#object conundrum
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Here's the teams and the guys in my show
#finally finished all the assets#object conundrum#osc#object oc#my show#oh yeah#osc art#art#my art#OC
61 notes
·
View notes
Text
if chibnall was the one writing this season you lot would be talking VERY differently
#anti rtd#oomfs ur so right#s14 is the kinda mid that people think his era was#and yet#you throw in that razzle dazzle written by rtd and all of a sudden there's no criticisms!#or worse somehow#is how its a polite and gentle reframing of chibs criticism#like with him it was hey he ate this singular one thing But I KNOW CHIBS IS BAD HE'S TERRIBLE DONT WORRY I KNOW IT#and with rtd its oh i disliked this nonsensical and objectively bad writing but ummm guys i lOVED LOVED everything else i swear#its soooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO#it must be studied#but i knew yous were a lost cause when we had 14/15 running around calling men hot bc yes totally something the doctor just does#not ooc at allllll#bc this is how we know the doctor is queer now guys#dont you know it#i have like a million other complaints i miss being like oh hey that was mid/bad and moved on with my life 😭😭#god i think 13 era killed me bc now i do care about u hypocritical losers#rip 15ruby i wish i cared and that you had any development#ncuti millie i would like to hang out with you though#15 maybe you'll cry less next season so that the emotional scenes have impact perhaps 🙏🏾🙏🏾#ramblings of an insomniac#god i just remembered the whole real mum antics#fuck i need to go i gotta go!!!!#ps the ncuti conundrum where he's the most charismatic dr in nuwho whilst also being the worst actor is driving me nuts#idk if its the characterisation or his lack of ability in creating that inner psychology that connective tissue between his louder acting#which he's great at btw!#idk maybe that one monologue in boom made me go yes okay here we goooo#but then every other moment has been like hmmmnnnmtgodhd okay whateve#i think he needed more acting prep before he got this role bc he's got Something he could be Great but the subtle stuff is lacking#sooo hoping he can grow into that but it's giving perfect actor wrong time.... and if ur white ur not allowed to agree with me shush go away
43 notes
·
View notes
Note
If teddy bear WAS in iii you KNOW they’d fuck up her character. Make her steven universe redemption arc nice now. It’d be terrible character assassination for a character with like. no character to assassinate
*Shaking and Crying* Nuh Uh!!!
Real Talk Though Yeah She'd Be Boring Cuz ii Hates Writing Women Who are Just Mean Assholes and Not Catty or Classy or Whatever. However I Know Her Making Cute Faces and Spinning Would Work on Me, I'd Be Suckered In So Easily It Would Be Legitimately Shameful.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Have you considered The Ancient Advice Of The Sages (by which I mean the Evil Overlord List) advising one to monologue only after killing someone and not before, so as to minimize their ability to stall for time and escape?
if a supervillain said "you wont kill me thatd make you just like me" i would simply say "no it wouldnt id be saving millions of people" and the villain would say "but youd be dooming yourself. could you really live knowing youre a killer" and id say "well id certainly have trouble. ill probably be very sad about it. definitely a lot to unpack" and theyd say "so you wont do it" and id say "oh no im still gonna" and theyd say "what" and id say "youre a supervillain responsible for countless deaths and yet here you are desperately trying to bargain for your life. you want to live. which means you can easily live with yourself after being responsible for countless deaths. i, on the other hand, will at the very least have tremendous difficulty with even killing just one person and at worst might just jump out a window right after i do it. the very nature of this whole conversation about whether we are the same has proven to me we are very much not the same and i am certain killing you to save millions is the morally correct decision here" and theyd say "what" and id say "get killed idiot"
#Jack Slash taking hostages like-#dude you will objectively kill more people later than you have hostages now if I don't kill you and we both know that#That fact prevents any ethical conundrum about my course of action to arise#because literally anything I take which would plausibly further the cause of you dying is therefor a net-good for society#I could close for melee against you in the middle of NYC while wielding a Davy Crockett and that would objectively constitute Harm Reductio#In this essay I will#(continue bitching about Worm til my voice gives out)
80K notes
·
View notes
Text
merriment shrine 🎄⛩️
synopsis: you're the newest concubine in Lord Sukuna's household and the object of his unrelenting ruminations (or is it desire?). When Uraume tasks you with being in charge of the Christmas festivities while Sukuna is away, you can only hope you'll deliver. What could go wrong? 🎄 largely inspired by this fic by @/sttoru 💕 words: 7.5k
cw: minors dni, x FEM!READER(Yuri), concubines, smut(p in v, double penetration(not too detailed), monster sex? I guess bc true form!Sukuna sex is not normal sex, oral f and m receiving, titty fucking, degradation, creampie(not too detailed), cum eating), violence, blood, Sukuna is a warning on his own, true form!Sukuna, SUKUNA HAS BEEF WITH BABY JESUS. MOCKING OF RELIGION/BLASPHEMY (PLS DONT READ IF THAT BOTHERS YOU. IT'S SUKUNA FFS) decapitation, bullying, heian era but it's all over the place historically and NOT accurate. angst, fluff, crack
a/n: For the secret Santa fic exchange event by @nanamiscocksleeve written for @heian-era-housewife ! I deeply apologize for the late entry! I was very intimidated writing for him for the first time but I hope you like it. 😩🎅🏽🎄💕 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!✨
my holiday smut masterlist 🎄
dividers by @/saradika-graphics. pics from pinterest
You mused peacefully as you took in the gentle dance of snowflakes outside your chamber windows, thinking if you squinted hard enough you could make out the intricate shape of each one before they landed silently on the thin dusty layer of those that fell before on the undisturbed gardens.
You hugged your kimono a little tighter around you as you sipped your tea you had laced with some ginger and cinnamon, much to the confusion of the cooks in the kitchen. The distant glare of the fireplace bestowed a soothing warmth that kept you locked in place.
Since you arrived, it quickly became no secret that you, the newest concubine to join the harem under the formidable king of curses, brought with you a peculiarity. Certain quirks that endeared you to the servants and annoyed the other concubines.
You emitted a humble air about you like the shades of aqua and seafoam green you gravitated towards. You often opted for untouched corners of the garden next to the pond and the library where you could read and write in solitude that became mistaken for arrogance by the others.
And for whatever reason or another, you insisted on this...holiday business or whatever the hell you called it, gently humming those insufferable tunes under your breath that carried though the marble hallways and adorning your room in makeshift tinsel and boughs of holly you strung together from stray pieces of greenery you found by the koi pond.
It was a very frustrating type of conundrum Sukuna didn't appreciate that was causing ripples in his vast household, especially now, as he studies you from his neighboring window on the opposite side of the estate, stroking his chin, eyes narrowed.
"My Lord." Uraume bows as their smaller frame appears in his doorway.
"Speak." Sukuna responds, not tearing those eyes of a deep rose away from where you were perched in your window, a pointed black claw gently scratching the sharp ridge of his jaw in deep thought.
"I need to know of your plans for the winter feast preparations."
"What of it?" Sukuna answers coldly.
Uraume doesn't flinch, being all too familiar with Sukuna's temperament. They knew he would rather fork out his eyeballs than waste time with frivolous matters like festive planning. Too reminiscent of the folly those disgusting humans preoccupied themselves with.
But, Uraume also knew the blind fury that would await them should they make arrangements for anything impacting the routine functions of Sukuna's household without his knowledge.
"A proposal, my lord." Uraume continues calmly. "Since we are not expecting your grace's presence until the 24th, perhaps we leave the bulk of the planning to someone else?"
Sukuna scoffed. "And who would that be?"
"One of the concubines."
"Who? He asks, slight incredulity now mixed in his sternness. "Her?"
"She...brings a new set of traditions."
"I am aware, I was not born yesterday."
"...I thought his majesty would appreciate-"
"Appreciate? Uraume, do not speak foolishly." Sukuna scolded, now fully turned to face them, his two upper muscular arms folded across his body.
Uraume merely stayed where they were, silent, undemonstrative of any reaction which they knew Sukuna preferred while he strode about the room, beginning to pace.
Finally, Sukuna came to a stop. "So be it. As long as I am not to be trifled with such matters again until my return, I do not care what the little brat does."
He paused, his expression unmoving as he addresses them one more time. "I have the most trust in your judgement, Uraume. Do not disappoint me."
"Yes, my Lord." Uraume bows again as Sukuna takes his leave, but not before eyeing you one more lingering glance before he departs, a shred of annoyance when he realizes despite the distance, he wouldn't be rid of you from his thoughts anytime soon.
-----
"My lady." Uraume addresses you from your doorway and you stand abruptly, bowing in acknowledgement.
"Uraume, good to see you."
"Thank you." Uraume answers pleasantly, a slight inflection in their tone carrying a fondness at your usual kindness towards them.
Although you were aloof, odd, and provided more than an earful that Uraume had to bear witness to from the other concubines, at least you treated them respectfully, unlike them.
"Lord Sukuna has departed on business with no plans to return until the 24th."
You stood up slowly, quirking a curious brow at the unexpected news.
"It is tradition that his grace hosts a feast for the winter solstice." Uraume explains. "To usher in the cold season and provide festivities. But, due to his absence, we are in need of someone to make arrangements..." Uraume clears their throat, clearly a little nervous at what your response will be, since the success of it was mostly riding on your willingness to participate.
"Would you be willing to lead the preparations, my lady?"
Silence hangs in mid air before you speak. "Me?"
"Of course." Uraume hums. "I don't doubt you'll be more than capable. I, along with many others, have noticed you celebrating this-Christmas? You call it?"
"Yes, that's right." You straighten up a little. "I mean, I'd love throw a celebration for Lord Sukuna. But, why me?"
"Well, my lady. As I said before, you are very capable. I noticed you seem to have an eye for these kinds of details between your drawings, writings, and your.." Their fuschia eyes flicker briefly to the parchment ornaments adorning a potted plant in the corner. "...creations." Their lip curls upward in a meek grin.
"Between you and I, I have never cared much for the traditions, either. Too overwhelming. But, I am curious about yours. You've caused quite a stir among the ladies of the house and, if I may speak openly..." Uraume gulps and looks at the walls nervously as if they had eyes into the conversation before lowering their voice.
"You are the first in a long while whom I have been able to tolerate, and who has treated me kindly unlike so many before you."
You give Uraume a sympathetic glance, now determined to deliver on your promise of a celebration worth waiting for.
"We'll start tomorrow."
----
The shrine slowly transformed day by day. The halls became lined with pine needles accented by soft candles that emitted a heavenly glow. As the snow piled up, you recruited the help of the servants, smiling at their bewildered expressions that turned to pure joy as they touched snow for the first time, constructing an army of snowmen with various hats, scarves, and other accessories they could find around the estate, complete with carrot noses provided by the kitchen.
You, Uraume, and a team of gardeners from the palace ventured into the woods and hand selected multiple spruce trees, and, with their help, chopped them down, strapping them with ropes and dragging them back so the shrine could have its own assortment of Christmas trees, complete with what seemed to be nearly hundreds of crochet and parchment snowflake ornaments.
You had fashioned them with Uraume and some of the other ladies in waiting during craft hours in the evenings. Presents wrapped in scarlet ribbons and offerings to Sukuna began to encircle the bottom of the largest tree in the grand hall.
Across the way, however, the group of other concubines avoided the spreading merriment with disdain and scowls on their faces, not even touching or wandering in the vicinity of the Christmas trappings as though it contained a plague.
You began hosting caroling rehearsals and only you, Uraume, and a few other members of the kitchens staff had joined while your bitter cohorts tried their best to drown out the noise on the far side of the shrine, the leader of the group shooting a fiery glare at one of her minions when she began to blindly hum the catchy tune.
As Christmas Eve drew closer, the warm baked goodies become more innumerable as they popped out of the kitchen and the bakers perfected their abilities to whip up treats worthy of the season. The shrine had adopted a permanent scent of gingerbread, cinnamon, pine and peppermint that followed and clung to your robes.
----
On the 23rd, the day before Christmas Eve, you and Uraume were baking and laughing with flour stained faces,
"To think, we did all this in just a few weeks' time." Uraume mused as they squished the gingerbread dough between their fingers. "Lord Sukuna will be pleased. Yes, very pleased with you indeed."
The sentiment left you with a very healthy dose of fluster as you grinned at the thought of his majesty marveling at all the work you did just for him, possibly rewarding you with something much better than you could imagine as those eyes of deep rose bestowed you subtle admiration that had not graced anyone else.
Unknown to you, an eavesdropping ear belonging to one of the concubines catches wind of this statement and skitters away quickly to spread her message to the others.
----
"Spit it out already!" The cruel eyed leader of the concubines hisses to the messenger.
"I overheard that Lord Sukuna chose her specifically to lead this Christmas tradition and intends to reward her and place her higher above the rest of us, earning his grace's favor so that we might be cast out into the streets!"
Shock, fury, outrage, and blind jealousy erupted among the other concubines.
"What shall we do?" "That goddamn slut, I knew she was no good." "She needs to go!"
"Silence!!" The leader screeched over the others. "She will be dealt with. We must take matters into our own hands so Lord Sukuna is displeased and has no option but to execute her. Listen to me, I have a plan..."
And the other concubines huddled around her eagerly as they plotted your downfall.
----
Everything was ready for the elaborate Christmas Eve homecoming feast for Lord Sukuna.
The finest beast was being roasted on a spit over fiery coals under careful supervision by Uraume. In the kitchen, the chefs were hard at work chopping vegetables they had culled from the winter harvest. Puddings and treats were being whipped up and presented beautifully in festive arrangements on fine platters.
The smell of Christmas cooking overwhelmed you as you stood in the great hall, clad in a new royal jade kimono with golden ornate leaves woven in your hair that never made you appear more elegant than on this Christmas Eve of festivities.
You thought of Sukuna and what he might think when his powerful presence graced these halls again. An odd mixture of fear and admiration you harbored for him that inspired you to want to please him. Feelings about him you couldn't quite place ever since he selected you to live in his shrine even though your head had not yet graced the silk of his bedsheets.
Lord Sukuna's carnal appetites were of no mystery to you. You had heard plenty of rumors about how rough and relentless he could be. His preferences seemed to be both selective, yet apathetic if that even made sense.
You had heard the screams and loud noises of primality from behind his sealed oak doors that echoed into late hours. Though all of his concubines would walk away with their own satisfaction eventually, his copulation apparently came with scars and rough treatment.
Seldom, if ever would his fucking deviate into lovemaking territory, much less tenderness and intimacy. That is where his selectiveness came in. The gentle sighs, gasps of mind melting pleasure, soul binding thrusts, consuming kisses dotted lovingly all along your nape, breasts, and inner thighs while being brought to the pedestals of pleasure you craved to know one day from the touch of a man you were deeply in love with, seemed to be reserved for someone of an unattainable caliber to Sukuna.
Until he met someone worthy, his concubines were nothing more than warm vessels of temporary satisfaction until his thirst returned.
But, here you were daydreaming that you could be the recipient of such love from him despite all odds.
----
"Whore, we're trying to speak to you!"
An indignant voice rips you out of your thoughts and you turn around, jarred at the sight of the head concubine with her supporters close by. You were outnumbered one to many. A piece of meat left to the wolves. Subtle panic slithered in and wrapped around your throat when Uraume was nowhere to be found.
The leader's scowl melted from her face into a honeyed grin, her long nails outstretching and wrapping around a delicate glass reindeer from a gorgeous wintery scene Sukuna's craftspeople had spent countless hours on.
"P-please be careful-" You raise a shaky hand.
The leader hisses at you, stealing the reindeer out of reach, her icy stare renders you speechless again. Her expression then morphs back into a sugary tone, a snake's venomous fangs concealed behind her pretty face.
"Tell me, darling. Does Lord Sukuna know you've been defiling his shrine this entire time he's been gone?" She asks as she turns the reindeer in between her graceful fingers.
"Defiling...?" You choke out, perplexed.
"Yes, defiling. With these, disgusting-"
You jump in alarm as she abruptly hurls the glass deer to the ground, watching it explode into shards as soon as it meets the unforgiving marble.
"filthy-" she reaches this time for a wreath of holly, casting it onto one of the glowing candles, setting it ablaze.
"pathetic-" the others have now joined in, breaking and trashing all your beloved Christmas decorations, hours of hard work and care being ripped, torn, shredded, and cast into the fire one after another.
"Stop, stop, please!!!" You cry and shriek, voice drowned in anguish but when you raise your hand to stop her, she turns on you immediately, the others coming to her aid, ripping and tearing at your gorgeous kimono.
"You think Lord Sukuna gives a shit about you and your stupid little Christmas traditions?" She snarls as her and the others claw the golden leaves out of your hair and they clutter on the floor, your robes now nearly in tatters. "You're just another slut. A weak, useless, ugly-"
You cower and brace for the worst, but your insides turn when you hear a warm squelch as blood splattered against the walls. A shudder runs through you at the unmistakable sound of dismantle and cleave; the King of Curses had returned.
You look up and you see him first, averting your gaze immediately and kneeling for fear of losing your head next. You're not sure how many of the concubines or servants within the vicinity were slain, but you're guessing a lot, if not all, based on the sea of blood on either side of where you were crouched.
"We'll have no more of that." Sukuna tsk'd. Those stern eyes raked over the scene, seething in annoyance at the mess in front of him. His eyes land on you and he squints as he draws closer, sensing the tremble of your frame as you didn't dare move from your spot.
"Breathe, for gods' sakes, human." He commands. "Stand up, now. Don't keep me waiting."
You rise on shaky knees, keeping your gaze downwards until you straighten up completely, looking into the formidable face of your lord and unexpected savior.
"My Lord."
"Tch." Sukuna clicks his teeth, looking over you. "This is what you call a celebration for the King of Curses?"
"I-..." You shake your head, the lump in your throat obstructing both the oxygen and words in your brain. "I can explain..."
"I do not require an answer." He growled, and you shut your lips, gaze averted downward once again in fearful shame. "You are a mess." His eyes appraise you in scrutinizing pity.
He had seen enough to know this fiasco wasn't entirely your fault. But still, the irritation he felt towards you prior for sticking out so prominently in his brain was rearing its ugly head. It was unlike Sukuna to ruminate, to toil in his mind for hours, especially over a human like you, no less.
He will deal with that later. For now, he still expects a proper feast and celebration after his lengthy travels.
"Uraume." His voice reverberates off the stony walls and Uraume is immediately at his side, their pupils dilating slightly at you in alarm at the devastating state of the grand hall that was beautifully adorned and decorated less than an hour before.
"Clean her up immediately and bring her to my chambers. In the meantime, have any available servants scrub up this mess."
"Right away, my Lord."
----
A while later, you walk slowly towards Sukuna who's standing by his window. You're dressed in fresh robes chosen by him specifically of a bleeding garnet like his eyes. You take in the grand sight of him, the way the darkened shadows would bend at his back and wrap around whatever he was facing, nearly suffocating them with his presence that commanded reverence, humility, but most of all, fear. His broad shoulders, back, and booming voice with a majesty likened to the powerful mountain range that surrounded his shrine.
Even now, as he turns to face you with his monstrous appearance in his full glory with those four eyes, his harshness he exudes stirs a suppressed part of you that never desired to be removed from him. A forbidden kind of beauty not obvious to many that brimmed underneath that thick shell you were only barely skimming the surface.
"Better." Sukuna remarks, seemingly pleased with this new ensemble. "Now..."
