presentation, I find myself out of depths in training them to handle the upper class as fluidly as I know you are capable of doing so.

Two young adults: one young unrefined gentleman in need of carving down to size, and one young lady who I cannot donate my time to attune to her femininity.

I simply can’t - I cannot handle it. - Please can you – I need -

Should you desire to undertake such a challenge, I would humbly request – I expect you could – please find the disclosed location for my castle at Kuraigana.

To run the risk of sounding desperate, I once again reiterate: I need you, Governess.

I look forward to hearing your reply, and should you accept the position, I shall adjust wings accordingly for your stay along with discussing wages.

Kindest regards,

Lord Dracule Mihawk of Castle Kuraigana.”

Rereading his honest words, and smiling at his scratched and stricken notation, you began your ascension up the towering steps towards the large double doors of the keep. Having met the ex-warlord a handful of times at events held by the world government, you had never assumed he had paid heed to many of your accomplishments as a finishing instructor and governess to the upper class. Always professional, never swaying your gaze from your pupils and debutants under your watchful instruction, you could maybe recall a small amount of polite conversation between you and the Lord of Castle Kuraigana.

Again, you found yourself recollecting the handful of times you had spoken to the warlord in the past. He had always been professional, and you had always reciprocated in an appropriate manner to him.

“Governess,” a smooth voice addressed you at your right hand side. Unmoving your gaze from the young gentleman you had been training for the past eleven months, you smiled and nodded your head in acknowledgement.

“Warlord,” you addressed him in return. Your pupil had finally worked up the courage to ask a young lady to dance, an action prompting you to sigh in both pride and relief.

“One of yours?” He asked, his voice quirking up at the end in question. Although it was deemed impolite to disregard a member of the upper class, you could not tear your eyes away from your young student as he was following the proper mannerisms of courtship. He extended his right hand, bowing politely to the young woman as she accepted by placing her gloved fingertips within his own.

“Indeed,” you drew out your response, cocking your head to the side to follow your pupil with your gaze more thoroughly. Your student began effortlessly twirling the young lady on the dance floor; swaying her to the melody performed by the stringed quartet. The twin violins began to swell, the viola accompanying their melody with harmony while the cello droned the bass notes effortlessly.

“He’s doing quite well,” he complimented with a polite expression within his tone, “I offer my praises to your abilities.”

“They always do,” you replied with a small smile tickling left hand side of your lips, “and thank you for your kind words, Lord Dracule.” Mihawk hummed in response, holding firm his yellow gaze affixed to your young pupil as he spun the debutant within his arms.

Both you and the warlord at your side allowed several moments to pass between you as you witnessed the successful maneuver of carefully articulated dance moves to be initiated by your student.

“Do you dance, Governess?” he asked you with a lazy air of curiosity about him.

“I have an array of many talents at my disposal, Warlord,” your smile broadened, “musicality, linguistics, formal ceremonies, and dance are a few skills I can call on from time to time. However,” you finally allowed yourself to look away from your pupil to focus on the awaiting gaze of the man beside you, “I find myself relishing in the propel of my students rather than to chase the thrill for myself.”

“Indeed,” he nodded, bringing his right hand to clasp the tip of his broad hat within his thumb and index finger, “until the next soiree, Governess.”

“Warlord,” you crossed your right leg behind your left, your toes curling beneath your foot as you bent in a low stooped curtsey. Your eyes shut politely before you rose, dragging your toes against the floor to brandish at your side and turning your back to the gentleman.

Stalking the perimeter of the dance floor, you once again found your pupil: he attempting to engage with the young lady’s chaperone to indicate his intentions of courtship. Another blissful sigh of the night fell from your parted lips, brimming with glee at another successful pupil finding a potential partner within the upper class. Unaware to the two amber eyes honing over your figure, you continued to fix your gaze on the young man, smiling further as he bowed lowly to take his leave and join once more with you.

