#paint-wiped slate | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

crazyyluvr · 7 months ago

Text

Gotta put Some Color in the Miserable Place — Much to Dirtyhands' Liking

pairing: kaz x gn!reader

summary: A famous graffiti artist has been roaming around Ketterdam for a while now. It was about time you set your sights on the Slat, bare and just waiting to be painted on. A certain gloved man didn't exactly like that.

genre: idk how to label it but it's the beginning of something

wc: 2.3k

content: art-inclined reader, they/them pronouns, kaz getting annoyed, ooc kaz? not sure how to write him properly yet, spraypaint exists because I need it to, fighting

note: just a little something to get me out of my slump — it sucks, i'm sorry

oneshot under the cut :: not edited :: part 1/?

Ketterdam wasn't known to be the most luxurious of cities in Kerch. Yes, it did have places where people with money could settle down and quality napkins for them to wipe their buttcheeks on, but the "slums" part of the city overpowered that luxury. There were numerous criminals, thieves, pickpockets, and people of other illegal occupations roaming around the streets, especially the streets of the West Stave. At every alley, there would be at least some signs of a beating that occurred not too long ago. Even when people inhaled the air, it didn't feel clean.

One of your biggest concerns about the city, however, wasn't about how cleanly it was. What worried you the most was about how damn plain it seemed to be.

Where was the color? The flare? Come on, if people around the lands travel to Kerch for business, they might as well have some pretty things to look at as they cautiously walked on the streets.

You took it upon yourself to rectify that. Which was why, for the past two years, you have been one of the most sought-after criminals of Ketterdam that everyone called the “Painter”. Not because you murdered people or stole kruge, no. It wasn't even because of the fact that you decided to spray your art without permission.

It wasn't really the art that concerned other people (most of the time), but rather where you decided to put it up.

Plain old alley walls weren't the only victims of your spray bottles. Your style ended up on the main doorways of well-known brothels like the Menagerie, or the ground leading to the secret bases of different gangs. It made you a target not only of officers, but of other criminals as well. You may or may not have been the cause of the Dime Lions losing one of their main strongholds to a rival gang because you put skipping stones of Pekka Rollins' name leading to it.

You were flattered by the attention people were putting on you, but you felt unsatisfied. You had tried to put at least a little bit of your art on every visible wall of the West Stave and some of the East Stave as well, but there was something missing. Like there was one part of the Ketterdam map that hasn't been colored by you.

You got the answer to your problem one mundane day, while you were coming back from the market with a bag of groceries.

The Slat.

You had no idea why it hadn't hit you sooner. Sure, the Slat was the home of the Crows besides their bar "The Crow Club." Sure, the gang had been gaining a dangerous reputation this past year. Sure, the man calling the shots was scary as hell.

But it was just perfect.

You had long admired the Crows and their leader Kaz Brekker. You had spotted him going about business during late nights when you decided to test your skills by evading the Wraith that always pursued him (you hadn't been attacked by her, so you assumed that you were really good at sneaking around).

He was a man of business, a boss that liked getting his hands dirty — maybe that was how he got his nickname Dirtyhands. You don't see much of that in Ketterdam, and that interested you quite a bit.

Not to mention he was attractive in his own, ghostly way.

The Slate was also one of the very few canvases that you had left blank in this wretched city due to some unknown and unconscious reason, but now you had just the perfect artwork in mind for it.

—————

Kaz was in a bad mood today.

He woke up to his leg in pain. Well, it was always in pain, but it felt particularly worse that day. He almost face-planted while hobbling down the stairs in the Slat.

He had a small heist, with just him, Jesper, and Inej, but it was still messed up due to the unexpected appearance of a drunk group in the house they were robbing.

He got jumped on by some stupid pickpockets, idiots who were unaware of his identity and his reputation. He didn’t obtain any injury, but the blood that still stained his black gloves and his long black coat made him feel disgusting.

Just when he thought that he would find peace in the Slat, peace in just holing up in his office with no one to bother him, he limps down the streets of West Stave to the home of the Dregs to find a small crowd gathered on the side, murmuring to each other.

They were all members of the Crows, and they were all looking at something that was on the wall of the Slat.

His already creased brows creased further at the sight of the gathering. What were these idiots looking at this time?

Jesper was the first one who first saw him, eyes drifting over his blood-splattered clothes in slight concern.

“What’s going on?” Kaz asked, not giving Jesper the opportunity to worry over him.