He took a step towards you and you held your breath, preparing for the moment where you would inevitably be forced to give yourself to him and be at his non-existent mercy for whatever plans he had next. However, he surprises you.
"Are you just going to stand there, or will you join me for dinner?"
"Dinner?"
"I do not intend for my winter feast to go to waste." Sukuna frowns. "Seeing as my entire harem is now dead except for you, I have no choice but to rely on you to remedy this."
You look at him, dumbfounded. That wide gleam in your eyes that was brought out by the light hitting your irises whenever you had to crane your head to look at him(which was every time) almost pulls at him, for a moment. Almost.
"My Lord?"
"You may start from the beginning." Sukuna instructs, the top pair of arms folding seriously across his chest with the second pair on either side of his thick, muscular waist.
"Use this opportunity to prove yourself worthy and show me these ridiculous Christmas traditions you insisted on imposing on me before I change my mind, brat. "
----
"These are called snowmen, my Lord." Your teeth chatter slightly as you two come to a stop in front of the wall of snowmen you, Uraume, and the servants had constructed over several weeks in the courtyard.
Sukuna stares boredly, a rush of annoyance bubbling inside him as he lays eyes on their pebble smiles, goofy hats, and multi colored scarves.
But, his eyes widen ever so slightly when he takes notice of the biggest snowman that stood out towards the back. This one towered over the others with four sticks for arms instead of two, meeting Sukuna directly at his eye level. It had four sets of pebble eyes on its face with carefully carved markings, eerily similar to someone he knew...
"What is this?"
You gulp. "It is you, my Lord."
Sukuna stares, silent. "What is the purpose of this?"
"For visual display." You answer, slowly. "Personal enjoyment. Sculpting them and playing in the snow is half the fun."
"I care little for that." Sukuna waved his hand. He studied his snowman some more. "I suppose I will allow my likeness to be erected into snow. This is supposed to represent myself and my subjects?" His eyebrow raises slightly as his pair of undereyes flicker back to look at the dozens of other, smaller snowmen in front.
You nod, slightly encouraged by this reaction that wasn't all good, but wasn't all bad either. "Yes my Lord, it is."
"Hmph." Sukuna shoots air out of his nostrils in disapproval. Then, without warning he raises his arm. You duck quickly, and simultaneously each head of each snowman besides his own is sliced off and goes flying, shooting in the air and then landing and exploding like mashed pumpkins back onto the ground.
Sukuna looks with pride at his handiwork, his glorious snowman standing tall over his now decapitated army of snowy subjects.
"Now, it is perfect."
He joins his hands behind his back and walks off with a hum back towards the shrine, leaving you both endeared and confounded.
-----
Next tradition.
"Alright, my Lord." You wring your clammy hands nervously as you stand in front of Sukuna, who's opted to take a seat at the head of his banquet table.
He was stuffing his face with the roast beast that was at least spared by Uraume, his stomach mouth's comical tongue wagging in anticipation with drool before he tossed a couple bones for it to gnaw on obnoxiously like a crazed animal.
"I wish to share with you the legend known as Santa Claus. Otherwise known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, among others."
Luckily, the feast seemed to make Sukuna more receptive, if that was even possible. Perhaps some of the restlessness (since he couldn't exactly experience hangry-ness that was exclusive to humans) was resolved by the smoked meat, giving his stomach mouth something to preoccupy him besides nagging Sukuna relentlessly.
"If you must." Sukuna rolls his eyes at you and then at the dopey expression his second mouth gives him while it's utterly high off the fresh bones it was chomping on.
"Well, this Christmas Eve night, he is said to fly and deliver presents around the world to all good children, spreading cheer and climbing into chimneys to leave presents under Christmas trees."
Sukuna's eyes narrow. "I will slaughter anyone who dares enter my household without permission." His stomach mouth gave a little belch. "I do not care for this Santa Claus you speak of."
This was true Sukuna fashion. Normally, you'd be mortified at his dramatics but by now, you had to do your best to stifle a giggle. "My Lord, it's merely a legend."
"That does not matter. If this Santa Claus you speak of attempts to enter my home, he will lose his head." Sukuna vows as he takes a hefty sip of wine before turning his glass to his stomach mouth. "Tell me about something else besides this ridiculous Santa Claus legend."
"Well..." You think for a moment then snap your fingers. "His grace might appreciate the legend of Krampus instead?"
Sukuna raises an eyebrow, corners of his mouth still turned downward in displeasure.
You clear your throat, "Krampus is a legend, like Santa Claus except he is a half goat, half demon monster who punishes naughty children. As opposed to Saint Nick whom delivers gifts, Krampus will appear and punish children who misbehave with bundles of branches, or by eating them or taking them to hell... Erm, oh! He looks like this!" You grab a piece of parchment and ink brush, pausing for a moment to make a quick sketch of Krampus.
Sukuna leans back, folding his arms, as he watches you, patiently, expectantly for this new Christmas tradition you spoke of to be better than the dreaded Santa Claus. When you're done painting Krampus, you turn your makeshift masterpiece in Sukuna's direction.
To your delight, a rare, smug expression of satisfaction tugs at the corners of his mouth when he lays eyes on Krampus for the first time.
"This is much better. I will absorb all of this Krampus's cursed energy when he appears tonight. He would be very useful to me, indeed."
You don't have the heart, or bravery to remind Sukuna that Krampus also is just a myth. Sukuna folds his arms, signalling he's done with his dinner.
"This Krampus can stay. Now, on to the rest of your silly traditions, brat."
-----
As the night continues on, you demonstrate more traditions for Sukuna, slowly bringing him into your world of decked out halls and yuletide merriment, albeit with his own, Sukuna-esque spin on things.
Needless to say, he loathed most of them.
"These are what are known as Christmas trees, my Lord." You gestured to the dozens of pines you and Uraume and the servants spent so much time decorating, shortly before Sukuna lit them all on fire.
Your jaw fell open and he stood there proud as the orange flames engulfed the trees in a mini forest fire within the shrine as the glow did a dance in his pupils. Sukuna inhaled, savoring the smoky wood against the releasing smell of the burning spruce.
"A much better way to enjoy the trees." He insisted.
---
Slowly, the Christmas you thought was nearly ruined was salvaged little by little as you entertained the King of Curses.
He spat out all of the overly sweet Christmas goodies immediately. However, his stomach mouth couldn't seem to get enough. Sukuna rolled his eyes as the pair of chompers devoured cookie after cookie that he fed it steadily with his lower pair of hands while his free hands rubbed his temples in defeat.
"I suppose these will do."
---
He liked the Christmas presents and offerings, but not because of the origin story behind it.
"So you see, my Lord, the tradition of gift giving on Christmas came from the nativity story, of the three wise men who delivered presents to the infant Jesus, who was believed to be the son of God."
"Hmph." Sukuna sneered. "How boring. An infant? I would smite him with ease." He looked at the pile of presents. "Tch, we will continue the gift giving tradition, but only for the King of Curses, for I am the most powerful being in this realm, not a newborn baby."
You smile and bow. "Yes, my lord."
----
And when it came to the Christmas carols, he quickly nipped those in the bud.
"Enough!" He groaned, covering his ears when you and Uraume didn't even make it through the first verse of O Holy Night.
"Who is this Savior you speak of in the lyrics?" He glared as he glanced over the sheet music. "Is this about that damn infant again? How pitiful. Change it. I can barely tolerate these insufferable ballads."
Sukuna seemed to come around, but only slightly when the lyrics were more modified to his tastes:
"O holy night! the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the mighty Lord Sukuna's return.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope- the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Lord Sukuna returns!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!"
"An improvement." Sukuna frowns again, scratching his jaw. "But I cannot stand either one of your voices."
In short, Christmas carols didn't make the cut.
----
Many of the servants had retired for the night at Sukuna's request to give you and him some space alone. The fires were nearly extinguished, lingering smoke and pine permeated the air with the faint brush of cinnamon and gingerbread. The embers of the fire are boiling in a low cackle as you stand in front of your king who now sits atop his throne slightly above you.
"This last tradition is called mistletoe..." You tried to disguise your shyness as you reached in the pocket of your robes and showed him the small bundle, wrapped up in a red bow. "The leaves and white berries are actually considered poisonous." You explain, which catches Sukuna's interest immediately.
"And? What is the significance?"
"In a Norse legend, the goddess of love, Frigg, promised to kiss anyone who passed underneath it.
The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe was born shortly after in an ancient festival in Greece."
A faint glint of mischief dances in Sukuna's eyes as he leans forward with a smirk.
"That so?"
His gaze roams over you, this realization of several hours that have passed between you and the mystique surrounding his lack of physical contact with you fuels his intrigue that was beginning to simmer alongside the exhausted flames.
"And what else happens after you humans kiss one another under this tradition?" His voice now drips with honey, a contrast you were not expecting from him.
"Well, I suppose that is up to the participants. Surely, things can become a bit, intimate, I suppose."
"Hm." Sukuna outstretched a large veiny hand, taking the mistletoe from you and hanging it from the ceiling above where he was perched on his throne. He leans a hand on his chin, while one of his lower arms comes to cup you around your waist.
"Demonstrate."
He waits, and your eyes spread slightly in alarm as you were brought closer to him than you have been in the entire time you've known him.
Your lips part hesitantly, laced wetly by your wine ladden tongue. Sukuna does not budge, however his hand pressed against your back a little more urgently, his black nails lightly puncturing the garnet threads of your kimono as though he were requesting not to be kept waiting a moment longer.
Your eyes glance upwards at the arrangement of mistletoe dangling perfectly over your heads, then directly at his supple lips that part in seething wait, before leaning in and pressing yours against them without another word.
Sukuna's mouth is warm and rough, just like every last inch of him you discover shortly after when both of his lower arms bring you in between his enormous thighs, so that you are directly up against pure muscle.
His skin is heated, and practically hot to the touch between all of the formidable strength that lay encased in his looming form. Sukuna wastes no time deepening the kiss. As his mouth opens against yours, you feel as though you are being swallowed directly by rays of sun on a sweltering day, the very opposite of the present chilly night bogged with snow that now covered every inch of the land surrounding the quiet shrine.
The delicious and precise slither of his tongue in between your lips causes you to release the most beautiful gasp into his mouth. Sukuna exhales deeply,
"More."
And his lips move feverishly, low grunts escaping the opening space between them as his tongue slides against yours. Aroused, scorched by this ethereal being as he kissed you as though he were the kindling catching alight and you were the flame instead.
Your hands bravely slide up both sides of his expansive neck, your nails entangling themselves in the unruly locks of orchid. The King of Curses shudders, seemingly offput by a mortal touching him so boldly, but every passionate grind of you against him allows him to ignore it for now, as that insatiable thirst bubbles deep in his belly and begs to be relieved.
"Ahh..." A breathy moan peels softly at first then snaps as he rips the ending from your throat with a harsh gnash of his teeth to your bottom lip, as one his hands immediately snaked into the opening of your robes.
His touch is molten, but his stare is unmoving as he forces your gaze to stay captured underneath his as his hand works quickly to part your thighs, riding the hem of your kimono up your legs, cold air tickling your pussy which he's more than pleased to discover is already bare, shiny with slick underneath.
"Closer, and do not stop looking at me." He mutters. All four of his heavily hooded eyes greedily drink in the way your expression liquefies to silk when you feel that first long, languid, warm stroke between both lips of your sensitive cunt.
"I said, look at me." Sukuna growls, a clawed hand coming up to cup your cheeks, both of them pinched between his thumb on one side and the rest of his fingers on the other. He runs his tongue over his lips, a slow sneer spreading out at your gradual fucked out expression as his tongue from his belly slowly licks, savors, and swirls against your dripping entrance.
High pitched whimpers flood past your lips, the corners of your eyes begin to prick with tears as profound warmth blooms upwards from the epicenter of unrelenting pleasure Sukuna's second mouth is wringing from your swollen clit. The tongue begins to slowly curl inside of you, each groove of its wet, meaty surface gliding against the soaking velvet of your tight walls, while the upper lip encircles and sucks over your soft pearl.
"Good." Sukuna whispers, stifling a groan when he feels you involuntarily pulse around his tongue, leading to a greedy string of juices dribbling down the second throat. "Who's your king? Tell me, pet."
He tauts his abs as he maneuvers you around his stomach slightly, still keeping you locked in an iron grip but allowing you to lightly bob as he guides you to ride his tongue, his other pair of hands coming to knead your breasts, his eyes tearing into your soul.
"You, Sukuna..." You managed to sigh, as you felt the soaking warmth linger over a tried and true spot, before Sukuna promptly removes it, irritated at your unsolicited use of his name.
"Tch." He grins wolfishly at the abrupt whimper that followed when you mourned the loss. "Do not get greedy with me, brat. You will feel only what I allow you to, understood?"
He breathes out as he lowers you back onto his awaiting open mouth on his belly. "And you will only address me as your Lord, woman, understood?"
"Yes, my Lord..."
"Mm."
And you continue to feel his tongue's meticulous exploration of you with your thighs parted on either side of his large waist, however it only became more agonizing as it coaxed and only teased around all the spots that amplified euphoria, dangling that peak of arousal frustratingly out of reach.
"My Lord, p-please, I wish to cum..." your nails dig into the hollows of his chest and he glances down briefly, internally bemused at the needy mess he was turning you into, thin trails of your juices softly dribbling down the soft meat of your inner thighs.
Your eyelids flutter and the intonations of your voice begin to quiver as his second tongue began to wetly prod your sweetest spot.
Sukuna glowered briefly at his second mouth that had a mind of his own, displeased at its less sadistic nature than his and its determination to drive you off the edge whereas he was in the middle of enjoying your desperate state. He cannot place it, but this idiosyncrasy between him and the rest of his body was betraying him.
Perhaps it was due to this question that was slowly being answered in his mind of just how soft you'd be for him in the throes of pleasure, silencing his ruminations of you at long last. As you knew, he cared little about the appearance of the concubines he chose to feed his ravenous sexual appetites.
He had rarely encountered a pretty face, and, for the first time, the King of Curses felt compelled to worship.
"Hmph. Cum for me then, brat." He croons harshly to disguise his waning willpower. "Be a good mistress and cum for your king. Don't you dare hide your eyes from me..."
And the dam quickly burst and you soaked his lap, tears releasing in your eyes as well, your blurry gaze burning as you obeyed Sukuna's command to keep your eyes on him.
The second mouth panted as it worked to clean you up, guzzling your arousal like it was nectar as it stuck to its lips and Sukuna's powerful torso in a shiny sopping coat of sheen.
"Good." Sukuna praised, pulling you off him as he undid the remainder of his robes, the subtle sound of the garment hitting the floor causes you to clench your thighs, even more so as you saw him, completely bare in front of you for the first time.
If you were any other whore, he would not have stopped after you finally came, if he had let you cum at all. Sukuna delighted in denying his partners their utmost release until it was practically unbearable, then would push them well over the threshold of normal stimulation, until he sunk his teeth in their shoulder and fucked them roughly with his dual cocks.
Now, as he tears off his robes, allowing the element of anticipation to linger with the promise of what was to come next, and the heat to smolder lying in wait, he realizes this first time with you would be much, much different. With you, things were unhurried and slow.
His black markings continued below where his dark robes previously concealed, all along his sculpted collarbones, pecs and chest. His muscles were rigid with the tension you were slowly building up in him this entire time. He possessed burly thighs that were covered with small forests of hair, as well as on his arms with sinewy veins and lightly flushed pink skin.
But, what stood out most of all were two staggering, meaty cocks that bloomed red at both tips that flopped against his belly. Veins adorned both sides, running purplish blue, a very large, plump, taut set of balls dangled in a flesh colored sack underneath.
You couldn't help but get on your knees, entranced as you slowly sank to the floor. Your mouth began to salivate as you took in the bulbous tips that had to pass for almost three of your fingers alone, mind fuzzy with both excitement and intimidation as you wondered how you could possibly accommodate both.
"My Lord, m-may I?" You lick your lips, whimpering as the throb of your clit begins to pulse as your warm pussy squeezes around nothing. You were still worked up from your orgasm, however having already been brought to heaven and back, you were eager to please Sukuna. After all, as you were repeatedly coached in your trainings as a concubine, a good one always pleases her Lord.
"Excuse me?" Sukuna frowns, ice in his tone.
"P-please my Lord? I wish you pleasure you, to suck your cocks..." You swallow, the blinders of arousal causing all shame to disappear out the window.
Sukuna scoffs pridefully. "Really? And why would I let you do something like that, brat? You think I require your mouth so badly?"
He taunts, noticing the way your pussy still bore no shortage of wetness. As a matter of fact, it was trickling even more as the thoughts of taking Sukuna's cocks in your mouth only aroused you to nearly primal levels.
"Please, please my Lord..." You breathe slowly as your teeth brushed your bottom lip, his hands coming to undo the knot of your kimono, allowing the garment to slide in a sensual display down your shoulders like seafoam receding over a shoreline, until all of your bareness lay exposed to his hungry eyes.
Sukuna stared at you, wrestling internally at the hazy feelings the sight in front of him was conjuring up. You were so desperate, panting and waiting. The smell from your soaked heat was earthy yet sweet, an aphrodisiac to his nostrils. You were so needy, so eager to allow you a taste of him, the way you tilted your head so sweetly as you begged permission.
"Very well..." Sukuna's jaw slackened just a tad before running his thumb along your glossy bottom lip, the pointed edge of his nail and thumb just barely poking your tongue, which you indulged him and slowly licked it into your mouth.
"Fuck, such a needy little thing, you. God, such a whore..."
He presses his thumb onto the middle of your tongue. "Open..." He pumped one of his shafts with the other, as you gently opened your lovely lips, gradually and steadily feeding you his cock, twinkling eyes peeking through your lashes.
"Fuck..."
The utter groan he lets out is music to your years, and you meet him more than halfway immediately, stuffing his cock quickly into your mouth and almost hitting the back of your throat.
Sukuna grits his teeth as you accept him so greedily. His size was such that the entire thing didn't quite fit, filling up such a pretty mouth and throat until your eyes watered, the stretch eased by how much you ached for him, and how delicious his heated skin tasted in your mouth. So warm and rigid as you feel him pulse with life with the faintest trace of salt from the blooming precum.
Your eyes roll back and you begin to bob your head, squeaking with surprise when Sukuna pushes your head, relishing the glistening coat of drool you leak every time the heavy shaft withdraws from your reddened lips. His hand tangled in your hair, guiding you up and down his cock.
Sukuna panted and grunted, falling backwards on his throne with you at his feet, his hips rippling as he couldn't help but fuck himself into your plush, silky, mouth. His other cock aches for attention as well, and he gets an idea.
"Your breasts..." He rasped. "Touch yourself, present them to me."
Mouth still stuffed with cock, you innocently batted your lashes as both your hands came to grip your tender globes, lifting them slightly as you gently pushed them together, creating the perfect, sinful little valley for Sukuna to slide his second cock.
Using the mixture of slick and spit and sweat from his other cock, he coats the second one with his hand and throws his head back as it meets that slippery canal, squished in between your two yummy tits.
You groan loudly, hugging the velvety length between your breasts as you continued to slobber all over the other. You cooed and whined sweetly, rubbing your thighs together, a practical second orgasm almost inevitable from watching this being, this king, this God, so wanton and so aroused.
"I'm going to cum. Don't stop, don't stop gazing at me like that, my goddess..."
He looked down at you, his lovely little slut, so filthy and carnal. This alluring, sexual siren he awakened that was concealed beneath a pair of glittering shy eyes and quiet exterior this whole time. You were a treasure to be guarded, a goddess of Earth and flesh, worthy of his devotion, of his love, and he finally snaps.
