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blitzturtles · 3 years ago

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Title: Get What You Need (Ao3)

Rating: Teen and Up

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo

Pairing(s): GioMis or Giorno & Mista (Platonic or Pre-Relationship)

Summary: “All of them,” Giorno breathes the words in a near rush of panic. His stomach turns at merely hearing the list. His resolve crumbles in an instant, and it’s only worsened when he makes the mistake of looking down at his hands, clasped together in his lap. He picks idly at the cuticle of one thumb with the nail of the other in a desperate attempt to keep himself calm. The more worked up he gets, the worse the cramps are, and they’re already rolling through him too often to be ignored.

Notes: Trigger Warnings: Dysphoria; Gio experiences quite a bit of it, and it's not very nice.

Guess who had a period from hell.

Trigger Warnings: Gender dysphoria! Giorno struggles with it quite a bit throughout the fic.

1. Bucci's also trans, 2. Polnareff is alive (so is everyone else for that matter.), and 3. Bruno being trans is not a secret/Mista isn't actually outing him here.

“I would like to rearrange a few meetings,” Giorno says, choosing his words carefully, so he can gauge Polnareff’s reaction.

Without missing a beat, Polnareff answers, “Of course. Which were you interested in moving? There’s the two after lunch, the one with Dura at three, and Abba-”

“All of them,” Giorno breathes the words in a near rush of panic. His stomach turns at merely hearing the list. His resolve crumbles in an instant, and it’s only worsened when he makes the mistake of looking down at his hands, clasped together in his lap. He picks idly at the cuticle of one thumb with the nail of the other in a desperate attempt to keep himself calm. The more worked up he gets, the worse the cramps are, and they’re already rolling through him too often to be ignored.

Polnareff looks momentarily surprised, but he schools his expression quickly and reaches underneath his chair to where he keeps a notebook safely tucked away. He pulls his pen from the spiral binding and looks to Giorno with sheer determination.

“Any-- preferences? On when I reschedule these to?”

“Two or three days from now at the earliest,” Giorno knows it’s risky. A bad idea at best and a great way to destroy several very fragile relationships at worst, but he’s reaching a breaking point. His eyes are already burning, and he can’t ignore the hopeless feeling gripping him any more than he can ignore the way blood continues to fill the pad he’s wearing. He’s too hyper-aware of both, and there’s nothing worse than showing weakness in front of a pack of dogs, most of whom were raised by the streets in some form or fashion. With the exception, of course, of the nepotistic sort, though Giorno doesn’t generally think much of them. They’re certainly not the threat that the others can be when left unchecked.

Polnareff, to his credit, only nods and makes a note of the request. He pauses a moment, clearly chewing something over in his mind, and it’s likely only their close relationship that allows him to ask, “Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” which is a non-answer, but it’s the best Polnareff is getting from him when he feels like this: weak, vulnerable. Disgusting. Wrong. If he could tear the skin off his body, he would.

Polnareff nods again. There’s a lingering look in his good eye that Giorno thinks might be concern. Possibly displeasure at being blatantly left in the dark when it’s Polnareff’s job to be as informed as possible, though the man says nothing of it and simply wishes Giorno well before departing from the office altogether. He uses Chariot to open the door for him and wheels away without any actual protest.

It’s all Giorno can do to hold his breath until the moment the door clicks shut, and he deflates immediately over the edge of his desk. He slumps forward on the wood and tries hard to bite back the quiet, senseless sobs that bubble up in his chest. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous. He should be able to handle this, even if it has been awhile. He can’t fall apart the moment his period decides to rear its ugly head as one of the worst reminders of what he isn’t. What he fails to be. Yet here he is, crying over his desk like a child, though his sobs are silent. Even now, years later, he hasn’t shaken that habit.

______

Mista startles out of his light doze thanks to a text. He flails about uselessly, arms smacking into the side door of the car before he remembers where he is (and who he’s with, if the short-tempered, “Watch it!”, is anything to go by). It takes him another moment to figure out where he left his phone, and it’s only because of Five that he finds it at all.

“Thanks, buddy,” he says as he pulls the screen up for the last message he received. He blinks in surprise at the body of the first text.

Meetings are canceled.

Under any other circumstance, Mista would be hooping and hollering in delight. Meetings being canceled means that Mista doesn’t have to stand around pointlessly for hours while some morons try to talk circles around Giorno of all people, but there’s a gnawing worry that grows in his gut. Giorno doesn’t cancel meetings unless he’s physically unable to be there. Usually when a mission has carried over and kept them from home for too long. The next text does little to quail his anxiety.

You should check in on him anyway.

Mista doesn’t need to be told who ‘him’ is, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s already planning on it once they get back to the mansion.

______

Giorno extracts himself from his desk after a few more minutes of self-pity. There’s only so much of it he can stand at any given time. More importantly, he doesn’t want anyone to happen by before he has a chance to compose himself, which is exactly what he does. He pulls a small mirror from his desk and grimaces at the red, puffy eyes that look back at him.

He’s part way through fixing his hair when another cramp hits. Sharp and agonizing with the way it pierces through his middle and spreads outwards, toward his hips. He doubles over with his arms hugging around his middle. It’s instinct more than anything. God knows it doesn’t help alleviate the pain any.

It takes him a solid sixty seconds before he can work up the courage to unravel. He half expects the next wave to roll through him the moment he does, but there’s a blessed lack of follow up. For the time being. He doesn’t expect that to last. It never does.

His chest aches with the effort that it takes to keep his breathing even. The binder isn’t helping, but he’s not about to try to wiggle out of it in his office. His only option is to get himself up and back to his bedroom, but that sounds like a momentous task on it’s own. Somehow he has to get there without being brought to his knees by cramps or hit with another wave of despair or-- well, being perceived at all. One look at his face will give him away. Maybe they won’t know why, but they’ll know that something is wrong, and that’s bad enough.

He finally manages to get his hair to a presentable level again when someone knocks on the door to his office, and his heart drops down to his stomach. He glances back at the mirror one more time before shoving it in his desk. His eyes are definitely still puffy, though some of the redness has dissipated.

“Giorno?” Mista asks, poking the door open slightly when Giorno doesn’t immediately respond. It’s only then that Giorno realizes that his voice is caught in his throat, and he gets a second, far more concerned call of his name for his hesitance.

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Too quickly. Mista might not read people as well as Bucciarati, but he’s still acutely aware of certain details (the ones that matter! Mista’s voice echoes in his head.)

“Uh,” Mista starts, a little lamely, but he quickly shakes off any reserves he has about being direct if his next words are anything to go by, “No offense, but you look like shit, so I’m pretty sure you’re not. Actually.”

Giorno falters slightly. He should have texted Mista after Polnareff left. Should have explained the situation in the vaguest possible terms. And definitely should have come up with an excuse. But he had done none of those things, and now he’s stuck with the repercussions of his own actions. Or inactions.

“It’s not important,” he tries. Pathetic as it is.

“You canceled all your meetings for today,” and Giorno supposes he set himself up for that. He hasn’t come up with an excuse yet, especially not one that adequately explains away his behavior.

Silence stretches between them. Giorno for lack of an answer, and Mista because he seems to expect Giorno to cave. To the Don’s great horror, he does just that.

“It really isn’t that big of a deal. I’m just--” only, before he can finish speaking, another cramp grabs hold and twists mercilessly until he’s gasping and leaning forward with both hands clenching at the edge of his desk. He closes his eyes, as if to shut out the pain, or possibly the reality of the situation as it registers in the back of his mind.

“Giorno!” Mista calls, loud and panicked. He lunges forward to close the gap between them, though he hesitates once he’s within touching distance. “Giorno?”

“I’m fine, just-- cramps,” Giorno confesses, grinding his teeth together as the next one rips through him. Equally as painful as the last and as impossible to ignore. He feels his cheeks burn the way his eyes are once again, and all he wants is to crawl under his desk and hide away from the world. It’s not often that he wishes he could be nobody again, but now is certainly one of those times.

“Cramps?” Mista asks with confusion evident in his voice, but then his eyes go wide. He scans Giorno over, as if that might give him the affirmative he needs. “Like Bucci’s?”

Giorno doesn’t actually know what that means, but he nods anyway. Close enough, and it means he doesn’t have to explain anything else.

“Okay, okay, shit--!” Mista sounds a bit more panicked now. More like how Giorno feels being flayed open like this in front of one of the people he actually cares about. Whose opinion actually means something to him. “God, he hasn’t had them in so long. Fuck, uh? Heat. Oh, and we should probably get you into something more comfortable. Have you taken anything?”

What?

Giorno’s mind skips and stutters into a complete stall. He’s not sure what Bucciarati has to do with anything, but he’s suddenly sure that the answer is more closely linked than he had originally thought.

“Gio?”

“Yes,” Giorno grinds out, because he did, though he’s nearing the end of the four hour period before he can take the next dose, and he’s tempted to swallow as much as he can fit into his fist. The damage is something he can deal with later. With his Stand, but he knows it won’t help. The efficacy of such medication is limited, but it hurts. It hurts, and he’s just outed himself to one of his closest friends with no warning. No preparation. Anxiety works its way up his throat, and he thinks, for a moment, that he might be sick.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here,” Mista says, bringing Giorno back out of his thoughts and back into reality. He tugs gently at Giorno’s upper arm.

Giorno lets himself be pulled up to his feet with a sort of numbness spreading through him. For all the panic that’s coursing through his veins, there is one, lucid thought: Mista isn’t upset. He’s taken the news and simply rolled with it like it means nothing. Like it doesn’t change anything, and Giorno doesn’t know how to handle that, so he just lets himself be pulled along. Out from behind his desk and toward the office entrance.

From there it’s a long, impossible trek to Giorno’s bedroom. One that requires breaks for the cramps that won’t let him off so easily. For a moment, he wishes it were a bullet tearing apart his insides. That, at least, he could do something about, but cramps are something else entirely. Using GE won’t get him anywhere. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s made it worse in the past, when he’s tried out of pure desperation.

“I’m going to go grab a heating pad,” Mista starts once they reach Giorno’s bedroom, “You should get changed into something less-- tight. Got any stretchy pants?”

“My pajamas,” Giorno answers, more because it seems expected of him than because he’s actually paying attention.

“Perfect! I’ll be back in a minute.”

Giorno’s left standing there, a bit lost for what to do with himself, but the next shock of pain comes and fresh tears burn at the corners of his eyes, reminding him of the fact that he really doesn’t want to be in the middle of the hall, visibly crying for all to see. There’s a logical part of him that knows he wouldn’t be judged for it, but there’s a much louder part that reminds him that crying has never gotten him anywhere in life other than alone and miserable.

He turns the knob on his door and pushes it open after the agony subsides enough to allow him to move again. The first thing he does upon entering his room is seek out the pill bottle from earlier. A few minutes won’t make a difference, and he’s rapidly approaching the end of his rope. He can’t handle the pain on top of everything else.

Changing is a whole other problem. One that he hadn’t thought of as a problem until he’s standing there with his sleep clothes in hand and staring down at himself, realizing he’ll have to undress in order to redress (and is it really worth the effort? Worth seeing himself and his hips and his chest and--).

He peels out of his suit despite himself. He doesn’t want Mista to come back and push the subject. Then there’s the risk that Mista might not leave, which means Giorno will have to deal with an audience on top of having to suffer through his own self-hatred.

The binder stays on. Regardless of how uncomfortable and hot and painful he already is. He can’t handle the idea of taking it off right now, so he suffers for the little bit of mental peace that it brings him. The flattened chest makes up for the curve of his hips, though he finds himself flattening his hands over his waist anyway. Unable to stop himself from picking at every flaw when he’s already hormonal and all around having one of the worst days he’s had in awhile.

The knock at his door startles him into action, and he finishes getting dressed with a quick, “Hold on!”

A moment later has him opening the door to Mista’s grinning face.

“Found it,” Mista says as he holds up the box with a product image on it. Giorno doesn’t get a chance to observe more than the fact that it’s maroon before Mista drops it back down to his side and nods toward Giorno’s room.

Giorno steps out of the way to allow his (technically uninvited) guest in. Mista’s rambling on about something. Giorno isn’t sure what, though he catches ‘Bucciarati’ and ‘Trish’ in there somewhere, and there’s something about Abbacchio being unhelpful and half a dozen other things that fall on deaf ears.

“Oh, and you got changed, good,” Mista finishes with another one of his goofy smiles. The corners of his eyes pull oddly, giving away something else that he’s trying to hide under all the babbling and warmth. Worry persists, despite knowing the truth. Giorno can’t understand why. Cramps aren’t that big of a deal; even if he’s made them out to be in his own head.

“Yeah, it’s helping a little, thanks,” Giorno says when Mista looks at him with some sort of expectation in his eyes. Giorno’s usually better at reading people than this, but he feels like he’s moving in water. Too slow and with too much drag. He can’t keep up with the world around him, and it’s all overwhelming pressure and not enough time. Time to process, time to breathe. He loops back around to the fact that he came out to someone on the Team no more than ten minutes ago, yet Mista is unflinching and unconcerned. He hasn’t brought it back up, since he learned about it, in fact. Hell, he’s acting like all of this is completely normal, despite Giorno being almost completely certain that Mista is cis.

“Earth to Giorno,” Mista calls, voice soft with that same worry now seeping into his tone.

“Sorry,” Giorno says quickly, “I was--”

“Off in lala land?”

“Something like that,” though he thinks that sounds substantially more pleasant than all the thoughts racing through his mind.