“It seems that the Painter finally set their eyes on the Slat,” Jesper replied, his voice containing its usual mischief and mirth.

Kaz forged onwards, making the sharpshooter step aside to make way for Dirtyhands.

The small crowd parted for him as well, conversations dying down to small murmurs as Kaz got a better look at what they were ogling at.

He had to blink to make sure he was actually seeing what he was seeing.

When “the Painter” left Jesper’s mouth, Kaz wanted to run his fingers through his hair in frustration. The days when infamous the Painter set sights on establishments or gang bases were the days when gangs or businessmen would get publicly humiliated by the art on their walls. Normally, it would ridicule the head of the place (The Menagerie spent a significant amount of money to wash off and paint over the caricature of Tante Heleen in a horrid neon green outfit) or reveal some interesting gang secrets (two gangs were exposed to be stealing from each other and there was a little war between them).

Which was why Kaz had to blink twice to make sure he was seeing it right.

The artwork on the side of the Slat was a large mural of the Dregs’ signature crow perched on the lip of a cup, but a trail of black roses swirled around it in a spiral. Surrounding it was the Crows’ motto “no mourners, no funerals” in black and white. The irregular red and white shape behind it all emphasized everything, making it look like a banner rather than something someone actually took the time to spray on a wall.

It was unlike any artwork that was spotted anywhere in the city.

And even Kaz, who’s never had any particular interest in art, had to admit that it was nice. Flattering.

Beautiful, even.

"The Painter has their favorites, huh?" A Crow chuckled, making his mates laugh and shake their heads.

"If everyone's done having a staring contest with the wall," Kaz called, making everyone turn to their boss, "get back to work."

And just like that, they lost their interest in the artwork and dispersed. Some drifted away to different alleys to visit some gambling house, most passed by Kaz to finish some unfinished business of theirs, and others went back inside the Slat.

Kaz felt a familiar presence beside him. "Can you find this Painter, Inej?"

The Wraith that appeared out of nowhere replied, "I can try, but they're slippery."

Kaz rose an eyebrow, curiosity piquing. Someone who can evade his best spider? Now that caught his attention.

"Do it. Bring them to me," Kaz said, dismissing her with a wave. He didn't have to look to know that Inej had dissolved into the shadows.

He examined the mural once more, the barest ghost of a smirk on his face. Maybe you can come around to work for me, "Painter".

—————

You were having a good time.

If running away from some angry traders was something people would consider a good time.

"I'll kill you!" One of the men chasing you bellowed, hurling a stone that hit a wooden pillar dangerously close to your head.

You laughed, a manic cackle that only came from someone facing a certain death.

You leaped over crates, weaved through people with barely any gracefulness that would have made dancers feel second-hand embarrassment, but you didn’t care. Being chased around West Stave was one of the best things to do in Ketterdam, and you were enjoying every single bit of it.

You turned left into a random alley, only to find that it was a dead end. You looked upwards, but found only ladders that led to heavily-barred windows. You were trapped.

"Nowhere left to run, scum," A man laughed, his companion grinning as well.

You turned to flash them a charming smile. "Actually there is one way, but you're blocking it, so if you'd kindly move aside so I can peacefully make my leave."

They both looked at each other before turning back to you. "Not until we've got our money."

You pretended to think for a moment, not knowing what they mean, until you widened your eyes. "Oh! The money! That's what you were after? Why didn't you just say so?"

You rummaged through your deep pockets. "Here it is!"

You took a few quick steps forward and took out a spray can, squeezing it and drifting it over the closest man's eyes, creating a thick yellow line across his face.

The man yelled and stepped back in surprise, prompting you to catch his heel in yours and pull, making him fall.

You bent down to punch him twice before rummaging in his pockets, taking out a few loose coins and pocketing them.

You turned to face the other guy, who you found already on the ground with a figure standing above him.

The Wraith.

"Oh." Your gaze alternated between the sudden assistance and the man on the ground, before you decided to focus on the one standing and smiling at them. "Thanks for your help, Miss Wraith. Now, if you don't mind, I'll take my leave —"

You turned, only for Inej to block your exit, making you sigh. "What is it that you want from me this time?"

"For you to come with me to the Slat," Inej responded, grabbing your wrist and dragging you out of the alley.

You sighed again. This was going to be a long day.

—————

"Look, if this about money, I don't have any. I'm very broke." You stared at the man sitting in front of you, a desk separating him from your standing figure.