Both cocks ooze generous spurts of silvery white cum. It paints both of your supple tits like jelly. It's warm and thick as it coats the inside of your throat and mouth. Sukuna marvels at this masterpiece he's made out of this celestial canvas of you, slowly drawing out his slick, sticky cock and tracing your puffy lips with the milky gloss.
"My Lord..." You purred.
"Mine." He whispered before he yanked you against his lips again, greedily and messily tasting himself off of you, both hands nearly covering both sides of your face as he drank the breath from your lungs.
-----
Sukuna's bed is warm just like the heat that runs rampant throughout his body. His pillows and linens bend to accept you and embrace you like you have always belonged there despite this being the very first time you did.
A galaxy is born in that moment when both heads of his cock begin to rub and slowly push inside both of your holes, stretching you in a way no other man or being for that matter has ever done before.
"Look at me..." Sukuna commands again. His booming voice is reverent and his gaze is eternal as he bites back more groans that simmer at the back of his throat. You grip the sheets, sweetly calling his name.
"Sukuna..."
And he doesn't correct you this time. His face softens and the callouses of his hands run and squeeze over the expanse of your thighs as he becomes one with you over and over again.
"My queen." He utters at last as your heart sings and blooms within your ribcage.
The world shifted that night as the King of Curses irrevocably bound himself to you.
And when the exhaustion had claimed you, when you could no longer be flooded, filled, and fucked, when the sheets felt like silk and your tired limbs and his wove together like emerald leaves of holly, as his seed gushed inside your womb and buried a mixture of each other so deep and raw and new in a way that could not be conceived again.
The nighttime was quickly forgotten as you fell asleep to the King of Curses' heartbeat, the dawning hours of Christmas morning ushering in a gentle wave of steadfast snow.
#from my trees . ˚ 𖧷 ·𓇥 ° . ♡#ncs secret santa#sukuna x reader#sukuna x you#ryomen sukuna x reader#ryomen sukuna smut#jjk x reader#jjk smut#sukuna smut#sukuna ryomen x reader#jjk angst#cw bullying#dividers by saradika#cw violence#jelly's 12 days of smutmas ✼ 。゚ ・ྀི𓈒 ݁⋆#x female reader#x fem!reader
291 notes
·
View notes
Text
I think the big problem with a lot of post-modern concepts of morality is that so much of it (e.g. gender theory) is ultimately based on the assumed premise that "not hurting others" is the end goal of all moral philosophy and social behavior.
Conflict with these theories and concepts primarily stems from a rejection of this fundamental premise. "Not hurting others" is a highly subjective goal that is difficult to define or qualify, since it requires an agreed understanding of everything that constitutes "hurt". But it's highly idiosyncratic by nature because it's such an individual response, so morality then becomes an incredibly difficult dance of knowing every individual person's tiniest preferences and sensitivities in order to be a good person. When hurt is held as the ultimate evil, there is never a reasonable justification for not validating sensitivities. If what you know that what you think, say, or do hurts people, you're a bad person - full stop. (Although it usually comes with the unspoken understanding that this only applies to certain groups of people you have arbitrarily determined are not problematic, i.e. it's okay if your beliefs hurt bigoted people).
And yet it also raises the major moral conundrum of self-inflicted pain; if you believe suicide to be "hurt" and therefore immoral, but the person in question does not see it as such, is it morally correct to let them commit suicide or to stop them? If we admit that not all perceptions of hurt are equally valid, then we must question how we distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate. And if we consider that self-inflicted hurt is still bad even when consented, the oft-cited counter-argument, "Let people do what they want as long as it's not hurting others" falls hopelessly flat - because what if the 'other' they are hurting are themselves? Who gets to determine what constitutes self-harm? "Hurt" is such a highly subjective perception, and everyone will argue that their perception is the moral standard, while arguing that everyone else is unfairly projecting their own standards for "hurt" on others (thereby causing hurt in the process). It's chaos.
This is why basing an entire moral philosophy off "not hurting others" is bananas. It's one thing to hold that philosophy for yourself, to determine what you think is the true standard for "hurt" and avoid that as much as possible in your choices. It's another to assume that everyone agrees with your assumed premise that avoiding hurt is the basis for all moral decisions.
There have been multiple times I've been in an argument with someone over a perceived injustice, and it's fascinating how often their point ultimately boils down to "it's mean to make people feel bad". But that's not what I base my morality on. I base morality on what I perceive to be objectively true, and although I never wish to make others feel hurt, others' subjective emotional response to confrontations with moral truth is not my responsibility.
564 notes
·
View notes
Note
hello!! Your fic is so cool and if your request is open, can I request DG x male reader when DG still in his James lee era while reader is the King of Busan
XENIA ゜゜・DG
Xenia, noun: the classical concept of hospitality to strangers. This, unfortunately, includes a wandering dog and his conniving owner—a most irritating, tooth-grinding conundrum the King of Busan has with Charles Choi and his boy-genius. sorry for the wait anon I was away from my laptop for the past week or so! and I couldn't write :'( first meetings and onwards for this particular work haha chicken and egg problem.. haha introspection on business and corruption... haha capitalism pairing: dg (james lee) + male reader warnings: male reader, canon typical violence, arguing (bickering) wc: 3.3k
LOOKISM MASTERLIST
MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION
In the lengthy chronicles of Charles Choi’s grand plan—to mould the precarious South Korean underground into something far more profitable—James Lee finally came across his very own cause-and-effect conundrum.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Plutarch initially posed this question in The Symposiacs: a symbolic tug of war between creator and creation. James supposed, in his bored sort of way, that this question described the relationship between cities and Kings as well. Chronically, objectively, the cities existed first—tall structures and unique ecosystems that forged shadowy figureheads to rule the violent underbelly. But poetically, it was rather hard to ignore the hands etching—pummeling—a pathway for the power to flourish. Without those in charge, what were the cities? And without the cities, who were the people in charge?
Parsing the matter, it distilled into who influenced whom.
Of course, the dazzling sprawl of Busan refracting from the glass under his feet was no exception. Even he, who satiated his youthful wanderlust with blood on his fists, couldn’t deny his reluctance to sully this city more. But, what did it matter? The second most important city in South Korea (some would froth at the mouth and argue it was the first for its gateway to Eurasian trade, or at least for its world-class ports) was built from perfectly respectable trade; but alack! it was also protected by its snarling underworld. It had already been befouled: polluted by fists no better than his, trodden by legs more filthy than his own. Blood and toil smeared its golden sand, and its money was just as dirty.
Sure, the city was propped up by honourable (hah) commercial deals, but it was shielded by the illicit ones.
A defiled aegis, if you would.
It was clear the current glitzy glamour of Busan night-life was carefully orchestrated by someone: from the specific mouthfeel the night air had, to the businesses that ran late into the witching hours. Those mythical beings and chaebols who fed and extracted money from this place, in endless loops, were culpable for these towering skyscrapers and glittering lights.
Creators.
In turn, the city cradled your grimy little body—chubby hands wrapping around index fingers of the metaphorical hounds—and made you.
Did this metropolis represent you, or did you represent the metropolis?
It was not in a polite setting that James Lee scouted the venerable King of Busan: arguably the second most esteemed figurehead for the Kings of South Korea. In theory. In theory, since Busan’s reputation as a hub for trade and exalted trade (rather than the mere cold, hard cash ill-reputed other cities offered Choi) entwined with your own. Except, in practice, you were a far more reticent King than anyone could imagine. A shadow to fade into obliquity more than any other shadow.
Underbelly, yes. This was the turf you were most at home in; he could forget all about the glamorous, illegal casinos in basements, he could forget about eavesdropping on business moguls and their lackeys, he could forget about waiting in the entertainment districts for the proverbial snake to finally rear his head.
You were the fucking microcosm of this city: draped with expensive fabric and chainmailed with gold, but the blood on your knuckles stank of impurity. In a parking lot nestled on the outskirts of Busan, he witnessed the King in his court: complete with the luxury, the opulence, and the hamartia of brutality that came with capitalism. Yes, Busan had minted you as a shadowy side to a glitzy coin—as your eyes snapped to where he lounged against concrete, he couldn’t help but observe how your imaginary hackles raised.
Thwomp. Casually, you tossed the grunt beaten black-and-blue to the frigid asphalt, with the magnanimity of tossing breadcrumbs to ducks in a pond. Like the lackey was the bread and James fucking Lee himself was the duck. A bloodied cheek squished into his sneaker, but you merely stared at him owl-like. No, cat-like, because it seemed to be the same nonplussed stare a cat would give someone after bringing them a dead rat.
“Nice city.” Since you clearly had no intention of speaking first. Deftly, his fingers unravelled the mystic plastic of a lollipop: popping the cherry-flavoured candy into his mouth to soothe the acerbic irritation he tasted. “You treat all your guests like this, or do kings not follow xenia anymore?”
It was a rather futile attempt to lighten the mood. After all, if he could help it, he’d rather negotiate to pave the way for the second generation before resorting to throwing his fist. No, that was a lie. His flexing fingers wanted nothing more than to curl into a fist to let off some of the steam he’d garnered from searching for you in this uselessly big city, but fate had him making stupid jokes based on The Odyssey he’d read just last week for his Classics competition. If he rummaged in his pocket, he could probably find the gold medal clanking against hard sweets.
Your expression changed minutely—a slight disturbance in your brows. They furrowed, and for a brief moment James Lee thought his joke fell flat. With all the blood soaked into your expensive garb, maybe you just valued fists over Homeric hexameter. Violence over prose. Brawns over brains. You slinked like shadows. Crude. Ominous. He could barely see your face even with the city lights flashing neon in the backdrop, but when your loping gait came to a halt, there was an exasperation that afforded more subtle nuance to your character. A bitterness to tinge what he thought was mindlessness.
“Mr. Lee.” Your voice curled low in your throat, as quick and elusive as mercury, and perhaps just as poisonous. Shadow King of Busan, the man who never introduced himself to you noticed. Silence was golden, and he suddenly understood why Charles Choi so badly wanted sway over the young King in charge of this port city. “I hope you’re aware that beating my subordinates would invalidate any sort of hospitality between us. You’re no god amongst men either, so ritualistic hospitality is a very weak premise to coerce my amiability with. Try again.”
Deity in the flesh. Perhaps James Lee was the closest thing to breaking the limits of humanity, but all men were fallible. That wasn’t what caused his brow to rise though; going in blind may have been risky, but it was worth it to find someone with a silver tongue like this.
You looked about his age—treading on the precarious cusp between First and Second Generation, fists stained as red as his hair—but you spoke as if you were triple your years.
“You wanna transfer to my school? It’d be fun to have you in the Debate Club,” he said on a whim, but it wasn’t really a whim either. His instructions were expressly to negotiate with Busan—the city was far too volatile to create a power vacuum in. For cities like Ansan, struggle was welcomed; but Charles Choi had too little of everything to contend with Busan, of all places. Just like in Seoul, the situation would resolve itself, and it was far too soon for the HNH Group to meddle in a place like this. “You talk like a teacher.”
His tone was as syrupy as his candy, but there was half-provocation, half-probing-curiosity entrenched in his cadence. Go on, it coaxed, throw a punch. Argue back. Unorthodox was his means of securing cooperation, but he’d have to be a little unorthodox to secure the deal old man Choi had painstakingly written out. A contract between Elite and the capricious man before him, between HNH Group and the microcosm of Busan himself; it sounded like every capitalist’s wet dream.
“Good question, kid,” you smiled, but it was less of a smile and more of a sneer as you ghosted closer to him. Kid, like you weren’t one yourself.
Crack. You stepped, heavy, on the hand of the man you’d pummelled—only his unconscious groan of pain re-alerted James to his existence. “The term isn’t over. You should still be in school. Playing around like this makes me far less likely to listen to whatever you’ve followed me for. Try again.”
The thick scent of metal invaded his personal space as you peeled your black gloves off; the rings beneath them were tinted with the blood that had seeped through the material. Just like that, you callously tossed the garment onto the slumbering man under your feet—though he truly wasn’t sure whether it was a final affront to a beaten man or throwing down the gauntlet towards James Lee himself.
It was a reminder, once again, to not be hasty. There was the real possibility of fucking Charles Choi several times over if he didn’t get this right, but the thought of his imminent doom didn’t seem all too unappealing. On the contrary, he found his heart beating faster—pulse hot on his tongue as an intriguing challenge presented itself before him.
“I’m sure your informants have relayed more intel than just my name,” he mirrored the jagged stretch of your lips. The Legend of the First Generation. The Genius. The original, associated with the base moniker of the Ten Geniuses to show just how unparalleled James fucking Lee was. “Take a guess as to how my scholastic life is going, then consider the opportunity that I’m bringing you.”
Ambiguous. His words were dusted with just enough information to seem straight to the point, but vague enough that it was tantalising. A hook to ensnare the snake of Busan himself. And rather than sating the itch in his fists, he found himself looking forward to a parley instead.
You studied him, appearing to consider his words seriously. Syllables phrased like he was the one with the upper hand, when in fact the HNH group was still tentatively unfurling and in the process of negotiations with both yakuza and Triad alike. He awaited your favourable response, hearing the stats roll into your mind as you calculated the preliminary gains and losses to joining hands with Charles Choi.
Bloodied fingers tapped a rhythm into your jacket absentmindedly. He watched, anticipating your invitation.
“Fuck off.”
“Huh?” he spluttered. Maybe he misheard you. Maybe he finally choked on his candy and induced a coma in which he was now dreaming of your response.
“Your boss sent a high-schooler to broker a deal with Busan.” Your fingers now drummed in irritation against your forearm, but he was just as irritated. He took care of every other prefecture and province, only to have this guy who was his age, nonetheless, tell him his presence wasn’t good enough. Like, what? “Tell old Choi to come himself to negotiate if he wants any sort of foothold in my city. If he truly wanted a respectable contract, why would he send you as a messenger?”
“Excuse me?” If he wasn’t restricted from fighting you—the only exception was valid self-defence—he would’ve made the asshole in front of him eat shit. Alas, Choi wasn’t that generous or lenient. “He sent one of the Ten Geniuses, the primero, for this. I’m one of his greatest assets.”
“Are you a damn car or a person?” you snapped, and it suddenly felt as though he was looking upon an ancient wizard as he lectured a troublemaker outside his tower. His eyelid twitched, and he was finding it quite hard to keep a cool head. “Talking about assets… can’t believe Choi’s sent the guy who’s fucked up all the smaller provinces to deal with us.”
The latter sentence was more grumbled to yourself; it appeared he annoyed you just as much as you annoyed him, which he found a delighted satisfaction in.
“Tell Elite to come himself,” you uttered finally, not even letting him get in a word edgeways as you ambled back into the shadows—not even sparing a glance for the pile of bodies left in your wake.
And despite his objective, despite the imminent yelling he’d no doubt face, he couldn’t help but stare at your blood-soaked coat fluttering in the frigid coastal wind.
Out of hatred, obviously.
・゜゜・
Charles Choi was a conniving bastard. You already knew it, but seeing him in the reception hall really drove the image home. He was polite, a little too polite; yet as soon as you slid that manila folder across the mahogany table, his demeanour prickled into something knife-like.
Snake of Busan, you were nicknamed, but this guy was something else entirely. Once he sank his teeth into your determination to keep Busan flourishing, you could practically see his pupils contract into thin slits. Of course you’d dealt with tricky deals. Weaving through negotiation as though it were a riptide was how you clawed your way to the very depth of Busan’s underworld—navigating until you finally found that crown mired in cess.
Or, more accurately, it was Miss Crystal Choi who’d pierced her venom right where it hurt. A Genius of Business, her father had called her—and boy, did it take all your wit to match her expertise in trade.
But did he really have to bring that guy along?
The scion of the Geniuses was also in your office, leaning against the wall far behind Elite and his daughter. And though nobody asked for his input—not even old Choi spared his prodigy a glance—it still irritated you to no end that he’d tagged along. A bright, cheerful grin cast the sun against the city nightlife on the top floor of your building—one directed right at you, considering the only other two people he knew had their backs facing him. Quite the foolish move, but you weren’t one to concern yourself with people who were basically daylight robbing you. If the dog they’d raised bit them, all the better.
Or maybe he was beaming right at your bodyguard-turned-assistant, who stood discreetly in the shadows of the blinds: slatted light gently cresting over his tall build. Well. It certainly was one of the less strange things Mr Lee had done.
Still, for someone who’d been glaring at you just a week ago, the change felt far too eerie to ignore.
“—and onto the temporary personnel exchange section—” A feeble attempt to pry open the walnut that Busan was, which would only end with the unfortunate bastard failing. You’d choose a loyal subordinate, they’d select someone who was doomed to only grunt work—far from the impenetrable fortress of this building. Boredly, you tapped the pen on the contract, before freezing up at Miss Choi’s next words. “—we’d like to recommend James Lee to transfer to this office.”
A pen snapped, and ink spilled onto the page. Dumbfounded, you barely registered her sliding over a fresh sheet, as though she knew full well this would happen.
No, it was no recommendation. Her very mention of his name was a forceful shove of him into your office. No wonder he was grinning like the devil. No wonder he was here in the first place. At that moment, you wanted nothing more than to leave Busan behind.
Your eye twitched.
He kept smiling—an ominous prelude to the brimstone and fire you were sure to experience promptly.
・゜゜・
“Aren’t I a better bodyguard than that useless one you keep around?”
James Lee had been a bit too quiet these past few days; duly loping around behind the lower-ranked subordinates as they made their rounds, never crossing the proverbial line when you’d handed him his duties as interim grunt. Though, whenever you passed him, his eyes followed the shadows of your fluttering hem—two pinpricks of an arid glare sweeping on your back.
But James Lee was a dog, and whatever command Elite gave him, he’d obey. Heel. Roll over. Serve under the King of Busan for a month. A jester, if you would, with a leash around his neck that kept drawing more and more blood from him. What were the limits? Just how far would he go for the man with a crimson shadow?
“No,” you said. He stood, far too proud, on a summit of lackeys that had been sent your way by one of the companies who’d attempted to cheat their way to getting a more favourable deal. It would’ve been a simple ambush—one doomed to fail—fated to end with you tossing blood-soaked gloves right on them before you postponed the meeting you were on your way to.
But not today. It appeared the limit of the dog of Elite was passing up petty competition with the man two paces behind you.
“Unlike you, Song’s actually pleasant to listen to.” Yes, Song wasn’t the most useful of bodyguards point-blank, but it wasn’t like you particularly needed someone to take care of protecting you. He made people lower their guards. And he made a mean cup of tea. “I don’t have any use for you, so you’re still worse.”
“Semantics,” he shrugged. “I made your life much easier, did I not?”
He was smart. Too smart, but you already knew that from the intel that had not yet been erased. Hushed up, because of course Elite would painstakingly conceal his cards.
And unfortunately, you were always drawn to a risky hand. A pleasure far removed from the mundane violence of your everyday life—a heart-pounding thrill of betting all your chips in a hazardous (though not desperate) gamble.
“Maybe.” For it was one day removed from the multitudes of late meetings and burdensome glove changes. Your hands weren’t seeped in oily red, sliding and dripping onto your expensive clothes that were tailored—though still felt so fucking ill-fitting that it made you sick—right to your body.
