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voltstone · 11 months ago

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toxin (Suakko Fanfiction) [M]

[toxin] - an antigenic poison or venom of plant or animal origin, especially one produced by or derived from microorganisms and causing disease when present at low concentration in the body.

A definition, which, Sucy knows well. It's why she doesn't have a heart, nor any sense for what compassion can bring. Although, one night changes things, and maybe—just maybe—Akko proves Sucy otherwise.

[10,216 Words] | [Last Edit: 6/4/2021] (Full One-Shot Post) !Mature Content! sucy and akko kiss. and then more.

Even ten years after the fact, Sucy still dreamt of the blood that streamed down her cheek. It was the closest she ever got to crying, to be honest. Sometimes, she heard the panicked shrill of her many, many other siblings once they stumbled upon the room—a room, which, reeked of potions and red iron. Stained pages. Toxin. And at the center of it all, Sucy just sat there, her hand hovering over her left eye in a moment of dull, hollow shock…

Tonight was one of those nights, where both the warmth of bloody tears and the panicked screams pulled her awake. Her seeing eye rolled open, and for a moment, Sucy watched the ceiling boards with a flickered, bitter frown.

Sucy sat up and tucked her knees close before she eyed the bunk across the dorm. Lotte was dead asleep, which was to be expected at the brink of midnight. Akko was still off with her nightly hours of practice, which was to be expected of Akko being…Akko. Sucy chewed the inside of her cheek before she begrudgingly slipped off her nightcap. She stalked towards her lab-coat—the one that hung on its hook, clean and new. Once it was shrugged on, Sucy flattened the crisp edges as she buttoned the coat, then pulled its belt around with a satisfying click!

She roamed back to her desk where a sizeable, moleskin notebook was then pulled out from its corner. A criminally threadbare thing, aged with scars and faded material. A journal that had been in Sucy's possession since the beginning of her poisonous, fungal obsessions. She languidly flipped through, careful of the brittle parchment, and skimmed through every recipe and note that were scrawled corner-to-corner. Sketches of abhorrent creatures. Descriptions of blood-curdling mixtures.

Ultimately, the journal was a cursed thing to the point that even Sucy wouldn't dare argue otherwise.

Her left eye stung at the mere truth of it, though she didn't flinch—not that Sucy ever did beforehand. Even in her childhood.

Minotaur Quantum. Cupid Poison. Triple-Beetle Antacid. Festering Potion...

All pages with grotesque imagery, cynical intent and immoral instructions. A cursed journal indeed.

Despite these pages serving Sucy as a mentor of sorts, it wasn't long until she flipped to the thirty-third potion: Slumbering Heart Toxin.

The same frown she awoke with flickered again, and Sucy brushed her fingertips along her left cheek. Dark, maroon blotches stained the parchment, and they painted the mangled anatomical heart at the center of the two pages whole. The ink practically glittered with red iron, shimmering as if the journal had digested the only tears Sucy ever bled. Because of that, through intuition, Sucy knew that the thing claimed her in a way. And through another way, a pit in her chest wanted for her to be unclaimed.

Her jaw tightened as she skimmed the lines of the page to a familiar rhythm—one that was followed each and every time she woke up to the toxin's effect:

To silence the passionate beat of the heart, and to restrain the scorn of ache and pining, brew the Slumbering Heart Toxin.

1 1/2 drops of Arthropod Toxin

3/4 tears of Mangled Citrus

4 shreds of Goat Hide

3 1/6 strings of Clathrus Ruber—

The entryway behind her barged open from the energy of an exhausted witch, who then leaned her back into the door with a strained grumble. Sucy didn't need to turn around to see the pastry crumbs around Akko's mouth, nor the wrapped bandages around her new scars; Sucy was well aware of Akko's habits and tendencies to know. Akko flopped stomach-first into her bunk, which didn't even stir Lotte who, too, was well aware of her shenanigans—to the point where she was well-adjusted in her sleep. After a minute of silence, Sucy heard a muffled, "I'm not in the mood to be a guinea pig, so no potions."

"Wasn't planning on it," Sucy murmured, dry, and she eyed the rack of ingredients along the wall. "You wasted the last cauldron anyway."

"Well you did because you actually expected me to drink that stuff," Akko retorted.

"You have before."

"I—" Sucy paused when Akko wrenched herself upright and snapped, "Wait, what?!"

Sucy felt the barest of smirks crawl to fruition, and she detached herself from the page, flipping to the next set of instructions. "A couple of times, actually." To Akko's grunt of annoyance, Sucy looked over her shoulder with her wide, fanged grin. Akko sulked from the end of her bed, criss-crossed, arms folded, with bandages coating her arms as a new layer of flesh. Once Sucy's seeing eye drifted back to her journal, another lapse of silence settled between them. Akko pushed herself off the bed with a few creaks, minded the second bunk as to not literally bump Lotte awake in the night, and she meandered to her dresser with quiet steps.

Acid of Jumping-Stock. Medusa's Petrifying Elixir. Riga-mortis Enhancement…

None of which was what Sucy wanted. In thought, she pulled a patch of charred fabric from a nook underneath the desk and rubbed. Nothing to please the pit in her chest and its one wish.

Nulled Wreaking Toxin. Purified Rat's Ven—

"Ow!" was quietly hissed, and Sucy turned to watch Akko at her dresser. Her red shorts had already been pulled on, leaving the witch to struggle with the button-up. And it was no wonder why: her back was coated with soiled bruises and jagged—though healed—lacerations. Instead of the mere fall or scrape, these were no doubt of magical origin. Nasty wounds by nature. Fickle in treatment. The kind that the alchemist worked to both inflict and heal. When Akko paused, Sucy retracted her lingering gaze and pulled herself back to the desk. Even in the moonlight, she could feel Akko's curiosity lurk across the room, settled on Sucy's lab-coat.

No words, of course, because it was hardly the first time this happened. Day or night, a conscious Lotte or not, Sucy had caught the way light shaped the back of Akko's torso—along her scars and evolving curves. And her long hair. And, for the briefest of seconds, the flat of her teammate's stomach. Throughout the past years, since the beginning. Day or night, an aware Lotte or not, Akko knew and let her watch because catching Sucy vulnerable was, by Jennifer, the equivalent of witnessing a snow leopard out of her cave. From the few semesters before, after the first (chaotic) summer schooling.

Sucy worked her jaw with another kind of frown—one more contemplative than bitter—, then tucked away the charred fabric. Wand-less, she flicked her wrist to light the lamp on the shelf, waking the spirit inside from its cumbersome nap. The room was suddenly bathed in a quiet, sage green. Her hand hesitated before she thumbed through the journal with one potion in mind:

Embalmed Reishi False-Toxin. Page seventy-two.

She ignored the dresser drawer when it was shut tight, as well as Akko's wandering steps around the bunk and across their oval rug. "I thought you just said no potions," Akko murmured.