Mista watches him for a long, uncomfortable moment. It’s times like these where Giorno gets reminded of just how much Mista likes to play dumb, when he’s anything but. He might not have the book smarts that Fugo has, but Mista is brilliant in so many other ways. Ways that are working against Giorno right now.

“You know, if you want to talk about it…”

“I-” Giorno cuts off and groans. He quickly takes a seat on the edge of his bed and sticks his head down between his knees, folding himself in half in an attempt to apply enough pressure to alleviate some of the pain.

“Oh, shit, here,” Mista moves to find an outlet and digs out the heating pad from its box. He hooks it up quickly and hands it to Giorno. The fabric of its exterior is surprisingly soft in Giorno’s hands, and he’s quick to tuck it between his abdomen and his thighs.

“Thank you,” he breathes out after several seconds pass and heat finally starts to spread across the pad.

“No problem,” Mista says quietly. More subdued than he typically is. He moves to sit on the bed beside Giorno and places a hesitant hand on his back, where he rubs gentle circles until he can feel some of the tension ease out of his Don’s muscles.

It’s quiet for a long while. Giorno basks in the relief the pad and pain killers offer. It’s the first time in over an hour that he’s been able to simply breathe through the worst of the cramps each time they hit. Though his chest continues to ache, the change is nonetheless a welcomed one. The sensation of heat spreading across his abdomen is enough of a distraction to keep him out of his own head. For a short while, at least.

“Earlier, you said something about Bucciarati,” Giorno starts, nervous and unsure of how to broach the topic.

“Oh yeah, Bucci used to get cramps real bad, too,” Mista says without hesitation. Without any hint whatsoever that he finds what he’s said to be unusual.

“Is he--?”

“Oh, shit,” Mista’s hand stills on his back, and Giorno gnaws suddenly at his lip, afraid he’s somehow messed with something he shouldn’t have. “Uh, technically that’s probably not my place to say? But he’s not exactly hiding it, Gio. He’s got scars and everything.”

Scars? Oh.

Oh.

Giorno feels his face flush, this time out of a different sort of embarrassment. Sure, he had seen the scars before, but they were light. Old and well healed, probably through the help of Sticky Fingers, and it’s not as though Bucciarati isn’t covered in dozens of others. Most of them silver from age, but there all the same. It had never once occurred to Giorno that the two on his chest, which peek out just a bit underneath the classic lingerie that Bucciarati always wears, are anything purposeful.

“I didn’t realize,” Giorno admits after a moment, when that little fact is probably very obvious and unnecessarily verbalized, but he doesn’t know what else to say to fill the silence. His own head is much louder. Full of racing thoughts and flashes of memories.

“Maybe you should talk to him about it sometime?” Particularly in moments like these; Mista spares his emotions by keeping that part to himself, but Giorno’s thinking it all the same.

To imagine that he’s been doing all of this in silence since meeting Bucciarati and his Team. To think that he could be so dense as to dismiss the signs that he isn’t alone. He only wishes he had realized sooner, even if he isn’t sure what it would have changed. He’s not sure he could have broached the subject then. He’s not sure he could do it now. Mista only found out because of circumstance.

Still. There’s someone just like him, and they live under the same roof. “I should,” he agrees, because he really should, hang-ups aside.

“Hey, you wanna try laying out? ‘Cause, no offense, man, but that looks super uncomfortable.” Mista asks after a beat of silence. He’s never one to let it go on for too long, and he’s rarely deterred by any uncomfortableness that might be lingering.

Giorno nods his head after a moment and slowly sits up. He moves his hands to hold the heating pad against his abdomen and breathes a small sigh of relief when the pain doesn’t immediately crowd in on him again. He carefully stretches himself out across the bed, despite how painfully aware of Mista’s presence he is. It’s weird to be laying out, so physically vulnerable, and it makes him acutely aware of all the things he wishes he could forget. (Is the outline of his binder visible? What about the shape of his hips? Does lying down like this make it that much more obvious how slight Giorno is?)

Once he’s lying back fully, he lets go of the pad, allowing it to rest on top of him on its own. The next wave of pain is far more manageable than the last several have been, and he merely winces in response.

“Those must suck, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“I really don’t,” Mista agrees, “Though Trish and Bucci make it out to be pretty shitty, so.”

“I think I prefer being stabbed.”

Mista winces at the thought, “For what it’s worth, I’d rather you weren’t.”

Giorno lets out a startled laugh, but he gets Mista’s point. He kind of wishes his bodyguard weren’t so prone to being shot with multiple bullets on a regular basis. Unfortunately for both of them, they can’t always get what they want.

The quiet that settles over them this time is much more peaceful. Giorno closes his eyes and relaxes into the mattress. It’s the best he’s felt all day. Physically, anyway. There’s plenty for him to work through otherwise, but he doesn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, he focuses on the lessening cramps until they’ve all but died off entirely. Exhaustion takes hold of him then. It’s still far too early in the day to sleep, but a nap is beginning to sound like a good idea.

Before he can think about drifting off fully, he cracks his eyes open to peek at Mista, “Thank you.”

Mista beams at him from where he’s gone and laid out next to Giorno, “Anytime, GioGio. Anytime.”

#giomis #misgio #giorno giovanna #guido mista #jjba #vento aureo #team bucci #jean pierre polnareff #bruno bucciarati #bruno buccellati #jjba part 5 #part 5 #golden wind #blitzwrites #blitz

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detective-crescend · 3 years ago

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break up with your girlfriend (i’m bored)

There is a game that Klavier Gavin sometimes likes to play.

‘Likes’, however, may not be the appropriate term.

It isn’t a nice game, or one that makes him feel like a particularly good and decent person. And yet, when he wins—which he almost certainly does, on all but two notable occasions—the rush of chemicals that his victory incites within his clearly damaged mind will cover up all but the most persistent cries of outrage from what remains of his decaying moral compass.

It is a private challenge, it is a weakness he has long since conceded to… it is played like this:

There are plenty of people in the world who would love Klavier Gavin simply for what he represents. Conversely, there are people who will despise him for those very same reasons.

When the small voice in the back of his mind begins to speak too loudly—the one that sounds so very familiar, calm and leveled while it interrogates his every action—when he, in turn, begins to doubt himself, Klavier will search out the nearest member of the latter group. The more this individual seemingly dislikes him, the better the effect. And, having identified someone who must dislike Klavier more than he dislikes himself, he will do whatever is necessary to change that person’s opinion.

Sometimes it is as simple as attention and kindness, gifts and persistence; sometimes it is through a display of vulnerability or chagrin that is only somewhat manufactured for the moment. Though Klavier’s motivation for doing so is horrifically selfish, the goal is to be perfectly genuine in his search for their affection. It needs to be; only once his target has offered up their adoration can he tolerate himself once more. If it is a false version of Klavier that they are idolizing, it only strengthens the voice’s position inside his own mind.

The point of this game is emotional intimacy, not physical. Klavier has never been in the game of intentionally breaking hearts. One of the cardinal rules that he has set for himself, then, is that his appointed convert must be maintained as a friend, not a lover. In actuality, the majority of the rules pertain to limits and boundaries—monetary, time, distance, and attitude—or to create clear definitions of what constitutes a win or a loss of the game. It is important, Klavier feels, to keep things consistent among matches and, therefore, fair.

But, although Klavier has flourished in this diversion since his now distant childhood, he had also never encountered a contender quite like Apollo Justice before.

It wasn’t that Apollo was particularly difficult to read or to predict what it might take in order to shift his perception—on the contrary, Klavier had known exactly what needed to be done to achieve his goal almost immediately upon meeting the man. Whether or not Klavier is capable of it, however, is where the debate hinges.

There are rules that will need to be broken, for one thing, along with a set of small, concealed truths that must be unearthed—things that Klavier had long since been in the habit of burying below several layers of his own psyche. As of this moment, there are only two that Klavier has managed to excavate and examine with any sense of composure.

The first, that Apollo has beaten him so thoroughly in Klavier’s own game that their exchanges have ceased to be a game at all. Instead, they have taken on the frantic and impetuous nature of an entirely different emotion. Klavier’s desire to win Apollo’s affection had ceased to be a simple desire; it now felt like a need, pulsing bright and warm from somewhere so deeply within him that he had long since stopped believing it was possible to feel this way at all.

The second truth—both far more recently understood and infinitely more frightening—is that the aforementioned need may, in fact, be love.

It is not as pleasant an emotion as he had once anticipated, more like gnawing hunger that rumbled when Apollo was absent and roared with an open maw when he was nearby. It made Klavier indecisive and introspective in an entirely different way than the voice in his head, made him overthink every word he spoke and every thing he did when Apollo was nearby. It made him impulsive and greedy, wont to push his luck at every opportunity he could possibly take.

And, as luck would have it, this emotion was ruining any chance he could have with Apollo in the process.

“I am performing at a local studio tomorrow,” Klavier is attempting to begin one afternoon, in the immediate aftermath of a trial he has just lost. Though he’d meant the words to sound suave and unintentionally cool, the force of Apollo’s indifferent gaze strangles the words into an awkwardly insistent rush. “Would you like to come, as my guest? You may bring Fräulein Wright as well.”

Before him, Apollo’s dark eyes narrow, his hands still in the process of packing up the strewn remainder of his courtroom notes. “What kind of performance?”

“It is for a streaming service, ja?” Klavier replies, grinning through the nerve induced flips his stomach has been performing since the moment he opened his mouth. “They invite artists to come for an interview and to cover a song of the audience’s choice. There is usually free food and drinks.”

“So no Gavinner’s music?” Apollo looks skeptical.

“Nein, I promise.”

Another moment of cautious consideration is given before Apollo eventually, reluctantly, nods. “Trucy’ll kill me if she finds out I said no. Text me the address and time.”

Of course, it isn’t until hours after the requested message had been sent that Klavier thinks to check the status of the polls online that will decide the theme of his performance. One glance is all it takes to know that his invitation could be nothing but an absolutely terrible idea.

The damage, however, had been done.

As such, Klavier wakes the next morning with his emotions an odd amalgam of dread and anticipation that carries through the remainder of his day. By his arrival at the indicated studio—far earlier than the time he had provided to Apollo due to the ever-necessary addition of hair and makeup—Klavier is certain he has thought of nothing else the entire day other than Apollo’s arrival.

“Trucy couldn’t come,” Apollo says later, looking exceedingly uncomfortable in clothes other than his courtroom ensemble. It is the first time since the Guilty as Charged concert that Klavier has seen him in anything so casual; he had forgotten that, in the absence of hair gel and when wearing something that is not a shocking scarlet in hue, Apollo looks good. Good enough that Klavier is far from the only one casting surreptitious looks as they walk together from the lobby to the studio.

Those small glances are enough to send his imagination into a tailspin that, consequently, causes his response to be just moments too late to sound entirely casual. “But you still came.”

“I already said I would,” Apollo replies, ignoring the delay with a dismissive shrug. “It would’ve been rude to bail at the last second. Anyway, Trucy made me promise I’d record your song. When is it, by the way?”

“Twenty minutes—I won’t keep you for too long, ja?”

The problem is, during a performance, Klavier is practically incapable of any sort of critical thought at all. Years of practice have led to a near Pavlovian response to the appearance of a camera in his face; at just the glint of a lense reflection, any doubts or worries he had previously been wrestling with will be delicately tucked away to make room for the public persona Klavier presents to the world.

The same thing happens, here. Within moments of the interview starting, Klavier forgets about his apprehension in having Apollo present for this performance. By the time he eventually starts to sing, he’s forgotten about Apollo sitting just beyond the camera in a plastic folding chair all together.

The song picked for him to sing is almost certainly a joke, intentionally selected due to his recent and rather outspoken declaration of bisexuality. But Klavier has never been one to back down from a challenge or to let anyone know they’ve gotten under his skin. His take on Ariana Grande’s morally bankrupt classic is stripped down and irrevocably smoky, just the sound of Klavier’s voice and an electric guitar with absolutely zero changes to the lyrics, as was expected.

Klavier is not singing to Apollo, precisely—as far as he is aware, Apollo does not have a girlfriend from which to break up with—but a song will always sound better with some sort of emotion attached to it. Klavier has long been in the habit of searching any lyrics that are not his own for a handhold that he can grab on to relate to; here, the idea of wanting someone unavailable, no matter the cause, is an easy enough choice.

And things go seamlessly for the majority of the song. It isn't until nearly two minutes in, just as Klavier is finishing the bridge, that his gaze slips past the camera he has just recently glanced up into, and finds Apollo’s eyes wide and locked upon his. Perhaps it is not entirely professional, to maintain uninterrupted eye contact with the opposing counsel as the lyrics “you can hit it in the morning like it’s yours” are murmured seductively into the microphone bent towards one’s face. The suspicion is confirmed when, thirty seconds later, the song’s end is met by an uproar of applause from everyone except Apollo, who stands and leaves the room altogether.

“Stop messing with me,” Apollo shouts in the parking lot when Klavier has finally caught up with him. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, I don’t know what sort of advantage you think you’re playing at, but stop.”

#day 2 of the ‘write everyday challenge’#idk who the dude singing this cover is but he’s got a nice voice #was going to try to finish this but we’re on day three now #so…. take it #idk where I was going with it anyway #sometimes i write things

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years ago

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From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 32)

Quinn plucks her off of the ground, he does so with much more care than she’d anticipated.

“Goodness, how long have you been walking for?” His to ne is so much gentler now, amazingly so.