You considered the man toeing carefully past the dogpile located against a cargo container: donning what could’ve been your life. A beige school uniform, pinkie slightly indented from books and study, pen marks still dotting his fingers. Closer. He ambled lazily to your direction, and as he approached with the dying sun behind him, you could see his smile. Just as languid as the day you first met him, and just as irritating.
Closer. Strawberry candy laced the iron odour, though you could faintly taste lemon in the profile too—testament to the yellow wrapper stuck crudely on one of the men. Closer—he was far too close now, standing chest to chest while he stared directly at you.
If there was one thing that came from this ill-fated encounter, it was probably the permanent furrowed brows that decorated your perplexed face—the bloodhound had been reduced to this fluffy thing demanding your attention.
And it was just as unfortunate that your impression had been chipped away for him too—a King whose expressions were utterly delightful to witness. A straight mouth, grinning ever-so-slightly when a deal went your way. A routine rhythm to your biro tapping your notepad. Eyes that shone with practical constellations as you breathed the briny air of the port in.
A particularity to the way you treated others, steely to the strong, awkward with the weak. So utterly flustered, when it came to tiny kids tugging on your long coat, or the grandmas you lent your arm to on the streets. If he had to compare it, he’d attribute your personality as a non-Newtonian fluid: your very own mix of cornstarch and water. Tough with pressure, all soft without.
Like now.
“Come on,” he whined. Psychologically, he was doing a damn good impression of pitifulness—even if you’d just witnessed him commit a beatdown so one-sided that you could feel the second-hand pain. And little by little, he was watching you falter: breath caught in his throat as he watched your brows default to their furrow once more. “I saved you a good few minutes, didn’t I? Don’t tell me Busan can’t even acknowledge hard work and effort.”
“Fine, whatever,” you crumbled just like that, under the heavy weight of his triumphant eyes. “Good job.”
So cute, he thought, then froze almost immediately the moment the words came to mind.
Fuck.
・゜゜・
#slowd1ving#res ・゚ writing#x reader#male reader#x male reader#ask slowd1ving#anon request#requested#lookism#lookism x male reader#lookism manhwa#manhwa x reader#manhwa x male reader#dg x reader#james lee x reader#pre dg james lee
196 notes
·
View notes
Text
no one asked me but
@accurzed @seventh-stone @nyarlathesleeper and @ anyone who wants to do this!! let me hear about your weird objects >:]
ok the post was getting way too long so i'm. just gonna start anew.
thank u so much @crazymadredfox for tagging me!! this is such a cute idea!! i stole ur meowth plush btw!! >:3
tagging; @roseofcards90 @sai-my-beloved @asagiri-fushimi-natsu @laveindrz @beddhead-red @megacarapa @bernkastel-ao3 @boy-yuri @icarianiscariot @trashcan-train and literally anyone who wants!!!
#tried to mix functional with Why Do You Have That yk yk#i tagged my irls so like. i know about weird objects in y'all's rooms i just wanna see what you pick >:))#does that make sense? idk#seventh the people want your xbox cables. i don't make the rules#nyarla theyre fiending for your rotating cd tower. the shags on vinyl. theyre starving#accurzed they want your clowns and you can't stop them#etc#I FORGOT THE INSPECTOR GADGET DVD...#ive never seen it + twas part of an inside joke w a friend in middle school#conundrum where i wanna vote so i can see the results but my vote Would be my corn snake and i dont want someone to see that#and be like GUH. thats horrible why would you vote for that!!!!! assuming it was someone besides me yk#idk why that's tripping me up sm but it is#aaanyway
748 notes
·
View notes
Text
Playing with the assets YAYYY
21 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Wanted to figure out how chimera’s wrote and ended up starting on their written language proper. MASSIVE info dump below!
Writing
They write using four fingers of one hand, usually the right, coated in ink. Think like a stamp almost. The three middle fingers draw with the tips of the teeth whilst the thumb will alternate between tip and back. All words are written simultaneously inward. The remaining fingers grip the source of ink, usually a length of hardened pigment only wetted on one side OR those who write often could invest in a pen. A pen for a chimera is a fanning brush saturated with ink that the writing teeth brush through when needing to reink. It allows for much faster wetting of the teeth, but can be messy when learning or refilling.
Most chimera are right handed but left handed individuals exist, they will simply need to learn to use the two fingers opposite the middle in reverse of how someone who is right handed would! Luckily all fingers can move pretty independently of each other and it is an easy task. As chimera mostly communicate through direct broadcast most find the written word lacking, so it is a common occupation among Chimera to write for others. It is an impressive skill to eloquently convey ideas/feelings through writing. Though their language set up lends to it MUCH more than others.
The Nitty Gritty
All subject to change as this is very first drafty.
Chimeric is a logographic language, there is no set alphabet and all ‘words’ stem from symbols representing things and ideas. Sentences are kind of two sentences atop one another, with one being the literal and the other the reactionary. It is read from out to in and sentences are written in a circle divided into 4 quarters. We’ll start with the top moving counter clockwise.
Quarter 1 (Red) is the subject area, now subjects function the same as nouns for the most part, people, places, and things. But something important to note is that there must always be an ‘audience’ for the words being spoken. An audience basically means pronouns though they are a lot more encompassing with: I, You, Us, Them, Them excluding me/you, Us excluding you, Everyone, and a bunch of others. These are all acceptable audience subjects to top off your sentence. For instance you wouldn’t say “This pizza tastes good!” you would instead say “I enjoy the taste of this pizza” or “Everyone enjoys the taste of this pizza” the opinion/emotion needs to be applied to a source to make sense grammatically.
Quarter 2 (Green) is all about emotions and opinions. Chimeric language is an exchange of ideas but also importantly emotions and feelings. Q2 is dedicated to how the sentence is supposed to be interpreted or felt by the reader, as obviously in ‘spoken’ chimeric speaker and listener technically feel the same about what is currently being said. Listener opinion is very distinct from speaker and in writing the speaker takes priority. So for example the statement “Who finished the box but left it in the pantry?” would instead have to be translated into something akin to “I am pissed and questioning who had the audacity to finish the box and did not care enough to remove it from the pantry thus leaving me to find it and become disappointed?” Basically chimeric lends itself to very long translations due to their feelings.
Quarter 3 (Blue) is the action section of the sentence. The verbs if you will. This is where things are happening and is VERY tied in with Q1. Subjects in Q1 and Q2 will be linked together with lines that follow the same slice through the circle.
When a subject is linked to an action that means that the subject is the one performing the action, whereas subjects closer to the center and unaligned with an action are what is being acted upon. Like with the audience conundrum though an action needs a subject to actually act, whether it is an individual/s or an object or place. This is usually the least word heavy portion of the sentence as it is almost supplemental to Q1, and in contrast to the thin, crisp lines of the other quarters, Q3 will often be smudgey and more messy due to being written mostly with the back of the thumb.
Quarter 4 (Yellow) is generally not going to have any words written there, as it functions as the anchor point for the hand. The outmost finger rests here on the page to stabilize the hand as it closes during writing. When writing in a ream of papers this is where the hole to hold them all together is punched through. However in modern fanciful writing styles Q4 is also used as a secondary emotional quarter. This style will use Q4 as the reactionary emotion of the reader, more so the expected reaction and emotion from the reader. This is an EXTREMELY class based writing style and it is a GIANT NO NO to write like this for someone of higher status to read. Typically only Clan heads will freely use this writing style, especially towards each other lmao. The writing style of the passive aggressive power struggle.
All together Quarters are read at once! And I mean that there is no one word the chimera will start with. Every word of the sentence is absorbed at the same time, no following along a line like how I’m currently typing. But what indicates the order of which things are meant to be perceived is how close they are to the outside of the circle. Things closer to the center come later in the sentence and will be understood to be lower in the hierarchy of words. However only subjects and actions are directly linked to each other, emotion/opinion words are to have a more natural seep throughout the entirety of the sentence with only a loose idea of where they are to be felt. In this way while a subjects actions may be concrete, the writers feelings about them are more fluid and organic.
Chimeric conlang yay! I wanted to make modern Mirum script but decided I needed to start at the roots. So technically two written languages originate from Mirum, but they are extremely similar with one directly branching from the other. Chimeric is the original and Miran is the derivative, they mostly share characters but their sentence structure is different. Chimeric keeps the circular structure whereas Miran is a zigzagging horizontal and completely drops quarters 2 and 4. Leading to modern Miran being a very literal language vs Chimeric’s emotion heavy focus. But if you know one you can pretty much read the other, albeit with some culture shock.
#now i just have to make all the symbols hahaaha#chimera#mirum#conlang#worldbuilding#fantasy#language#chimeric#art#text#no true north
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
— grace and coordination? who?
them with a clumsy reader. (ft. kaeya, thoma, tighnari, diluc, alhaitham, ayato, zhongli, childe.)
notes: pinkie swear this'll be the last repost for a while, bc i'm working on some new stuff mwah <3
kaeya's reaction to your mishaps depends on the situation. sometimes he's literal prince charming, the very picture of concern and worry. and other times, when you're not in a lot of danger— like when you've tripped down a set of four stairs, for example— he'll try really really hard to keep a straight face to protect your feelings.
over time, he'll develop a sense of when and where accidents are most likely to happen and take measures to either remove the obstruction, or guide you away from it entirely. however, if the situation is inevitable, he'll try his best to catch you. one downside though— or upside, depending how you see it— is that he'll always hit you with an overused, cliché line.
"looks like you're falling for me all over again, sweetheart."
this sweet, sweet boy is the most worried of all. initially, thoma thinks every scratch and every bruise is a consequence of something serious, but soon learns that they're most probably a result of your klutziness. even if you stumble lightly and regain your balance, he's instantly at your side, asking you if you're alright. he won't just take you at your word though, he'll check you himself from head to toe, and only then will he be satisfied.
he'll also carry bandages, antiseptic liquid, lotion, anything he thinks you might need. his pockets are endless. he'll even have small treats to console you after a bad fall.
"oh, dear! here, let me help you up. no injuries? good. here's a candy to cheer you up."
frankly, he's exasperated. and also very concerned. whenever you bump your head on a branch or fall backwards on your butt, he just sighs and shakes his head before helping you. he knows you're no careless fool, just very prone to unlucky incidents, so he'll spare you the lecture.
tighnari is a firm believer in the fact that prevention is better than cure. so, he'll make sure your footwear is comfortable and supportive and make you change if any parts of your outfit have the potential to be a tripping hazard. if you wear glasses, he'll remind you to keep your prescription up to date. all in all, he'll minimize the possibility of you tripping due to things in your control.
"you'll trip on that robe of yours if you walk outside wearing it. go put on something else, i'd rather not see you fall into a hole in the ground again."
diluc never expresses anything because he'd rather not come off as overbearing, but he's very careful with you. you can see it in the way he brings a hand to the edge of the table to stop you from hitting your head when you bend to pick up a spoon you knocked off the table, the way he keeps any sharp objects out of your reach, the way he's always scanning his surroundings.
he'll find himself doing all that even when you're not with him, and he'll be glad you weren't there to witness that. he'll baby proof his entire house just for you, and if he can, he'll baby proof yours too. he's the type to use the high quality silk handkerchief he carries around to bandage a scuffed knee.
"don't worry about it, cloth can be washed. the injury should be our first priority."
there is no question alhaitham can't answer and no puzzle he can't solve, except, of course, the conundrum of how you manage to stumble over air, or slip on a completely dry surface. he'll observe you carefully, try his best to figure it out but eventually he'll chalk it up to circumstances being arranged against you.
he takes matters into his own hands and just fixes said circumstances for you. beyond that, he knows he cannot do much. he has the uncanny ability to know exactly when you're about to do something where you'll end up with a bump on your head, even if you're miles apart. he's also not too worried, he knows that a tumble isn't the end of the world. the problem only arises when you don't get back up again.
he'll firmly refuse to go dancing with you though, both for his sake and yours. he'll turn you down gently and suggest alternatives.
"dance with you? i'm not sure that's such a great idea. how about we spend the evening at the café?"
kamisato ayato is grace, elegance and perfection. so it comes as a surprise to most of inazuma when they see that his partner is a walking disaster. he's fond of this trait of yours though; he thinks it's endearing. he's also very forgiving if you happen to step on his toes or bump into him. he has no issues replacing anything you break on accident too.
he knows he cannot personally keep an eye on you, so he'll have someone watch over you from afar to make sure nothing serious happens. that's not to say he won't tease you, no. even though he knows the answer, he'll always ask playfully about any recent 'misfortune' you've been a part of every time he sees you.
"ah, there you are. have you fulfilled your daily quota of disaster for the day? now now, don't give me that look, you know i'm just teasing~"
he's unfazed, really. he's seen many types of people and creatures over the years, from the most poised rulers to the most unsteady fawns. one thing he does do for you is carefully consider any gifts he's thinking of giving to you, and dismisses the item if it has pointy corners or is fragile.
zhongli's the type to fall with you so you're not alone. he was once a powerful archon, a little accident in a busy hall is nothing for him. and seeing him mimic you with a stoic face to help you feel better is always a treat to witness. then, he'll dust himself off as if nothing happened, and offer you a hand.
"think nothing of it, dearest. i simply wish to accompany you on any journey i can, even if it is a short one to the floor."
childe's first and foremost reaction is to laugh when you hit your head on a pillar right in front of you, then he'll chuckle at the face you make at him when you're offended. he can't help it! it reminds him way too much of his siblings.
he sincerely promises, with a hand over his heart, to kiss any boo-boos better. and he'll insist on lifting you in his arms, and won't take no for an answer.
"no buts! i'm carrying you home like this. after all, the best way to stop you from tripping is to make sure your feet don't touch the ground, wouldn't you agree?"
#—🖋#genshin impact x reader#genshin x reader#kaeya x reader#thoma x reader#tighnari x reader#diluc x reader#alhaitham x reader#ayato x reader#zhongli x reader#childe x reader#kaeya alberich x reader#diluc ragnvindr x reader#kamisato ayato x reader#kaeya x you#thoma x you#tighnari x you#alhaitham x you#zhongli x you#diluc x you#ayato x you#childe x you#genshin impact fluff#genshin fluff
1K notes
·
View notes
Photo
i think motogp should have kept this approach to gender equality actually
#ac22#im so sorry they did this to you ana. but also objectively one of the funniest ways to navigate the ombrellina conundrum. instead of#questioning the misogyny/sexism of having grid girls in motogp we will just give the girl racing a hot dude to hold her umbrella instead#anyways ducati do this for marc next year pleaseeee
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
"I will solve you if I must."
Arkinot knew what humans looked like. They were half his size, soft, pink, and easily bullied. He knew this because he’d spent the last two weeks terrifying a team of human diplomats sent to negotiate trade deals. It was something of a science to him at this point: Small but weak species sends in their diplomats, he spends a week or two terrifying them in close quarters, then he offers them some dogshit trade deals in exchange for getting to leave early. They take the deal, he gets richer, and in a manner of speaking, the universe becomes a better place. Being a coward was the kind of thing that really should be taxed, and he liked to think of his negotiation style as exactly that: A coward tax.
Still, that was far dominating his thoughts at the moment. The conundrum his brain was struggling to untangle was that he knew what a human looked like, and the thing in front of him was not a human. It wore human robes, but underneath the robes, it appeared to be a tank that someone had glued several monitors to. Maybe even an antennae of some kind. It was such a chaotic jumble that it was almost funny. The one part of it that really seemed to be going too far was the badge sewn into the front designating it as an official diplomat.
He stepped a few feet closer to inspect the possible art piece. He barely had begun to reach his hand forward to lift the tent sized robe when a mechanical claw pushed forward and clasped around his arm, painless but implacable.
“What the fuck-”
He didn’t hear the voice from the thing, nor did he hear it in his mind, as he’d felt with some of the telepathic races. The voice of this abomination felt like it was being physically projected directly inside his own ear, as if its mouth was just a fraction of a centimeter away from his ear drum.
“Arkinot.”
He threw up. The words weren’t loud but they seemed to have some kind of disproportionate effect on his balancing organs. The world was sent spinning and he could barely tell up from down. A second bolt of pain blossomed, this time from the back of his head. It took him a good moment to realize that he’d fallen flat on his back. He didn’t know a simple sound could cause so much damage.
And then it continued.
“You make threats you have no ability to back up. You will learn.”
Even with his senses scrambled, he could feel something cold and metallic pressed into his hand. He was too incoherent to guess what.
He wasn’t sure if the voice retracted from his ear out of pity, or because it knew that it had proved its point, but he was grateful to hear the rest of the message without feeling like someone was trying to jam stakes into his brain.
“A copy has already been sent to your high command. Your ‘diplomacy’ has already been bypassed. This is simply a personal education on the nature of human violence. Summon me when you understand.”
He rolled over to see the thing lurching down the hall. Even in his disoriented state, he could see something human in it, something imperceptibly satisfied with the message it had delivered. Part of him wondered if there was some small lump of flesh buried deep inside that horror, or if it was just mind made metal, an engram with form.
Perhaps sensing his gaze, it paused. It didn’t turn around, but he doubted that its vision was as limited as eyes were. The voice projected forward again, mercifully short of his ear, but still too close for comfort. He could almost imagine the hot breath of it bouncing off his face, mere millimeters away from his face.
“I will know when you are done. Do not make me find you.”
---
It had taken him half an hour to work up the will to pull himself up from his pool of stale vomit, and another ten minutes to stagger back to his cabin. He’d needed to lean against the wall for the entire walk back. He was genuinely concerned that his balance had been permanently damaged.
He did his first inspection of the object he’d been gifted. It was, technically, a data slate, but that was somewhat akin to calling a reactor a steam engine. The specs on it didn’t even make sense to him. What the hell was an exaHz? What was a Bekenstein limit? How could storage be at 137% of it? Couldn’t be much of a limit if it went over 100.
The device seemed to recognize it was being inspected and raised a query of its own.
User: Arkinot?
He nodded dumbly. The slate whirred for a few seconds, genuinely struggling to process what it was about to do.
And then it began.
---
Arkinot stumbled out of the room seventeen hours later. He wasn’t terrified. He’d run out of the emotional energy needed to feel fear after the first two hours of calm, methodical instruction presented to him by the dataslate.
He had learned about the nature of human violence. It was no hot blooded slaughter, no prayer of eternal vengeance. It was an industrial event to them, something to be mass produced until the market flooded over and peace became the new commodity of choice.
And they could do that. Easily. He’d seen blueprints for factories that built factories that built factories. Replicating swarms of mining bots.
The smallest time vs. production curve he’d seen was for their assault cruisers, and it was still a fourth order polynomial. If for some reason they needed to wage war for over a year, they could feasibly consume more than 30% of the mass of their first three industrial worlds.
And they had more than forty left in reserve.
He’d assume earlier that he was arguing from a position of strength because they didn’t have an active armada. He realized that the reason they hadn’t bothered was because they’d be able to produce one as large as his entire species fleet in under 48 hours.
His balance was back. He barely noticed. He followed the same path he had before, noticed in an offhanded way that the vomit had been cleaned. The human diplomat must have called that in. He certainly hadn’t.
He was now in the human section of the station, and while he could sense a wariness in the steps of the pink things around him, it was hardly the full blown fear he’d managed to instill just 24 hours before. They knew that they’d managed to summon a stronger predator than him.
He knew it too.
The door that he’d been summoned to was a repurposed garage. He supposed nothing else would fit someone so large. He knocked twice on the corrugated steel before it began to roll up.