Sucy's crimson, seeing eye flicked to the journal as she wordlessly reached for the dwindling stock she had left.

1 Ganoderma lingzhi mushroom head — embalmed & unruptured

1 drop of fermented (1+ yr) Cantharocybe oil

4 drops of Hashing Tox—

Another frown flickered, and Sucy internally growled. Hashing toxin antibiotics weren't something she just got her hands on; the half-vial Lukić slipped her was already a trunk of wealth. Both mushrooms were there, and the spell to quickly ferment the potion wasn't difficult by any means. So the hashing toxin antibiotics… Maybe Akko could just shrug it off. That, or—

A wheeze choked itself out of Akko after she tripped back into her bunk, and Sucy's attention lingered as the wounded witch deflated with a groan.

Sucy's left eye burned in retaliation to the compression of her chest. With another silent scowl, now reluctant, Sucy slipped on her gloves and reached for the ingredients. After another few minutes of silence, where Sucy's concentration stifled Akko's relentless curiosity, said curiosity foamed across the unspoken line of silence: "Is that your weird book?"

Goggles were pulled over, and Sucy watched the concoction as it began to curdle with life—the hashing toxin antibiotic festering with the bacteria of the Cantharocybe oil. Instead of answering, Sucy asked, "Were you practicing alchemy-resistance spells?"

"Oh, yeah," Akko murmured. "I passed out a couple of times, and after the last one I woke up to Chariot freaking out. Apparently I did kinda, uh, the opposite thing so I didn't block whatever's been growing out of the forest. That alchemic moss thing that's been spitting on everyone." The concoction sparked, and Sucy slipped the embalmed mushroom head in. "How d'you know that?"

"Your bruises," Sucy answered with a blunt edge. "They're almost green."

"Oh… Yeah…" Akko shifted back upright. "I guess I forgot to tell her about my back."

Once the vial's mixture turned a blackened purple—where in the light, only its rim was violet—, Sucy snatched her wand from the edge of the desk and extended it. She warned, "Light," nonchalantly and pointed the wordless spell to the vial.

"Wh—"

The burst of white light dazzled Akko from the bunk, and once the spell waned, Sucy opened her seeing eye and looked at the small droplet at the bottom of the vial. She swirled it rhythmically as Akko danced in the center of the room—having launched herself out from the bunk and covered her eyes. Akko squabbled a torrent of crude Japanese with a frenzied intensity.

Once she detached her hands from her face, she glared at Sucy and puffed her cheeks angrily. Akko's flared eyes watched Lotte for a moment before she hissed, "What-was-that?!" through gritted teeth.

Sucy raised the vial and pulled back her goggles, setting them on the desk. "Embalmed false-toxin. I used Cantharocybe gruberi for it."

"Cathanro— Whatever." Akko folded her arms in mild protest. "I'm still not drinking it 'cause I said I wasn't going to be your test subject."

"It's for those bruises. And whatever else you managed to do."

Akko eyed her, then the journal. "From that thing?" she grumbled, nodding to Sucy's side.

"Yes…?"

Akko squinted. "Since when did that have nice potions?" Sucy arched her brow. "Like healing stuff."

"It does have other uses, but it's a healing potion," Sucy assured, monotone. A wide smile then broke free, once again revealing her sharp teeth. "With a bite."

"Sucy!"

"It's only a drop," Sucy murmured, "so quit being a little bitch. You've had worse." After a thought, she added, "If anything, it'll probably sting less because you're growing immunity to this kind of stuff anyway."

Akko rocked her jaw, eyes still squinted. "…great." She glanced at the vial. "Just the drop?"

Sucy blinked. "Yes."

"…that little one?"

Her scowl finally surfaced, and Sucy deadpanned, "Do you want me to drink it myself? I still have burns from the last time you fucked up a potion of mine." Her eye narrowed. "And my last lab-coat."

Akko winced, and she fumbled a short, "Yeah…uh, sorry." Both waited while Lotte rolled in her sleep, burrowed deeper into her bedding. When Akko didn't add anything, Sucy exhaled a silent breath and meandered back to her desk, then slipped the vial in a slot of its wooden rack.

She flipped through the journal again, searching for a remedy. Something to treat the pit in her chest that had whittled and teased its way to life. And as she thumbed the patch of fabric underneath her desk—the chard sleeve of her old lab-coat—, Sucy felt the weight, that pit, thrum up her esophagus. The bitter frown returned, and the itch and sting of her left eye toyed at her. Sucy ignored Akko's attempt to pick the conversation back up; the catches of her voice only irritated the hollow bass of where Sucy's heart should've been.

And of course, Sucy mindlessly flipped back to those two pages. The two pages that, in her childhood, she hoped would've erased any temptation. Perhaps it did, in a way. It certainly strangled the life out of her thumping heart, leaving her to feel everything but the organ. And what, now there was room for someone to fill—?!

"Sucy…?"

Akko's gentle curiosity rattled the alchemist out of her thoughts, and she felt all of her thoracic cavity seize. Those endearing, rust eyes of Akko's shifted between Sucy and…

And the lab-coat's sleeve.

Sucy's jaw tightened, and she tucked it further into her lap, against her belt. "You…uh, kept it? …I thought you said that the lab-coat was—"

"I know," Sucy bit. Turned away, she raised her knuckles to her thinned lips, the sleeve was kept tight in her grasp. Sucy smelled the smoke of potion, and the detergent that Constanze used to clean it. She could even smell Akko's reoccurring stupidity—the strongest aroma of them all. Something jolted her chest to throb. Something that wasn't there, or its weight wasn't, but its impact against her organs and ribs and flesh still writhed with a passion.

"Sucy? What's on those pages?"

Sucy wanted to grate her teeth to dust and choke as she swallowed them down. "I used it since I was a kid, so it got stained."

The doubt that spawned off of Akko's skin reeked.

And she ignored it. Instead, Sucy muttered, "Do you want the stupid potion or not?"

"Um… I-I guess so," Akko said. "With a chaser?"

Sucy rolled her eye. "Since when do you need a chaser?"

"Well you've never asked!"

"Okay?"

Akko scowled, then relented. "At least something with it?" (Okay, somewhat relented.)

The hollow crater in her chest seized again, and Sucy growled, "What, like the little crumbs of doughnut that are still on your face?"

Sucy heard Akko sputter her irritation before she furiously wiped her mouth with her arm. "No! That wouldn't be enough!"

"Then what is?" Sucy retorted, her crimson eye sliced through rust.

Akko paused, watching Sucy carefully to the point that the alchemist actually thought she was going to say something smart. But no: "You're always such a bitch to me, Suc— Craugch!"