She doesn’t know, she can’t remember. Everything hurts. She manages only another choked cry.

“Why didn’t you just show me your fire to begin with, princess?”

She doesn’t know exactly, she thinks that it is because she is so broken. Her mind is so fragmented and out of sorts…

"You should know your princess." Azula managed. Though she can barely recognize herself anymore not it appearance nor by personality. She can hardly call her self a princess. But he is beginning to treat her like one again.

He ushers her into the palace. It doesn't feel right to be here anymore. It feels daunting. It makes her feel a looming sense of inferiority. To a degree, the palace always has--it is so grand and what is she? She has never achieved the perfect ion that she sought. And for a brief era of her life it didn't matter. For a brief era of her life her she was perfectly content in her imperfections. She supposes that she still is, at least in the physical sense.

She catches a glimpse of Zuko and Sokka as Quinn escorts her to her room. She thinks that it is Sokka anyhow; he looks older, more muscular. He has...is that facial hair? But it is most definitely Sokka. They are so much taller...

She feels like she is going to topple at any moment and she supposes that that's what Quinn is there for. Quinn and a horde of servants and doctors. And she does stumble, she pitches forward, she might have hit the floor if Sokka hadn’t stepped forward to catch her. He and a gaggle of guards.

It is quite amazing, really, how everyone is suddenly so nice to her. So concerned for her wellbeing. More concerned then they would have ever been for Rikka. And Rikka the good part of her, the woman worth caring for.

“Zuko, guess whose home!” She hears Sokka declare as her vision goes fuzzy. She thinks that he stays behind to make sure that Zuko is following.

The servants and guards help her into bed and, by Agni, does the soft mattress feel divine. She wishes that they would have given her a bath before laying her upon it, she hated to think that she is soiling the immaculate bedding. She voices her concerns between greedy sips of water.

"Don't worry about the sheets princess, we'll have them washed for you before you get out of your bath. Just rest up, you look exhausted, dear." The servants assure her.

They will bring her fresh sheets. People are going to do things for her. After months of walking and laboring, she won't have to lift a finger. Somehow, the thought horrifies her. Laundry days had been quite pleasant with Hajime…

"Try to sleep." Says a different servant.

Even if she didn't want to, she can't resist the numbness of oncoming sleep. Despite all efforts, the fog of it grips her and her head sinks deeper into the pillow. Sokka enters the room as her consciousness leaves it.

That day she learns that she quite enjoys the simpler life. That it feels like home to do her own day to day chores.

.oOo.

Ursa stares at the journal in her lap and then to Azula and then back to the journal. Azula thinks that she might be tearing up and her stomach tangles itself into uncomfortable knots.

She doesn’t want to have an awkward conversation with mother. Doesn’t want anymore pitying looks, she has seen too many of those and they always leave her feeling weak and ridiculous.

“Have you finished reading it?”

Ursa reaches out and with only the simplest squeezing of her hand she knows that she has. “I can’t imagine…” Her hand hovers over Azula’s tummy and she shifts with discomfort. “I don’t think that I would have been able to handle it if I lost you or Zuko.”

Azula is still inclined to speculate that it wouldn’t have bothered the woman all too much of she had died early on. She had been a problem child in the woman’s eyes. A handful. Azula crosses one leg over the other.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“I am managing, mother.” Some days better than others.

“Can I?” She opens her arms for a hug.

Azula shakes her head. She isn’t ready for that. She isn’t ready for a lot of things. She sees the hurt in Ursa’s eyes but the woman nods and gives a soft smile. “My arms will be open when you are ready. The woman is mighty optimistic for someone who had ran off and neglected her. There are several people who are waiting for her with open arms, Ursa is near the bottom of the queue.

.oOo.

There is so much hurt in her daughter’s eyes and she longs to take it away. It lets her know that she has failed as a mother--has failed to protect her girl from the jaws of a cruel world that has now gnashed its teeth at her. Has chewed and gnawed until she had bled and scarred. That woman has seen so much evil and hatred in her life. Even when she tottered around on stubby little legs, when her eyes were still wide and innocent she had been exposed alarmingly to the cruelties of the world. The savage mercilessness of it. It is no wonder she has seen so much strife.

And, spirits, the woman is still so young. She is still just a girl in Ursa’s eyes. A girl and yet grown and traveled. Unprotected and, for too long, unloved. Ursa grits her teeth, she should have loved her when she still had those squishy cheeks and those tiny hands that could only produce little candlewick flames.

She should have cared for and cherished her baby. Maybe if she had… She watches Azula get to her feet, “I have to check on Caihong.”

The child isn’t even Azula’s and yet the woman cares for her as though she is. Ursa knows it from the pages, that Azula has plenty of love in her abused and broken heart, but it is another thing entirely to see that love in action.

“Can I help you?”

“With what?”

“I don’t know, maybe I could dress Caihong while you make her something to eat.”

“She’s old enough to dress herself and we have staff to do our cooking.”

“I can read to her.” Ursa offers.

“I read to her. She only needs one story.” Azula presses her lips into a thin line, seeming to mull something over. “But I suppose you can tell her one. There is this Earth Kingdom children’s tale that I find particularly foolish. But she loves it. You can tell her that one.”

“You’ll have to tell it to me first.”

Azula shakes her head. “Somehow, Caihong managed to cling to the scroll that it was written on. Just ask her to let you read from it.”

Ursa nods, “I will.”

“Follow me then, I’ll show you where Caihong sleeps.

Azula doesn’t say a word as she leads her down the hall. The silence is quite thick and quite uncomfortable. When Ursa can bare it no more she has to fill it, “you’re a good mother, I can tell.”

“I believe that you’ve mentioned as much already.”

Ursa wishes that the girl would just take a compliment. “I think that you’re a good woman.” She elaborates. “I’m proud to have you as my daughter.”

This stops Azula in her tracks. She hears a very sharp inhale.

“I should have said so more often.”

Azula swallows.

“I should have told you that I loved you. It’s just that…”

“I don’t want excuses.” She cuts in coldly.

Ursa doesn’t think that there are any anyhow. “I do love you Azula.”

“Don’t do this to me, mother.” It is a harsh hiss but beneath is a hint of desperation. “I have enough to deal with.”

Ursa nods. Though it is eating away at her to have only her daughter’s scorn she replies, “alright, another time.”

Azula pushes the door to Caihong’s room open. “Good morning, Caihong. I would like you to--well actually it isn’t preferable--but today you are spending time with your grandmother.”

“Gran’ma Ursa!” The girl bolts to her feet. At least someone’s daughter is happy to see her.

.oOo.

Azula sits at the other end of the room listening to Caihong’s happy chatter as she scans over a few scrolls. Details of Fire Nation History occasionally blend with the child’s nonsensical babble.

She doesn’t think that mother is even halfway through the story. She supposes that she should have warned her that Caihong is an interrupter. It is a habit that she hasn’t been able to curb yet.

At this rate she won’t be reading to Caihong for herself. Perhaps she should just leave her to bond with her grandmother and check up on her garden or take a stroll with Sokka. She could use the chance to decompress. With a small yawn, Azula gets to her feet. “Watch Caihong for me, mother, Sokka and I are going for a walk.” He doesn’t know it yet, but that is what she has decided. “You can handle her, right?”

“I think that I can manage.” Ursa smiles.

“Good.” She thinks that mother is just happy to know that she has found a lover and one that has no political motivations behind the affections. She spares the woman one last look before seeking Sokka out. When she finds him he is at a pottery wheel making the most hideously lopsided bowl she has ever seen.

He looks up and grins, “well, whadd’ya think!?”

“Sokka, that’s the most atrocious bowl I have ever seen.”

He brings the wheel to an abrupt stop and for a moment, she thinks that the clay will sling across the room. “You think you can do better.”

“I certainly can. My bowl will have symmetry.”

He takes his slab of clay and fashions it back into a shapeless blob, “do it then.”

She looks at her perfectly manicured nails, “I don’t fancy the prospect of clay under my nails.

“You don’t fancy the prospect of me being better at ceramics than you.”

She scoffs, “you absolutely aren’t…”

He quirks a brow. “Prove…” he leans in “...it.”

She doesn’t think that they will be going for a walk after all.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Sokka #Sokkla #Fanfiction

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curly-bangtan · 5 years ago

Text

A Drop of Heaven I: Sir(e) (M)

[Series Masterlist]

Pairing: ot7 x reader // this chapter: Namjoon x reader, some Jimin x reader

Series summary: Seven vampires have secretly been roaming the darks of your world for millennia. Each brother selects a Feed who becomes supernaturally bound to him, whose blood will be fed on until their inevitable mortal death. They have spent their eternity hunting for the exorbitant rarity that is angel blood - the most heavenly of food for vampires that fuel them with desire, lust and satiety. So what happens when they all find you, the first angel-blooded being they’ve encountered in two centuries?

Genre: vampire au, poly au, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (e2l)

Warnings in this chapter: non-consensual blood drinking, mentions of death and abuse, obv blood and gore, very light smut, dry humping, ass grinding, dom!Namjoon is an ass man wbk, almost everyone being a prick, oc and Namjoon hating each other but then get confused

Word count: 9.6k

!Disclaimer!: As I’ve said before, I am not glorifying any type of objectification or abuse, and this has nothing to do with gender at all. This is meant to depict a fictional dynamic between vampire and Feed which obviously does not apply to a non-supernatural context in which case this would be considered abuse and toxic. I really hope this doesn’t offend/trigger anyone!! If you get confused, feel free to ask questions.

[prelude, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, epilogue]

❦

Death feels…

Alive.

The hum of classical music and hushed low voices permeate your ears as your senses gradually seep back to you. Faint darkness cloaks your vision. Your chest rises and falls in a soft slow rhythm. You’re breathing. Your heart is beating. You feel alleviated from the pain you’re so accustomed to. You feel revitalised.

You feel alive.

So this is the so-called Afterlife philosophers spend decades pondering and debating. How peculiar.

You try to lift your finger and find it moving at your will, the action feeling oddly smooth and effortless. Fabric brushes your skin, and in fact, a silk material envelops your body. Are you on a bed?

When your eyelids begin to flutter in attempt to open, the voices around you silence eerily in unison. You see a red-gold light at first, illuminating the dark room you find yourself in, the ceiling of which void-black. In your periphery, dim candles are flickering on your two sides, the warm glow of which spilling onto the lavish satin bed you lay atop, its size worthy for kings to sleep in.

Then something violently strong snaps within you, a string, a cord, of sorts. The sensation is not physical, it’s beyond that; it feels as though something has tied itself around your soul and is tugging at you towards it. This intensity is overwhelming, eating at your mind and core, urging you to follow this nexus that tightens its hold around you.

You sit up, gasping.

And face seven men.

Each the epitome of beauty in their own right. Each an ethereal glaze washing over them. Each staring at you with the most curious glint in their eyes.

No, not curious. Hungry.

“I…” Your brain is scattered from its sense. Where are you? Who are they? Are you dead or alive or both? “What…?” Coherent thoughts fail to form in your head and at your lips, the question dangles in the air like a weak sigh.

Processing as much as you can, you take a moment to examine the seven standing around the bed in front of you.

The one directly in front of you regards you with crossed arms, dressed in a suit of all black, mousy grey-brown hair swept neatly. When you meet his eyes, a chill shoots down your back for his irises have the faintest crimson glow to them. But what is more terrifying is not the strange hue of his eyes, but the way they are pinned at you as if he could stare into your soul and read your every single secret. There is an air of power and superiority that exudes from his tall stance. You’re beginning to think that this definitely isn’t heaven and he definitely isn’t an angel.

On his left is a pink-haired man, delicate to look at, soft features painting his handsome face. His eyes are kind but unreadable, juxtaposing the harshness of the one beside him. His shoulders are board, though he possesses no intimidation towards you. Something about him is so aesthetically soothing, magical to look at.

On the other side of the stranger in the middle slouches a smaller man, a bored expression worn on his face with his cheek bitten inside his mouth. His spiky head of hair so dark you can almost hear it whisper lullabies of the devil. When he looks at you, you feel him emanate a dangerous fury; it’s an ancient deep-rooted type of evil. Now, a flood of fear finally dawns on you.

Next to him, a dimpled grin greets you. Immediately you sense a rush of security at his warm expression, though you can’t help but think it’s a deceiving facade to lull you into his snare. There is a darkness lurking behind his crescent eyes that you don’t completely trust. He ruffles his hand through his wine red tufts, smile not once faltering in the most uncanny manner.

Standing opposite the bed from him is a devilishly handsome blonde boy, though you’re not sure if ‘boy’ is quite the right word when his lips quirk up at you mysteriously. He’s dressed luxuriously, like he’s some foreign prince, standing tall and proud yet undecipherable. An unknown force draws you to him, his beauty beckoning you like a lasso. When he brushes his thumb under his lip, you shudder.

Another boy approaches you, this one so stunning you jump back at his advance. “How are you feeling? Better?” As he perches on the side of the bed a hand’s reach away from you, you pause to take in this face wholly. Waves of silver sprouting from his head, mesmerisingly angular eyes staring intently into yours, a small button nose and plump red lips. It’s a frightening type of beauty.

Gulping as you find yourself out of air from the overwhelmingly powerful presence in the room, you force yourself to nod. You only realise now that you are changed into a clean cream cotton dress.

In the dark far corner, the last man leans against the wall, observing with a guarded, austere demeanour. You can’t see him well in the shadow, but you see the gloss of his long black curls flowing around his clenched jaw. He does not say anything, does not appear to have the intention of joining the others gathered around you. Just silently watching.