Drawing the back of your knuckles upwards and rapping politely from the door, you stepped back and smoothed over the front of your formal governess attire. Hearing clangs, clashes and heavy laden footsteps falling in a thud towards the door, your eyes finally met with the warm, hazelnut gaze of a tall man with moss-coloured hair littering his scalp in an array of tussles.

“The fuck do you want-,” he began, halting as soon as a pale palm and slender fingers grasped his cream-coloured shirt and thrust him inside. Hastily closing the door behind him and stepping out into the foyer lay the towering form of the broody warlord who wrote to you.

“Governess,” he addressed you, sucking in an exasperated breath through his teeth. You took in the gentleman falling from the doorframe. His intimidating and intense aura was tainted with a slight amount of dishevelment.

“Warl-,” you halted your words, recognising his relinquishment of his prior status with a small quirk of your chin, “force of habit,” you smiled at him, lacing your fingers behind your back before correcting yourself, “my lord.”

“I will not hold it against you. It takes some adjustment,” he nodded. You bowed your head in a polite curtsey before again raising your gaze to beam against your new employer.

“Your latest protégé, I assume,” you nodded your head towards the door, eyes beaming with a small air of teasing.

“My latest project. As you can see,” he, himself, nodded his head towards the recently shut door, “his manners and language are of the highest priority.”

You hummed in response, looking over your latest recruiter with an intense and examining gaze. He took the opportunity to straighten his attire, rotating his shoulders back to adjust his posture upright and rigid, as was how you had come to acknowledge his stature through your prior interactions.

“Your letter-,” you began, halted by the palm of Mihawk’s hand presenting itself before your eyes.

“-I apologize for my hastily written words. I should have thought about them further before sending for you,” he commented, cutting off your sentence with a bored and dismissive tone. You clenched your jaw, displeased by his silencing of your words. Humming and straightening your own posture, you began looking up at him with a challenging intensity.

“I agree, my lord. Before you interrupted my words,” you coughed to release a small amount of agitation from your throat. “you currently have two wards in your care?” He roughly sucked in an air through his nose, shutting his eyes to rid himself of his own abrasive emotions. He reopened them, his pupils immediately narrowing in on your own.

“Yes,” he gruffly confirmed, his agitation not hidden by his rough words.

“And you require my help with rearing them?” you asked once more, stepping towards his towering form. He again inhaled very slowly to calm the simmer of his anger rising upwards.

“Yes,” he hissed from clenched teeth, again confirming his need for you. You smiled softly at him before turning your gaze towards the door once more.

“How wonderful,” you commented, stooping to reclaim your bags from the doorstep as Mihawk held his honeyed-gaze on your form, “I simply can’t wait to get started.”

“I would not be so eager, if I were you,” he reprimanded, reaching behind him to clasp the handle to reopen the door.

The ornate hall was decorated from the top of the roof floating all the way to the join against the floor with intricately painted designs. Angelic silhouettes or seraphim and cherubim floated at the highest point of the design, painted clouds parting to reveal the radiant beams of sunlight warming their drawn smiles. This was not a sight you foresaw, judging from the dark and gloomy halls and wings of Castle Kuraigana in the many rooms prior.

No. This room was special. Something truly holy and sacred to contain the vast accumulation of wealth displayed on the ornate, glass shelves and carved marble. Gemstones glittering with colors of the darkest of reds to the pastel hue of a magical and mossy green lay perfectly cataloged along the benches. The golds, silvers, coppers and platinum bands and bangles reflected the light beaming from the stained glass with drawn back, velvety curtains showcasing their majesty.

You should not be here.

Those were the words that you thought as your right arm lay laced within your pink-haired debutant pupil as she guided you throughout the beautiful halls, with your green-haired ‘gentleman in training’ lay sculking behind you with his left hand clutching the neck of a brown-stained beer bottle. You couldn’t hear a word she was uttering through her enthusiastic lips, no doubt informing you of the different historical properties and peculiarities lord Dracule Mihawk managed to procure over his time with piracy, and purchases he made under his former title as Warlord of the Seas. You were simply awestruck by the different paintings, musical instruments and finery fabrics that lay embroidering the perimeter of the room with their carefully attuned presence.