The Bastard of the Barrel didn't respond to your statement, opting to just look at you, his eyes examining your movements.

You let the silence drain on for a few more seconds before you lost patience. "What do you want?" You asked, frustrated.

"You're the Painter," He responded, putting his elbows on his table and lacing his gloved fingers together.

You waited for a moment, waiting for him to say more. When he didn't continue, you replied. "Yes."

"Everyone in Ketterdam is aware of your reputation to leaking powerful people's information," Kaz finally continued. "But that's not what's interesting. What intrigues me, is how you acquire the information in the first place, when the Wraith has never spotted you out in the open other than spraying on some random wall."

You shrugged. You had your ways, and if the Dirtyhands didn't know your methods, then there was no way you could reveal them. "I have my ways."

Kaz rose an eyebrow. "I can have you killed right here and now, did you know that?"

"And I’ve gotten out of these chains three minutes ago, did you know that?" You mocked him, shrugging the cuffs off and tossing them on his table. Inej moved, pulling out a dagger. Kaz put up his hand, and Inej paused, waiting.

You approached the desk, putting your hands on it and leaning forward, leaving half a feet of space in between your face and Kaz's.

"You want to know my methods so you can have the Wraith master them and use them," you said, leaning a bit more. "But then she can't. No one in this place can do what I can."

"I suppose there's an underlying deal somewhere in those words," Kaz hummed, seemingly unfazed by the distance.

You grinned. "Indeed there is. I can work for you, as long as I get paid. I'll do my thing, get your information, even infiltrate a few places if you like."

"Hmm," Kaz thought about it for a moment. "Two thousand kruge for each mission."

You paused. That would be enough to buy your food and pay your rent for a week or two, maybe even enough for some new clothes.

Yeah, you didn't have that good or luxurious of a lifestyle, but hey, money is money.

"Alright," You decided, sticking your hand out to seal the deal.

Kaz stared at your hand for a moment, before taking it. You pulled him up from his chair, face now barely away from yours. "If you think about double-crossing me and leaving me out in the cold, then you risk some of your own information being revealed... Rietveld." Your voice was barely louder than a breath, words only for Kaz’s ear.

His eyes widened, looking at you. Just the mere mention of his old last name, the one he shared with his brother, was enough for the water at his ankles to pool around his knees.

But you had already pulled away, brushing against the Wraith with a nod as you left the office without another word.

"What was that?" Inej asked — more like demanded.

Kaz didn't spare her a glance, his eyes glued to the door. It took him a long pause to reply.

"The start of another painful alliance," Kaz muttered, running his hand through his hair.

The start of something indeed.

#six of crows #six of crows x reader #kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #grishaverse #soc #soc x reader #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x reader

152 notes · View notes

internetskiff · 10 months ago

Text

Breen's unfortunately pretty underrated amongst the Valve antagonists, which I suppose is understandable compared to the likes of GLaDOS or The Administrator, but just like those two I feel like there's plenty of things to talk about when it comes to him. He seems like a very conflicted character, especially if you take into account the BreenGrub account and Laidlaw's Epistle 3. First of all is, of course, the leadup to the Black Mesa incident, with the G-Man seemingly making an offer to Breen which seemingly involved overloading the Anti-Mass Spectrometer while processing an extremely pure sample of Xen Crystal - and yes, while it's pretty obvious that the order to overload the systems was very intentional and motivated by whatever deal they struck, I believe that when it comes to the aftermath he may have been sold on a lie. Considering his actions as Administrator of Earth being entirely in the interests of keeping Humanity from feeling the full force of the Combine, I don't think "Becoming the de facto leader of all of Earth" was on his agenda. Perhaps G-Man promised that whatever their deal would entail would bring about a prosperous future for humanity, perhaps all he promised was the possibility of establishing contact with another sentient species (which is something he technically did provide), or perhaps it was something else - there's simply way too much room for speculation there, I think.

A little detail from a HL:A newspaper implies that his position as Earth's administrator wasn't exactly handed to him on a silver platter, instead he had to go out of his way to reach out to the governments with information on how to communicate with the invaders, at which point, already beaten down by Combine forces, they simply gave him the all-clear to speak for all of mankind. This still begs the question of who, or what, gave him the knowledge of how to speak with them - however, it's safe to say if they didn't, Earth would've been left a smoldering pile of rocks and withered carcasses. Once again, he acts with Humanity's best interests in mind, having to choose between the lesser of two evils - it's either enslavement or extinction. He simply chose the option in which Humanity would survive, even if just for a little while longer.