"Would you shut the fuck up?!" Sucy snapped, smacking Akko by the merciless edge of her hand. Akko, of course, was sent to the ground with the weight of an anvil. As she rubbed the the crook of her neck—the origin of her gag's eruption—, both watched the top bunk whilst Lotte restlessly wriggled in her sleep. At the end of Sucy's glare, Akko remained sheepish; it had been nearly a whole semester where Akko managed to keep her voice down, though apparently Sucy's firm hand needed a reintroduction.

Sucy rolled her eye and sat back down, having not realized she stood in the first place. The charred sleeve was roughly pocketed. She went back to flipping through pages, searching for an answer to that hollow ache—which, at that point, irked with irritation more than anything else. And, naturally, Akko got back up with a huff. Once she sat on the edge of the solitary bed, Sucy murmured, "I'll feed the potion to the plant you overwatered."

"Yeah right."

"Or I'll use it on myself for the burns," Sucy added, ignoring Akko's comment.

Akko snorted. "Yeah right. You're a masochist."

Sucy's frown tightened, and she retorted, "Old burns are irritating. I could give you some for you to know that yourself."

"You wouldn't." A brow raised, and Sucy flicked her glare back to Akko who was all-too confident. The witch shrugged, and she said, pointedly, "You've done everything but burn. So no, I know you wouldn't, Sucy—even if you are a bitch."

"Whatever." Sucy raised the potion for what had to be the last time—otherwise she swore she'd throw the fucking thing out, regardless of the rarity of its contents. "Do you want this or not?"

Akko folded her arms and pouted. "It's still going to hurt."

Going to… Sucy paused, and her chest lurched at the sound of those words. Her scowl was light this time around, and she said, "I told you before, you've built—"

"Everything from that stupid book hurts, Sucy!" Akko snapped instantly. Then, quiet, she added, "You masochist…"

"Okay?! So what?!" Sucy hissed.

Akko, rather smugly, shushed her and pointed to Lotte's bunk. Sucy's scowl deepened, and her firm hold around the vial grew tight. Lotte (unsurprisingly) remained asleep, which spoke more to how frequently the pair argued over Sucy's potions than her natural slumbering habits. Sucy rubbed her forehead with a sneer, and she grumbled, "I could just shove it up my ass and give myself an anal fissure…"

Without missing a beat, Akko reached with a matching sneer. "You're disgusting."

"You're the one who knows what that means," Sucy replied with a subtly entertained grin.

"I don't want to even imagine what you've done…"

Sucy shrugged and played with a dull shard of glass, which came from one of the vials Akko broke when she simultaneously torched Sucy, the cauldron, and the old lab-coat. "It's not that bad," she detailed, the corner of her lips quirking to another entertained smile. "It's actually really good at first, but then it gets annoying after you have to clean it up every day for a few weeks. Your asshole's easy to tear, and it doesn't heal that well when you're constantly shitting or putting objects up there." She turned to watch Akko from over her shoulder, and Akko was undeniably floored with repulsion. "Lucky for me," Sucy noted, "I've gotten to the point where I'd have to try to tear it."

"…you're…fucking…disgusting…" Akko hissed.

"Would you—"

"No!"

The force behind Akko's rejection startled a giggle from Sucy, one that she allowed to progress into a fanged laugh. She tittered from her desk, her eye glinting with grotesque mischief. Akko, meanwhile, was left to stammer with cheeks gradually melting into a fine red. When she couldn't find any words, Akko turned away. Sucy's laughter died down, and she kept her jaw firm; her laugh wasn't something to admire, given that her teeth usually warded people away.

Stupid Akko…

Another spell of silence.

Another few minutes of rifling through the journal, finding absolutely nothing—which was another given, since the journal wouldn't have any intentions of removing its claim. As if Sucy didn't know. As if the pit in her chest was expected to satisfy its desire.

Eventually, the springs in Sucy's bed-frame squeaked, and Akko meandered to the desk. "So…um, it would be quick, right? Since it's a drop…?"

Sucy didn't lift her attention from the journal. "It works over a day."

"No, I mean… Well, okay." Akko paused. "But I mean the pain. That— That doesn't last a day, right?"

"No. Usually just an hour or so—"

"…great."

"—but you probably wouldn't notice from your immunity." They watched each other. Sucy's gaze was indifferent whereas Akko's stare was skeptical. Sucy narrowed her eye. "What?"

Akko stewed for a second or two, then asked, "So what does it feel like, then?"

Sucy thought for a moment, since it had been a little while, and she said, "Like swallowing a knife down your throat." Akko's stare hardened. "Or just prickly."

"You just like pissing me off, don't you?"

"It's not like it's hard."

Akko's response was a testament to her grown maturity over the past couple of years: instead of blowing up and absolutely riling Lotte awake, she folded her arms, leaving only her brow to twitch. Speaking of, both watched Lotte as she continued to sleep like a baby, delightfully unaware of the pair's antics; the amount of stories that Akko and Sucy could share would be enough to molt the ginger's youth off by layers—starting with her hair. Sucy was the first to break away, so she took the opportunity to flip her middle finger. Akko took a double-take and snapped, "You bitch." (Maturity only went so far, after all—even if it was the last semester.)

Sucy snickered. "Easy…"

"Why do you have to be so antagonistic?" Akko muttered, sitting back on her bunk. "You're still the only one who's mean to me."

The crater in her chest itched with sudden resentment. If to stamp it away, or to spill it out—Sucy didn't rightly know which—, the alchemist glowered into her journal. "Oh who gave you that vocabulary lesson?"

"Uh, I don't know. Could be a bunch of girls," Akko started, testing the brinks of Sucy's acknowledged envy. "Maybe Diana—she's very good at her words, and she's very good at teaching me." Sucy bit the inside of her cheek, and her brows twitched. "Or Mary. She's very sweet you know. Oh, also Hannah and Barbara. They've been nicer to me too." The crater's itch didn't cease, and her glare continued to burn through the pages of the journal. "I guess Amanda too, but she's better at teaching how to move my body on a broom than book stuff—" Sucy wanted to snap something— "but Lotte is good with books, especially with all that Nightfall. She's told me a lot about those special scenes—"

"What. The. Fuck are you doing?!" Sucy seethed, lurching out of her chair with her fists tight and teeth bared—all in one motion. She swallowed her breath after having felt how cracked her words slid out. "Why the fuck are you bringing them up right now?! Nothing—"

"Lotte!"

Sucy brought herself to a terrifying halt, and without checking the top bunk, she hissed, dangerously low, "They have nothing to do with this potion, you idiot."

"Well you get like this whenever I don't spend enough time with you! Or when you're just fucking pissed at me because of whatever! Again—" Akko strangled the air— "sorry for blowing up your shit. I've apologized ten fucking times now! And you kept a piece of it anyway! I bought you your stupid new lab-coat, and I fucking apologized, so stopbeing a bitch!"