“And this one,” Perona’s voice shook you from your trance as she escorted you to the center of the room, “This one is my favorite. I don’t know exactly why he’s put it on the cushion, but I enjoy trying it on from time to time.”

You drew your gaze to the plush, deep emerald cushion. Laying in the center of the plush object lay a small circlet of gold, the central piece being a smoked piece of moss agate with the green floating across the circular stone. Compared to the other pieces, this one appeared to be of far lesser value in its make and mastery.

Perona pulled you towards the pillar the cushion was sitting comfortably atop, a wide grin pulling at her lips to beautifully decorate her cheeks. Unlacing her arm from within your own, she reached up to take the small ring within her slender fingertips; rolling it over in her palms before trying it on each of her fingers. The band easily slid off each of her long fingers, a small giggle falling from her parted lips as she did so.

“Zoro,” she elevated her tone in addressing her peer, “Come over here, you try it.”

“I’d rather not,” he grunted, raising the beer to his lips and taking a swig.

“And I’d rather you refrained from drinking alcohol so early in the day, young man,” you chastised him, gesturing to the glass bottle clutched tightly in his hands. His brows furrowed in a deep frown at your words. Making unblinking eye contact with you, he raised the tip of the bottle to his lips and hurriedly gulped down the yeasty brew to relinquish its presence within the container.

“I don’t have to do what you tell me, Governess. I neither need you, nor do I want you,” he spat in a gruff grunt, walking over to your place beside the cushion and taking the gold circlet from his peer’s hands. Unable to get the object over the first bended knuckle of his thumb, he tried three of his fingers with similar resistance while continuing to hold his frown against his brow.

“There’s no way this thing is getting on my-,” he halted his words as the ring slipped over his secondary knuckle on his smallest finger; immediately lodging the small band atop it. Looking between you both, eyes now widening with a small air of panic, his words struggled to flee from his lips.

“I-It’s stuck,” he gasped, gulping back his stress within his throat, “I-I can’t get it off. Help,” he quickly darted his eyes between you both, looking down at his swelling pinky finger and back up, “don’t just stand there! Do something!”

Perona, immediately sensing Zoro’s panic, lunged towards him and began pulling and tugging at his fingers. Zoro yelped as the young woman almost dislocated his finger under her strain.

“For fucks sake, Perona! Stop!” Zoro yelped with his voice, cradling his left hand within his right and soothing over the back of his knuckles, “Governess, you do it!”

You shook your head, a small sigh falling from your lips as you slowly drew yourself closer to the towering form of the unrefined swordsman. Clearly Mihawk was telling the truth in your abilities as a trainer and governess being of use to sculpt his wards into shape.

“I thought you didn’t need a governess, Zoro,” you kept a stern air with your voice, presenting your right palm upwards as a gesture to collect his left within it.

“I don’t,” he spat with a small tremble in his tone, immediately placing his swelling hand within your gentle grasp. You smiled and carefully inspected the digit with your examining gaze and the gentle and featherlight touches of your fingertips.

“Clearly,” you jabbed back at him, allowing your touch to attempt to rotate the band circling his pinky finger. The ring had a large amount of resistance, unable to move the object under your gentle touch. You sighed, reaching into your pocket to trace over a variety of hidden objects within your collection. Small scissors, a single bobbin, safety pins, and spools of cotton string jangled around in your pocket as you finally collected the object you were searching for. Drawing it up, you rolled it over beneath the pads of your thumb and index finger and revealed the length of the dark, satin ribbon to Zoro.

“I need to lace this around your finger to tighten the swell,” you said, following through with the action as you informed him, “and should all things go according to plan, I will be able to-,” you heard an echoed footbeat click against the hall outside the large door. All three of your eyes widened as the calculated thump drew nearer and nearer to the treasury door.