And ever since, we're watching the aftermath. He's trying to talk the last generation of Humanity down, so they may either pass of old age or be absorbed into the Combine - at least if that happens, something gets preserved. Once again, the alternative? They'll just wipe the slate once they get the local teleportation technology they desire. Breen sees no other way than to go along with their demands. He's eventually proven wrong, of course, but he refuses to see the Rebellion as anything but a suicidal march towards the extinction of the human race, and he sticks to that belief up until he is killed by Gordon at the tip of the Citadel. Of course, this doesn't make him a good person. Not at all. This belief has lead him to seek out and destroy anyone who tries to resist. He shows no sympathy to them. He paints them as fools. He himself believes it so. This intense hatred for anyone who resists is seen perfectly in how he treats the Vance family. He views them as fools. As narrow-minded rabble in the streets, senselessly struggling against a tide beyond their comprehension. He's willing to send off a father and his daughter into a world far beyond simply to use them as a bargaining chip. Listening to the two comfort eachother as they're almost raised up to a fate surely worse than death, the only expression on his face is that of pure contempt and annoyance. He's a very fascinating character that I wish Valve would explore again if they ever do another Half Life set during a time period in which he was still alive. He's a coward that easily bends to the oppressor, yet in the end he only does it to make sure something survives. He's cruel to those who resist because he's completely convinced they're going to get everyone killed. He is the Combine's perfect puppet.

haha anyhoo so why was he straight up serving on the magazine covers in HL:A like what was up with all that

#hl #hl2 #hl 2 #hl:a #hla #half life #half life 2 #half life alyx #breen #dr breen #wallace breen #the combine #universal union #gman #the gman #g man #g-man #rambling #think about him a normal amount. sorry

274 notes · View notes

hey-august · 10 months ago

Text

March Madness Event - Winner (NSFW | Buggy X Marine!GN!Reader)

Woah woah woah, this story concludes the March Madness event!

(In case you missed it, throughout the month of March I posted polls pitting kinks against kinks. The ones that lost in the polls received short stories involving a bit of failure. The kink that won at the end of the month was slated to receive a proper story. And that's where we are now!)

I'll be honest, I did not expect this to be the winner. Then again, I should have seen it coming with how it took off in every poll it was in.

Thank you all for participating! Voting, reading, commenting, liking, reblogging - everything!!

I hope you enjoyed this event and that you enjoy this story. 🩷

Description: As a Marine, you're responsible for safely escorting the captured prisoner, Buggy the Clown. Things don't go according to plan and while the prisoner remains captured, not all of him ends up behind bars...

Teeny tiny teaser: "This fucker needed to know the effect his dumbass decision had on others."

Word count: ~3.4k (I don't remember the last time I wrote a one-shot this long 🥴)

Warnings: NSFW, MDNI, buggy x GN!reader, marine!reader, no use of Y/N, insertion sex, bit of degradation, cockwarming (not solely intimate, but there is some eventually), misuse of devil fruit powers

“I can fuck you harder if you uncuff me,” he said through gritted teeth. “C’mon, tell me you don’t want that.”

The teasing remark was hissed behind your ear, sending a shiver through your body. Your weak fucking body, nearly wiped of all self-restraint. A thin thread of rationality kept you tethered to a sense of preservation, but the constant pounding threatened to snap that hold.

You were responsible for locking up the prisoner - a duty you’ve fulfilled many times without issue. Over the years, your strength and cleverness helped you climb the ranks of Marines, yet this was the first time you failed to complete this responsibility. Well, you haven’t failed yet, but the more the thread frays, the more your legs shake, the more his heavy grunts fill your ears…

Your shaky hands gripped the seastone cuffed wrists wrapped around your body. Although the pirate couldn’t grip your hips the way either of you wanted, he was able to pull your body towards his as he relentlessly slammed himself in you.

Of all the captured criminals you ever escorted, it was the goddamn clown that broke you. The pathetic clown with a face of smeared paint. Left behind by his crew. A captain who was visibly crestfallen when none of the Marines appeared impressed by his presence.

Despite his circumstances, the prisoner - Buggy the Clown - lived up to his namesake. Nearly every comment out of his mouth was a joke, often at the expense of anyone around him. The lack of laughter after each quip should add to embarrassment and pity for the clown, but you found yourself enjoying the amusement he was clearly creating for himself. It was…endearing.