Sucy held herself by the upper arms, and she turned away from Akko with a tight, impersonal scowl. It was more directed internally than anyone in the room—at Luna Nova, even. She hated the way the void in her chest shivered, pathetically scorned by her words. And she hated that she knew what pathetic scorn felt like. If Sucy was any other witch, there was no doubt in her mind that she'd be in tears by this point; it was a gut feeling, supported by the many, many times she watched Akko break down over the academy's drama.

A sigh left the bottom bunk when Akko scratched the back of her neck, and she muttered, "I'm not interested in them, okay? I've told you. I'm not. They're all just friends, Sucy."

There wasn't a response. Sucy didn't look her way, either.

"…Sucy?"

The alchemist paused, and she mustered a quiet, brewed murmur: "What…?"

When Sucy did turn around, Akko was watching the journal with her own spit of resentment. "You don't know what joy feels like, do you? Just pain?"

Another scowl contorted itself, and Sucy asked, "What kind of question is that?"

"Well do you?!" Akko snapped. "Because you sure don't know what it looks like when I actually like someone."

Her thoracic cavity twisted once again. It wasn't like Sucy actually had to answer. Akko already knew all about how Sucy was left to her own devices as a child—and that her parents preferred making children rather than raising them. A story that her whole village knew—especially the condo with its thin walls—but did nothing about. Sucy scoffed. "Why would you care…?"

"Beca— Because it's you I want, you idiot! You even know that!" Akko retorted. "And you know I hate that stupid book! That's your blood on it, isn't it?!"

"So what?!" Sucy fumed.

Akko rocked her jaw, then snapped it shut. She watched Sucy for a long moment. "I still don't trust that potion."

She almost forgot about that damn thing. She almost forgot about Akko's wounds. "I made it…" Sucy muttered crossly, "to heal your bruises…"

"I know. I trust you—" the alchemist froze— "but that book is a different story."

"What do you want?"

"I want to take it together." The room plunged into a remarkably subdued tension. The glow of the lantern and its spirit still sculpted the shadows with sage green, highlighting Sucy's outline. Akko swallowed, and she murmured, "I'm not interested in anybody else but you, Sucy. And I'm better than that weird book. So kiss me. I want you to forget about everybody else and the anti-toxin and kiss. Me."

A rare, startled brow flickered, and Sucy upon a gut instinct corrected Akko through a mumble: "False-toxin."

"I don't care."

"I know." Sucy paused, and her grip around her arms tightened. She…wanted this, didn't she? She wanted to accept this offer, right? The alchemist frowned. "How? Just spit in your mouth?"

Akko rolled her eyes. "An actual kiss, Sucy. Like…I-I want this to be real. Not just something to fight over all the time without…" She shrunk, and something about how small Akko appeared on her bed budged Sucy's irritation away. "If we're going to fight, I just…um, I want there to be something we're actually fighting about, not just…beating around the bush…"

The tips of Sucy's fingers reached her lips in thought. Akko— To have Akko actually… Her seeing eye flicked to the witch, and her thoughts dwelled.

Just do it…

Sucy exhaled quietly, and she muttered, "Fine."

Akko blinked. "R-Really?"

"Yes! What, were you just bullshitting?!" Sucy hissed.

"N-No!"

"Then—" Sucy scowled. She turned her back to the bunk and began to loot through her instruments. "Just wait there…idiot."

"…bitch." Akko, though, waited as told.

With the vial in her hand, Sucy hesitated when she reached for her wand, which had slipped into one of the open drawers. She was abruptly queasy. Terse, Sucy stamped it down and snatched her wand. With its tip, a sphered glow collected the potion from the bottom of the vial. It was painted on with care, and the false-toxin burned with a sickening chill. Her eye caught her reflection in one of Lotte's mirrors beside her lab equipment; in it, the black coat of her lips was seared by lines of sage green from the lantern, and over her shoulder there was Akko, watching her hands that rested on her lap. Sucy narrowed her eye. What was she doing standing at her desk? Was she actually trying to look pretty for once? Really?! Like she would ever in her lab-coat—regardless of how crisp and new it was. Or anything she wore, frankly.

Sucy turned away from the mirror and eyed the bunk. Akko raised her attention, and she looked doubly squeamish as color rose to her cheeks. Before Akko could fumble a word out, Sucy warned, "Don't. I just told you to wait."

"O-Okay, right…" Akko did, however, fumble a squeak when Sucy crawled onto her lap wordlessly, a hand sliding up to the pulse-point of Akko's wrist. "U-Um… Okay, u-uh, we're— Fuck."

"I can still spit it in and we'll be done with it," Sucy threatened.

Akko shook her head vehemently. "No! I'm just… Um, well, I didn't really know what our first—"

"Would you shut up?!" Sucy breathed. "We don't have all night, and you need to be quiet."

Akko squinted, and Sucy knew her thoughts jolted to the top bunk. "We could do it on your bed…?"

"Would you rather have her see and hear us or just hear us?"

"…outside?"

Sucy scoffed. "You pissed off all of the fairies here, so no, they wouldn't let you get away with anything."

"Ah, right…" Akko bit her lip nervously. "I… Okay." She inhaled, and as another passing second lingered, Sucy felt a layer of confidence shield Akko. It was a quirk of hers that the alchemist watched with every obstacle, and dammit, she couldn't help but admit that she actually admired the quirk. "O-Okay."

Sucy hesitated for a split second more and sighed. Another queasy itch quivered, and she knew if they didn't just do italready, it wouldn't happen. "Now you better not waste this," Sucy muttered, her lips still scalding against the false-toxin's chill.

Akko swallowed and nodded. Then waited. For her.

The temptation to lick her lips nearly rendered this whole thing useless, though Sucy wasn't sure if she'd let this opportunity pass either way. The opportunity to experiment with Akko, or was it find what she stole from herself? Orwas it a confusing mass of both?

Regardless, Sucy inhaled the temptation down before she leaned in, her thumb digging into the pulse of Akko's wrist. Upon contact, Akko flinched against the malicious burn of the potion through a whine. But, even with her few winces against the cuts of pain, Akko still complied. And as she complied, Sucy continued to mold the potion into Akko where sprites of satisfaction escaped her. She was, most definitely, enjoying this more than she anticipated. To the point where, when the weight of their kiss ushered them against Akko's sheets, a deep, sickly jolt speared Sucy down her spine. It deafened her thoracic cavity before melding within her groin. The last of the potion's bite faded layer-by-layer, though it didn't manifest an end to this sudden intimacy.

No. Rather, Sucy felt herself become enveloped by Akko's ferocity. A ferocity, that, she didn't expect from the witch; for a hyper-active student who had discipline as the bane of her existence, the sudden focus was deliriously overwhelming. Perhaps the near witching hour had something to do with it, though Sucy sought to blame Akko's tendency to indulge more so.