The robes were gone. Still no visible flesh, but at least with all the machinery in sight he had a better idea of what he was looking at. He still didn't see any pink skin there, but he didn't have to when he could see rack after rack of eletroneural interfaces.
So there was a brain in there. A human brain. Probably very little else.
A faint twitch of its insectoid legs gave away its impatience. Ah. So it was waiting for him to speak.
“You didn’t need… Damn. How large was that presentation?”
The voice was almost offhanded in its response.
“208 yottabytes.”
Arkinot’s brain skipped over the scale of that number. It was absurdly massive. Apparently, everything that the humans really put their minds to turned absurdly massive.
“You didn’t need 208 yottabytes to say that you could kick our asses.”
The faint twitching gave away, replaced by an uncanny stillness. It wasn’t the frozen stiffness of a robot, it was the tense, rigid posture of someone showing a considerable amount of restraint.
“No. You certainly didn’t when you said that to us. What I needed 208 yottabytes for was showing you how I would ‘kick your asses.’ It is worth considering how much scarier that is than your empty words.”
There was a brief noise, like rustling through the speaker, and he realized that the machine had done the purely auditory equivalent of taking a breath. The action was somehow more unsettling than the purely mechanical affect he’d seen before. It made him realize just how close any of the other soft pink things running around the halls were to becoming something like this, something that could crush him with a thought.
His thoughts were interrupted by the man-machine’s closing words, tired but dangerous.
“Do not threaten our diplomats again. It is their job to be patient. It is my job to solve problems. I will solve you if I must.”
That same tired voice spoke again, millimeters from his ear.
“Now, don't let me detain you.”
He did what any sane sapient would do.
He ran.
#hfy#humanity fuck yeah#humans are space oddities#science fiction#scifi#humans are space orcs#creative writing#writing#cybernetics#Babylon-HFY
755 notes
·
View notes
Text
bittersweet ~ a yandere!John Wick x fem!reader sunshine/grump coffee shop AU... Part 37 all chapters
WARNING: NSFW, SEXUAL CONTENT, VIOLENCE, YANDERE SH!T. Plz take care. I luv u all. 😘
You linger a little longer in the bathroom than John after your bath, performing those obligatory feminine tasks. Hair. Moisturizer. Nails... You are extra attentive to these things here, where personal appearance seems absolutely paramount.
When you walk out to join him, wrapped up in your fluffy white hotel robe, you find him sitting in one of the chairs with his back to you, looking out the window at the city below. Cars flit past, people mill on the sidewalks. Manhattan never truly sleeps.
You lean your hip against his shoulder; automatically he reaches for you, his fingertips sliding up your thigh beneath the robe, making you shudder with the sweet thrill of his light touch tickling your skin. You close your eyes for a moment, savoring it. It takes you a while to notice he’s holding a little black box, turning it in his other hand.
You’re not sure why the sight of it makes your heart sprint in your chest.
“When the Camorra come…” He pauses with a long, tired sigh. “I want you to wear this.”
He flips open the box with his thumb, extending it towards you without really looking at you.
The object inside is bright and shiny, sparking blue fire in the low light.
Your heart steps to the edge of a precipice and flings itself into a swan dive–you don’t know if rocks or water await below.
“Is that…an engagement ring?”
It’s a deco white gold setting adorned with a substantial–but not obscene diamond. You realize the filigree shapes are leaves and flowers–something that would become a nature girl like yourself.
“Technically.”
He doesn’t sound…happy.
“In our world wives have standing; girlfriends are just fodder. I want them to know I’m serious about your safety.”
His meaning dawns on you–and suddenly you’re not terribly happy either.
“You want to get fake engaged?”
“I won’t pressure you into something more than that right now, y/n. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
You realize the source of your own annoyance is that for a fleeting moment you’d thought it was real–and goddamn you for a fool, maybe he finally has truly fucked your brains out, but you know you would have said yes.
“Where…did you get this?” you ask, looking at the little ring with all its grandiose meaning. It suits you to a T. He’d put thought into this…and it feels off.
He’s quiet for a long time, before he finally admits, “In the antique shop, in Clear Forks. It made me think of you.”
You close your eyes at hearing this, suddenly dizzy. “When?” you ask, barely able to lift your voice over a whisper.
“You know when,” he answers, matching your volume.
You think he maybe means in the interim when he’d locked you up like a princess in the tower, after your magnificent fight. Little did you know, that things had yet to really go to hell. “Were you…going to ask me for real?” You’re not sure why your eyes are suddenly stinging with tears.
“I’m good with vows, y/n. Absolutes. The rest…has always been hard for me. I thought…that I was never a better man, than when I was a husband. I thought that was the man you deserved–the man I’d forgotten how to be. I thought I could find him again, if we…” He cuts himself short, squeezing the little box in his hand. You hear it creak in protest. “But now I see how selfish that idea was.”
Maybe you should be relieved, that he decided against trying to bully you into a legally binding union with him–but as it stands now…it hurts, that he changed his mind. What a conundrum you find yourselves in. How things have changed, since he locked you up that day.
“Oh.”
There must be something in your voice, because he finally looks up at you. “Honey…please don’t be sad.”
“I’m…I don’t know what I am,” you admit, making to go to the other chair. But he grabs you up before you can run away, depositing you across his lap.
“I’ve hurt your feelings.”
“Maybe?”
You’re relieved that he’s arrived in this state of mind. You really are. It’s just…complicated.
If he had sprung this on you after you’d been isolated in the bedroom for days on end, pining for him, certain you’d ruined everything… Oh. What a coup indeed. You might have agreed then too, but certainly not for the same reasons.
Or were they?
Can you trust your own judgment when it comes to this man at all?
“I’m just…trying to protect you.”
In that moment you’re not sure if he means from the Camorra, or himself.
“I get that.”
“Then…?”
“I don’t know…” you sigh, snuggling under his chin, and you’re not lying about that. You’re tired, too tired to process this right now. “Will you hold me?”
He says nothing, just wraps his arms more snugly around you, and you watch the nighttime goings-on of New York out the window from the safety of your crow’s nest, together.
***
“What a lovely ring,” says Winston, seating himself beside you on the roof, Dog at your feet. You’ve taken to wearing it early so everyone can get the appropriate eyeful–apparently assassins are terrible gossips in their off time. And maybe Winston notices it, because you’re glaring at the damn thing like it owes you money.
You just can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it’s not such a big deal to John, because he’s been married before…but this is all new to you. You’re not the kind of girl who’s ever gotten caught up in worrying about marriage, or weddings, but this has unexpectedly hit you in a tender place.
The decidedly tinny voice of reason inside you assures you that it would be bat fuck crazy to marry John Wick, after everything he put you through. But your heart? The heart wants what the heart wants, and that bitch is loud.
Maybe the trauma of all these extreme circumstances has simply fried your brain, made you want to cling to the man who seems like a safe shelter right now.
But it occurs to you on reflection that maybe, John’s obsessive brand of love is what you’ve wanted all along. To be the object of his devotion, even to the point of madness–it ticks some primeval box deep inside your brain, and you wonder if a part of you somehow knew all along. You like it. You thrive on it. When you love someone you give them everything. Why should you settle for anything less on the other side, the way you always have, your whole goddamned life?
When your parents split and started new families it felt like they abandoned you. You went from being their perfect little darling to a mistaken product of a previous marriage. Your mother would insist with an oblivious laugh that you seemed so self-sufficient she didn’t feel like she needed to take care of you anymore. That wasn’t how it felt to you, while your little world crumbled around you, and you know deep down your need to be liked by everyone is undoubtedly tied up in this somehow.
Your need to be loved by John? For better or worse…it’s the air you breathe. How sad, how paltry a nice normal love would seem, after this. Maybe that’s not healthy–but it’s your truth.
No other man will ever do for you, after this.
“Yeah,” you sigh.
“Are congratulations in order?”
“Sure.”
You’re not sure if Winston is in on the ruse or not–it’s funny, in this world in which you’ve been told to trust no one, you find it hard to lie to this elegant old man. Maybe you have daddy issues too.
“I see our Jonathan’s tendency to monosyllabic conversation has rubbed off on you.”
“I’m sorry,” you apologize, sitting up in your seat, trying not to appear like a sulky teenager, sure you’re failing utterly. “It’s just complicated. Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about the sculpted figures in the molding in the lobby, they’re very interesting.”
Always keen to chat about his design choices in his beloved hotel, he proceeds to tell you all about it.
#john wick#john wick x reader#john wick x you#keanu reeves#keanu reeves x reader#john wick fic#john wick x y/n#yandere john wick#bittersweet coffee shop au
142 notes
·
View notes
Text
❝right place, right time❞
VII. twenty-one questions.
parts: previously / next plot: everything comes to a head. pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x gn!reader. cw: surgeon!reader, secret identities, slow burn, reader's a little stupid, descriptions of surgical stitching, blood, surgical needles, knives, violence, mentions of drugs and underage substance abuse (alcohol), minor character death(s). words: 11.4k.
a/n: it has been yet another hot minute and this chapter has given me a lot of grief in terms of all the ideas I had for it and what it ended up being. as you can tell by the word count, I could Not shut up
Alfred calls you bright and early to watch Bruce spar.
The billionaire had mentioned it before, and while you didn't doubt you would meet an untimely fate were you to challenge Mr. Pennyworth one-on-one, it was a whole other thing seeing them both on the mat.
Alfred is slow but thoughtful; when Bruce attacks, he goes for several hits at once. Alfred anticipates each one. He's more defense than offense, but when he strikes Bruce in the chest even you can feel it.
Bruce is lean, quick. He ducks and rolls and uses every part of his body, not just his fists. He looks a little sloppy when he wraps his legs around Alfred's—out of practice, maybe?—but it doesn't keep him from succeeding. Alfred fights like a soldier. Bruce fights like a martial artist.
Bruce makes a noise when Alfred falls to the mat and you spring up with attention, "Everything okay?"
You hear "his leg" and "I'm fine" overlap one another.
The real reason Alfred had called you was because he wanted you to watch Bruce hurt himself. The vestiges of a sprain, he guessed, that Bruce was too stubborn to rest. When he couldn't convince Bruce to pass on sparring, he resorted to you: "an objective spectator." Alfred had sounded pleased. Bruce had looked about ready to suplex him.
You head over anyway, ignoring the protests of the injured so you could kneel and survey the damage. "Can you walk?"
Bruce doesn't meet your eyes. He forces his body to stand, but you can easily tell he's favoring a side. You reach a hand up and pinch his injured calf, hearing him hiss through his teeth. "Of course it's going to hurt when you do that." He sounds childishly annoyed. Alfred is fighting a smile from his spot next to you.
"I don't understand. You're head of the company, you can afford to take a few days off. Even chair rest is still rest."
"Ah, but there lies the conundrum," Alfred pushes himself up to his feet, "he cannot sit still."
Bruce extends his hand to you, still avoiding eye contact. You hesitate but take it anyway, and the ease with which he hoists you to your feet is a bit disorienting.
Since your agreement with Batman, you were forced to be patient. After all, there were more pressing matters in Gotham besides your own ticking time bomb. He'd promised that he'd get back to you soon about Bruce and, until then, you would have to grin and bear it.
Alfred excuses himself to get busy with lunch the minute Dory enters with the groceries, leaving the two of you alone in the middle of the living room. "As your doctor," you begin, "I can't in good conscience let you keep pushing your body past its limit."
"It barely hurts anymore."
You bend as if you're about to grab at his leg again and he takes a step back, annoyed—if not offended, "You have no record of chronic pain. No record of serious past injuries at all. Yet you strain yourself doing... what, exactly? Sparring all day? You may be young, Bruce, but your body isn't indestructible."
You get the feeling he's heard this before, bristling like a scolded cat as you stare him down, "I'm fine," he brushes past you toward the table he and Alfred moved to the far end of the room, grabbing a sweating glass of water, "Alfred's just being... Alfred. He worries too much."
"I worry," Bruce raises a brow as he takes a swig and you clear your throat, "you said you need to be reminded to care of yourself. Well, that's my job now. Not that the hospital couldn't use more of your money but it's not worth the pain you'll be in." Bruce leans against the table, one leg crossed over the other. You approach, briefly taking note of the water that dribbles down his chin. "I'm starting to think you're just a masochist."
"Yeah? How do you figure?" His lip twitches up into a smile.
You open your mouth but the thought stops you cold. You were going to say, "Because I know someone just like you," but then you're transported back to that fateful morning where you first met. Bruce and all his... familiarity. The wild speculation of your exhausted mind. All of which, at the time, overlapped perfectly. Yet now that you knew them both better, they were worlds apart to you. Except for that one thing.
What was it that set them apart, again?
Your eyes drift up to Bruce's. "I get your type at General sometimes," you divert, "real pains in the ass."
Bruce steps closer to you with his glass abandoned on the table, "And your type can't seem to leave well enough alone."
You prickle. If it weren't for the fact that he was so clearly teasing you, you'd have lingered on the almost double meaning, "The fact you think this," you raise your foot and tap the side of Bruce's injured leg; his eyes narrow, "is well enough further proves my point. You need rest."
Bruce rolls his shoulders back; his compression tee clings to every muscle as he does, drawing your attention for a brief moment. "I'll think about it."
Your jaw drops. Bruce smiles. You feel a white hot flash of irritation that's wiped away when Alfred reenters the room, dishtowel thrown over his shoulder, eyes fixed on you, "Will you be staying for lunch?"
Before you can say no, Bruce interjects for you, "Yes. Thank you, Alfred." Then he turns to you, pats your arm like a friend, and pushes you in the direction of the kitchen, "I'm gonna shower. Make yourself at home."
You stumble over yourself, regaining balance just as Bruce's head disappears over the top floor banister. How quickly he could retreat when leaving you to the lions.
But Alfred is in a good mood today. Better than usual, actually. The hair on your neck stands on end as you follow him to the kitchen, preparing for the good mood to sour now that it wasjust the two of you, but it doesn't come. You watch him hum a little tune as he fixes up some vegetables to sauté.
You even find yourself getting comfortable at the island when he breaks the silence, "I appreciate what you're doing for Bruce... regardless of its efficacy. It's nice to know someone else has common sense in this house." Alfred sets down four empty plates at the breakfast table.
You take note of his tone, an improvement from his barely concealed dislike from weeks before. You take that as a small victory for today, "It's like arguing with a brick wall. How have you managed it all these years?"
"Like a soldier." Without asking, he fills a glass to the brim with water and hands it to you.
"Right. You're a veteran." Your observation gives him pause, the food he tends to at the stove crackling away. "I can tell. I've treated a lot of veterans so I can spot them from a mile away now."
Alfred snorts, straightening his shoulders. "I served as a young lad. Eventually retired and came here, took on the job as the Waynes' butler and bodyguard. I've been with them for quite some time. Since before Bruce was even born."
"You practically raised him."
"Rather... clumsily, might I add," Alfred glances at you and you're surprised to see him bashful, genuinely, "protecting him, I could handle. Raising him... well, that was another matter entirely."
"But you did a pretty good job. I mean, he's accomplished a lot. Especially with the mayor. I imagine that's why he's working so hard: really seems like he's dedicated to restoring his father's legacy."
You can't help the little hook you throw out.
Right before the Mayor was elected, when a bomb shook the penthouse of 1939 Kane St., Edward Nashton had taken to the airwaves to out Thomas Wayne as a cold-blooded killer. Not long after, the man who'd pulled the trigger was shot dead in the street before he could be brought to justice. That would bring anyone out of hiding.
Wayne Enterprises inevitably challenged the claims, Bruce Wayne had taken to his father's defense in an impassioned press conference that even you tuned into, and Gotham General made the decision to keep his father's statue in the courtyard.
It was never ruled out, though. After all, all of the Riddler's other exposés were true. But there was no paper trail. Nothing but he said, he said, and with everyone involved dead, it was Bruce Wayne's word over a zealot who'd flooded the city.
You take a sip from your glass to let Alfred ruminate on his reply. He doesn't raise his eyes to you again, "Precisely."
"I've been keeping a close eye on him in the news. His philanthropy this past year has been really remarkable." That was a bold-faced lie. You'd been keeping an eye on him for the past few weeks. Everything else you knew about Bruce Wayne's newfound appreciation for the poor and needy came from Em. "Some of the people at the party, however..."
"Councilman Roberts, was it? He was awfully spirited from what Master Bruce relayed to me."
The very mention of his name makes your blood pressure spike, "The guest list was very diverse."
Alfred transfers the cutting board to the sink, "Master Bruce has his reasons. He's become rather fixated on the state of political affairs. First behind the scenes, and now..."
"Now center stage." You finish for him, swirling your glass. "Think he'll run for office one day?"
Alfred looks somewhere between amused and horrified.
It would be natural. Thomas Wayne had almost done it. Why not Bruce? It'd be a comeback story for the ages if someone didn't try to kill him again.
"I'd rather he keep out of it. Being in a position like that has never been his true calling."
"Yeah? And what is?"
Alfred doesn't look like he wants to say. He scrubs at the surface of the wooden board, absentmindedly brushing the same spot clean over and over. His eyes catch yours for a split second, just as quick as the smile that he flashes when the answer finally spills out of him, "Altruism."
You and Alfred don't talk much more until Bruce comes down. Dory joins you all at the table soon after and, rather awkwardly, you find yourself having a quiet lunch with the Waynes. Hooks abandoned. Fish not caught.
You wait for what feels like hours, but eventually he arrives.
His car is an absolute monster. It growls as it pulls up beside you in the withering glow of street lights, and if it weren't for said lights, it would blend into the shadows almost completely. The raindrops that dot the hood help catch the light on the deep black paint job.
You look for the door handle but it opens for you. Inside, you see Batman with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift. You swallow. This is new territory.
You throw your bag in first, then climb into the passenger seat, very aware of the pocket knife stuffed in the pocket of your scrubs. You go to close the door and it closes for you all on its own. Behind you is an intimidating engine that vibrates through your every bone and muscle, and when you look to the driver, he is staring straight ahead. A few beats pass as you try to keep your teeth from chattering, "Do the seat belts move on their own, too?"
Batman looks at you from his peripheral. Then—twisting in his seat—he reaches across you to retrieve the seat belt, dragging it across the front of your body until it clicks at your side, "'Fraid not."
Despite all the rumbling of the car engine, it's a smooth ride through the city. Even the littering of pot holes and uneven pavement doesn't ruin it. Still, it does nothing to quell your nerves.
You feel small, sinking into the passenger seat built for people wearing a lot more armor than you. You also note that there's nowhere for your legs to go underneath the seat. You bump the solid obstruction with the backs of your sneakers but can't make out what it is.
There are other weird things you notice when you start looking. Starting where your shoulders rest are six holes going down the seat, three on each side, all a foot apart from the last. You press your finger into one of the holes and feel hard metal on either side of the gap. Upon further inspection, Batman's seat has it too, "What are these for?" You ask.
Batman doesn't need to look at you to know what you're messing with, "Restraints."
You recoil, "I beg your pardon?"
"I could show you."
"I'm- sorry, what..." You bend at the waist to feel the metal plate beneath the seat and recognize that there are holes along the sides there too.
"In case I need to bring someone along who's less than willing. Metal bars are installed in the seats. Only I know how to activate them."
"Why your seat too?"
"In case someone tries to steal the car," he makes a turn into one of the boroughs and you realize you're getting close to your destination, "but I've considered putting a trunk in the back for... passengers."
"And where do you get the money for such... modest mods?"
At that, Batman does not answer you. You figured he wouldn't. There were a hundred answers he could give you that would surely, most definitely give his identity away. It doesn't stop your brain from beginning to wander.