As his sole escort below deck, his attention quickly turned towards you and the warm fluttery feeling you had moved lower in your body. Silence only protected you for so long before your face was too red to ignore, giving the clown encouragement to continue. Changing tactics, Buggy started spouting cheesy and overused pickup lines. Each remark said with unabashed enthusiasm added to the heat on your face.

“If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together.” “I’d like to report a crime. My breath was stolen.” “That Marine uniform doesn’t look so bad on you. But it would look better on the floor.”

Those comments were so stupid and worked so well. A few hissed retorts and threats of punishment were disarmed with a charming smile. You had no chance of winning whatever this game was. Secretly, you weren’t sure you wanted to win. There was something alluring about this pirate who tried to hide behind jokes and laughter that you wanted more of.

Arousal easily increases in potency when mixed with other feelings. For you, it was unexpected affection and the lure of degeneracy. For Buggy, you assumed it was the fear and anxiety that comes with imprisonment. Each concoction was perfectly portioned and all it took were choice words, overly-familiar touches, and curious glances for the poison to take effect.

Alone in the room, it only took seconds to pull your pants low enough to grant Buggy access. You leaned forwards, steadying yourself against the wall, while he grabbed the lower hem of your top. His thrusts were erratic and sloppy as he tried to find a decent pace. There was barely enough time for this moment of guilty indulgence and you both wanted as much from it as possible.

Bringing his bound hands overhead, Buggy pulled you close to his chest until you were wrapped in his hold. With his hands closer to your hips, he was able to move both of your bodies at a quick tempo. He was rewarded with a whine that escaped your heavy breathing.

“S’that how you like it? Hard and rough? I didn’t expect you to be so fucking filthy. Do all your prisoners get welcomed like this?”

Fuck. Why did his voice sound so good? And why did it sound better saying such degrading shit?

You shook your head and leaned into his touch, wanting to feel more. “Sh-shut up. Don’t you ever stop talking?”

“You d-don’t want that,” Buggy groaned. “I can feel your body squeeze when I talk. You like it.” His teasing was met with a delicious whimper.

Every word from his mouth had your head spinning. You wanted so much more. You wanted to taste his voice, to feel his mouth against yours, to feel his lips on your skin, but he wore that stupid face paint. You wanted his touch everywhere, for his hands to roam your body, for him to hold you tighter, but he needed to keep the cuffs on. Buggy was a Devil Fruit user. He was dangerous. And he was breaking you down.

Almost as if he could read your mind, Buggy started describing all the ways he wanted to screw you. How good you are at taking him. He wants to hear how good he makes you feel. Lost in the haze of lust, you barely remembered pulling out the key you wore on a chain and had tucked under your clothes. Your palm ached from how tightly you gripped the key while fighting against the horny instincts crowding your body.

You were so close, so achingly close. Maybe if you timed it right, it would be okay. You could minimize the danger. That makes sense, right? It could work. The wisp of rational thought faded away so softly that you didn’t miss its absence.

“Please,” was all you could get out as you unlocked the cuffs and let them fall to the floor.

It was like you released a feral animal with that decision. You didn’t realize just how much the seastone had sapped from Buggy until you felt his bruising grip as he brutally slammed his hips into yours. Even his cock seemed to get harder as it was bullied deeper in your body. He struggled to stay quiet, grunting like a wild boar as he rut into you.

You were on the edge of the precipice, ready to throw yourself over the ledge, when a horrible sound yanked you back to solid ground. A piercing siren sound filled the ship, signaling the top of the hour and a change in duties. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. You needed to finish your job before anyone found out what you were doing. Who you were doing.

In a panic, you elbowed the pirate and spun around. “They’re gonna catch us,” you said with wide-eyes.

With all his blood below the belt, Buggy was already caught off-guard by the loud noise. Your rapid change from a whimpering needy thing who needed to be railed, to a Marine who wanted to follow the rules was a lot for the pirate to follow after losing the trail of his own orgasm. All he could do was struggle to pull up his pants as you shoved him into the jail cell and locked him in. Thoughts slowly returned to his head and weakness seeped back into his body as he watched you fix up your uniform before freezing.

“What the fuck did you do?” The question started as a shout before you restrained the rest of your temper.