These seven men… No, not men.

Phantasmal unearthly creatures.

Because there is no way that these towering bodies and other-worldly faces are mere mortals.

“Who are you?” Your voice is a croaky whisper courtesy to your chokingly dry throat.

“The answer to that is worth an eternity, love.” The boy sat beside you smirks, brushing his silver locks to one side. “I’m afraid you don’t want to find out.”

Your mind is whizzing, trying to piece together your surroundings, these strangers leering at you almost lasciviously as if you’re some zoo animal. Trying to grasp at your last memories, you remember the scenes in flashes. His fist, her cries, blooming agony, then darkness.

A blood-curdling realisation hits you.

You’re not dead.

You can’t be dead. You’re breathing, blinking, moving. You’re very much alive. And tragically so.

“Where is she?” You make the move to get off this bed but is blocked by the gorgeous blonde. A wolf wearing sheepskin, you wager.

Silence dangles in the air like a man hanging from a noose, the familiar gnaw of fear clenching your chest so tightly you don’t think you’re breathing. Then, “She’s dead.”

Those words are flung at you like a piece of rag but hit you like an arrow through the heart. Spoken by none other than the frowning man in the middle, arms crossed and eyeing you with callous indifference as if he hadn’t just announced the death of your younger sister.

You expect tears to erupt from your eyes but they don’t, you want to scream your devastation and anger at the world but you don’t. Everything goes still, calm, inert. Almost as if you can’t feel anything. The pain in your heart spreads like cracking glass torturously slowly, infecting your every fibre with a bleak shadow.

The mattress dips as Silver clambers closer to you and strokes your cheek gently. His touch ice cold, yet nothing compared to the numbness of your mind, empty, devoid of all feeling.

“I’m sorry, don’t be sad.”

Don’t be sad.

You let out a breath that would’ve been a laugh if you currently had the capacity for emotion.

“Enough of this shit, just cut to the chase and tell her everything she needs to know so we can get on with it, Namjoon.” Impatient and hostile, the one with black hair and a permanent scowl scoffs.

Namjoon, standing out amongst the seven not in looks but in confidence and stature, is their leader, you suppose. When he speaks again, you’re not surprised that he is. His tone is authoritative, articulate, a severe presence that demands attention. Almost enough to make you forget about the grief you’re bottling up for one second.

“What is your name, girl?”

“Y/N.”

“Y/N, listen to me very closely as I won’t repeat myself. We seven brothers hereby are siring you as our Feed, all seven of us. You will now be bound to us until death shows you mercy and lifts your curse that tethers you to us eternally. Forget your past life because you shall reside here in our manor for the rest of your mortal life for us to drink your blood.

“Under normal circumstances, each of us possesses one Feed each, but in your case, we shall distribute you equally amongst ourselves. There are seven days in a week which falls perfectly align with our arrangement. On Monday, you shall be my Feed, Tuesday, Seokjin, Wednesday, Yoongi, Thursday, Hoseok, Friday, Jimin, Saturday, Taehyung and finally Sunday, Jungkook. You shall be completely obedient to your sire of the day and your sire only, and in return we shall feed on you only on the day of which you belong to us. Due to the vigorous frequency at which you are being fed on, we have agreed to feed as lightly as possible to sustain you. If need be, you will be healed with our blood.

“You shall refer to me as Sir and only Sir; the others will decide the dynamic they wish to share with you. Do not for a second forget that you are our subjugate, our inferior and our prey. The magic that yields you to us is powerful, thus you have no choice in this matter. Many before you have tried to defy during their early days as a Feed only to quickly fail and fall to submission as they should. Heed this as your only warning.

“Do you or do you not understand, Y/N?” When he finishes, he juts his chin high at you and sucks in the meat of his cheeks between his jaws.

The fire poker that is his glare sears into you, sizzling its mark into your pit of dread. None of what he just said makes an ounce of sense to you, and it’s definitely not because of your dazed state from your newly-regained consciousness.

Just who does this man think he is? And what in ten Hells is he going on about?

“No. I don’t fucking understand.”

Shock registers in all their eyes when you spit your bitter dispute at Namjoon. You swear there’s a glint of twisted excitement sparking from the redhead.

“I’m afraid you will have to repeat yourself. Sir.” You continue when none of them utters a syllable. “First, you tell me my sister is dead. I believe you. Then you’re spouting some speech about how I’m ‘sired’ to you all and you’re going to drink my blood every day of the week because I belong to you? Is this some sort of cult or is this Hell?” Looking around at them, they all seem taken aback by your outburst, stunned.

“Oh my… This one is going to be fun.” The blonde boy mirths at you, tongue gliding over his row of pearly teeth. It is now that you notice the sharp point of his fangs in place of his canines. You freeze.

“Isn’t she? I’m going to go mad waiting until Thursday. Can I have a bite right now? Just a drop so I know her taste?” He is bouncing on his toes, thrilled by the anticipation.

“Hoseok, hush.” Namjoon silences the boy’s fervour before turning to you. “Y/N, if you insist on defiance, I promise you endless suffering. Let me clear your confusion. We are vampires that rely on blood as our food. You are our chosen victim, our Feed. The supernatural sire bond will eventually click into place between you and each one of us, forcing a mutual loyalty between Vampire and Feed. This will be clearer as the days go on. I suggest you-”

“Right, vampires.” You interrupt before he can continue his nonsense. How did you end up in some vampire-worshipping cult? “If you guys are vampires, then I’m a freaking angel. You are all insane. I’m leaving, goodbye.”

Frantically crawling off the bed, you head in the direction of the door. If your sister is really dead, then what happened to your uncle? You hope he’s dead too. Either way, you have no home to return to, but still you need to escape these men for your own sake. You can’t escape one lunatic only to end up in the lair of seven more.

But before you could even step your bare foot off the bed onto the wooden floor, frozen fingers snake around your wrist like a venomous serpent and lock you in its clasp.

“You are an angel, kind of.” Hoseok chuckles and tugs you back onto the bed, you’re unduly aware of how close he is hovering over you.

“You’re also dumb as fuck if you think you can leave, did you not hear everything he just said?” The sourpuss beside him shoves at your shoulder not at all lightly until you sink onto the mattress on your back. “You couldn’t leave us even if you tried.”

“No need to be so rough on her, Yoongi, she’s confused.” Brows pinched in disapproval, the pink-haired man chastises softly, and to your surprise, this Yoongi just scowls but dips his head.

Pink seems to be kind, the only one here that appeals to your plight apparently, so you scramble on your knees over to his side for your second attempt to escape. But his gentle hand reaches out to stop you, hand raised inches away from your chest, preventing you from moving forward and slipping past him. There’s a guilt in his eyes that you cannot comprehend. Why can’t he let you leave if he is sympathetic towards you?

“She still doesn’t get it, hyung.” The beautiful blonde boy on your other side shakes his head with a pernicious smile. “We need to show her.” His appearance is a trap, you know that with absolute certainty as you look into the renaissance painting that is his face. Yet you cannot help the attraction that sings you towards him as he draws his finger under your chin, guiding you closer into him.

He looks over to Namjoon as if for approval, who only stares at the scene of him luring you into his grasp with an unreadable expression. At the lack of disagreement from others, his finger now traces down to your neck, wandering over your heavy pulse. You gulp.

“Taehyung…” Someone warns, yet the delirious state you’re in at the hands of this boy’s enchantment does not allow you to recognise who.

His eyes are the palest of blues, a cloudless summer day with a soft seaside breeze. Your gaze follows his tongue wetting his lips, then trailing his sharp teeth. How do his fangs look so real? They oddly suit him, painting a wild beastly image of him that is concealed by his soft innocent features until he opens his mouth to flash his whites. You’ve never seen someone as good looking as him. As all of them.

Seductively, Taehyung leans into your neck and buries his nose in your scent. When he sucks in sharply, you sense his craving, his arousal. You’re frozen in his clutch as his hand circles behind you so delicately, unsure of what to do with yourself, unsure of what he’ll do with you. Lips tenderly caressing your jugular, you shut your eyes, intoxicated by his touch.

“Left neck is mine.” He growls, the aggressiveness of which surprises you so much so that the words he speaks don’t manifest its meaning to you at first.

Then a scorching hot pain explodes in your neck, so violent that you shriek out and try to twist away. But something is latched onto you like a hook, two hooks in fact. When your open your eyes, you realise that it’s his teeth that are sunken inch deep into your neck, penetrating a dizzying agony into your whole body. After a still second, you begin to feel a pressure pulling out your blood like a vacuum. A tear trickles out the corner of your eye at the burning sensation.

What the fuck?

He is… drinking your blood.

You try to push him off but a strange force like phantom hands bind your muscles and prevent you from acting on your will.

The magic that yields you to us is powerful, you have no choice in this matter.

Holy shit, Namjoon was completely serious. These people aren’t a brainwashed cult, they’re actually vampires.

Years of abuse, all the wounds you’ve endured, are nothing compared to the agony embedded deep in your neck right now. Absolutely nothing. Streams of scarlet flow down your garment like a spillage of wine, dark and thick and an indulgence to the tongue. You’re helplessly grappling on Taehyung’s shirt, tugging him towards you rather than shoving him away. This supernatural spell, or whatever the fuck it is, is overriding and going against your every intention to escape.

Vision hazy, you vaguely make out the other faces watching you struggle under Taehyung’s fangs. And when you think this nightmare could not get more harrowing, you notice a change in their eyes. By that, you do not mean a shift in expression, a frown or a squint. It is an actual physical transformation: the black of their pupils incrementally diffusing into their irises like a drop of watercolour, then the darkness spills over to the whites of their eyes until they are wholly onyx clouds.

“Taehyung.” Namjoon demands, and a sigh of relief escapes you as the sucking in your vein ceases. But rather than telling him to stop, he simply orders, “Share.”

Share? Share your blood?

Then the rest of the five prowl to gather around you, and despite your vertigo, you will never forget how monstrous they look. Eyes black as void, ivory fangs elongating like unsheathing claws, nostrils flaring at the scent of your blood, their food. Chest heaving as if struggling to hold back from ripping you into strips of meat.

“Bon appetit.” Is that Hoseok who’s leaping at your collarbone?

When his teeth sink in, you no longer have it in you to cry out. And then another on your right neck. Your head feels as if it’ll roll off your neck, only held onto the rest of your body by a ligament and Taehyung’s palm. A strong hand yanks your arm up and places your wrist in his mouth. This one hurts even more than your neck as you feel his fangs scrape carelessly against your bone. A soundless sob leaves your trembling lips. Then someone is gently pushing your legs apart, sniffing up the inside of your thigh. You try to kick him yet instead your leg wraps around his back and draw him closer. His purring resonates into your core as he licks his ravishing mark before piercing your skin once more. Blood seeps out the corner of his mouth and run down your calf like the tears you release in vain.

“Oh Hell, I haven’t tasted angel blood in centuries. I’ve forgotten how irreplaceably magnificent this is.” Someone throws their head back for a breath, sighing their satisfaction at your opulence.

No matter how much you thrash against the force that holds you in their submission, nothing budges. Like skyscraping obsidian walls surrounding your every side. Shadow scions twisting around your limbs into a lock.

Y/N, if you insist on defiance, I promise you endless suffering.

His voice echoes in the rubble of your brain like a bell, clanging its nauseating truth into you. Your consciousness is sand falling between your fingers, you try to hold on but the grains are ungraspable.

Then finally, the one with pink hair comes near you. A pitiful expression worn that makes you wonder how absolute the evil that lurks in them actually is, or whether it’s tainted with humanity.

He stops, brushes your tear away. “Sorry.” Trickery of your ears would not be surprising, considering the irony of his apology as he hesitantly lifts your other wrist to his fangs.

You last one second after his bite before fainting, body going slump but held upright by the six vampires feeding on you. Your last thought being: how terrifying the devils of Hell live in such beautiful deceiving skins.

And also that you hope you fucking die this time.

In the dim corner of the room, the last vampire watches, taciturn, as his brothers devour every last drop of crimson liquid that misses their tongues. Eyes narrowing at their wolfish hunger and your fainted state. Then slips away without as much as a word.

You wake up painless. Skin unmarred and unbroken. In the same room, on the same bed. Yet your red stained night dress tells you that it wasn’t a nightmare. It was all real.

Everything is silent though the clockwork in your head ticks loud. You try to process how you’ve been captured by a brotherhood of vampires, blood-sucking vampires, who have chosen you to be their personal blood bag. Their ‘Feed’. And you’re now magically bound to them, a force locking you in place and unable to resist every time you try.

What the actual fuck?

How has your life thrown you from torture to torture?

None of this seems possible. Vampires are a mythical creature, a fable. You have to be going insane. Or perhaps you actually are dead and this is your personal Hell designed to torment you for the rest of your afterlife. Not that you know what you did to deserve all this.

But it had felt so real.

You touch the spot on your neck where you were bitten, goosebumps raising when you recall Taehyung’s fangs first puncturing through you as if you were no more than a peach. That pain, that shock, bathes in its immortality in your memory.

Namjoon, their leader. His dictation of the rules that they are enforcing on you, his vexingly arrogant tone, the way his eyes squint down at you. What is wrong with him?

Then there is your sister. Her death. The initial heartbreak launched into you like a missile, but then somehow fizzled away into a bittersweetness that sours your throat. You won’t cry. Death was a mercy for her, it’s surely better than your predicament right now. She was innocent, she was sinless, she was pure. She deserves death when living was a worse fate.