“Get to it, then!” Zoro’s harsh whisper commanded you, prompting you to continue tightening the ribbon over his finger. As the area compressed, the ring began moving back over his knuckle and slowly drawing its way down to his fingertip. This is not how you imagined your introduction to the two wards to go, but something you should have prepared for regardless.

Clearly Dracule Mihawk was not exaggerating your overzealousness in commencing your undertaking so hastily. The thumps fell silent as the crescendo of the steps fell in front of the large door. The shadow beneath the wooden frame halted its movement, a small rotation of the handle began to hasten your movements and increase the motion of your hearts rapidity.

Finally, the object was unceremoniously flung from Zoro’s fingertip and rang in a bell-like jingle against the polished marble floor.

“Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up,” Perona hastily whispered her commands to you with a frantic air to her words.

As the door flung open, you backed your way towards the object with your eyes holding firmly against the darkened silhouette. Stooping low and quickly finding the object, you hastily drew back up to your prior, formal posture and held your hands fastened behind your back. Zoro immediately drew himself between you and Perona, his form attempting to shield the velvet pillow from showcasing its bare surface to his mentor.

As your eyes met with the amber, calculated stare of the former warlord in front of you, all thoughts of sense fled from your mind. You immediately slipped the circlet onto the third finger of your left hand, holding it secured for safe-keeping. You were hoping to wait until his back once again turned for you to place it back on its comfortable position atop the dark, green cushion. But alas, not all things go according to plan.

“What are the three of you doing in the treasury?” his eyes narrowed, examining the three of you with a harsh and calculating gaze before immediately drawing his body closer in. He shoved the swordsman out of the way of the pillow, his eyes widening as his sights were met with nothing than the material of the plush pillow.

“W-Where,” he began, coughing slightly to rid himself of his panic, immediately looking to Perona, “where is the ring? Where did you put it, Perona?”

Before the pink-haired ward could answer and was unwilling to wait for you to offer an explanation, Zoro spoke up.

“She wanted to see it,” Zoro nudged his head to your form and laced his arms over his broad chest. You snapped your eyes over to the green-haired swordsman, clenching your teeth hard in anger at his words behind your thinned lips. You drew your eyes back to the lord of Kuraigana as he immediately sought out your forearm and harshly yanked it from its place laced behind your back.

“What are you-,” you began, immediately halting your words within your throat as you witnessed all of the pale color draining from Dracule Mihawk’s face as his expression changed from panic to absolute terror behind his amber eyes. You sucked in a stifled breath as he immediately clutched at your fingertips with both of his hands. He gasped, bringing his eyes over the gold circlet firmly placed effortlessly over your wedding-ring finger.

“N-No,” he stifled out, gently thumbing over the gemstone placed on your finger beneath his firm hands. As his hands clutched yours within his, you could almost feel them trembling beneath your own, “Why would you-, how could-, why would you put it on.”

“I-It was an accident,” Perona’s voice squeaked from beside Zoro, prompting your eyes to look at her in panic.

“You accidentally found yourself within the halls of the treasury?” Mihawk hissed at her, prompting her to cower behind Zoro. A pregnant pause fell between the four of you within the room, tension arising in a swell so suffocating you could tangibly feel it throughout the room.

“I can remove it,” you offered in a small voice, drawing up your right hand and gently placing it over Mihawk’s knuckles. He drew his eyes from their place holding against the ring to your two orbs. A small softness threatened to peak through his intensity, before he sighed and furrowed his brows.

“We are well past that now,” he sighed, removing his hands from their place clutching yours. He moved his neck in a small rotation, relieving the tension with a small ‘click’. He sighed once more, pinching his brows between his thumb and index finger and drawing himself away from the three of you. His boots began rhythmically falling against the floor as he paced from side to side.

“I’m assuming you do not understand the significance of such an object?” He uttered, drawing his eyes against yours once more. You gently shook your head, furrowing your brows at his words.