“I wanted to make sure you come back for me,” Buggy responded with a wink. “Besides, we didn’t get to finish. I figured you could keep it warm for me until the encore.” He reached down and grabbed the crotch of his pants, which was baggier than it should be.

“Are you fucking ser-” The rhetoric question was stopped by the throbbing in your body.

Between your body fully accepting the rough fuck and the whirlwind of anxiety about being caught, you didn’t notice that Buggy left you with a piece of himself. Of all the things he could have done with his Devil Fruit powers in that moment, rather than doing something, anything, that could help him escape, the clown chose to part from his dick. What a fucking joke.

---

It was a sunny day with just enough of a breeze to keep the sails full and to blow away excess heat from the sun. The gentle wind helped dry the perspiration on your skin as you crossed the deck, towards the meeting room. While the air carried away some of the physical evidence, your body still burned and you chose to believe the unrelenting heat was shame. Punctual attendance was critical on the ship and you couldn’t even spare a few minutes to evict the pirate’s privates without risking a penalty.

With each step, you felt the fullness between your legs and the stretch from his girth. You couldn’t remember what it meant to walk normally. Every movement was over thought and analyzed. What felt normal made your core feel too tight against the intrusion. Longer strides had you worry that he might slip out. While it seemed unlikely (all of this was unlikely already), you worried about losing this bit of Buggy. There would be no reasonable way to explain a lone penis anywhere on the ship.

As hard as you tried to be upset with Buggy’s stupid horny decision, your body was still flooded with hormones that drowned logic and only allowed obscene thoughts to float. You were deep in a fucked up situation and you were enjoying it.

You arrived just in time for the meeting to start. It was a daily check-in where attendees would recite numbers and metrics that meant nothing to you. It was important and wholly unnecessary. The returning sheen of sweat and lingering redness on your face could be excused as the hustle needed to arrive on time and not the throbbing you felt inside.

Settling into one of the open chairs, you couldn’t find a position that was remotely comfortable. There was minimal padding on the wood chairs and the backrests were at an awkward height that provided no support. Leaning too far one way pushed Buggy further inside and you just barely concealed the discovering gasp as a deep breath.

Crossing your legs was a terrible idea, as it only added to the unforgiving pressure. The sensation attacked you both, as you felt the confined cock flex in its warm prison. You quickly uncrossed your legs, glad no one could see how they shook under the table.

Wicked voices began whispering to you, talking over the droning presentation at the head of the table. You couldn’t find any reprieve from what you were feeling. The only thing that made you feel better was giving in. You could afford to let your mind drift, this meeting was only to make others feel important. You had your own feelings to deal with.

Your mind wandered down to where those feelings radiated from. To the frustrating ache between your legs. Buggy was a good length, on the longer end of average, but his thickness was far more than average. Thankfully he got you so riled up earlier and all you had to suffer through was a burn that he quickly fucked away. Your body had grown accustomed to the wideness, but being held open for so long was different. Even through the uniform, you felt exposed. With each twitch from your hole as it fruitlessly tried to find some give against the occupant, you fell apart a little more.

You shifted in the chair again, cautiously rolling your hips with the movement. Just once. And then again, under the guise of trying to get comfortable. Fuck, that did feel good. Your body shifted against Buggy’s member just right. You tensed against him, chasing that sensation, and receiving a heavy throb in response.

Your name broke through the fog you willingly got lost in. Your eyes snapped to the man standing at the head of the table.

“Is there something more important than going over these reports?”

Maybe your movements weren’t as subtle as you thought.

“No, Sir. Just trying to get comfortable. I apologize for the distraction.” You spoke loudly, overriding the quiver hiding in your throat.

Buggy was reacting to the jolt of tension that ran through our body. Clenched fists pressed into your knees and your toes curled in the little space available in your boots as you rode out his movement. It was incredibly frustrating and absolutely embarrassing. So why did it feel so fucking good?

---

The rest of the meeting ended without further incident. At least, as far as any of the attendees cared. For you, every action and reaction from either of your linked bodies felt like a whole new event to survive. You offered a tight lipped smile to everyone as they left the room, preferring a small audience when you attempted to use your weak legs. Luckily, horniness and adrenaline held you up and supported you out of the room.

The infirmary was a few doors down and it was around the time the doctor took a break. If you were lucky, the room would be empty and you could put an end to this. The luck was debatable when you opened the door to two pale faces. One belonged to the Marine who was on guard duty and the other belonged to the prisoner being guarded. A prisoner who offered you a small smile that matched the one painted on his face.