There’s no point grieving her loss, right?

There’s no point, you convince yourself. And so you lock her sugar sweet scent and toothy smile away in your heart-shaped box and toss the key into the ocean of your emotions.

You wonder how your uncle fares. The cause of your misery and suffering all these years. The one who showed you that you’re capable of the ugly emotion that is hate. You don’t want to think about him, your fists already clenching in anger at the reminder of his alcohol-ridden breath. You hope he’s somewhere captured in this place too, experiencing worse than what he put you and her through.

If you ever see him, you would kill him yourself. Not a single doubt about that.

All this misfortune in you and your sister’s lives stemmed from one accident that resulted in the death of your parents. Your life before, a distant reverie. You had been happy once, scarless and untraumatized. Now you’re damaged.

About to be even more damaged.

Your coping mechanism has always fluctuated between two polarities. Either you are a shell of a living being, detached and numb to all the blows, merely rotting to your expiration, or some days you are so full of anger at the unfairness of this universe, so much resentment at yourself, your uncle, and even your parents for leaving you behind.

Right now, you’re the former. Hit by a wave of anaesthesia, and you’re grateful for it because you know the alternative is the manic loss of your sanity.

Sitting up, you regard this room. It is dark and sleek in nature, use of deep metal and glass for surfaces rather than the wood you’re used to at home. No, not home. That wasn’t your home. The palette is monochrome, primarily blacks and greys, devoid of any colour, reflecting the bleakness of your mental state. The room is lit by candles beside the bed, though a multi-bulbed light hangs from the middle of the ceiling, switched off. Curtains drawn shut, you have no idea what time of day it currently is, nor the passage of time. Furniture is lacking, only a marble chest of drawers, a cushion-barren loveseat, a pot of fern which you presume is fake because what plant can grow in such dull setting, and a double shelf of books.

There are three doors, one agape that opens up to what looks like an ensuite bathroom, the other two in adjacent corners, ominously calling for you to explore. Whatever lurks behind them, you can sense it won’t be the Garden of Eden. Either way, you need to find a way out of this place.

You’re about to leave the bed and scuttle to listen at the walls when you hear two soft knocks before the closer of the two doors opens. To reveal an angelic face that you now know is nothing more than a lie, his silver hair glinting from the candle flames.

“Can I come in?” His voice is smooth, saccharine, higher pitched than you expected. Though this is your second encounter with him, you don’t remember your first too well due to the overwhelm.

Clearing your throat, you reply, “yes.” Why has he even asked for permission when he didn’t need it? It’s not like you have a choice in the matter, or any matter in here apparently.

The way he strolls in exudes a swaggering confidence, a charm that you would buy into if you hadn’t witness him transform into a black-eyed demon and feel his fangs enter your flesh. When he sits on the bed, crinkling the satin covers, you fight the urge to recoil away from his proximity. He is dressed in a royal blue velvet suit that flaunts his collarbones, and tied around his neck is a red choker, the colour of which flashes a reminder of your own choker of your own blood sewn around your neck.

“Forgive me for not introducing myself before, I’m Jimin.” At his outreached hand, you blink. So these creatures are capable of etiquette and decency.

Hesitantly, like a cat sniffing a stranger’s inquiring finger, you place your hand atop his. Almost jumping at its iciness. When he lifts it up to plant a dry delicate kiss, you yelp and withdraw harshly, not caring that your knuckles hit his nose.

“You’re a shy one.” Jimin chuckles at your reaction to hide his hurt.

“No, not shy. Just not easy and willing like you want me to be.” The venom is harbouring in your chest now, melting away your numbness into an acidic puddle.

“You have a bite to you.” He muses, more to himself than you.

“So do you.” All your hatred, for your uncle, for your life, for these vampires, you’re channeling towards him at this moment. You know it might not be completely justified, he’s not the worst one out of them. But do you need a reason not to be sour towards your captor?

His face softens, though it was soft to begin with. He doesn’t look at you like his prey, and it confuses you because that’s what you are to him. “I… am sorry. I hope you understand that I didn’t choose to be like this.”

It dawns on you right now, as you for the first time consider his point of view. He didn’t choose to be like this. He really didn’t… You have no choice but to be bound to them. But they also have no choice but to need to feed on you. A lion does not choose to be cruel to the zebra, it simply has to in order to survive.

A tiny fragment of your firepit of anger smokes into nothing.

When you don’t say anything, a hint of worry appears in his eyes. “How are you feeling though?”

Alright, you almost say. Because that’s everyone’s default answer to this question even when they don’t mean in, even when they’re on the brink of a mental breakdown bubbling beneath their skin.

“Weird. Confused.”

“That’s usual for every Feed at first. But trust me, you’ll get used to it.” His hand is smoothing the soft sheets and you can’t help the feeling that they’re longing to touch you.

“Every Feed… How many have there been before me?” The thought is chilling, to think that this is some cycle of ritual.

“Y/N, you have to understand, we are ancient beings, we have been around for millennia…” Jimin glances at you fleetingly, as if worried about your reaction.

Millennia…

You don’t know what you expected, but certainly not this. That truth is truly horrifying. Vampires have plagued this very earth you inhabit for not decades, not centuries, but millennia.

“I don’t want to confuse you with more information, I think this much is enough so I’ll leave our story for another time perhaps.” His consideration is jarring. How can he act this caring right now as if he hadn’t just fed off your blood? And may do so any second now?

“Okay.”

A silence follows your reply that you intended to be the end of the conversation. There isn’t much one can respond to okay.

You’re keenly aware of how his eyes explore you, searching your face as if it were a map to the treasure he has exhausted himself with hunting for. His desire, a thing that scares you, radiates despite him not doing much. Doubt is planted in your head, you’re unsure of how to feel as you toy with the lining of the bedding. Namjoon was so blunt, so disrespectful with his superiority complex, insisting you to submit to him. But Jimin acts as though he wishes to befriend you.

Or maybe it’s to instill a false sense of security in you, so easier to lure you into his den.

“We’ve never done this before.” Jimin speaks again. “Sharing a Feed. All of us at least. Taehyung and I have shared before, but this… I don’t know how it will work.” He scratches his temple.

“Namjoon said only one of you would feed on me a day but then…” The feeling of six pairs of fangs biting into you gives you goosebumps. You hate the weak whisper that is your voice. You sound pathetic. But when you see his guilt and pity-stricken eyes, you feel an odd satisfaction.

“Sorry… I think we all just got too excited. We haven’t tasted angel blood in almost two centuries.” When he notices your alarm, he quickly explains, “Right, you don’t know you have angel blood. Humans that possess the sacred touch of those celestials are extraordinarily rare, every creature of the night wishes to vanquish them for the fortune they bring. To us vampires, your blood is like… like ambrosia - food of the gods. The taste so euphoric that it drives us to the edge of madness with desire and greed with just one drop.”

Angel blood.

A girl as mundane and peasant as you has fucking angel blood coursing through her system.

You want to laugh. What good does this stupid ‘sacred touch of the celestials’ if it not once protected you from the evil and adversities in your life? ‘Brings good fortune?’ Where the fuck has your good fortune been hiding then?

“I think I’m the one being driven to the brink of madness here,” is what you say instead of lashing out at him. “There’s no way. Why didn’t you get my uncle then? If I have angel blood then so should he.”

Your uncle with angel blood? The biggest joke this universe has played on you yet.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. The angels choose the selected few, born with a holy purity that makes them weep.” There’s a mockery in his tone when he describes those beings, as if they’re his archnemesis. “It requires the Heaven’s approval to imbue angel blood into an earthly being.”

You force a swallow. If the angels really chose you to carry their essence, where had they been when you needed them the most? What use is the angels’ good faith when they’re not there to guard you? You have so many questions, but you don’t know whether to trust his answers.

“Where are the other people with angel blood?” Why does it have to be you, you mean. Why always you?

“We’ve sought your kind our whole existence. You have to understand that your blood is like a drug to us, it’s a compulsion drawing us to find you. In our lifetime, we have sired a lot of the angel-blooded, probably hunted you so much that the angels are angry and decided to gradually relinquish this rite. We thought you were extinct, actually. Until we picked up on your scent and found you.”

Jimin finally gives into his inhibitions and holds your hand in his. This time you don’t flinch away, yet you’re unsure why. When his thumb caresses your knuckles, something in you jolts. His touch is so gentle, so unlike what you’re used to, and so unlike how he dug into your veins. You kind of want to cry. Because it’s been so long since anyone has shown this tenderness towards you.

Clearing your throat, you say, “And now I’m yours forever.” Until you suck me dry.

He senses the bitterness in your tone, your reluctance to belong to them. He seems hurt. It sends you down a whirlpool of confusion because he shouldn’t care.

“Y/N, I just want you to know that…” At the sincerity of Jimin’s voice, you lock eyes with him. “I can’t speak for my brothers, but me personally, I will never intentionally cause you unnecessary harm. My Feeds… mean a lot to me, I view you as more than food. I value and respect you, and though you may not for a long time, I wish for you to value and respect me too, one day.”

Resentment is a tiring emotion, it is a poison to your soul more than anyone else’s. You don’t want to hate him, or any of them. His words move you in a way that makes you almost believe that he isn’t a monster. Maybe he isn’t. It’s not their fault they were born like this.

And so you take your first step towards acceptance. Perhaps this is your future now. You hate everything about it, the pain, the submission, the restraint. But what other life have you got? There is nothing for you to go back to.

All of a sudden, Jimin twists his head to the side and freezes. You study his stunning profile, how he seems to be listening intently at what sounds like silence to your ears. Then the third door to the room swings open. Namjoon’s entrance is one like a villain’s in a horror film, with church organs playing in the background and a sinister flash of lighting. He looks taken aback at the sight of Jimin but recovers quickly as he frowns in disapproval.

You take the chance while his attention isn’t on you to assess him entirely. He’s dressed in the same all-black suit, albeit shed the blazer, and you wonder why they are all dressed like they’re ready for a banquet in their own home. Or maybe this isn’t their home and you’ve just made an assumption. His hair is less neat than before, spiking up on the sides as if he has been running his hands through it in exasperation. Stern expression seeming to be permanently worn on his face, he enters the room without asking. The discrepancy of him and Jimin does not surprise you.

“What are you doing here?” Namjoon demands. So it appears that his rigid tone is used not only on you, but also his brother. It’s insufferable. You almost take a step back to square one, forgetting Jimin’s offering of peace.

When his eyes narrow at your hand in Jimin’s, the smaller male quickly release you. “Hyung, I was just checking up on her. No need to get so possessive already.” Jimin is pouting almost exaggeratedly, his previous sincerity towards you quickly dissipating into a rather comical persona. You wonder which one is a facade, which one is really him.

“Possessive?” Namjoon scoffs and stops in front of him, his height towering over the both of you. “You’re the one to talk when you have to worst temper out of all of us. If roles were reversed, and I was visiting our Feed on your day, I think you’d come for my throat.”

Jimin glances over at you at Namjoon’s exposing words. After your exchange, you can’t really imagine him with a temper at all, let alone the worst one. But these vampires have shown to be masters of disguise afterall, why should it shock you? You feel a part of the bridge Jimin was building between you crumble away. You shouldn’t have trusted him so quickly.

“I’ll leave then.” He doesn’t argue, which you guess proves that Namjoon’s point rings true. Jimin spares you one last weighty look, trying to convey to you that he had meant what he said, before leaving you alone in this dark room with the tall vampire.

Namjoon is quiet, assessing you with that dagger-like stare of his as if you’re a child who’s just doodled all over the wall with your crayons. It almost makes you shrink away, but your defiance grows bold with him, more than anyone else. You meet his eye with the same harshness he doles.

“It’s Monday today.” He says. It’s an ordinary sentence otherwise, but now it holds a meaning. You’re his Feed today.

You don’t know who out of these vampires you prefer, but it is definitely not Namjoon. He doesn’t have to say it, but you can tell by the disdain in his eyes that he does not see you as more than his next meal. Even if Jimin was pretending, at least he spoke to you with decency.

“For future reference, I would rather you not associate with anybody else but me on the days where you are mine.” The way he articulate certain words accentuates his snobbish attitude that you want to punch out of him.

And I would rather you not suck my blood or magically link my life to you until my death, you want to say. Your rage is returning at an accelerating rate.

“It wasn’t my fault he came into my room.” His brows draw at your snark.

“He won’t be doing so again. Also, refrain from using that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

You’re being especially difficult, and you pride in the way his mouth twitches in annoyance. A man of his character is easy to tick off. He moves his hand towards you and you flinch abruptly, the memory of your uncle’s raised fist fresh in your mind, in an instant reducing you to the scared girl you have been for so long. His hand ceases its motion midair.

When you meet his eyes, they are wide in alarm, as if he hadn’t expected such a reaction from you.

“I- wasn’t going to hit you.” His voice low, he lets his arm drop to his side.

His words perplex you, his softer tone even more. If you didn’t know better, you would say he looks slightly abashed. Guilty even.

Namjoon clears his throat at your silence, glare hardening once again.

“You have a sharp tongue, girl.” Tutting, he walks over to the bookshelves with his hands held behind his back like some professor.

“You have sharper teeth.”

His head whips back at your retort, then in a blinding speed you thought not humanly possible, he closes the distance he had walked from you, appearing a finger-length away in front of you. You stagger back on the bed.