It doesn't get very far before you're pulling up into the alley between two houses, shrouding the car in the shadow of Joey Russo's home.
It's not as nicely kept as the other houses on the street, and its age doesn't do it any favors. A lot of the off-white paint has been chipped off or discolored over the years. There's a piece-of-junk car in the driveway that looks like it works, but just barely. The lawn has outgrown the neighbors', kept at bay by patches of dead grass where you can tell someone had gone to town with weedkiller. There are old, faded garden decorations around the front porch. Some gnomes with their ceramic hats caved in, a wind chime missing most of its chimes.
You're wandering out of the alley and into the harsh, orange beam of the streetlight when you feel Batman's hand roughly drag you back into the dark. You're about to ask what the problem is when your eyes catch the side of the house.
There's a little window with its grey curtains shut, a dead flower limp on the sill. Next to the window is a backdoor cracked open.
You do not protest when Batman presses up against the side of the house and moves you behind him. There are dogs barking, cars driving by, faint sirens in the distance, but you can't hear anything from inside.
You watch as he presses his hand to the door and slowly pushes it open, peeking in from a safe distance into the dark. Most of the windows are blocked out by sheer curtains, and no light in the house is on from what you can tell.
Batman is a hulking thing, always, but every step is feather-light on the weathered floorboards as you both enter. There's no sign of Russo, even though the house feels warm. Like it'd been lived in recently. Your heart picks up as you swear you see a shadow move in the corner of your eye, but it's just the wind picking up one of the curtains.
You so desperately want to ask him what he's thinking but your voice is stuck in your throat, the thought crashing down upon you that you are here, that somewhere in this house is the man who had ensured you'd be here today (in nearly all the ways that that could apply), and that it was not so far behind you as you might've hoped.
And were you to get an answer—any answer—from Russo tonight, it would not change the fact that your name was still on Bruce Wayne's payroll.
You feel sick to your stomach all over again.
When the living room is clear, you're simultaneously relieved and terrified when Batman leaves you to scope out the adjoining dining room. The house is silent aside from your breathing.
It's a few moments alone that does it; you start to feel another wave of anxiety. It had been a few minutes, hadn't it? Maybe. A minute at least. You're not confident enough to go looking for Batman, and you fear calling out to him would just detrimentally unsettle the atmosphere. You listen for where he might be, any creaks in the floors boards, but there's nothing.
Just as you're about to step into the dining room yourself, something moves out of your peripheral again. Only this time, you realize too late that it's not the curtain.
You barely register the pain at first—the skin of your upper arm splitting in half—but then it's white-hot and you're choking on a cry before you can stop yourself. Something had rushed at you, a person. You shakily touch where they'd cut you.
Was it a knife? It had to be, with how cleanly it tore your skin. Your brain jumps to the next question: was it covered in anything? Would you get infected?
You stumble back and reach into your pocket for your own knife with a little more urgency. The person rushes at you again with something akin to a battle cry and you narrowly dodge their raised weapon, only the sound of it ripping through the curtains tells you it wasn't just another delayed reaction.
You slash at their back while they're still turned and manage to actually make a cut before jumping back. It's not enough, though. Your attacker spins and even though the light has now turned them into nothing but a silhouette, you can feel their crazed gaze on you.
It feels boiling. It feels personal.
Their breathing is ragged, panting from more than just the fight. It sounds like they're foaming at the mouth, rabid and wild, as they spit at you, "You should've died with your little bitch of a friend when you had the chance."
The anger in their voice stuns you before the words do.
They come at you again and you sidestep them once more but it's staggered, allowing the tip of their weapon to slice your cheek open. When you cry out this time, you yell for Batman.
You don't have any concept of time right now, but as you fall to the floor, you swing at your attacker's ankle, hoping to cut a vein, when you feel Batman rush past you and directly into your attacker.
They both crash into the coffee table, glass and wood shattering in a cacophony. You watch through burning eyes as the two wrestle each other, keeping your hand pressed to your arm to still the bleeding even as it slips against the skin. Batman has them pinned when your attacker starts wildly kicking, and one of his feet hits Batman hard in the leg. You don't expect it to be the leverage he needs, but it's enough to daze Batman—he looks suddenly awash with pain—and that's all the attacker needs to slip out from beneath him and head out the back door.
Your heart stutters. How hard did he have to hit him through the suit for it to cripple him so easily?
Batman tries to recover, tries to deploy the grapple gun in his gauntlet to trip him, but he slips into the alleyway just narrowly. Batman is after him in an instant.
You force yourself up from the floor to follow after him, when you realize that within all that commotion, no one else in the house made themselves known.
You stumble up the staircase, haphazardly swiping at the wall for light switches that might help clear the spots in your vision. "Russo!" You call out, and your voice is shaky. You realize you're trembling.
There are too many doors on the upper floor but there is one that is cracked open. You rush toward it first, shoving it open with your good shoulder.
And there, to confirm your worst suspicion, is proof.
You've had enough training in your field not to immediately vomit at the sight even as the smell overpowers you. He's lost weight and he looks smaller than he had been when you were just sixteen. Laying on the floor, drenched in his own blood, Detective Joey Russo isn't the crystal clear picture you'd preserved in your head these past 17 years.
You make it only a few steps before falling to your knees beside him. It's clear he'd passed from the stab wounds not long before you'd arrived and there's just so many. His chest, his stomach, his arms and legs and skull—his face had taken the worst of it. Whoever had done this had been furious.
You can barely bring yourself to stare into his eyes but when you do, you sob. You try to look anywhere else but your eyes just catch on pictures of him on the wall, happy, smiling, with a wife and a kid who leave no traces of themselves in this room.
It's just him. All alone here.
You sway a bit as you reach a hand up to shut his eyes but the blood on your fingers stops you. You realize that you've left a trail on the way up here, and as your eyes retrace back to the bedroom door, you see Batman standing there looking down at you.
He doesn't ask, just walks over to you and hoists you up to stand, forcing you to lean into him for support.
The time between him finding you and the walk downstairs passes in a muddy amount of time and you're stumbling into the hood of his car as your head swims.
You must be losing a bit of blood.
Batman presses a hand to your arm. His other hand goes to your cheek and you flinch away at the sting.
You watch him dizzily. He reaches down to the bottom of his cape and rips a strip off to tie around your bicep. "GCPD is on the way. We have to get you stitched up."
"If only there were a surgeon around." Batman doesn't find your joke funny. Neither do you, all things considered.
The doors open on their own again and he sits you in the passenger seat, leaning it back as far as it'll go before buckling you in. You think you feel his hand linger on yours before he abandons you for the driver's side. The thrum of the engine is the least of your concerns now.
You're halfway down the street when you mumble, "He said... I should've died."
"Stop talking." He doesn't say it with menace, or at least not the kind where you actually mean it. It's all bark and... worry, you think.
You hate the smell of your own blood, which is funny because it smells about the same as everyone else's and usually that's just fine for you. Or maybe you're still smelling Russo's.
You think of your attacker. About what they said. That you should've died with your "little bitch of a friend". It's too convenient to not be—one of the street lights you pass is far too bright and you have to shut your eyes to keep the thought going—be about her. And why her? Why Russo? Why now?
17 years of nothing. And now everything at once.
"Russo," your voice is weaker, "we gotta go back for him."
"Stop talking! I'm trying- shit." This is the most panic you've ever heard in Batman's voice before. The most fear. He hadn't been this worried when he was dying on your living room floor. "Please." He begs.
You're of sound mind enough to know what he's really asking. You should know, even as you sway in and out of consciousness.
You conserve what little energy you have left to focus on the side of his face. His jaw forever clenched. Eyelashes long enough to catch the city light on. And although it's not entirely clear from the angle you're laying at, you search out the blue of his eyes as his face turns to look at you. It's the last thing you see before you give in.
When you come to, you are laying in a hospital bed with a throbbing arm and an equally throbbing cheek. Your scrubs are still in tact, even with the bloodstains down the front and sides. The knees of your pants are stained too, and you are harshly reminded that this blood doesn't belong to you.
The next thing you notice is Em sitting in the chair beside your bed, head thrown back in a peaceful nap. She must've heard—or seen, you don't recall getting from the car to here—and came to keep you company. You'd reach over to tap her knee if it were your good arm's side. The next thing you notice after that is that there is someone else in the room with you two.
It takes a second, but you remember him: a kindly face even with the cloud of disturb that hangs over him. When he sees you're awake, he gets up from his position against the wall and approaches the other side of the bed, "Detective James Gordon," he introduces himself, nodding to you, "we met at the precinct before."
Your voice comes out scraggly, "I remember you."
He flashes you a quick smile, "Well, I'm happy to see you're alright. You lost a bit of blood, but your friend—" A pen materializes in his hand and he points it at Em, still dead to the world, "—said it was just a few stitches."
"Are you here to arrest me?"
He's trained well enough not to look shocked, but you see his expression shift, "Why would I arrest you?"
You swallow, looking down at your scrubs once more, "I assume you're not here to talk about our mutual friend."
James nods. "We examined Joey Russo's home. We found, among other things, your DNA on the scene. Blood in the living room and... upstairs bedroom."
You pinch your pants leg, trying to get at the skin so you could keep the churning of your stomach at bay. Anything to distract yourself from the very vivid image of Russo's lifeless eyes.
James clicks his pen and you focus back on him. He's got a small notepad in his other hand with a few words already written down. You wonder what he's written about, what he's thinking about you right now. "From what I understand, you dropped by the precinct recently asking for the whereabouts of Russo and were denied given his retirement. You mentioned that you were inquiring about an old case involving yourself, is that correct?" James continues after your nod, "You brought this up to the Batman too."
"Yes," your voice wobbles, "I asked if... he could help me."
"And?"
"He said no."
"But you were both there tonight. So, what happened? Why were you looking for Joey Russo?"
You lean up on your good arm, allowing your legs to swing from the bed so you could sit upright in front of James. One glance over your shoulder tells you Em is still asleep, "I told him it was urgent. I had reason to believe confidential information about the case had been leaked to someone. I wanted to confront him, find out if he... was the one that leaked it."
"The case being part of your sealed juvenile records, correct?" James casts a look over you, somewhere between pitying and skeptical, "given your involvement in this situation, I was given access to this record. Detective Russo worked your case 17 years ago, and was, in fact, the person to get your records sealed in the first place. Along with... three others, I believe. And you believed someone had unauthorized access to it?"
"I know- I know. I know they did."
"Can you tell me the name of this person?"
Detective Gordon seems trustworthy. Batman trusts him, you can tell that much. It's just the saying it out loud part that trips you up, "My, um... my employer. Not Rudy, but Bruce Wayne. I'm his personal doctor. I became aware he had this information and wanted to check with Russo myself before I said anything."
James doesn't bother hiding his intrigue this time. His eyebrows shoot up a bit when you say Bruce's name, "Right. And... do you have proof that he has this information? A picture or a recorded conversation, a witness even?"
Of course not. You'd been happy enough to get out of that penthouse without being caught. Your silence is answer enough. James writes something down on his notepad and nods at you, "Well, a single person—especially not a civilian employer—should be able to access something that's not public record. Even Russo couldn't, having been retired. I can't imagine Russo was the one to give him that information unless he just had a file lying around, and I doubt he did. He never revisited that case before he retired in any capacity."
"Is there any way Bruce could have accessed it?"
"There's plenty of ways if you have an in somewhere and the leverage to do so, but this is all speculation. I can look into it, though. See if anyone's accessed the file recently, sniff around. If you come across anything solid, let me know."
You doubted you would. After that night, those files had probably gone into a room with lock and key.
"There was something else that I wanted to talk about, though," James shifts closer to you, "Our mutual friend assured me that you've never been to Russo's house before tonight, and that he had been with you the entire time you were there. From what I understand, there was someone else in the house with the two of you. Do you have any idea who he might've been?"
"No, I... I didn't really get a good look at him."
"What about his voice? Could you describe it?"
"Uh, young. Sounded about my age." Your fingers grip the bedsheets tightly, "He said something. He said that... I should have died. Along with my friend."
James' eyes narrow on you, "Your friend?"
"Alex," you choke out, feeling a tear spill out of your eye, "I know he was talking about Alex."
"Hm. You think that's why he attacked you? He knows you?"
"But I don't know him."
James flips his notepad back a few pages, "There were eight people there the night Alex Villanueva was murdered, including herself and you: your three friends, none of whom have stepped foot in Gotham since 2019. The shooter, Natalie Young. Her younger brother, Dimitri Young. And a fellow member of their gang, Lucien Goulding. Natalie was killed in a shootout 17 years ago, Goulding is currently in prison, and Dimitri... he should be serving life in prison right now."
Your brows furrow, "Should?"
"He and several other inmates were reported missing from Arkham five days ago."
Your mouth goes dry. You squirm in bed with a sudden urge to take off running and never look back. Maybe you'd aim for your mom and dad's in New Jersey, or maybe the Atlantic.
You remember when Dimitri was a head shorter than you, had yet to sprout up so young. You remember what it was like looking at this kid not much younger than you, green eyes watering, curled up on the concrete as Alex kicked and punched and bled him until he could barely limp home.
And how he looked when Natalie came for you. Still a kid.
"Bat said he was about 5'11, 210 pounds, green eyes, shaved head and tattoos. A bit different from what he was when you last saw him. It makes sense you don't remember."
"He wanted to kill me." You whisper.
James—he's an angel, really—gives you a moment to let it sink in. "We want to put a security detail on you. We have strong reason to believe Dimitri was the one to kill Russo, and it's very possible you were next on his list, but I don't think he anticipated you being there tonight... which might've saved your life."
You shake your head, "Batman saved my life."
The detective smiles, "Twice in a row might make him your guardian angel." The both of you turn when you hear Em stir awake from behind, and James goes to dismiss himself, "Well, thank you for your time. You should probably be heading home to get some rest soon, but if you think of anything else, please don't hesitate to let me know." James hands you a business card, "And I'll look into Bruce Wayne for ya. Could be something there. Our mutual friend might know. Take it easy."
"Wait," you call, before he can get out the door, "Russo. He had a- a kid. A son. And a wife, I think. They weren't at the house. Are they okay?"
James looks a little pained as he answers you, "No... uh, his son was murdered a while back. His ex-wife's been living back home in Boston ever since. She's been notified."
There isn't much else to say after that, so he ducks his head as a final goodbye and exits the room, raincoat swaying behind him.
You're awoken by an incessant ringing about 24 hours later.
Popping one eye open, your brain takes in the shadowy lighting of your living room, blinds still halfway up from when you'd first returned home early that morning. Judith had caught you slumped outside of your apartment door and flanked by two officers—roused by the sound of you coming home late—and had helped you to your couch, poured you a glass of water, and stayed with you until the painkillers put you to sleep.
Frankly, you gave yourself permission to lie and rot today. But the ringing would not stop.
You grab your phone, uncaring of the caller, and accidentally press it to your cut cheek with a hiss, "Yes?"
You expect it to be Em, checking in to see if you were still alive. You also expect it to be your mother, checking in to make sure you still planned on staying in Gotham. You even expect it to be Rudy (who had been just about on the verge of tears when he saw you with a busted cheek).
It's none of them. "Can I see you?"
You place the voice instantly, actually going breathless. "I'm- what's... what's wrong?"
Sitting up hurts like a bitch and you realize that you're about two hours past your scheduled Tylenol. You inhale through your teeth and try to gather your bearings.
"I got... stabbed," Bruce sounds guarded, but it shockingly doesn't come across like that's because of the stabbing, "I need your help."
"Jesus! You need to call 911. Or- or get one of your ten million drivers to take you to the ER, or call a fucking helicopter to-"
"The tower, can you come? Now?"
You weren't supposed to be driving. The cops had brought you home, and you very much did not want to ask for that favor. You drop your forehead into your palm, massaging your temple with your thumb, "How deep is it? Did you stop the bleeding?"
"I've got something on it. I just need you to stitch me up."
You glance around the room, hazy, and reach for your water, "I'll need a ride. Can't drive right now."
"He's waiting outside." The line goes dead.
You don't believe him until you go to open your apartment door and see a suited man leaned against the opposite wall, nodding politely at you. You must look like you've sprung from the dead after last night, but no one makes a comment about it. The two officers on either side of the door nod to you, "Says he's a driver for Bruce Wayne and that you'd know what he was here for. His ID checks out, but we're gonna have to tail him if you go with him."
You shut the door and look through the peephole, but the driver looks comfortable waiting.
You'd wonder how Bruce knew you'd need a ride before you said as much, but it was clear by this point that he knew everything about you.
You probably shouldn't go. Not until Gordon looked into him, or Batman. Right?
You root around in your coat pocket for the phone Batman had given you and send a quick text to his number.
Going to Wayne's. Tell Gordon to hurry up with a warrant.
You pop two pills and pull on your coat.
When the elevator doors part, you drag yourself down the hallway, up the stairs, and into the main room. Alfred nor Dory is anywhere to be seen, but with it being past 10 at night, you can only imagine they're off to bed by now. There is just a single light coming from the kitchen, and when you turn to the breakfast table, there is Bruce. Waiting.
He doesn't look at you when you approach, however. One of his hands is holding stained gauze under the neck of his shirt, and the other is gripping the table with white knuckles. You wash your hands at the kitchen sink, then round up on his left side where he's pressing against the back of his shoulder, just out of reach for him to stitch himself. You fear he would've tried had you not answered the phone.
Or, God forbid, come to you.
He looks up when you're right in front of him, scanning you quickly, "Are you okay?" He doesn't sound all that surprised to see you like this. It raises the hairs on the back of your neck.
You pull the neck of his shirt down to survey the damage, for lack of a good explanation, "I'm certain I've got a better excuse than you." Bruce shifts when you move his hand away, exposing the bloody flesh that makes you wince. You set your things on the table and command him to lift his shirt. He hesitates. "What is your excuse?"
"Got caught off guard."
"Where?"
Slowly, Bruce slips his shirt off, allowing you to see the full expanse of his back. There was the angry red stab wound, but there were other things too: moles and beauty marks scattered across his skin that paled in comparison to the several jagged lines across his shoulders and lower back—pink raised skin where it looked like he'd been cut before. Cuts that had healed years ago. You hover your fingers above one and realize they're shaking. "You never told me you and Alfred fight with knives."
"We don't," he glances at you over his shoulder but looks away just as quickly, "some of those scars are from martial artists I trained with in Thailand."
"Some?" You see so many, and those are only the ones that leave visible scars.
"Others are from the Russians."
You begin to lightly clean around his wound and ready the anesthesia but, despite the fact that he cannot see it in your hand, he waves it off completely, "Are they... the people who gave you this?"
He goes silent again. You feel like you should stop asking questions at this point, but they itch at your throat.
He wouldn't call you here to fix this unless he had nowhere else to go.
When you make the first stitch and he doesn't flinch, your eyes flit to his other scars. Martial arts training, he said. The second stitch and still no response. On the third stitch, you press your thumb against the edge of the wound and push down. He actually swears at you as blood dribbles out of the wound, and the hand that had been gripping the table reaches back to grab your lower thigh, effectively bringing the operation to a halt.
You shove his hand off, "What the hell happened? Your hands, your leg—that was easy to explain. But this?"
He has the audacity to glare at you over his shoulder, "I don't pay you to ask questions."
"No, you don't. And yet you could've hired anyone but you hired me. Even though..." You trail off, eyes blazing, because you're not feeling that confident, "the least you can do is tell me what happened."