The guard started babbling when you entered the room. “H-he doesn’t look good, r-right? I brought him h-here, but they’re all on break. I’m wor-worried he’s gonna upch- upchu-ugh, pu- v- vom-”

“Get sick?”

The guard nodded with pursed lips, struggling to hold back the hiccups and sympathetic heaves that wracked their body. “Doesn’t seem ser-serious enough to call the med-ugh medics b-back.”

You looked at Buggy, trying to assess what was going on. Was this a ploy or was he actually ill? Were you going to get sick?

“It doesn’t look that serious. I can stay with him. Why don’t you go lie down?” Your offer was accepted before you even finished speaking.

The infirmary door closed, leaving you and Buggy in an awkward silence. He sat in a chair, hunched over, still giving you a weak smile.

“Are you okay? Is it bad?” You asked, concerned that his flashy self seemed to be affected. Crouching down, you brought yourself closer to his level.

“Bad,” he repeated hoarsely, leaning towards you.

His trajectory would bring his painted forehead to the white shoulder of your uniform, so you intercepted. Pressing your head against his, you waited for Buggy to continue.

“N-need you. Made a bad decision, need you, please.” One of his cuffed hands pawed at the empty space where his dick should be.

With his strength and stamina taken away during imprisonment, Buggy’s self-inflicted secondary imprisonment was too much. He could feel everything - how your body continued to struggle around him, how warm you were inside, how you reacted to his involuntary cries and demands for more. It felt so fucking good, so deliriously wonderful, and downright torturous.

There was no end in sight, though. There had to be a reason you kept him inside, so even if Buggy could come, it would be followed with overstimulation that could go for who knows how long. Not to mention how upset you would probably be if you were unexpectedly full of his hot cum.

Buggy whimpered at the thought. At imagining you full and plugged. Of his jizz dripping out and collecting in your underwear. Of you being an absolute fucking mess under your prim and pristine uniform, because of him.

“Please,” he whined again.

You pulled away and locked the door. “We don’t have a lot of time. Again.”

Buggy bit his lip as you held out your hand to help him up and blubbered what sounded like, “thank you.”

You understood how he felt. So insatiable that nothing mattered more than giving into these desperate needs that aggressively grew out of desire. Giving up on everything but chasing the high, you uncuffed Buggy and undid your pants.

This fucker needed to know the effect his dumbass decision had on others. You shoved his hand down your pants, letting him feel how wildly aroused you were. How much of a mess he made.

His groan was laced with delight and pain at the knowledge. His touch was everywhere, committing all of the evidence of your lust to memory. As his hand crept further, it came in contact with his base and his body jolted at the touch. This was too much.

Yanking his hand out of your pants, Buggy rushed to unbuckle his and expose where his member belonged. Following his lead, you pulled your pants down and turned around. Wary about wasting precious time, Buggy pressed his hips against yours and shuddered when his cock returned to its rightful place. It felt as if his senses increased a hundredfold now that it was back.

“M’close,” he warned, struggling to set a reliable pace.

Honestly, he was about to explode when his hand was down your pants. But he needed this. He needed to feel you moving on his cock. To feel your body react against him. To feel you explode.

As if reading his thoughts, you grabbed his hand and pushed it down. You didn’t need much. This entire time, you didn’t need much, apparently. Just his attention on you was enough to pull you off the trail you were on. And that’s what he gave you - his enthusiastic attention.

His hand moved fervently, following the cues your body gave. The touches that had your breaths teeter on moans, pressure that had your body clench his, sensations that increased the tension in your core.

“Uh-haah, uh-huh, just like that. K-keep going, g-gonna… You’re gonna make me c-” You were cut off as the feeling ripped through your body, sharp and electric. The words in your mouth were wiped away as you fell to the indescribable surge.

Buggy huffed as he struggled to fuck through your orgasm. Your unsaid words rung through his head - he was responsible for this. You were shaking beneath him because of what he did. Your sweet sighs of relief were for him.

“Wh-where-” Buggy could hardly stutter a question he should have asked earlier.

“Finish what you started,” you said, leaning into his touch once again.

Feeling your body melt against his, accepting his thick cock so easily, pulling him deeper - that was more than enough.

“F-fucking shit,” Buggy hissed as he came.