“Don’t make your life difficult for yourself. As I’ve said, address me by Sir when you speak to me, and speak to me with respect, as you would to authority. Those are simple rule to abide, but if you knowingly continue to choose to break them, I have the capability to make your stay with us a living nightmare.” There is not the slightest humour in his eyes.

His threat would instill fear in anyone, except you have heard it all before and so it brushes past you like an autumn breeze. Brazen, you stand up on the mattress, the leverage allowing your height to surpass his as you look down at him.

“My life already is a living nightmare, Namjoon. It has been for a while now so your threat means nothing to me. You want me to speak to you with respect, but why the fuck should I? Your brother Jimin at least looks at me like I’m a human being. You talk to me like I’m no more than your dinner served in a dress. You want to hurt me? Go fucking ahead. Kick me, slap me, strangle me, burn me. I’ve had it all before.” Words tumble out of your mouth on their own accord, driven furious by his contempt. “You think you can command me to be your little bitch? Think again, because I will never,” you take one step closer to him, “ever respect a self-important cunt like you as long as you look down on me like that.”

The fury in his crimson irises brews quietly. Namjoon’s jaw is clenched so tightly his cheeks hollow inwards.

At the back of your mind, a small ounce of regret and fright registers. You have just yelled your wrath at the face of a millenia-old vampire, one who’s supernatural abilities you have not a single clue about yet. He could kill you right now, but you know he won’t. Many things are worse than death. He needs you alive, but only barely, enough to be his blood bag.

Still, you don’t cower as he pulls you by the wrist towards him, so hard that your foot missteps and you fall onto him as your knee gives way, inherently grabbing onto his shoulder for balance. Your faces are inches apart, closer than you would ever want to get to this monster. But what terrifies you more than your ill fate is how handsome he looks this close. His strong features carve into your core and you hate it. His musk fills your nose; he smells clean like cotton.

Your upheavance seems to have unleashed a cold storm from him. His silence is more frightening than when he speaks. But now that you are set on this path of defiance against Namjoon, you must commit to it. Can’t back down right now.

Then he brings your wrist to his mouth, grip not painful but tight enough, his eyes never leaving yours just as yours are locked on his, in a quiet battle between his dominance and your rebellion. If you look away, you let him win, you let him know that he has a hold on you.

So you watch as his sinks his sharp teeth into your pulsing vein without so much of a blink. The agony is a motherfucker, so intense your head dizzies immediately and your hand clenches spastically. Yet still, your eyes remain on him, even when your throat is itching to whimper at the pain. Does it hurt less the second time around? You would have hoped so but it doesn’t. If anything, because of the anticipation, it hurts more.

Namjoon doesn’t feed for long though. He doesn’t need to, this is no more than a show of his power. When he releases your wrist, blood oozes out of the two holes down your arm, dripping off your elbow onto the sheets.

You notice that his chest is rising particularly hard. He is trying hard to control his thirst. From Jimin’s description earlier, you gather that it isn’t easy for vampires when it comes to angel blood. It must be driving him insane right now. You don’t know how to feel. Perhaps empowered, but also afraid.

The black of his pupils is beginning to spread like the had done when they had all transformed earlier. He quickly turns away and take several steps back. Faced with his back, you slump down onto your knees in the mattress, trying to stop your bleeding wrist in your clutch.

“Fuck you.” You spit, though it comes out less harsh than inteded as a hesitancy holding you back. Provoking him is not a good idea right now.

His shoulders are rising and falling heavily as his breathing deepens. The sound of blood splattering from his chin onto the wooden floor fills the air. Right now you’re filled with uncertainty, of what is going to happen and what you should do. Is he vulnerable right now? Or is he more powerful after feeding on you? Do you make a run for it? Or do you keep your mouth shut and stay here?

“When will you listen, girl.” The deepness of his grumble stirs a wild hot sensation in you that you don’t understand. He is still facing away from you, heaving. You watch his closed fists clench tighter.

“I told you. Never.”

“How can you expect me not to lose my head when you oppose every single word I say?” His head hangs low, shoulder blades poking out at his black shirt.

“How can you expect me to willingly let you drink my blood for the rest of my life? Especially when you talk to me like that?” You train your voice to be more reasonable, less attacking, because you feel the danger lurking beneath his skin that he is trying to control.

“Just obey. Make it easier for yourself.” Watching your blood continuously flow out of your fresh wound makes your head light. You will bleed to your death if he doesn’t heal you, however he does that.

Still, you consider his suggestion. You could just obey, accept this as your life now - a Feed for seven vampires to take their turn with you. You thought your uncle had beaten all the self love out of you, but maybe after all, you still value your own worth. Submission has a disgusting taste. Or maybe it’s just that you want to anger one of them so much that they in the heat of the moment kill you, so you can finally meet your long-awaited death.

“I won’t.”

Everything is still for an ominous pause following your refusal. Cautious, you watch his strong back, unsure of his next response. Though there are no open windows or doors to the room, you feel a gust of cold air breeze past you, sending a flare of chills on the sides of your neck.

When Namjoon slowly turns to face you again, black wholly consuming his eyes, fangs protruding from his gaping mouth, still dripping with the red you paint, you know to be scared. You don’t have time to scuffle away when he whizzes to you with that impossible speed of his again. And in a blink of an eye, he is before you, knees hitting the edge of the bed. Panting, growling, yanking your throbbing arm up.

Namjoon before shifting is an insufferable prick. Namjoon after shifting is an unrecognisable beast. Well-spoken manner, pristine appearance, air of arrogance, all gone.

As he bites into your wrist again, you can’t hold in your shriek this time, not when the wounds he had pierced are still burning and bleeding profusely. You almost cry for help in your desperation, but remember that there’s no one to help you here. In this house are seven vampires, and you.

But then something feels different.

There’s a tingling in your chest, not quite enjoyable but also not unpleasant. Before you can grow accustomed to it, it accelerates like the heart-lurching pull of gravity, and squeeze your whole body into a tight compression. You feel as though you’re racing through space, yet your body is unmoving, slouched against his form.

Then, tug.

Something is pulling you. Someone is pulling you.

You look around through your half shut lids from exhaustion but see no one except the two of you.

Another tug. And you realise it’s not physical. There is a knot tying in your chest right now, and you faintly recall an uncannily similar experience when you had first woken up here. Like a cord, a rope violently pulling on your soul.

Is this… the so-called Sire Bond they spoke of that permanently fixes you to a vampire?

Glancing up gives you the answer you seek. Though his eyes are pitch dark, there is an indecipherable difference in them, something so minute yet so significant in the way he is staring back at you.

Namjoon stops feeding.

And inhales.

Exhales.

You tremble because you feel the animal that is his desire embrace you like a mist. During your encounter with him, both times when he had fed on you before, not once did he express desire even remotely unlike his brothers. Yet now…

His fingers around your wrist suddenly feel gentler. Stunned, you glare at each other, studying the other’s response at the tether binding your souls. Both your angers seem to fritter away into smoke.

Why do you feel… a hunger? A yearning for his touch?

Without realising what you’re doing, you wipe the back of your hand across his wet chin, your blood smearing into sangria stains. He lets you. You study his face, he studies yours. He is so infuriatingly handsome, you notice. You almost want to…

No, you do want to.

But why? What is wrong with you? Why are you wondering how his lips feel when they are red with your blood that he’s forcefully drinking?

You shudder because you see him glancing down at your lips too. You see the turmoil in his brain, the confusion from the twitch of his brow.

Then he firmly places his hand on your waist and bring your body to his. Though his touch is ice through the fabric of your garment, your skin feels warm. Scathing, in fact. This time when he sucks on your bleeding wrist again, it feels less aggressive. More… Intimate. You watch Namjoon’s eyes shut slowly in a state of euphoria, entranced by your taste. It doesn’t really hurt anymore; the sting is ever present, but now it is accompanied by a pulsating pleasure entering up your arm and running into your every fibre. His hand snakes around your back until you’re completely pressed onto his chest. Your own hand reaches his sternum to create space between you out of instinct but you find it stopping at his pectoral, your fingers curling over the firm muscle.

He leans into your touch, and you grapple onto his chest because your head is spinning, both from the supernatural bond coiling around you and the continuous loss of your blood.

After one last gulp, he releases your wrist from his mouth, but doesn’t let it fall to your side, instead carefully guiding it to his shoulder, urging you to circle your arm around him. Though his eyes are still obsidian and he’s still in his shifted beastly state, vulnerability is splattered across his face. This isn’t Namjoon from before. This is an entirely different being whom you don’t recognise.

Lifting his arm to his teeth, he rips into his own wrist, the puncture of his skin almost like a crunch of an apple. Your gasp is muffled when he places it against your lips, offering his blood for you to drink. To heal you.

The metallic taste you expect is absent. In its place is the juice of a fruit so fresh its sweetness cures your thirst and ailments. You don’t hesitate to swallow the fluid pouring onto your tongue. So now you know how you must taste to them.

Simply divine. Like drops of Heaven.

Though it must be magnified by miles for them. You are not even a vampire.

You watch him watch you drink his blood like it is some erotic ribald scene, the intensity of his glare shooting a flame to your core. And when your tongue licks at his skin to lap up the spilled droplets, he lets out a grunt and leans into the crown of your head. With his fangs still extended, his nose roams your hair, breathing in your scent that he is craving, but in a different way from thirst.

As Namjoon removes his arm from you, depriving you of his blood once more, you feel your bite wounds itch ferociously. When you look down at them, you see that your skin is sewing itself back together. Until it is once more porcelain-smooth. Not a single mark save for the crusts of your drying blood.

Unbelievable.

You are too shocked to even make a sound.

But that is quickly overruled by a different sensation - Namjoon’s lips brushing the tip of your ear. Your sharp inhale arouses him, you feel it stiffening at your hip. Holding your jaw firmly, he pulls away to look at you. And what an unholy sight you are: an angel-anointed girl with the blood of a vampire slathered across her snout.

There is a carnal glint in his onyx pools, you catch it the very moment before he kisses you. Hard and fast. Full of a desperation that has the bond between you winding you closer to him. You taste your own blood in his mouth, and it is bland and regular compared to his, but somehow the idea of your bloods mixing on each other’s tongues excite you. There is a hint of a voice in your head screaming at you to stop but you banish it. You have never felt a stronger desire than right now, in the arms of a man you hate.

Falling back onto the bed with his frame hovering over you, you allow him to guide your lips, wield you, mould you. When your hand reaches to cradle his cheek, he grips both your wrists and pins them above your head, holding them in place with a single hand big enough to encircle them both. Even in this monstrous inhuman state, his need for dominance eclipses the rest of his character.

You feel beside yourself under his kiss. So sensual, driven by lust. This isn’t you, but you don’t care. You don’t care about anything other than how much you crave Namjoon this very moment. When he grabs onto the flesh of your ass, you forget how much you had wanted to hurt him just minutes ago. And when you feel the tip of his fangs scrape gently against your tongue, you forget yourself altogether.

With a growl, he pulls away from the kiss and flips you over onto your front as if you weigh no more than a feather. Swiping your hair to one side, he grazes his teeth along your neck. It tickles more with the thrill of knowing that the could bite down anytime. You think you want him to. His hands ride up the flimsy material of your dress, it’s bumpy calluses exciting you. Then he puts his weight onto your ass, grinding his hard member into your crack with only mere layers of fabric separating you from his meat.

“Sir...” The word tumbles out at the peak of your moan mindlessly. You are truly not yourself.

At that, you feel his hefty cock pulse on your rear. Namjoon’s body falls onto you in defeat at your name for him as if that one syllable alone had slain him. His fingers wrap around your wrists again as he continues to grind furiously into you. The strap of your dress has slipped off your shoulder, and he takes your skin between his lips, brushed by his hot velvet tongue.

A familiar warm slick is pouring out of your cunt, wetting your panties and the crotch of his trousers. You need him so badly you want to sob. Your core is twisting and throbbing for him, aching to be stretched out. This isn’t enough. His cock sliding between the cheeks of your ass isn’t enough. You need him thrusting into you like this from behind.

“Fuck me, please!” You know his self control is ebbing away into oblivion like yours. You can’t wait any longer.

But then he sits up, so abruptly that the bed creaks loudly. Your whole back feels barren without his contact. You quickly twist to look at him, in time to see the black of his eyes slowly retreating to reveal white, then waning back to their normal crimson-tinted irises in a blink.

Instantly they are enshrouded in confusion. Disbelief.

Namjoon has shifted back to himself in an instant. No longer the demonic desire-driven vampire who was just pushing his stiff member between your ass.

“I-” He chokes.

Your high gradually rides down its hill as well as clarity begins to fill your cup once again, clearing away the fog of your vertigo. Your senses, your own self creeps back into your body as you register what was going on. Breathing heavily the both of you, for a dreaded second, all you do is look at each other.

Then without another word, he speeds out of the room like lightning, the echo of the door slamming shut after him startling you.

You blink and he is gone.

Leaving you wondering what the fuck had just happened.

And what the fuck had you done to each other.

❦

@serendipity-secrets @killcomet @askingtheimportantthingshere@blackpanther4550 @comingjimin @unatempesta-dipensieri @dapppphhhhh

❦

03/10/2019

1K notes · View notes

embersrevived · 5 years ago

Note

🍯🥛🦄💕💣😵💩

@your-dark-magic-man-mysterio (@plague-doctor-jules)

Warning: Monstrously lengthy post beyond this point

send 🍯 for a food headcanon

Nadir is quite fond of a number of dishes from her original homeland, shown below:

Koofteh (Parzian meatballs)

Ghormeh sabzi (Parzian herb stew)

Fesenjan (Parzian pomegranate chicken stew w/ walnut sauce)

Salad Olivieh (Olivier Salad, consists of sliced potatoes, peas, onions, chicken, boiled eggs, etc.)