“All of us had one,” he spoke up, “the warlords and higher ups within the world government. I’m surprised at you, Governess.” Immediate realization hit you in the face with the intensity of a cannonball. You immediately drew up your right hand again to take off the small circlet from your finger.

“If I’d have known-,” you began, stopping only as you felt Mihawk’s hands atop your own to halt your movements.

“-As I said,” he again informed you, “we’re well past that.”

“Will one of you spit it out to clue us in?” Zoro’s gruff voice called to you both, “we’re in the dark here.” You let a shaken breath release from your lips as you looked down to your finger. The beautiful circlet of terror was truly an amazing piece, albeit not as spectacular as the other pieces within the treasury.

“These rings were made specifically to hold a particular covenant,” you uttered darkly, shutting your eyes, “none were the same. Each attuned specifically to the individual who purchased or claimed it.” You shook your head and drew your hand back from within Mihawk’s.

“Why would you have such a thing, my lord?” you asked him, not drawing your eyes back up from its place affixed to the floor, “You do not seem the type to desire marriage or courtship.” Both Perona and Zoro’s jaws fell slack, looking between each other before falling their widening eyes back to their mentor and lord.

“Which is precisely why I commissioned such a piece,” he commented, turning his back away from you and his two wards, “I will write to the appropriate channels to inform them of such an event.”

“I hardly see that as necessary,” you replied while drawing up your right hand to tug at the item attached to your left ring-finger.

“You placed it on your hand,” Mihawk informed you, gesturing to the object attuned to your flesh, “and now, unfortunately, we must bear the consequences of such an idiodic undertaking.”

You sucked in another hissed breath through your teeth, your tongue placed against the back of your top two teeth. Never had you so much as thought about marriage, opting to remain forever in your solitude in training the upper class to begin their courtships with poise and elegance. You were content with working your way through singledom: first achieving the status of Spinster and well on your way to becoming a Thornback or Doomwitch, you had never considered marriage a prospect for yourself.

But this gemstone encrusted within a finely tuned band of promise held a different fate for you. This hand of horrors now held your fate clutched entirely within its circlet of destiny. What this ring was intended for, and was now holding you completely to complete its obligation, was for you now to join with the owner in holy matrimony. Whom shall ever place the ring on your joining finger, and have it fit perfectly beneath its band with no need for alteration, would find themselves committed to wedding the owner of such a prize.

You felt your eyes beginning to sting with a foreign sense of hopelessness as you gazed upon the mighty band atop your ring finger.

“I will simply cut off the finger,” you declared, a rise of destiny swelling your chest alongside its solid intentions.

“It matters not,” Mihawk declared, refusing to turn to look at you, “the sign has already been addressed. We are to wed and, unfortunately, there is nothing either of us can do about it.”

“And if I refuse?” you quirked your head to the side, affixing your eyes to the band on your ring finger once more. Mihawk halted his pacing, looking over his shoulder at you through his peripheral vision.

“You know very well that neither you, nor I, can halt the ribbons of destiny,” he spat in an agitated breath. He was enraged, his thoughts and actions eclipsed with a fury he had not felt in a long time. You sighed, shaking hands drawing themselves down in front of you as you stepped closer to the former warlord before you.

“Fine,” you spat, rotating your shoulders back and affixing your posture to the most rigid state you could make it.

“Fine?” Mihawk questioned, turning to face you once more at his spot firmly placed beneath the door of the treasury. You immediately flung yourself into a trade of impossible circumstances to complete, one thought outrageously eclipsing the other with its demands.

“I require three things in order for us to wed, former warlord of the seas,” you uttered in a low and serious tone. Drawing up the finger containing the moss agate ring, you placed it on your bottom lip to ensure the cursed item did not miss a single syllable of your demands.

“To wed, I require three items,” you narrowed your eyes and lowered your forehead to the floor. Glancing up at the World’s Greatest Swordsman, he ushered you to enlist your demands before the ring. Grasping at straws, you decided to list three impossible items that dawned on your mind, carelessly spitting them out as they dawned on you.