Still, it wasn't like she was going to stop this. The crater within her chest—the void pounding against her lungs and diaphragm—was consuming her to a ceaseless extent. A profound, violent extent.

It was a decree, then, that drove her voice to thrum against Akko. A careful hand found its way along her jaw, and a brief moment of hesitation was birthed before Akko braved her sharp teeth in a deep, open-mouthed kiss, ripe with blistering hunger. The trail of organs inside Sucy strangled themselves. So, she palmed Akko's naval, and her long fingers danced up the witch's stomach as she thought back to the glimpses of Akko's body—the same ones she stole. And, wouldn't she know, Akko's stomach felt the same as she thought it would: warm, soft, though oddly solid.

The buttons of her lab-coat began to pop, conducted by Akko's teasing hand. With each button, the empty crater within Sucy's chest rattled into her lungs. Her nails drew lines from underneath Akko's white shirt, and when the belt sagged her lab-coat down her arms, Sucy shed it off—an extra layer of hide. Possessed by the fluidity of a cold serpent, she ignored the thunk! of the buckle and muffled sprawl of cloth against the hardwood floor. Sucy felt intoxicated by a similar high—that to the likes of those long hours hovering over her potions. Only, this wasn't a potion. Not something she could control. Instead, this— It had to have been a bewitchment, the way Akko was the one to shepherd this—whatever this was—and have Sucy's arousal convulse the way it did.

Stupid… How did I let this moron do this…?

The pair parted with heavy breaths, and as Akko leaned upright with her knuckles hitched around the rim of her shirt, the red of their eyes never left one another. Sucy's crimson eye darkened at the sight of Akko's burning, wicked rust. The shirt was tossed to the side, and before Sucy could see where it landed, lips were stitched back to her own. She couldn't help it, the curious hum that reverberated through the cavities of her body. Sucy arched with the clutch that followed the lines of her back, and she sifted her hands through long, brunette hair to guide their kiss further. Maybe she was too busy coating Akko's lips and tongue with the embalmed potion to notice her bout of excitement. Nevertheless, Sucy felt their weight sway before she laid backwards to Akko's pillow, kiss broken.

Against the pillow, Sucy was pinned by a hand wrapped around her throat, which, naturally, was to her arousal's benefit. Akko watched her, somewhat light-headed, with her bangs freed. They had grown over the years, though still lacked the…desirable style that was usually appropriate. Knowing Akko, it was by choice. Not that Sucy could complain because, again, it was a benefit of a particular sort. Sucy flexed her hand against the pillow, and she was quick to realize that she had taken the hair-tie after all; it rolled to her wrist as she watched Akko with intrigue.

The intrigue was swiftly rattled by alarm. Akko took no notice, of course, so when she paused, Sucy knew there was a comment conjuring inside that thick skull of hers. Before a word could slip, Sucy grabbed Akko by the mouth, her fingers dug on either side—into her cheeks. Crimson narrowed as a warning, and Akko listened to the springs above them chirr.

Her eyes, though, didn't leave Sucy.

Within the moment whilst Lotte shifted alongside her dreams—whatever they were—, the tension between the pair curdled into a sludge of yearned curiosity. The broth of intent began to swim with a deeper, visceral sort of temptation. And, in her way, Sucy sought to experiment with that line. Paw at it before they crossed that barrier. Her thumb rubbed Akko's cheek—along the line of where teeth were on the other side—before she slicked it into her mouth. Akko still watched her, brows flicked with suspicion, while Sucy's drawled experiment rummaged through the moist cavern.

And it churned, her gut. Sucy pricked the fingertip off of a bottom canine, then smoothed it alongside Akko's tongue. Baiting the witch.

Crimson sharpened with a commanding desire. Bite it.

Akko hesitated once a snore escaped Lotte overhead. Then, tentatively, she teethed Sucy's thumb on either side. But nothing more. Sucy's coo was a mixture of irritation and lust; she knew how easy it was to bite through a finger—even without her particular characteristic. All she wanted, though, was a mark. A sign that Akko could.

But. No.

Instead of a wolf, it appeared to be a doe that held her against the bunk, the hand around her neck now teasing the buttons of her nightgown open. When the crisp air of the room clipped more of her chest, Sucy narrowed her gaze and forced her thumb further in, gliding along Akko's tongue. Instantly, Akko gagged, and she jerked away with a choke.

"Sucy!"

A smirk crept, and Sucy reeled Akko back to her with a hand along her chin. "Your gag reflex needs work…" she murmured.

"W-Why…?" Akko hissed, only for her eyes to widen. She huffed and added, "Actually, don't tell me."

Sucy hummed, very entertained with herself. "Why not? You always stick your nose into everything anyway."

"Because I don't want to think of that right now."

Her scowl resurfaced. "You don't want to think of sex right now…?"

"Well, um… I mean, u-uh…" Even in the shadows, away from the sage green of her lamp, Sucy saw color embellish itself across Akko's cheeks. "I-I mean, like, err— Do you— Do you want to have—"

"Clearly, Akko, I do," Sucy scoffed. "Now quit being stupid and explain what you mean by 'that?!'"

"But what if the professors—"

Sucy rolled her eyes. "Really…? Akko, we're of age so quit with the stupid. They won't care. And it's not like we'd have a worse detention than before."

Akko blinked, and her stupid (for now, at least) was stashed away. "Oh, right…"

"Now quit stalling and explain."

Her hand left Sucy's chest to scratch the back of her neck. "I just— I don't want to feel like an experiment. Not, not this time, I mean…" she whispered. After another second, Akko added, "And you can do whatever to me later. I— Just tonight, please. I told you I want this to be, um…real." Sucy didn't answer. Her silence dismayed the witch, at least before she noticed Sucy's surprise. Akko's notorious face of confusion pulled itself together, and she breathed, "…Sucy?"

The crimson in her eye was swelled with something neither recognized. However, when Sucy replied in a quiet whisper, both knew it was her own shape of confusion: "What do you want from me…?"

Akko swallowed, and she enveloped her arms around Sucy in a heartfelt embrace. "A chance?" she asked."Please?"

An itch of guilt. Right in her chest. Spurring the empty weight to quiver. Why was Akko begging? This wasn't an experiment. It— It wasn't. Sucy blinked, and again she couldn't answer. So, rather cautiously, Akko pecked her lips. Once. Then twice when Sucy responded in kind. A third, fourth and fifth. Again and again until the kisses weren't so much pecks but instead long, intimate locks where they explored one another. Sucy's nausea returned, burrowing into her gut as desire plagued more layers of her body. She really, really did want Akko, didn't she? In the same way—outside the cynical touch of experiments and faux intimidation. Already, she found things to love about Akko in this way. How the witch worked around her teeth. How their bodies pieced together so naturally. It— It scared her, to be honest. But she couldn't shy away. A piece of her kept her tethered.