Bruce holds your gaze until you feel your knees begin to wobble in place. For once, he doesn't look like a wide-eyed, nervous animal in front of you. He looks angry.
Then it's gone. Bruce rolls his shoulders back and you watch the needle, still hanging by its thread, roll against his muscles. More blood seeps from the wound as your hands itch to get back to work. "One question," he starts, looking away from you, "the night of the party, upstairs. You told Alfred no one got on the elevator. But you did, didn't you?"
You swallow. "He said it was broken."
"Be honest with me and I'll be honest with you."
"About anything?"
From behind, you can see Bruce's jaw twitch just so, "Everything."
You step closer. Taking your needle, you resume the suture, "A question for a question, then. To keep it fair."
"Alright."
"Tell me what happened."
"I was looking for someone."
"Who were you looking for?"
"That's another question."
"Fine," you try not to take your frustration out on his skin, "I did. Who were you-"
"Dimitri Young." You still in your stitching. It feels like your heart is inside your head, thumping against your skull with every beat. "What did you see down there?"
You have to rake your petrified brain for context, having nearly forgotten everything that had come before... before... "I- I was... nothing." Bruce hisses through his teeth and you realize that you're just pressing the needlepoint into his skin mindlessly. "Files. A computer. A car underneath a sheet, some tools, a motorbike. A TV playing the news." You don't bother with hiding it now, "How do you know about Dimitri?"
"Because I know about you. Why did you go down there? Not knowing what you might find?"
It takes all that you have to keep the burning tears at bay, "Because I don't trust you. Because everything about this has felt off. I needed to know what you were hiding. What are you gonna do with what you know?"
Bruce takes a moment as if he's thinking about it, but when he answers you, you're for once certain of his honesty, "Nothing. I might set it on fire, if that's what you want."
"You could have another copy lying around. Or a way to access it again."
"I could. But I don't. And I wouldn't want to." He turns his head over his shoulder and you are frozen under his stare, "I'm being honest with you."
"How did you get it?"
"That's another question."
You complete the next few stitches with a little more force than needed, "Then ask me something."
"Why did you take the job if you didn't trust me?"
You laugh humorlessly, "Because I knew the pay would be fucking ridiculous. How did you get my file?"
"You wouldn't have turned me down the first time if that were true."
"Answer me."
"Be honest with me, I'll be honest with you. Why'd you take the job?"
"Because-" You choke, "you... sent me those ridiculous flowers and a handwritten note." Bruce's head tilts, you choke out more, "And when I asked you why you offered me the job, you said that it was because I noticed you were hurt when no one else did. And I said it felt like more than that. I think- I have been trying to get an answer."
Bruce studies you. He must believe you because he finally answers your question, "Russo had nothing to do with it."
"Who did you pay to get it for you, then?"
"That's-"
"Just ask me, God damn it." You finish off the suture and bite off the thread.
"Why did you turn your life around?"
You'd thought about that a lot after that night. The simplest answer was right there, but if you were being honest with yourself (and you were being more honest than you would've liked tonight), you really didn't want to die. "I wanted to live. That's what I'd always wanted. Even though I... really didn't act like it. I never wanted to live more until that moment." This time when you lock eyes with Bruce, you don't want him to look away. Maybe it's because he's defeated you, broken your pride, whatever. Right now, you want to see him.
You don't have to ask again. You watch him rise from the table, flexing his back again, and though you want to scold him for irritating his stitches mere seconds after you've finished them, you just... don't have it in you.
And then he's standing face-to-face with you.
You think the lights and painkillers are deceiving you at first, but this close, you are certain: he is littered with scars and wounds color-picked from late twilight skies. His back doesn't even look this bad. It's always been more than bruised knuckles and leg sprains.
And it's familiar. All of it. Bruises and cuts new and old, the shape of him, the color. The stab wound is new but all of this is months (years) in the making.
The closer you get, the more it knocks the wind out of you. Your eyes follow the length of his torso and then—your fingers press against his side, up against a healed gunshot wound. You brush your thumb against it. It makes you feel nauseous.
You look up and he's looking at you. Defeated. Relieved. You can feel the denial creeping in but it all clicks into place, doesn't it?
The bullet wound, the limp, the job offer, the sprained leg. You couldn't see it because, frankly, they couldn't be any more different from each other. And yet...
Bruce's hand covers yours and keeps it there.
That damned bullet brought you together. It had brought Batman to you, it had brought you to Bruce, and it had solidified in no small way that whatever had led you to this moment in time was years in the making. All because you wanted to live.
"Come with me." And Bruce leads you upstairs.
17 years ago.
"I think it could be good," Alex holds up the bottle to you, "if you're down."
You hate the taste of whatever she's giving you but it does make you tingly. You take a big swig and set it between you on the concrete, "You know I'll go wherever you go."
Alex grins, "That's the spirit!"
On Tuesdays, you and Alex like to watch the cars go by from the alley. It's between a Thai restaurant and a laundromat so it always smells good; if it's not the fabric softener, then it's the pho. It's where you always find her. After a few heart-to-hearts spent curled up on the ground with her here, it became "your" territory.
Claiming it didn't stop people from holing up inside and standing around a barrel fire, nor did it stop the laundromat owner nor the line cooks from coming out to smoke and take out the trash. But it did mean that you both liked it here. For lack of other places to go.
"You know that piece of shit from the Vipers won't take no for an answer?" Alex kicks at a rat that scuttles past, making sure it wouldn't take a bite out of her ankle.
"You're very popular, it's not a surprise."
"Shit, it's just cause they know my parents don't give a shit where I go. They're all like, 'Come join us! You could be one of our best! We'll pay you more in a day than you'd make stealing in a week!' but they don't talk about all the kids floating in the river when they try to do better for themselves."
"Like you'd let someone boss you around." You giggle, and Alex beams.
"No way in hell! I love my independence. See, I can take whatever I want whenever I want. Those sad fucks in the Vipers have to answer to some... some random guy they rarely ever see. Why would I want that?"
You'd seen the kids the Vipers recruited. There was no age limit, some as young as nine were happily making deliveries. It used to be a joke in your school that any kid with a front door would end up in the Vipers eventually.
You wondered if you would've ended up there too, had you not been with Alex.
Your makeshift gang of two which had grown by three in the last few months was less organized than the Vipers. It didn't pay unless you pulled your weight, and most of it was at Alex's discretion. For the most part, none of you moved without her. She was the head, the leader, and the only reason you could afford your new winter boots this month.
And you would truly follow her wherever she went.
You watch a few more cars pass. You press your head to the brick and let the sounds of the city light your nerves. That is until you feel a breeze where Alex had once been. You open an eye and find her inching further into the alley. "Hey," you call, but she turns and shushes you so your next words come out in a whisper, "where you going?"
She frantically waves you over.
You don't see what she's looking at until you get about halfway down the alley, but the voices are crystal clear at this point. There's a woman and a young boy standing off behind a dumpster, but when the woman catches sight of you and Alex, she shoves something into the boy's hands and dips around the corner. The boy, flustered, is just barely able to put it away before Alex is grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into the light.
It becomes clear that he's not a young boy. He's about your age, maybe off by a year or two, but so thin and lanky that his puffer jacket engulfs him completely. Alex yanks his sleeve down to reveal a poorly done tattoo of a snake going up his upper arm, jagged and unfinished like he'd run off in the middle of getting it done. It didn't seem too far-fetched an idea: the guy looked 92 pounds soaking wet.
"You're on the wrong turf, kid." Alex warns, but you know her tone of voice is too final to be a warning.
The guy yanks his arm back, "Fuck off."
You realize what he was fumbling with when the woman had run. A small bag of something white, and a wad of cash sticking out of his pocket. You snort, "Dealing for the Vipers a little far from home, aren't you? You must be new."
The guy tries to escape but Alex grabs the hood of his jacket and drags him back, "We'll overlook the trespassing if you give us a cut."
"Leave me alone. This place doesn't belong to anyone." But as soon as he says it, Alex takes a hold of his dirty blond hair and yanks his face up to look at her. You go to grab his money while he's distracted but you don't expect him to brandish a knife until he slashes at you. He misses, but it sets Alex off.
She uses his hair to throw him into the side of the dumpster and you can see the thoughts rattling around his head upon impact.
"Right, everything belongs to the Vipers. Is that why your boss is still Falcone's little bitch?"
The guy is indignant against the taunts. He tries to slash at her but Alex is faster, always has been, and she has his wrist in a death grip before he can even get close. You watch her twist it back until he lets out a cry of pain, the knife clattering to the floor at your feet. You take it and hold it up to his neck, watching his eyes go wild between you and Alex.
"Give us the money and we'll pretend this never happened-" you start, but jump back when you feel something wet hit your cheek. You almost don't believe it, but the guy has some spittle dribbling down his bottom lip and a satisfied smile when you lock eyes with him again.
Alex wasn't just fast. You remember her standing up to your childhood bullies between classes and giving them shiners that she still bragged up to this day. It took a few years before you both stopped ending up with twice as many injuries, and a few more years after that before you stopped having bullies at all.
And this guy— maybe he didn't know what he'd gotten himself into and that extended to more than just this moment in time—was half the size of the guys Alex had beaten to tears in the past.
It does not surprise you that he crumbles to the ground with the very first punch to his gut. Alex hits hard first to make the fights quick, and so when her next punch lands on his nose, you know that something has been broken. With each kick to his gut, the tears free flow as if surely, the next hit will kill him.
You watch silently. Alex is unforgiving.
After a minute or two goes by, he is so beaten down that he wheezes every time he breezes. You're certain Alex has gone overboard but something in your heart swells at the thought that it was for you.
When all is said and done, you snatch the money from his jacket and he doesn't bother to stop you, head leaning against the ground as tears and blood and snot trickle into a puddle. For good measure, Alex snatches the drugs too, "Don't show your face in this alley again or you won't leave alive."
And you know this is a lie. A trick to make her bigger and badder. A threat that she would never follow through on. Because Alex always made herself look bigger, badder, scarier, deadlier. It's what protected you both on the streets. It's what made you follow her, what made your friends follow her.
Alex was everything, and you would follow her anywhere.
You ride in silence together down to the terminus. You feel much the same as you did the first time. Bruce pulls back the gate and you spill out into the dark, but much like before, the lights and TV kick on. The News 7 jingle plays, Bruce pads over to mute it.
You watch him stand a few feet away from you, avoiding your eyes as they sweep the floor. There are those same tools scattered about, hubcaps stacked on top of tires, wires going from one side of the room to the other. It looks just like you'd last seen it, only the car that had once been covered by tarp is now on full display. It gleams in the overhead lights, as much of a monster in clear view as it was in shadow.
He really wasn't shitting you.
When you still don't say anything, Bruce walks over to his desk. Underneath it is a crate full of folders, and you realize he's getting yours when he turns and holds one out to you. You take it, inching closer. Without a word shared, Bruce pulls up something on his computer and you nearly flinch when your mugshot is reflected back at you on one of the screens.
"Your record isn't accessible unless I use a workaround which isn't... legal, but it's how I found your file without Russo. The GCPD doesn't know." You peer at him from the corner of your eye, urging him to explain, "I taught myself how to get in."
Your eyes are welling up with tears the longer you stare at the younger version of yourself. Bruce continues, "I know what the record says. That they traced back a few robberies to you and your friends over the years, and that you'd had a run in with a Viper the night you met Russo. You helped track them down, took out a portion of the gang's operation, and your record was sealed. That's all."
"They didn't trace all of them back to us," you start, not really wanting to talk, "just some. There were more."
Bruce seems to sense that as he closes the record, "It's your turn. To ask, I mean."
You look at Bruce in the face and hate the softness there. You can't be angry, or numb like you wish you could be. Your chest is all twisted up with emotion with no one feeling staying for long, even if it would flare up again every once in a while. "Did you know about me before or after you asked me to work for you?"
"Before. After that morning, I couldn't stop... thinking about you. Truth be told, me and Alfred have been doing this alone ever since I started. Before you, he was the one that would stitch me up, kept me out of doctor's offices where someone might talk. But he was also running the company for me, and taking care of me, and worrying about me. I knew if I was going to commit to this, I would need to try and stay alive, and I always meant to find someone but it wasn't an easy decision to make. Until I met you."
You know it's his turn now, but you can't help asking, "And you didn't think... maybe the kid with a record would be a bad idea?"
Bruce cracks a smile, "I mean, the stitches never got infected." You would've laughed at that if you were in a better mood. "I wasn't always so understanding. But I imagine someone who's dedicated the better part of their life to saving lives has more than made up for it."
Your head automatically shakes, "I can never make up for what I did."
"You don't have to tell me everything," he begins delicately, "but I need to know what Dimitri is after. I need to know what he's thinking. You're the only one who can help me."
You blink away a few tears and plop into a stool by his desk, dropping your head in your hands. The memories suffocate you, rushing at you like a flash flood. You don't know where to start, let alone what you want to tell him. An hour ago, you were certain he was caught up in a Gotham mob, planning to use your history as blackmail for... something.
You can't quite reconcile the feelings you have for Batman with the face of Bruce Wayne. Or who you thought was Bruce Wayne.
But he was right. You were the best chance at catching Dimitri. You were the only one who could make it up to Russo.
You swallow at the memory of Russo's mutilated body, but then... you remember him in that police station. When you were 16 and wishing you were dead. You suck in a sharp breath, "I met Alex when I was a baby. I mean, we've known each other for a long time- knew each other. She and I used to be attached at the hip. She protected me from bullies and I would sneak out at night to listen to her vent about her parents, about Gotham. She fucking hated it here. I did too.
"Alex and I learned that if you want to survive, you have to be powerful. So we became powerful. You might not think a pair of 14 year olds are all that powerful in the grand scheme of things but when it was just us against the world, it was addicting. When we wanted something, we just... took it. We started off pickpocket-ting on the streets, usually assholes who could afford to lose a hundred or two. And then we started robbing places, small-time stuff, you know. Run down houses, apartments, swiping out of registers when no one was looking. If anyone gave us shit, we just turned tail and ran. It was hard enough trying to make ends meet for our parents, and we liked the thrill of it. We rarely ever got caught.
"Eventually, some of our friends from school joined us and we become a little piece-of-shit gang. God. We were like... fucking 15, running around the city like we were so big and bad. My parents had no clue what I was really up to but they knew something was wrong. I didn't care. I was with Alex and I would follow Alex anywhere. We had this little alleyway, right? Between a Thai place and a laundromat. That's where I could always find her. And one day, we were fucking around and caught some guy dealing back there. Alex got pissed. We tried to take his money but he defended himself. I said something... he spit at me. And Alex just lost it.
"She beat him into the concrete and I just... watched. This guy, couldn't even throw a punch if his life depended on it, and she just wailed on him. And I watched. And I liked it. I felt powerful. We felt powerful. I know, a pair of jackass teenagers hurting people for fun? We were pathetic. But it didn't feel that way, being with Alex. She was my best friend."
The tears are free-falling now and you don't even bother to wipe them away. It would feel cowardly. You couldn't hide from Bruce now, not anymore. Not if he wanted to believe in you. "We didn't know who this kid was, other than the fact he was a Viper. A young one, a weak one. We didn't think he'd even last a week. Most kids like him end up getting disposed of by the boss anyway. And then all five of us were fucking around in that alley again when they showed up: the guy, Dimitri, and his sister Nat and this other kid. All of 'em Vipers.
"Nat wanted the money and the drugs back. Kid had a black eye so I guess he'd gotten shit from his boss about it. Alex was... indignant. Refused. For once, I begged her to give in but she just wouldn't fucking listen. Of course she wouldn't, do you know how much I enabled her? We were on top of the world, why would she give in? And she really pissed Nat off with that, but then she started mouthing off and then... Nat shot her. Right in front of me. It was instant."
Bruce remains incredibly still. His lips part to say something but nothing really comes out. You keep on going, "I was so shocked that I didn't even move when Nat turned the gun on me. It was like... I don't know, it was like I couldn't quite believe she was dead. But I understood what happened. Logically. I saw it happen. I saw the bullet in her brain. And when Nat turned on me, I think a part of me just... didn't want to have to think about it. Like a coward. If it wasn't for our friends pulling me out of the way, I wouldn't... be here. Next thing I knew, I was at the GCPD getting investigated for murder."
"They thought one of you did it?"
"The cops that brought us in, yeah. They just so happened to be around the corner when we ran into them. By that time, Nat and Dimitri had run off. The cops thought it was some fight between the five of us and that one of us pulled the trigger, but they couldn't find the gun. That's when Detective Russo showed up."
"And he offered to get you a plea deal."
You nod, sniffling, "He told me... he said that he could tell I'd never seen something like that before. There was no way I could've done it. And when I couldn't even finish the whole story without choking up, he said... he said that in exchange for our help catching Natalie, he would make sure all the crimes they tied back to us were sealed and expunged."
"What about Natalie? How did they find her?"
"The GCPD had been looking into the Vipers for months. Vipers almost exclusively recruit minors because they're more loyal, but there wasn't a way to get in without putting some innocent kid in danger. So they had us look into it. We found one of their hideouts by the docks. GCPD wanted to get the kids out and into the foster system since a lot of them were orphans, like Natalie and Dimitri. But the ambush didn't take. They got a couple kids out but... a few died, including Nat. Last I heard of Dimitri, he got tried as an adult for killing a cop during the shootout. That was life in Arkham."
Bruce shifts closer, "Until he got out. And he came looking for Russo."
"He was just a kid, Bruce," your voice cracks, "he was just a kid. He couldn't even defend himself. And because we were assholes we got his sister killed and we got him put away. He was just a kid."
"So were you."
Something about the tender way Bruce says that makes you sob. For years, you've looked back on that moment with so much guilt, knowing how lucky you were to make it out of that situation alive and unscathed. How lucky you were to be taken seriously, to be cared for, for a detective like Joey Russo to show you a picture of his kid in his wallet and tell you that he would hate to see them in your position.
You were lucky that you got to fix your grades and go to college, study medicine, save lives, be here. Natalie didn't get that. Dimitri didn't get that. Alex didn't get that.
"You said... you said you hated Gotham. Why did you stay?"
You wipe at your cheeks, "I- I honestly... I wanted to. My parents made a deal with me that we would leave for New Jersey after I graduated but I didn't want to leave. I couldn't. I couldn't leave Alex. I couldn't leave the city, after all I'd done to it. In it. I wanted to leave like my friends because the guilt was so much but I felt obligated to fix it. I wanted to help people. Not hurt them. And I've worked hard to do better. I just can't leave. I don't want to leave."
What surprises you is the hand on your face afterwards. Bruce cups his your cheek. His thumb brushes away some tears, and it feels so unlike Bruce even though it's him, even though he's the one who cradled and comforted you after being held hostage, even though he was the one that stood on your fire escape and confessed that he trusted you, liked you even. Your brain just sort of stops there. You melt like putty in his hand. You realize you've been craving a gentle touch like this for a while.
"Then you won't have to," Bruce casts his eyes to the side, looking at where you laid your file on the desk. You can see the cogs turning beneath his furrowed brow, "I'll make sure of it."
"How?"
"...You won't like it."