“For the ceremony; I require a dress that is as radiant as the moon. A dress that glows with a hue so majestic, it eclipses all else with its mastery,” you declared, drawing your irises up to meet the honey-hue of the man who was entrusted to fulfill such an obscure demand.

“And what of the other two, Governess?” he spat in a serious and low tone. Refusing to shy away from such a verbal challenge, you declared another outrageous demand.

“For the reception,” you quirked your head to the side, stepping yourself closer to his towing form, “I require a dress so magnificent, the stars are envious of its sparkling vibrancy. Deep and darkened material accompanied by dust and orbs of glimmering starlight is what I require.”

Refusing to draw down the ring from your lip, you drew yourself uncomfortably close to the lord of Kuraigana and maintained a serious air of propositional eye contact.

“And the final demand?” He questioned, looking to your bottom lip lying flush against the cursed stone wrapped around your second littlest finger on your left hand. You took a moment to collect your thoughts, looking down at the piece clutched firmly against your finger. You sucked in a final, shaken breath through your teeth and parted your lips to release it from your chest with your last request.

“Sunlight,” you uttered quietly, drawing your eyes up to meet with the intense, narrowed gaze of the swordsman before you, “I require a dress that meets the intensity of the sun with its rays of gold and copper. An accumulation of material so outrageously forbidden, it be intended for your eyes alone with its intended purpose. A dress so scantily designed,” you stepped closer in proximity to the man before you, glaring up at him beneath his feathered hat, “that you will find none to ever match its equal in both color and provocative appearance. This be the final demand I ask of you, my lord.”

He sucked in a winced breath through his teeth and snarled at you.

“You ask me to meet three impossible circumstances for me to ever claim you as my bride?” He hissed, stepping closer into you. You felt his intense breaths exiting from his nose onto your face as he continued to snarl at you.

“Yes,” you nodded in confirmation. In your logic, if he was never able to meet those three impossible tasks - you would both get what you desired. Living forever in a dance of singledom, honing in to master your respective industries.

“A dress akin to the glow of the moon,” he confirmed with a curt nod, “another that is as radiant as the stars that litter the night sky.” Stepping closer again to you, drawing the ring away from your bottom lip to claim within both of his hands.

“And-,” he found the final demand catching within his throat. Watching the bob of his Adams apple brought you a sense of glee you did not intend of feeling on the first day you were invited to grace the presence of the castle; as you were initially hired to undertake the training of his two wards.

He uttered in a low tone, barely above a whisper; “lingerie that is as vibrant as the sun, cascading over your body with such radiancy that all those unintended to look upon it will shy away from its beauty.”

It was your turn now to click your neck under a graceful maneuver of rotating your chin. Extending your right hand out to him in a gentle and firm gesture, you confirmed his relay with a few words.

“Bring me such items,” you declared as he drew his hands up to meet with your own, “and we shall marry on the morrow the final demand is met.”

Clutching your right hand within his own right, he drew up his left hand to encase itself around it. Stooping in a low bow, he brought his face closer to your non-encompassed right hand and pressed his lips against the back of your knuckles with a chaste kiss; solidifying his promise to you with an utterance of confirmation.

“We will marry on the morrow.”

As he withdrew his face from your hand, you felt obliged to affix your gaze onto his retreating form. Relinquishing his hold on your hand, he looked to his two wards at his side and uttered a reprimand to scold the two of them.

“Do not think I will ever forget such a betrayal,” he hissed at both Perona and Zoro, swiftly falling his heavy feet against the polished marble towards the exit, “and you-,” You felt your heart rate quicken under his firm chastise, baring your unwavering gaze into his yellowed orbs. He sighed, taking a moment to collect himself before uttering a swift command; “get back to work.”

“Yes, sir,” you clicked your heels together and bowed lowly to the lord of Kuraigana, shutting your eyes to avoid his gaze as the great lord exited the treasury. The loud thump of your heartbeat echoed within the chasms of your hollowed chest, finality of the situation dawning on you.