Minutes passed, and their bodies were revved by arousal. Their kiss broke, and Sucy watched the rust of eyes without a word. Akko's frown was that of concentration. That patter of tension that drummed Sucy hindered the alchemist's thoughts for a moment, so when Akko—within that moment—kissed the sweet spot along her neck, Sucy was taken aback by the gentle affection. Her arms wrapped around Akko by her shoulders, and her nails pricked skin as the warmhearted pecks continued. Sucy didn't even realize she had a sweet spot, nor that her body would just coil around whatever warmth this was. It confused her. It deterred her very doctrine.

This wasn't right.

If neither of her parents cared to hold Sucy close, to even give her a speck of attachment, then nobody had the right to be this soft and careful. Yet Akko had the gall to guide Sucy's legs, hands running up her limber thighs, and have them hook around her waist. Yet Sucy had the nerve to feel a quiet mewl spawn—one that she forced down with a hissed inhale—once Akko began to grind their hips together.

The backdrop to her irk, however, continued to drone. Desire, as it were. It had her legs tense around Akko, keeping the witch right where she was, and it had her body move with the slow, drawled pace that ever-so-gently swayed the bunk. It was a rhythm that lulled her, really, and played into her creeping hunger.

By the time she felt her nightgown stick to her skin, and her underwear warm against the friction, their breaths had no mind to whether or not Lotte would notice; she probably dreamt of steamy Nightfall scenes anyhow, they concluded, so it wouldn't make a difference if their tones snuck their way in. By the time the mattress was no longer chilled against her back, Sucy felt Akko's whisper crawl into her skin: "Sucy…"

She felt a jolt of irritability race a bout of adoration. No. No, stupid. Sucy felt along the rim of Akko's bra, and she hissed, "Idiot."

Sucy's warped sense of time made it difficult to know whether or not Akko had hesitated, or if she snapped without missing a beat: "Bitch…"

But it mattered not.

Akko's tone, still, was consumed by an affection that swamped the bare-minimum of what her parents should'veprovided. In that bed, Sucy heard the discarded memories of her childhood. "[Little rat, go to the market for our dinner,]" her father routinely to barked, being that Sucy was one of the older from his herd of children. As for her mother, it was always the same: if Sucy got in the way, knock her flat without a word, as if she was a cow to shepherd. So, no matter how obscene Akko's insults were, how offensive, Sucy felt a layer of decency. A decency, which, was rooted from the desire to mount Sucy in her bunk, and hold her tight, and kiss her soft—all things that, really, weren't decent.

Nails scraped the bruised flesh underneath Akko's bra, and Sucy gnawed tender skin.

She had no right. She had no fucking right treating Sucy like this. Treating Sucy better than her own parents—or life benefactors, though she didn't know the difference, did she? A tight, low groan slithered against Sucy from the base of Akko's throat, and another thing eroded Sucy's indifference.

Antagonistic…

Diana. Mary. Hannah and Barbara. Amanda. Lotte…

Why Sucy?! Out of all of them, for what fucking purpose was there to kiss Sucy?! To admit her feelings months ago?! Even if begrudgingly, to go right along with her experiments?!

Nothing.

There was no good reason. If her parents never cared for her out of the horde of children they birthed, Akko had no fucking right to choose her.

This was the reason why she took the journal from her mother's collection. This was exactly why she poured her attention into it, and why she stumbled upon her first toxin to brew.

To silence the passionate beat of the heart, and to restrain the scorn of ache and pining...

Get rid of it. Get rid of it all was the only thing that Sucy wished for. If her parents didn't bother, and if her siblings never knew, she could just throw it away and be left in her own sense of peace.

Brew the Slumbering Heart Toxin.

A peace without any more heartache. A peace without a morsel of the convulsing confoundment that affection inevitably invited.

One and a half drops of arthropod toxin. Three-quarters of a tear from a mangled citrus. Four shreds of goat hide. Three and one-sixth strings of Clathrus ruber…

So simple. Every ingredient was there for her to take—all of the worst of toxic substances were in her house, right there for a child to snatch. A child like Sucy, who only snapped and bit and stole for attention without a tear to cry.

Then there was the final ingredient—a condition for such an act: flesh to scar. Something that would be chosen by the toxin itself.

And for Sucy, it was her bleeding eye…

The damned potion worked, too. After the potion, she never cared about parental attention. She never cared about sibling affection. She could be alone, and content, and busied by her experiments. That was her vow, to which she remained loyal to.

None of that mattered in the present, though. Not as Akko's care persisted, the soothing yet lustful roll of her hips bent on siphoning pleasure from the alchemist. Not as it was working directly against her vow with vigor. Working against that loyalty.

It irritated Sucy to no end how another quiet mewl escaped her, rooting itself deep into Akko's collarbone—a planted seed where her teeth, like trowels, dug into warm fleshy soil. And for the life of her, she couldn't restrain the cracked, gentle cry that broke through those same teeth: "Akko…"

"Sucy," Akko murmured, just as quiet and intimate. Instead of returning a bite, serving an eye for an eye, Akko kissed Sucy's neck tenderly. And? Sucy's resentment was speared by compassion, and through her disorganized drove of emotion, she felt her nails claw new lines along Akko's back. Akko groaned, unperturbed by the top bunk. She panted against the new kiss-mark, which had left a subtle stain of black against Sucy's pale skin. The potion muddled its way into recognition, and so Akko dipped back and licked the spot—yet another soft gesture against Sucy's talons and fangs. Neither felt the burn of the false-toxin by that point, and neither knew if it was due to immunity or distraction.

Yet another thing that didn't matter.

A moan trickled up Sucy's throat once a surge of pleasure swamped her groin, taking the shape of tendrils moving to Akko's pace. She swallowed it, jaw tense. Though they continued to writhe, those tendrils, asserting their will for her to let the pleasure slip. Reluctantly, Sucy did. She breathed, "Akko…"

Muffled, Akko asked, "Eh?"

Sucy didn't have a verbal answer. She only teethed the crook of Akko's neck and closed her eyes to the rhythmic, languid grind of their hips. A gradual leak of panic began to bubble up her throat. It spoke to her timid unease of whatever this was summoning. A dead weight. Inside her chest, there had to be a dead weight that this—that whatever Akko was doing to her—was invoking to resurrect. Teeth gnawed before they sunk again, deep into muscle where Sucy felt the tremble of Akko's pained mewl.

"…bitch," Akko half-hissed, half-groaned.

A weak laugh hummed into the bite mark as Sucy pursed her lips against it. "I kissed it better, idiot," she murmured, dry. Another peck. "Both of them."

"You're never going to warn me, are you?"

With a curled lip, Sucy said, "No." She felt along Akko's back, following the paths of bruising with pressure. Akko offered another grimace, her tone stifled by the dull aches. Sucy nibbled her neck again, then, abruptly, snapped, "Now get off."