She is also fond of dishes from other lands, e.g. beef stroganoff, dolmas (dolmeh), and especially loves almost all vegetables. With certain dishes, particularly Parzian ones, radishes, onions (especially scallions/green onions), parsley, basil, mint, and cilantro tend to complement the food quite well.

send🥛for a drink headcanon

Nadir typically imbibes water, tea, and sometimes milk and stays away from sugary or processed drinks the majority of the time. And of course a couple of cups of coffee in order to remain alert and awake throughout the day as she tends to the shop’s affairs. Other than that, she really doesn’t drink much else. She actually absolutely despises the taste of coffee, for whatever reason it is just too bitter and nasty to her taste buds; she views coffee as something of a “necessary evil” in order to make it through the day since the caffeine content in tea is too small in comparison to actually do much for her.

In addition, dealing with GERD and bouts of gastritis and having the gnawing stomach acidity associated with these conditions only exacerbated by coffee is another reason for her disdain for coffee, aside from the bitter taste. On some occasions, she especially enjoys a Parzian fizzy yogurt drink called doogh, which originated in Parzia and is comprised of yogurt, carbonated water, and salt with a soupcon of mint flavor.

send 🦄 for a physical health headcanon

((Already answered here! :) ))

send 💕 for a love headcanon

Nadir has absolutely zero experience in this department, unless we are also including familial love which is heavily expressed and emphasized in her culture. Especially since she was raised as an only child, Nadir received the undivided attention and love of both of her parents, and the tightly-knit unit of three were/are very close to one another, along with her grandparents. Growing up quite accustomed to and comfortable with living in an inter-generational household, she would be absolutely devastated if anything happened to her mother, father, or grandparents.

In terms of romantic love, Nadir has truthfully never been in any relationship, and as such she feels pretty much clueless to the real-life ‘lovey-dovey’ aspects and the experience of the romantic relationship outside of what she’s perhaps read in past novels and/or plays. In the rare event someone happens to ‘flirt’ with her, a lot of the time she may be completely oblivious to it. Or if she does catch on to it, her awkward duckling turtle self will suddenly kick in and she’ll wind up stuttering and muttering some incoherent response before quickly attempting to change the subject to something else.

Because regardless of how old she is (though she’s still relatively young in her approximately mid-twenties), she’ll always feel as if she’ll never be mentally braced for or prepared for the “process” that courtship entails, and the energy that she assumes must be expended in order to sustain a meaningful romantic relationship. She definitely feels insecurities about being at her present age while not having yet been in any sort of relationship ever, while those acquaintances and old friends from her youth seem to have already all wed or are currently engaged in the least. Though at the same time, she certainly is in no hurry to just start a relationship with an arbitrary individual since she’s felt content with remaining single for a long time now. The occasional doubts mainly arise when she hears of yet another old friend or acquaintance who’s suddenly jumped on the matrimony bandwagon, and she finds herself wondering how people transition so quickly from casual dating to proposal and weddings.

Gods give patience, resolve, and strength to any individual who even entertains the thought of ‘wooing’ or ‘courting’ her, should that ever even happen … Lord knows they’re gonna need it haha. A lot of the time she will merely dismiss someone’s kind actions or words as simply just that, and any supposedly ‘flirtatious’ comments are viewed as merely facetious banter with no deeper meaning to them. Nadir feels she is far too awkward and lackluster to possibly captivate the interest of or captivate another human being in any such manner.

send 💣 for a stress headcanon

Her anxiety and stress are heavily codependent on one another a lot of the time, i.e. the more stress something is causing her or that she is feeling due to any situation, the more intensely the anxiety will flare up at that given time. During stressful and inconvenient situations, Nadir sometimes will nervously gnaw at the tips of her fingernails without fully realizing it, and might also start searching for any small, saccharine snack (e.g. bits of dark chocolate) whose sugary content can help momentarily distract her mind from the source or reason for the stress. At least it feels that way to her. If the stress becomes just too much, she’ll probably break down into tears before regaining the motivation and energy to tackle whatever it is that is causing the problem again.

send 😵 for a sickness headcanon

Nadir’s sick spells tend to be related mostly to her bouts of headaches, nausea, and vomiting associated with the occasional migraine, along with her allergies which can at times exacerbate her asthmatic symptoms depending on the amount of allergens (e.g. pollen) in the air. If the migraine is especially bad and debilitating, Nadir will have to lie down for hours if necessary until the pain subsides, as sometimes even pain-relieving medications/NSAIDs fail to do much when the migraines have escalated to a certain point. She is at times forgetful and inconsistent with her caffeine doses, which is responsible for the withdrawal behind many of the migraines, along with hormonal fluctuations in general.

In general, Nadir also tends to be more sensitive to cooler/cold temperatures than other individuals. So if the atmosphere becomes even the slightest bit chilly, she immediately puts on at least a light jacket to make sure she doesn’t come down with a cold. Because with all the work that needs to be done around the magic shoppe, and with Asra going on even more frequent trips and mysterious outings, Nadir really needs to salvage all the energy and strength she can.

send 💩 for a ridiculous headcanon

Depending on the person and who’s doing it, Nadir internally cannot help but become low-key distressed if someone starts tinkering with or moving around objects that she’s taken the time to organize and arrange. She most certainly realizes this is a rather minor and absolutely ridiculous peeve. As such, she does her best to not demonstrate any visible facial reaction or vocalization of annoyance if someone does something like move around or tinker with any of her collectible figurines (e.g. little glass and porcelain teddy bear figurines), or attempt to explore the contents of the courier cabinet without informing her first.

Especially if it’s someone she’s on very amiable terms with or likes a lot, she doesn’t want to potentially alienate a close comrade over such a petty thing, as she’s fully aware that expressing discontent over that would be blowing things out of proportion and isn’t worth potentially hurting someone’s feelings or creating a tense and awkward situation. Though she’d definitely appreciate it if the person who wished to take a look at one of her collectibles asked her first. This way, she’d be 'prepared’ to see the item(s) taken out of its/their designated spot(s) in advance.

For a quirkier as opposed to a ridiculous headcanon, Nadir also sometimes scribbles down little poems and sketches of certain people she’s grown fond of and likes. But she’d absolutely die if the subject of said poem or drawing ever happened to come across it in the shop, especially since she’s rather disorganized in keeping all the bits and slips of paper containing the sketches and odes in one place.

#ask memes #plague-doctor-jules #Apprentice:Nadir #About #(thank you for sending!! :) )#long post #(gaaaah I apologize for the atrocious length >.<)#(once I started explaining and adding more background to a few things #I found it hard to stop elaborating haha ^^")

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1nspirited-blog · 7 years ago

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the five stages of grief

The casket is moved away from the room as family members and close friends follow behind, fruitlessly dabbing at their faces with tissues while they sob uncontrollably.

The service ends with a heavy atmosphere, but to some, it feels like the hardest part (which was saying goodbye) is finally over. But getting over this kind of situation isn’t as easy as it sounds. Here enters the five stages of grief.

I. Denial

- The first stage. You’re still taking the world on with fresh wounds, trying to keep it together but failing horribly. You try to hold onto some semblance of order, but in reality, it is just the beginning of this terribly long healing process. It helps you cope while you’re in a terrible position, letting the world know that you can only take so much.

Dull eyes dart around, examining the bedroom from a whole new perspective. I don’t feel like doing anything, to be quite honest. The dim glow of the iPad screen calling to me could not alleviate the gnawing pain in my chest, so I just curl underneath the blankets as my eyes flutter shut. A deep blackness pervades my vision, only reminding me of how the world has lost another kind soul to the dreary unknown. Numb, I try and surrender myself to a state of restfulness.

II. Anger

- The second stage. You start radiating a hostile aura to those who wish to comfort you. Oftentimes, you might even start questioning the presence of God in this situation. It may seem a bit concerning, but anger is a necessary phase. It is an indication of how intense your grief and love is. Bottling these emotions will only lead you into an even worse state. This needs to be expressed so people can delve into deeper emotions; ones you try to keep under close watch.

“I can’t talk right now,” I growl lightly, pressing my legs against my chest. The laptop in front of me now seems like a forgotten case as I assess the situation in my mind. I lost someone I loved to the inevitability of death. I can’t help but feel like I didn’t do enough, and I was angry at myself for that. I kept trying to find things to blame for what happened. But alas, that cannot bring the soul of the departed back to reality.

III. Bargaining

- The third stage. After experiencing loss, bargaining can be considered as some sort of promise or agreement. Sometimes, before being whisked away to sleep, you would clasp your hands and pray to the Lord, “I promise I’ll try harder to become a good person. Please don’t take anyone I love away anytime soon.” Accompanying this stage of grief is guilt. This is where you start looking back at what could have been, and if things could have ended differently if you had paid more attention.

My gaze meets the ceiling as I lie down on the bed. Now that I think about it, I’ve never made too much of an effort to talk to my loved one. I don’t think I will get to anytime soon, that’s for sure. ‘If only I were more considerate,” I think, reprimanding myself for my selfish actions. I had all the time in the world, but I couldn’t even spare a few minutes each day to have a conversation with my now deceased family member. Tonight is the night where I enter into a really personal conversation with God, mentioning that I am sorry for my lack of attempts and how I wish he will continue to protect the people I hold dear.

IV. Depression

- The fourth stage. A much more profound sadness takes over, and you might feel as if this part of the process is endless. This stage puts you in a reflective position, making you start to question the point of things. And as worrying as it sounds, it is an appropriate response to a terrible occurrence.

I don’t feel like talking. I don’t move from my current state. I just stare absently into my hands while my back is slouched. Tears sting my eyes, and I let out a tired sigh. Sometimes, the things I do just seem very futile. As if it didn’t matter because the results are already determined.

V. Acceptance

- The final stage. You finally accept the reality that your deceased loved one is no longer here. Here you have acknowledged the loss of their physical presence and realize that things have changed, and you have to adjust to it. No, this does not mean you are okay with how things went, but it definitely is a move upward. This way you can move on and create new relationships and experiences.

Days have passed. I cannot keep myself down forever because of my loss. Yes, it will still hurt when I look back at what has happened, but I know that it would be better if I learned to accept these sort of situations. This way I can clear myself of my inhibitions and proceed to discover new things. Having understood the things I’ve experienced, I will do what I can to help not only myself, but also others who may go through the same thing.

#lyrical essay

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rebelliousredknight · 8 years ago

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What does an eldritch monster look like?

((Not sure if you were asking the muses or the mun, but seeing how I know so much more on the subject than they do…

Eldritch monsters can come in many different forms but all of them are pretty horrifying to look at, or if you’re as into horror as I am, some of them are pretty darn cute.

Putting this under a read more because its going to be image heavy and definitely very text heavy too.

Okay so, going into some of the monsters from the C’thulhu Mythos, the ones I’m going to mention should be fairly well-known. A couple may not be but this isn’t a subject I get to talk about much thus why this going to be long!

First off are the Shoggoths!

Lovecraft described the Shoggoths as a, “formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes; rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile.” So, essentially, they’re large, shape shifting blobs.

That in itself is unsettling enough, but the history makes them all the creepier.

Originally, they were created for underwater construction in the arctic by the Elder Things. They were the first alien species on Earth in Lovecraft’s mythos and while the Elder Things were plenty gross themselves - being man-sized, barrel shaped aliens with tentacles - they weren’t quite up there on the gross scale with their creations.

At some point after being created, the Shoggoths revolted against their creators and this is especially concerning given that they were created to be mindless workers. They developed some sort of sentient intelligence over time, however, and rebelled against the Elder Things. The idea that, aside from being huge, shape shifting, underwater blobs, they were also learning, is definitely a pretty potent sleep repellent.

Next we have the Tsathoggua!

Tsathoggua is described in a few different stories with slightly different appearances. In The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, the idols that depict him are described as, “He was very squat and pot-bellied, his head was more like a monstrous toad than a deity, and his whole body was covered with an imitation of short fur, giving somehow a vague sensation of both the bat and the sloth His sleepy lids were half-lowered over his globular eyes; and the tip of a queer tongue issued from his fat mouth.”

That’s definitely creepy but there’s something about his description in The Seven Geases that’s a special kind of unsettling.

“In that secret cave in the bowels of Voormithadreth… abides from eldermost eons the god Tsathoggua. You shall know Tsathoggua by his great girth and his batlike furriness and the look of a sleepy black toad which he has eternally. He will rise not from his place, even in the ravening of hunger, but will wait in divine slothfulness for the sacrifice.”

No matter who describes Tsathoggua, he is cosmically disgusting.

Next up, Nyarlothotep!

Nyarlathotep is just about everywhere in the Cthulhu Mythos. He first shows up in a self-titled story where he appears as a “tall, swarthy man”, looking similar to Egyptian Pharaohs. His strangely bland appearance leads the readers to believe that he is simply just a wizard of some sort. In fact, in Nyarlathotep, he is just that.

However, we get a hint that things are not as they seem when he travels as a magician and wherever he goes, the inhabitants of the town begin having terrible nightmares.