You were now fixed to marry the former warlord of the seas. The World’s Greatest Swordsman. The never swaying gaze, the ever sought after bachelor of the four corners of the ocean. Something you had never desired; marriage.

After taking a small moment to collect yourself, you turned to face both of the two wards falling within your care. You narrowed your eyes at Zoro, finding a small bead of sweat falling from his temple to drag itself down to his chin. Wordlessly. You drew your eyes over to Perona, watching as she gulped a dry mouthful of breath down into her throat.

“I hope you’re both well pleased with yourselves,” you monotonously informed them, relishing in the slump of their shoulders beneath your chastised words. Stepping forward, you reached your right hand over to Zoro’s, claiming the neck of the brown-stained beer bottle beneath your nimble fingers.

“You will now heed my every word.” you scolded him, drawing up your left hand to collect Zoro’s chin and elevate it for his hazelnut irises to meet your furious gaze. His breath halted in his throat as he was met with your complete ferocity and intensity.

“My word is now law,” your tone continued to hold its low and serious air. Relinquishing your hold on Zoro’s chin, you stepped over to Perona and ensured her eyes would follow you, “Is that understood, pupils?”

Both of them enthusiastically nodded, prompting you to draw your thumb and index finger to your brow, pinching it below the pads of your fingers.

“When I address you,” you warned them, relinquishing your hold on your brow, “You will respond with ‘Yes, my lady’. Is that understood?”

“Yes, my lady,” they both spat out with haste, almost allowing a small stifled chuckle to find anchor within your throat, you hastily stifled it within your chest with a small, curt cough.

“Good, pupils,” you praised them, turning to the door and walking swiftly over to it, “now, the real work begins.”

As Mihawk shut the iron-barred, wooden door behind him, he allowed himself to have a small emotional outburst as soon as he heard the ‘click’ of the hinges. The lingering warmth against his hands, the illusionary touch of your skin still pressed against his palms and fingertips continued to propel his fury onward.

Why were you in the treasury? What possessed you to ever reach for such an item? Was it fate, or something else entirely?

These words flooded the brain of the dark-haired former warlord as his brows creased in the center with a rage he had not felt in some time. His lips curled back to bare his pearled teeth in a snarl, your demands echoing throughout his mind. He knew without a doubt you were challenging the curse carefully integrated into the moss agate ring.

Were you aware that if he did not complete the challenge, he would die? Absolutely not.

After taking a moment to collect himself, he drew in a final baited breath and began listing the items you had demanded one final time.

“A dress with the glowing hue of the moon, a dress littered with orbs akin to starlight, and-,’ his verbal list halted in his throat as he felt a warmth rise to taint his cheeks with a reddening glow, “-lingerie as forbidden as a kiss from the sun.”

He rotated his shoulders back to rid himself of the swelling tension from behind his new undertaking. Immediately, he began propelling himself closer to his personal wing with a sense of purpose now falling onto him.

“If I am to take a bride,’ he uttered to himself, allowing a small breath of anger to escape from his lips, “she will want for nothing.” He, again, began calculating the price, location and availability of fabrics, seamstresses and designers from all corners of the seas.

Once reaching his office, he stalked over to his desk and unceremoniously plonked himself into the studded, red armchair behind it. His elbows placed firmly against the desk, he cradled his forehead within his palms and allowed a shaken sigh to fall from his parted lips. After collecting himself, he withdrew a large amount of parchment paper and collected an inkpad and quill from his desk drawer. Beginning immediately with his undertaking, he was immediately seeking out the three impossible items.

Reaching up his right hand and shutting his amber-hued irises, he ran his fingertips over his bottom lip as he recollected the smoothed back of your knuckles he caressed with them moments prior. Sighing out a shaken breath, he reopened his eyes and glanced at the parchment paper.

Chapter 2

“I will not fail you, my lady,” he uttered to himself, scratching his quill against the parchment with flourish.

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