"Wh—" Akko scrambled onto her back once a hand at the base of her throat forced her so. The bunk rocked with her sudden shift of weight, and she snapped a hushed, "Sucy!"

"We're fine," Sucy grumbled, raising from the pillow, "so quit crying. She's not going to wake up until her alarm at this point."

Akko chewed the inside of her cheek as Sucy crawled forward, forcing her legs apart. "…I'm not crying." Sucy only hummed, her fingertips dancing along Akko's thighs. She popped the button of Akko's red shorts, and as the hip squares were folded away, Sucy found— "Don't talk about those."

Sucy smiled, and she teased the hem of the cotton, bunny-patterned fabric of underwear. As she pawed the border of skin and undergarment, Sucy murmured, "Lucky for you, I don't care."

Her pecks across Akko's naval were ignored: "Well why-y—?!"

Akko shivered as Sucy trailed her tongue from the hilt of her stomach to her sternum. When Sucy raised her head, she hissed, "What is it going to take for you to shut up?" She found confusion and quickly suspected Akko's bafflement to voice itself. The gears behind rust eyes were working hard, and her mouth opened before any formed thought could slip out. With a sigh, as to halt whatever stupid was coming, Sucy tilted Akko's jaw. "Don't answer that." Her kiss muffled Akko's stupid, and sure enough, it was enough to silence the rambling. Hands wandered. Teeth occasionally nipped. Breaths would crawl into their ears.

Neither knew when this would stop. Though, then again, neither knew when to stop their arguments or banter to begin with. It usually ended whenever Sucy won and worked her potion down Akko's throat, or when Akko had worn her dry to the point where sleep was a better option.

But…this? The potion was already gone. Swallowed away. Even if it would take a full twenty-four hours to work its charm, it was done with. So perhaps they were working towards the latter—where they both were on the way to exhaustion.

Perhaps.

Maybe.

Sucy didn't know. All she knew was that Akko felt soft and warm, and her touch was more so. Something about it lurked deep in Sucy's groin, and no amount of teething satisfied it. Whatever it was, it beckoned her away from her nature. It was alien. Wrong. It should've felt wrong, yet every time Akko's fingertips ran along her back in delicate, curious strokes, Sucy couldn't help but feel like she was melting. Why…? Why and how was it that Akko of all people did this? And what right did Sucy have to find it gratifying?

Abruptly, she pushed Akko away again at the thought of it all. The void within her, it was hammering behind her ears. A scrap of her just wanted this thing to end already, though with Akko watching her, startled, Sucy was consumed by a desire to continue. And it was strong. And it was persuasive.

Sucy straddled Akko across her naval, breaths slinked out of her through the bite of her sharp teeth. Despite her unease of the weight that thundered against her ribcage, Sucy still allowed herself to ravage the carnal sight of Akko's upper-body. The crimson in her eye fermented with libido, and the heat of her skin prickled against the sweat that knotted into her loose nightgown. She planted her hands against Akko's stomach where her thumb dug into a bruise that the false-toxin was at work to heal.

Akko's accent was thick and irritable when she snapped, "Masochist!"

"It's sadist, you idiot," Sucy purred. As a way to solidify her point, Sucy ran her nail along the point of Akko's hip, splitting a bruise with a thin, red line. Akko, without missing a beat, hissed air in retaliation.

Through a softened wince, she grumbled, "You ever touch soft?"

Sucy arched a brow. She swore Akko slipped a few syllabus of Japanese. With a sly hum, Sucy quipped, "Ikay ay bobo."

Akko's eyes flared as another smirk crawled across Sucy's lips. She'd heard it enough times to know what Sucy said—especially since it was usually accompanied by a crude finger. "Bitchi."

To her retort, Sucy felt a snap of air shiver. Her gut prickled, and her back swelled with heat. She frowned, then fixed a quiet grin. "Pero kaya kong subukan…" Sucy murmured, after a long second of thought. Akko blinked, puzzled, and watched her with great suspicion. Once the witch tensed in anticipation, ready for whatever tooth or nail that would—surely—impale her, Sucy hummed to mildly torment.

However, the hand that slid away from Akko's torso was gentle. Sucy cupped the warmth between Akko's legs tenderly, and she felt her own core pulse at the mere touch of Akko's body through her layers. Akko's breath gyrated into a quiet moan as Sucy continued to rub, having not anticipated this. And even though the two decidedly kept the noises as they were—low yet audibly prurient—, Akko bit the length of her thumb to keep her pleasantly-alarmed surprise down. It only grew more difficult to stifle her excitement once Sucy paused to slip her hand underneath those layers.

Akko's quiet gasp startled Sucy—not enough to halt her ministrations, though it quivered the space in her chest nonetheless. She… She admired it, the sound of Akko's voice like this. So quiet and intimate. For once, not a lick of Sucy wanted to inflict pain—or experiment, really—on Akko. The drumming of her chest was no longer something she could just ignore or push away. It rattled her to the bone-marrow. Yet she didn't stop, no. Sucy wanted to know what Akko would do while she pumped her fingers in, as careful as she could muster. Sucy did, however, realize that there was still a firm, cynical edge to her touch. But dammit she was trying. Trying to sedate her urge to bite and scratch as Akko's heat lathered her fingers from the inside—the inside, which, was scalding and wet and swollen with desire. Trying to erase the forsaken throbbing of her chest, and she took her fucking, emotional-queasy heart out a decade ago, so why the hell could she still feel it gnaw into her lungs?!

She was nauseous from how desperately hungry she was. Again, Sucy wanted to lick, and bite, and eat, and scratch and scar and bruise… But Akko's building tone and the weight of her eyes convinced her otherwise. There was still a part of her—which the cursed journal never claimed—that wanted this moment to drag on. A part of Sucy that dwelled in her chest wanted to watch Akko, perfect even with all of her scars and bruises, unravel at her gentle touch.

So when it got to be overwhelming, when there was a lapse of hesitation, Sucy felt Akko grasp her wrist and plant her hand further against herself. The heel of Sucy's palm rubbed against Akko's sensitive point, and long fingers curled inside the witch. "Please," Akko whispered. "Please don't just stop." Sucy swallowed, captured by the yearning rust of Akko's eyes. "Please, don't."

For a split moment, Sucy was dumbfounded. Her natural sense of composure fizzled with meager surety, and Sucy yet again felt her thoracic cavity quake. "Why…?" was the only thing to slip out.

"Because I want this from you, so please quit being mean," Akko breathed, her eyes tainted by a film of glass. "Please. I-I don't want you to be mean right now."

Mean…? Sucy barely nodded as she resumed, still struck by how much she liked feeling this part of Akko's body. How her fingers slicked in and out of her. It was far more gratifying than their shared journey inside Vajarois. For one, she could get off without being drenched by Akko. Although, her sensual gratification was distracted by her thoughts: Mean…? Mean?! Couldn't Akko feel the tremble of Sucy's hand? The one that remained firm on her hip, which Akko was holding onto at the wrist?