After that introduction, we are shown a scene where Nyarlathotep is performing magic tricks for a crowd including the narrator of the story. The narrator openly dismisses the Outer God as nothing more than a phony, just doing slight of hand rather than actual magic as Nyarlathotep claims. In anger at having his abilities challenged, he disperses the group and they leave in three lines. The first disappears around a corner, shortly followed by a moaning sound. The second goes into a subway station, followed by the sound of insane laughter. The third group, which includes the narrator, leaves the city and is shown bizarre, horrifying visions of terrible landscapes. From these visions, the third group realizes that something horrible has come to Earth.

What makes Nyarlathotep so terrible is the mundane appearance he likes to use when he walks among humans. It forces the people around him to exist near an unspeakable evil without realizing it. Even beyond the story, Nyarlathotep drives home the basic human fear of the unknown. Nyarlathotep represents the fear that comes with never being able to truly know another’s intentions.

Next, Yog-Sothoth!

Few of Lovecraft’s creations have more of a presence throughout the mythos than Yog-Sothoth. Its first mention came in the short novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, where Yog-Sothoth is mentioned many times in the incantations used by the protagonist of the story. From there it would appear in other works such as At the Mountains of Madness, where one of its avatars is implied to be the thing beyond the mountains that even the Elder Things fear. In The Dunwich Horror, Yog-Sothoth is said to be the progenitor of the Dunwich Abomination.

Though it has been described many different ways across its appearances, there is an agreement among the various mythos authors that it is a mass of glowing orbs, often shown with tendrils and/or eyes. Though any description of its appearance is likely correct because, according to the The Dunwich Horror, Yog-Sothoth exists outside of any planes of material reality.

Despite existing outside of our physical universe, Yog-Sothoth still has the ability to influence it. In The Dunwich Horror, it is revealed that it can control time and space. In that same story, it also manages to impregnate a woman from outside of the universe.

Yog-Sothoth isn’t the same kind of terrifying as a lot of the other creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos because we never actually see it or come into direct contact with it. The fear of this Outer God comes from its sheer power rather than some insidious implication. Its ability to reach into any time or place, and influence it however it likes means that, at least where Yog-Sothoth is concerned, security is non-existent.

And I promise this is the last one since this is getting long, but here we have Azathoth!

Azathoth, also known as the “Nuclear Chaos” or “Blind Idiot God”, was first mentioned as the title of an unfinished novel turned short story published by Lovecraft in 1938, but written in 1927. It is the Cthulhu Mythos’s creation deity. Differentiating itself from other creation deities, Azathoth is shown to be completely unaware of its actions. It simply “dreamed” the universe into existence, and will likely “dream” it out of existence eventually.

“The Blind, Idiot God” is often mentioned in passing, kept to the fringes of stories in order to drive home the unknowable and terrible nature of the creator deity, so descriptions of its appearance are few and far between. In The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, however, Lovecraft gave one of the most complete looks at Azathoth and its lair:

“Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.”

The terror surrounding Azathoth stems from something pretty simple: it tears the cosmic safety net out from under us; the net being the truth that the creator god isn’t benevolent, or perhaps even more unsettling, malevolent either, producing the idea that morality can be divine in nature. This is obviously a pretty awful prospect for most religious people. It points to conventional morality being a human creations, and thus, inherently flawed.

What’s worse is that the implications of Azathoth are not limited to the religiously devout. As people who live in a universe created accidentally by this completely unaware creator deity, we can never be certain that it won’t just as accidentally end it, too.

Azathoth’s terror comes from the utter sense of uncertainty it leaves intelligent life with. Since it has no mind, and thus, no purpose behind its actions, we have no solid footing to stand on when dealing with it. Azathoth represents the idea that safety isn’t just lost, but never existed in the first place.

So, we do find that a common theme with eldritch monsters seems to be otherworldly aliens with many eyes, tentacles, or mouths and representing a part of the world we will never fully comprehend or an instinctual fear.

#kaijulover142 #eldritch horrors #eldritch deities #in which mun goes on about one of her favorite subjects

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bsdblogger · 8 years ago

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What You Need to Know about Dazai Osamu and The Dark Era

this needed to be done

if you do not intend on reading Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era (translated beautifully by @nkhrchy here on tumblr), i implore you to at least read about the juiciest missing details so you can do the following with me:

love Oda more

love Ango more

suffer more

ship more??? hmmm??

i was thrilled when i found out the Dark Era was getting an anime adaptation. i just had the chance to watch everything from the second cur this Christmas break college devoured my free time and ate my soul, and i was tremendously pleased with the execution and the art. i did have a couple issues with it, but i can’t really complain. and four episodes???? god, we are so blessed. amazing. now everyone may know of Oda and we can all suffer together

DEEPER DETAILS FROM THE LIGHT NOVEL, HERE WE GO:

Oda:

ahhhh, so much about oda. for starters, there’s so much great inner Oda dialogue.

“Because the one who has gone missing is intelligence agent Sakaguchi Ango.”

If there was someone who could look into my heart, they would be lucky to see the image of a majestic, erupting volcano. Countless question marks burst forth from the volcano’s mouth, filling the air.

In reality, I curl my fingers a little.

Source: translation by @nkhrchy

^this passage sums up Oda pretty well actually! much of the ln is narrated by him. in the anime, we get some of Oda’s inner dialogue, but not the true bulk of it. he’s definitely a deep one and doesn’t let on that much about his emotions and feelings

the passage above also shows Oda’s faithfulness to Ango as a friend—you get a little bit of his faithfulness in the anime, but not to the extent in the ln. after they discovered the gun in Ango’s safe, Oda constantly struggles with the idea of Ango betraying them:

Why did Ango disappear?... I roam Yokohama’s streets looking for a non-existent glimmer of hope.

In another scenario:

Why would Ango want to betray the organisation?

During former intelligence wars, in order to get a member of the enemy organisation to betray them, money, sex, family, self-esteem, a sense of belonging could all become an obstacle. As long as all of these are struck down, the other party would agree to defect. So what is Ango’s reason for defecting and seeking refuge with Mimic?

To find the answer, I look beside me at Dazai.

Dazai continues to keep his head low, in deep thought. His expression—

Dazai is—

“—Hahaha!”

Laughing.

“I initially thought it was just a normal criminal organisation – but if it’s an organisation that Ango would seek refuge in, that means they’re not the sort of people to come crying and begging for forgiveness after a little lecture. On top of that, Ango as an enemy won’t be an easy adversary, not at all. Isn’t this exciting? It’ll definitely force me into desperation, and then—“

“Dazai!”

Hearing my call, Dazai stops talking. It’s not that I want to say something, but just to get him to quit it.

^this scene is a huge example showing how much Ango’s questionable disappearance bothers Oda. he doesn’t want to think of it as betrayal, let alone have Dazai laughing about it

even as Ango betrayed Oda right in front of his own eyes, Oda still feels tremendous pain at the thought of Ango abandoning him:

With my numb tongue, I say a few words towards Ango’s disappearing back. As to what I said, I don’t remember myself, but an indescribable loneliness fills my heart. My emotions feel like they’re at the end of the universe.

i also felt the anime underplayed how much Oda understood Dazai:

There is no one who knows Dazai’s inner self.

In the mafia, no one will look at what’s in their colleagues. This is an unspoken rule. They will not open up the lid over one’s chest to look at their heart and comment at the darkness stuffed within. This is a merit of the mafia.

But maybe that is wrong. At least it is for the man sitting beside me. Perhaps someone should persistently tie Dazai up, open the lid over his chest and stuff the head of a vacuum cleaner in. They have to let Dazai, who should be screaming in pain and resisting, settle down. Following which, the difficult things in his heart must all be dragged out under the sun and stepped on mercilessly.

mind you, this is a pretty unsettling passage, and @nkhrchy mentioned that translating it was a bit awk, but nonetheless—it goes to show that Oda understands how greatly darkness plagues Dazai. he knows Dazai is a dark and merciless mafioso, but he also sees him as being human

Oda really examines what Dazai reveals about himself too:

“I’m not upset... Things worth pursuing will always disappear the moment before you get them. Nothing is worth prolonging a painful life to pursue.”

I look at Dazai intently. Although we have known each other for very long, this is the first time Dazai has spoken about himself. One can see something as sharp as a giant fishhook piercing and gnawing into Dazai’s life.

but the best example of how much Oda understands Dazai comes after the mimic sniper scene, when Dazai dared the sniper to kill him. after Dazai had called it acting, Oda reflected on the incident and thought this:

As Dazai pointed to his forehead and approached the muzzle, the look on his face – like that of a child about to burst into tears – had already been branded upon my eyes.

Oda knows that little go-ahead-and-kill-me didn’t just come out of nowhere

The last particular thing I wanted to mention about Oda was the part when he visited his orphans before they all died *sobs*. perhaps it’s just me, but Oda came off rather stiff and serious? don’t get me wrong, he definitely thinks to himself, “I need to show them just how terrifying a true mafioso is.” however, he doesn’t say it to the kids. and, well, this doesn’t happen:

(for the record, he does tickle the one kid until he surrenders)

i get the point that the anime was trying to convey though. in the ln, Oda mentioned that the oldest boy wanted to be a mafioso when he grew up. so if you interpreted Oda as being too stiff or serious in this scene, just know that he was only trying to steer them from a life violence and death—to protect them. you should also know that Oda’s whole point of staying in the mafia was to earn enough money to provide food and shelter for these young orphans, just until they grew up and became independent and oh my god Oda is really too pure for this world

Ango:

oh god, you must understand how much Ango still wanted to be friends with Oda and Dazai

after Oda saved Ango from the exploding building, Oda gave him a handkerchief for his injury. then, after Oda fell into the magical temari ball trap, Ango tucked the handkerchief back into his hand, BUT WITH A NAPKIN FROM THE BAR. it’s as Dazai explains:

“A napkin from this store was wedged inside. It’s too obvious! Information agents will use unexpectedly dated methods sometimes.”

and if this does not show that Ango valued their friendship, let it be known that there was a scene in the ln with Ango looking at photographs after Oda’s death. and i mean, come on, they have to be the photographs Dazai requested they take at the bar. Ango was reminiscing over their friendship

The orphans:

i’m sorry, but you must know this

in the anime, the bus exploded right after Oda went back outside. however, in the ln, there’s a chase prolonging your hopes that the orphans live that ultimately serves to only crush your spirit

Oda ended up chasing the bus, and he somehow got on top of a minivan in front of the bus. he actually got the bus to crash into the minivan, but before he can reach the bus—the force of the explosion throws him into another car. Oda literally talks about wanting to get there before the explosion because (presumably) he saw it six seconds ahead of time through his ability Flawless. he thinks to himself, “Even if it’s one second earlier, I want to run to the bus.” which that, of course, would have killed him. the tragic thing about this though, he couldn’t physically do this because he was too injured to move and get there

and okay, i felt such things with the extra details in the light novel. this is what Oda describes before chasing the bus:

Through the gaps of the curtains, I can see someone sticking their hand out...

The boy notices me and widens his eyes. It is the oldest boy who said his dream is to become a mafioso. When he notices my gaze, he pulls the curtain open forcefully without hesitation. Behind his back, I can see all the kids. The young boy has pulled the curtain open for me to see this sight.

identifying the boy who had opened the curtains as the one who wanted to join the mafia is like an additional stab in the heart

Oda’s death:

okay, so you know this thing in episode 23:

okay, i actually don’t know what that is, but in the manga, it’s either a cigarette box or a matchbox with a city on it (maybe Yokohoma?) anyway, this was the very last thing Oda did before his death:

With trembling fingers, Odasaku draws out a cigarette from his coat, bringing it to his mouth in a strenuous action.

and so i believe Dazai was holding Oda’s cigarette box in the manga. something that was probably on Oda’s very person at the time of his death. so, to me, the box is a symbol of Oda — not a symbol of his memories at the bar with Oda and Ango. and for the record, Oda had given up smoking, but he found the old box and lit up one of the cigarettes as he was saying his final goodnight to the orphans. i think of it as like lighting a candle in their memories

A stream of faint purple smoke rises from the cigarette silently. I watch it.

“Sleep tight in the quiet place where you all are. I’ll take revenge for you all.”

I hold the cigarette between my fingers, watching the smoke. The cigarette finishes burning and the smoke disappears.

details from the light novel may also give you more to ship

perhaps you have missed two shipping candidates while watching the anime adaptation. have you ever entertained the shipping of OdaGide? don’t write this ship off until you read this post. no one writes about OdaGide better than @nkhrchy, our kayak captain

Additional thoughts on the anime arc:

Ages: this is a minor thing, but i was a bit disappointed that Dazai, Ango, and Akutagawa did not appear that much younger in the anime. i know it’s only a four year difference and it’s not that great, but the light novel had six illustration pages and i really enjoyed seeing the manga version of 16 year old baby Akutagawa in them. idk man. i need more baby Akutagawa. i also wanted younger Dazai because it’s such a pleasing thing to see a young soul already so dark? you can see the light novel illustrations here, as scanned by @akutagawaprize

Sound: okay, well this is just a random thing, but there was a lot of slow music and soft talking. it was fitting, but i expected a bit more playfulness in some parts. especially with Dazai’s goofy parts. i get it’s the dark era, but it didn’t feel so despondent that early on in the ln?

wow, what a long post. forgive me. i have so many feelings about this.

#long time no post #college ate my soul #i literally didn't have time to watch any new episodes until december #Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era #light novel #anime #dazai #oda sakunosuke #odasaku #sakaguchi ango

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