#bruce wayne x reader#bruce wayne scenarios#bruce wayne fic#bruce wayne angst#bruce wayne fluff#bruce wayne#batman x reader#batman scenarios#batman fic#batman angst#batman fluff#the batman#battinson x reader#battinson#mjwrites#bw; rprt#fandom; dc
296 notes
·
View notes
Text
Sacred Submission - Hannibal, Will, and the Theology of Surrender
This essay delves into the spiritual, philosophical, and psychological aspects of Will and Hannibal's relationship, focusing on how their mutual surrender reflects the process of shadow integration. It connects this dynamic to the erotic devotion seen in Hindu philosophies, suggesting that their bond represents a sacred, almost divine merging of light and dark, self and other, in a journey toward wholeness.
Is the true nature of love found not in fulfillment but in the longing, the reaching beyond oneself toward something ineffable?
Lacan, the French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, famously posited that desire is always about something that is unattainable, what he called the objet petit a —the elusive object of desire that is forever out of reach.
In Lacan’s view, our desires are structured around a fundamental lack, a gap that can never be fully closed. This gap is not a deficiency but a defining feature of human experience.
Could passionate love, in its truest form, be not about possession or attainment, but rather about the continuous desire and yearning for something that remains elusive, mysterious, and beyond complete comprehension or ownership?
Hannibal becomes fascinated by Will Graham because he is unlike anyone Hannibal has ever encountered, possessing a unique gift of uncontrolled empathy. This gift, in a way, threatens Hannibal's carefully constructed facade, as it allows Will to see deeper into him than anyone else ever has. For Hannibal, who never believed anyone could truly see or understand him, this connection stirs something profound within him.
But Hannibal's interest goes beyond this; it is not just that Will can see through his masks—something that both intrigues and unnerves Hannibal—but also that Will remains, in many ways, unpredictable. Unlike everyone else, who appears obvious and predictable to Hannibal, Will is a mystery, a puzzle that he cannot fully solve.
For those with a more profound sense of emptiness—whether due to their upbringing, their inherently deeper nature, or their tendency to be easily bored and difficult to satisfy— Will represents something irresistibly compelling. In this context, Hannibal represents all individuals who, like everyone, harbor an inherent lack, yet theirs is more acute. It takes far more than money, romance, or superficial pursuits to satisfy them.
In Lacanian terms, Will represents the eternal search, the elusive objet petit a that drives desire. For Hannibal, Will embodies this endless pursuit—he is both the mirror in which Hannibal sees himself more clearly and the enigma that keeps Hannibal engaged, edged, excited, and longing. Without this sense of mystery and unpredictability, there would be no excitement, no longing—no desire. Will, therefore, becomes the focal point of Hannibal's emotional landscape, representing both the possibility of fulfillment and the perpetuation of the eternal lack that defines Hannibal's existence.
In loving someone, we are not merely seeking to possess them but to connect with something within them that we can never fully grasp—a deeper essence or truth that always lies just beyond our reach.
"Love is the pursuit of the whole."
- Plato
This elusive "something" is what drives us to long for union, but it also raises questions: What is this thing we are truly seeking? Does desire end if we actually manage to grasp it? Or does desire die when our illusions and expectations about the other person shatter, revealing that what we perceived in them—the source of our longing—was never really there?
In the relationship between Will and Hannibal, this conundrum is particularly poignant because Will continually defies and exceeds Hannibal's expectations. Unlike the typical experience where desire might fade upon realizing the object of affection was merely a projection of our own fantasies, Will consistently surprises Hannibal, challenging and deepening their connection. Even in the end, when Will acknowledges what Hannibal always saw in him, the dynamic remains complex. Hannibal's final words, "what I wanted for you...for both of us," reveal that his desire was not merely about Will's becoming, but about what that transformation could mean for both of them—a union that transcends their individual identities.
Hannibal's desire for Will's acceptance goes beyond mere fascination or control. It speaks to a deeper need within Hannibal to be fully seen, understood, and accepted by someone who can truly match him. For Hannibal, Will represents not just a partner in his dark endeavors, but someone who could potentially complete him, fulfilling that elusive desire for connection that he has been chasing all his life. The union with Will, in Hannibal's mind, would be the culmination of both of their journeys—a merging of selves that transcends their individual limitations. But why did Hannibal need Will to accept him? Perhaps it is because, despite his self-assured exterior, Hannibal is searching for validation, for someone who could see the darkness within him and still choose to embrace it.
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
-Jung
Throughout the series, Will's empathy seems to be selectively engaged—he truly connects only with other killers or individuals he perceives as sharing his own psychological struggles, such as Peter or Georgia. This selective empathy suggests that Will is not necessarily empathizing in the traditional sense but rather recognizing in others the deeply repressed feelings and impulses that he harbors within himself. It is as if he sees in them a reflection of his own darkness, something he struggles to acknowledge in himself. This dynamic raises the question of whether Will’s empathy is genuine or simply a recognition of his own suppressed desires in others who express them more overtly.
What is undeniable, however, is that Will is profoundly lonely. He admits this to Hannibal, saying, "I'm as alone as you are, and we are alone without the other." Both Will and Hannibal crave the connection that the other represents, yet Will cannot fully accept this part of himself. His discomfort with his own nature leads him to run from his feelings, resulting in convoluted and often contradictory behavior. Will’s reluctance to embrace his darker impulses and his connection with Hannibal mirrors his struggle with self-acceptance—he is drawn to Hannibal and what he represents but is equally repelled by what this connection reveals about his own identity. This internal conflict drives much of the tension in their relationship, as Will oscillates between rejection and longing, unable to fully reconcile the two.
And this unfulfilled desire that they chase after is not a flaw or failure in love, but its very essence. Love, rather than a state of being, becomes a process of endless becoming.
In the show, "Becoming" refers to the process of transformation, where an individual sheds old aspects of themselves and embraces new, often darker, parts of their psyche. And can be correlated to the concept of spiritual enlightenment. For Will Graham, this process is catalyzed by his interactions with Hannibal, who serves both as a mentor and as a mirror, reflecting back the potential for darkness that exists within Will.
Despite his attempts to run from or destroy this aspect of himself, it becomes evident that Will derives pleasure from it. His identity is constantly shifting between the poles of desire and repression. This instability is both the source of his inner turmoil and the key to understanding his complex relationship with Hannibal.
The way identity can be shifted, dissolved, challenged, or redefined can be viewed in light of Advaita Vedanta’s dissolution of the self.
Advaita Vedanta , a hindu philosophy, posits that the ultimate goal of life is the realization of the unity between the self (Atman) and the universal reality (Brahman). This realization involves the dissolution of the ego and personal identity, transcending the individual self to experience oneness with the universal consciousness. Moksha, or spiritual liberation, in Tantric philosophy is achieved through the realization of non-duality. When the individual self (jiva) recognizes its unity with the universal consciousness, the cycle of birth and death (samsara) is transcended. The union with the sacred lover is a microcosmic reflection of this cosmic truth.
Throughout the series, Will is confronted with the darker aspects of his psyche. Hannibal, recognizing this darkness in Will, seeks to draw it out, to bring Will into what he perceives as a more authentic existence.
Will's "Becoming" is a psychological journey of confronting and integrating his shadow—the unconscious part of the psyche that contains repressed weaknesses, desires, and instincts.
Although many viewers may interpret Will's journey and Hannibal's intentions as inherently evil, a deeper understanding reveals that the show's narrative is framed from Hannibal's perspective. Hannibal views the integration of the shadow self as a positive and liberating experience. Unbound by societal or moral expectations, Hannibal operates according to his own rules, striving to embody a god-like figure. From his viewpoint, Will embracing his darker self represents progress and growth. This transformation is not merely about a desire to kill; it signifies Will's acceptance of Hannibal and their potential union. Hannibal sees this as a spiritual experience, one that involves the complete destruction of limitations, such as shame and restraint.
Will’s journey can be seen as a struggle for self-actualization, a battle between his desire to maintain his moral compass and the pull toward the power and freedom that comes with embracing his darker instincts. Hannibal represents the temptation of absolute freedom and power, unbounded by conventional morality. Of surrender.
In Bhakti , another hindu philosophy, surrender is seen as a personal dissolution, where the devotee gives up their ego and identity in total devotion to a deity. This kind of devotional surrender can be understood in mundane situations where individuals are overwhelmed or transcended by powerful, often erotic forces that erase the boundaries of the self.
Violent scenes where Will experiences pain, often carry a sexual undertone. In these, he exhibits a profound release, hinting at the deeper, ultimate moment of bliss he experiences on the final episode. These moments reflect his journey toward surrendering to Hannibal, demonstrating that when this surrender occurs willingly, driven by love and devotion, it culminates in a state of bliss. This contrasts with experiences where surrender is compelled or forced, where pleasure is invariably accompanied by pain. The erotic and violent elements in these scenes symbolize a transcendence of self-boundaries, suggesting that genuine, voluntary surrender to powerful forces, whether in love or otherwise, can lead to a profound and pure sense of fulfillment.
When Will and Hannibal willingly surrender to each other—Will by joining Hannibal in the fight with the Dragon and Hannibal by allowing Will to pull them off the cliff—this act can be seen as a profound destruction that leads to a new creation and a new life, free of fear. True spiritual surrender means transcending the fear of divine will or whims, and realizing that one is, in essence, a part of that divine force. This realization dispels the illusion of separation, eliminating fear because one understands that they themselves are god, and that god is love.
In this context, love is not merely an emotion but a force—a force of union that compels opposing parties to unite and annihilate illusion, thereby destroying duality. All other rules and restrictions are illusory and lack a true foundation in reality. They are temporary barriers against the irresistible current of this powerful force. Love, as understood in this spiritual sense, transcends the limited scope of human emotions. It is the uniting of opposites and contradictory elements, which then causes their annihilation. This mysterious aspect of love defies the rational mind and human personality, actively seeking to challenge and overcome these elements.
When Hannibal expressed the desire to be alone with Will, in the "Achilles and Patroclus" scene, where he admits wanting everyone to die so that he could be with Will, reveals a profound element of his psyche. Mads Mikkelsen's once said that Hannibal wants it "to be Will and himself and that's it", and it further confirms that Hannibal's fixation on Will eclipses all other human connections, reducing others to mere obstacles in their potential union. This desire to eliminate all others signifies more than just romantic or obsessive love; it symbolizes Hannibal’s yearning to obliterate any trace of duality or separation. In wanting to be alone with Will, Hannibal seeks a form of spiritual and psychological merging where individuality dissolves, and they become a singular, integrated self. This merging, in Hannibal’s view, would lead to total bliss and liberation, echoing mystical concepts of unity and the dissolution of ego. For Hannibal, this merging represents the ultimate fulfillment, the obliteration of all external distractions that keep him from his true desire.
However, for Will, this same merging represents a loss of self, an annihilation of his individuality, leading to the opposite—a terrifying loss of autonomy and the potential descent into madness. This difference in perception underscores the tension between their characters: what Hannibal views as the ultimate union, Will sees as an existential threat, a conflict that drives much of the psychological drama between them.
In Tantric philosophy, the act of love is seen as a profound form of surrender. The surrender here is not just emotional or psychological but total—it involves the mind, body, and spirit. The surrender to the sacred lover is symbolic of the surrender to the divine. When one gives oneself fully in love, without holding back, it mirrors the surrender to the divine will. This act of surrender is seen as a way to transcend the ego, which is often the source of suffering and separation from the divine.
In this context, the lover becomes a gateway through which one can encounter the divine. Through the practice of Tantric rituals the practitioners aim to dissolve the boundaries of the individual self and experience a state of unity with the cosmos.
And although Hannibal is more aware and accepting of his feelings toward Will, he takes considerable time to fully surrender to them. For Hannibal, surrender represented a form of annihilation, a total merging with the beloved or with a divine entity. In his view, surrender to God—or to Will—entails yielding to a force that might be capricious and destructive. This perception renders the act of surrender profoundly dangerous and destabilizing. Hannibal’s attempt to kill and consume Will echoes his desire to dominate and conquer, similar to his act of consuming his sister Mischa. By doing so, Hannibal seeks to assert control over the vulnerabilities that Will represents.
For Will, surrendering to Hannibal symbolizes a profound threat to his own sense of self, as he fears that Hannibal’s overwhelming presence could overshadow and annihilate his own identity. This interplay of fear and desire underscores the complex dynamics of their relationship, where surrendering to each other reflects a deeper existential struggle.
Advaita Vedanta 's teaching that the self is ultimately one with Brahman can be seen as a radical redefinition of identity, where individual distinctions dissolve in the face of a greater, unified reality.
The culmination of Will's "Becoming" is most vividly portrayed in the series finale, where he finally confronts the totality of his relationship with Hannibal and his own identity. By the end of the series, Will has integrated his shadow, understanding that the darkness within him is not something separate from who he is but a fundamental part of his identity. This integration is symbolized in the final act of violence they commit together against the Red Dragon, an act that unites them in a way that transcends both of their previous identities.
Spiritual progress does not require denying one's desires or affections. On the contrary, in many occult traditions surrendering to what we love most brings us closer to God through the destruction of the ego via love.
"God" is not cruel, in this perspective, and there is a genuine spiritual reason for finding certain physical or sexual characteristics arousing. This is not sinful but indicates the vibration one is meant to merge with in a religious sense.
Mystics describe the joy of fully immersing oneself in the object of one's affection, merging with it forever in their writings to encourage others to seek it. They even suggest that God "seduces" one into liberation through passions and temptations. Mirroring the show's entire arc between Will and Hannibal.
Love, from this perspective, can be seen as a formidable force that shatters the illusion of individuality. It appears as a terrifying monster seeking to devour the self to those immersed in ego-based consciousness, as Hannibal and Will were for most of the story. The more one resists this total submission, the more love seems to pursue and compel this yielding.
Pouring one's life force into a divine partner out of love is the most rewarding activity, according to these teachings, as it contributes to creating our own paradise and reality, where we can be with them and enjoy the true purpose of the universe—pleasure, games, and loveplay without shame or guilt, which is exactly Hannibal's desire and so much of what he believes and who he is at the core of his character.
From his perspective we could venture that Jesus' command to "love your enemies" was not about allowing them to harm you but about dissolving their ego and assimilating them into one's own being. This is the true nature of love, which is not evil but a misunderstood concept of self-realization. To achieve wholeness, one must assimilate all disparate parts of the inner self. External enemies represent parts of ourselves that we have not yet integrated. Conquering internal weaknesses also leads to overcoming external adversaries.
Viewing something equal as an enemy reflects a dualistic consciousness, typical of those entrenched in material illusions and distant from unified consciousness. Which reflects Will's position for most of the series. True marriage between equal but opposite (yin and yang) partners embodies the Vajra or Thunderbolt power, as seen in Greek and Hindu myths. By uniting opposing forces—yin and yang —we generate something immune to time and decay.
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, famously stated that "Marriage is half of religion". Similarly, the Catholic Church regards marriage as a sacrament, reflecting its sacred importance. The New Testament quotes Jesus, saying, "And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh". At its core, the purpose of all religion is to achieve Union with God, and marriage, in many traditions, serves as a sacred path toward this ultimate union, mirroring the spiritual unity between the divine and the human.
The doctrine of "twin souls," central to Jyotish astrology and other esoteric teachings, posits that a single human soul incarnates into two individuals. In a world defined by duality and division, each person has a true "other half," a soulmate who embodies the other half of their soul. According to this belief, true wholeness can only be achieved by reconnecting with this twin soul, as the union of these two halves is the only path to complete spiritual and emotional fulfillment.
According to western occultism, the Yin partner goes on nightly astral huntings, whether unconscious or conscious, and they stalk and pursue any yang they choose, having perceived them in the light of day as an interesting target to master. Once the yin has set their mark, one of three outcomes ensues: the yang allows themself to be consumed, falling under the yin's spell and being engulfed by the powerful void energy they generate; they find protection from their own spouse, who shields them from the attack; or they recognizes the yin as their soulmate, willingly allowing them to consume their ego and embracing the protection they offer. This dynamic reflects the yin's potent influence, where the yang's response determines whether he is devoured, defended, or transformed through the union, mirrored by Will and Hannibal's dynamic throughout the series, with Hannibal seducing him, and Will resisting it until he awakens to that love and surrenders to it, which grants him freedom and transformation, seeing that it is confirmed canon by the creator that they survived, and the alternative ending shows Will in a peaceful state, sharing his sacred spiritual space with his soulmate.
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
-Lao Tzu
The actual final scene that shows both of them explicitly, where Will and Hannibal embrace as they fall off the cliff, can be seen as the ultimate act of transformation—an acceptance of their intertwined fates and a literal leap into the unknown. This moment symbolizes the death of their previous selves and the potential for a new form of existence, one that is free from the constraints of their former identities.
If successful, this dynamic of twin souls, or soulmates, creates a marriage where the yang's individuality is shrouded and consumed within the safety provided by the yin. On this path, the yin partner understands that true satisfaction comes from the total absorption of and energetic fulfillment through their partner. Consequently, they initiate a process of deep connection by channeling their naturally devouring tendencies, drawing their partner into a profound, consuming union.
Interestingly enough, season's four concept seemed to mirror this, according to Bryan Fuller, the creator, and Hugh Dancy, who hinted at the plot being about Hannibal taking Will away and them building their shared mind palace together, engaging in intimacy and shared interests.
Through Will and Hannibal’s relationship, we are invited to explore the terrifying possibilities of surrendering to one’s darkest impulses, questioning the very nature of self and the boundaries of human experience. The series challenges us to consider whether true liberation lies in the integration of the shadow self or if such a path leads to the ultimate destruction. And is destruction negative? As Hannibal himself inquired at one point. Or can it be used to destroy the ego, the limitations, the illusion of separation that permeates all of us when we think about God?
Perhaps their relationship could reveal that God, in all of His mysteries, can be found within the love we surrender ourselves to. In the giving up of a fixed identity in order to consume the beloved. Not as an act of compliance or oppression, but out of an uncontrollable desire for union. A desire to empty ourselves out, just to be filled up with our perfect opposite.
In this way, surrender to God is not an abandonment of the self. It is purification of the self through the destructive fires of Love, in which a new, unified self is born out of. In this way, surrender to the beloved is really the surrender to the part of ourselves that resists the vulnerability of love. It is the surrender to death itself, as this resistance originates from the fear of destruction. Therefore, in this case, there is nothing more powerful than surrendering to love. Embracing death, welcoming destruction as a means of transformation, and loving fearlessly.
*****
Refs:
"Sexual Aggression: Issues in Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment." by Neil Malamuth and Nancy M. Koss
"The Dark Side of Love: Positive and Negative Aspects of Intimate Relationships" by Debra L. Davis, William J. Ickes, and Sheila A. Knowles
"The Psychology of Sexual Aggression" by Terry A. Wilson and David Richard
Hugh Dancy said at a Comic Con that he was really excited about the plot of season four, and at a recent convention he said he'd like to explore the specific part of the last book which is about Hannibal taking Clarice away and them enjoying their alone time, having sex and building their mind palaces. Clarice was replaced by Will on the show, and they do not have the rights for that character which means Hugh meant Hannibal and Will, not literally Clarice. And I specifically said he hinted at it because he seems to always go with answers that are closer to what Fuller told him about what would actually happen in season four, he never truly gives answers that seem personal or too creative in regards to his wishes for season four, as well as Fuller saying at an online interview that season four can be described as "lurid erotic intimacy".
Feel free to ask me if you want more references to anything mentioned in this essay.
#essay#lamb writes#posting it here since yall flopped ao3#nbc hannibal#hannigram#will graham#hannibal#murder husbands#hannibal lecter#hugh dancy#mads mikkelsen#tantra#analysis
105 notes
·
View notes