So how could Sucy be the mean one when she's absolutely terrified?

Or maybe that was it. She was mean because she was terrified of this. Of— Of going directly against what she vowed when she brewed the Slumbering Heart Toxin. And it was still asleep, Sucy's heart. But, come to find, a slumbering heart could still have dreams, and night terrors, and visits in the wake of slumber. It could still thrash in its bed, pulsing and throbbing against the lungs and ribs—the nightstands and mattress. Kick her diaphragm. Twist into her flesh.

Sucy breathed heavily with Akko's deepened moans, and she felt Akko's maw of desire tighten around her fingers, keeping Sucy to continue her gentle though eager volume of pressure. She drew out layers and layers of Akko's heat into her hand, which ultimately overflowed from the pace she kept. Knots grew to boil in her chest before they lynched their way down Sucy's spine and into the pit of her groin. Longing teethed Sucy's sternum, and as she watched Akko's body move with her breaths, that pit in her groin melted into a vat of desperate arousal. Be it in her nature, Sucy didn't want Akko to be gentle with her, though she still wanted to curl under Akko's tender hands. It wasn't a desire that she could read or hear in her thoughts, however, but rather something she knew from the coagulated static of her coherence. It didn't matter how…this started. Not anymore, if it did to begin with anyway. It didn't matter, though, because all Sucy wanted was to wake up sore, and to wake up knowing she'd left her mark on Akko. And to know that, somehow, she could be gentle…

At the mere thought, Sucy felt the thumping, empty weight in her chest rocket viciously to the base of her throat. A knot was left, one that she nearly choked on while Akko groaned from the base of her gut. Sucy's free hand—the one on Akko's hip—snaked to the witch's throbbing sternum as she continued to work Akko over the edge. And when she did, Sucy felt the pounding of Akko's heart skip a beat. She felt Akko tense and arch into the spry leak of euphoria, the one that Sucy had so tenderly gifted her.

And…

Oh God.

Sucy found something invaluable, just underneath the skin of her hand. Infinitely more revered than the rare ingredients of her potions. She felt it. Through Akko's flesh and bone, Sucy could feel the pulse of her heart, which was awake and loud and erratic with passion.

The depths of the crater within Sucy's chest contorted. Joy and envy writhed in a confusing, mangled ball, and as Sucy pulled out her hand from Akko's shorts to leave it strangling the sheets, she kept her other hand against Akko's chest. Its rhythm continued to plummet through Sucy who, inside her own, felt the ache of a heart. Her heart was like the thunder without lightning, or the rupture of land without the chaotic seizure that rocked everything else. Even with her sleeping heart, she felt it all.

Her eyes burned, and she wanted to torch Akko with blame—for being the emotional idiot underneath her, wear prickled tears and heavy breaths as she rode her high. This stupid, emotional moron did this, and now dark drops of blood rained onto her skin.

The tears that Sucy bled to life.

For the second time, Sucy felt blood stream down her cheek, but instead of the pages of her journal, they fell to stain another person. The same kind of person she wanted to remove from her life before they got the chance; the same type that just cried and laughed and exploded with the incessant feelings that spawned from the center of their chest. She bared her teeth as her seeing eye watered, and so her salty tears joined red iron. Sucy watched as they diluted the blood along Akko's complexion.

When a careful hand caressed her cheek, underneath her draped, mauve bangs that were gradually sodden by red, Sucy winced against its compassion. Akko leaned forward and rested against her elbow, her other hand kept to Sucy's jawline. After a moment, she tentatively pulled away a lock of hair, and Sucy nearly recoiled out of her grasp—out of it completely. All to hide away her blind eye—the one so foul in her reflections; the one, that, was warbled with crimson and clouded white, her pupil and iris shredded without a coherent shape. However, rust eyes kept her grounded. Akko's growing smile and tears burned Sucy further, and she wanted to bite Akko's stupid grin off for it.

"Quit looking at me," Sucy snarled, her longing for comfort anxiously hostile.

"But you're really beautiful," Akko breathed. The innocence of her proclamation forced the words in Sucy's throat to impale her vocal cords. She nearly suffocated as she shook her head, and Akko nodded in earnest. "Yes. It's not an argument," she murmured.

And to the feel of Akko's kiss, laced with the remnants of false-toxin and fresh layer of blood, Sucy believed her. She believed every word.

Once the kiss broke, Sucy simply collapsed into Akko. She clawed Akko close, and as tears—bloody or not—dripped down her shoulder, Akko held her with eyes to the dying lamplight of the room. In a hum, she murmured, "That book is stupid, you know…"

Sucy, she couldn't argue with that. She was only able to nod wordlessly, completely enveloped by Akko's embrace.

Δ ∇ Δ

Gentle, warm tones of sun rained across the lecture hall, splintering into the cold planks of wood. The students lazed through their notes, and the bubbles Professor Pisces spoke were languid.

A quiet, calm morning.

It bore resemblance to those after a natural disaster where up-rooted plants would glimmer with dew underneath the sunrise, and where water would stream quietly alongside the fresh devastation of the night prior. Lotte's occasional glances towards the pair were the cautious onlookers that ventured the scene; to no surprise, of course, seeing as she awoke to a quiet Akko and Sucy where moments lingered and tension trailed behind them. She'd yet to ask what, exactly, the disaster was, and why it left the two remarkably wordless that morning.

Sucy, however, thought the disaster to be one alike a flood, or a mountain slide, where brewing chemistry broke the surface and left the old to slough away.

Her seeing eye dropped from her notes to the hand that clasped with her own, underneath the desk and on the bench. Akko didn't look at her, and she remained sly and irritatingly smug. Though, her complacency was endemic: Sucy trailed her eye along the rings and lines of teeth marks that haunted the skin of Akko's neck, and she couldn't help but allow a fanged smirk to flicker. Somewhat begrudgingly, she returned Akko's gesture with a light squeeze of her fingers.

And she slipped her unfocused attention back to the blackboard and day-dreamed. She dreamt of her blood on Akko's skin, and the intimate, quiet tones of Akko's voice that followed…

Sucy dreamt of the second time where she bled tears, and the first time she cried to her heart's content. I definitely remember writing this one, and as usual, I intend for one thing, then it goes on to be far, far more explicit than necessary. Which doesn't always mean smut, so um. Yeah, Sucy gonna cry blood. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! It's nice for me to revisit some of these older fics. :)

#volt's library #lwa #little witch academia #fanfiction #suakko #ao3 #wattpad #one-shot #smut #atsuko kagari #akko kagari #sucy manbavaran #lotte jansson (kinda but not really)#angst #hurt/comfort #blood #there is blood

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