The climax was nearly painful as he shot stream after stream inside your body. Feeling like the release would never end, the pirate clung to you and whimpered with each pulse. Eventually, he ran out. His hold released with a shaky sigh.

Buggy struggled with words to fill the next moment. Something about how this felt good. Maybe a thanks? But before he could decide, yet another loud sound interrupted the moment. A sound that was accompanied by a lurch that threw the pirate back. An explosion. Then came the alarms. The ship was under attack by pirates. You both rushed to fix yourselves up.

“I-I think that’s for me,” Buggy said.

You looked at him incredulously. Was this all a fucking trick?

“I want you to come with me.”

His request kept you silent. This didn’t make sense.

“I didn’t think they were coming. I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. But it was fun - well, I had fun. I think you did too. We can keep having fun, unless you want to keep living this stuffy life.” Buggy spoke quickly.

His explanation was rushed, but you could see a hint of honesty among the turmoil.

Buggy held his hand out for you to grab.

---

Life on a pirate ship was different, but also similar to life with the Marines. Useless meetings couldn’t be avoided and petty drama existed everywhere. But the spirit and passion that came with piracy was unbelievably vast. Joys flew high, parties raged hard, drinks always flowed, treasure was celebrated.

And on Buggy’s ship, there was always more. More life, more color, more light. Dumb jokes, death defying stunts, fantastic skills, and stupid decisions that managed to work out in the end.

One of your favorite things about life aboard the ship were the quiet afternoons you spent with the captain. Afternoons that were spent laying in the shared bed, your body nestled against his. Afternoons full of stories and musings. Afternoons dedicated to the two of you, which you spent slotted together in warmth and intimacy.

#buggy smut #buggy x reader #buggy the clown #buggy x you #buggy the clown x reader #x reader #buggy op #opla buggy #one piece buggy #buggy the clown smut #one piece smut #gender neutral reader #hey-august march madness

269 notes · View notes

eternalsa2z · 9 months ago

Text

Artist

You are an artist. Seeking your pièce de résistance.

Your body is your canvas. Sculpt it into a desired shape. Paint it with sagas of your transformation. Adorn it with gilded strings or sewn on lashes.

Your mind your slate. Wipe it blank. Strip yourself of everything so it can be rebuilt again. Fill it with new ideas, desires, a new identity.

You are a bimbo. Find your perfect form.

#bimboification #gender neutral transformation

241 notes · View notes

hismourningflower · 11 months ago

Text

「 forget you | hoyoverse fanfiction 」 dan heng & kaeya x gn!reader | angst, amnesia | general fanfiction. ↳ additional tags. angst with no comfort, established relationships, mentions of alcohol & drinking (kaeya), i'm not sorry ↳ ehehe... oops... happy one hundred to the xianzhou jade !!

data has been uploaded! - send an ask to join the taglist; specify genshin, honkai or both! @lovingluxury, @dumbificat, @starryshinyskies, @ryuryuryuyurboat, @ainescribe, @soleillunne

the jade's guidelines | genshin m.list | honkai m.list | previous work

DAN HENG didn't quite know what to expect when welt texted him about your situation. his own partner in an accident? he knew that he should have been persistent and gone with you and march 7th. he should have fought to go with you, he should have- he should have done a lot. after a few painstaking days of you being trapped in a comatose state within belobog's hospital with every visitation request denied, dan heng decided that he had more than regrets about this.

he spent his days and evenings restless, pacing his room with every thought rushing through his mind; would you survive? would you hate him? he figured you had every right to despise him. no amounts of time spent with his head in documentation, tracing over booklets of planets and history books regarding the aeons could ease his mind.

dan heng felt guilt, as if he only had himself to blame for standing there so quietly as you and march excitedly announced that you were going to belobog on behalf of himeko. march chimed in that you'd use it more as a shopping trip and whilst you laughed it off, dan heng silently wished he could go just to protect you. you were capable but he was anxious, losing you was the last thing he wanted.

this feeling would eat at him for as long as the doctors tending to you kept rejecting the astral express' visitation requests. he wanted to see you and now it felt as though he had to pay the price - another price... wasn't he paying enough already? his heart could rot from the amount of guilt he withheld inside of him, not daring to utter it to the older members of the crew. it could break his ribs, tear him open but he'd refuse to mention it.

miserable, dark grey clouds covered belobog's usual sunshine, painting the city in a dull appearance that could only match dan heng's numb emotions as the astral express crew navigated the streets of the city, finally on their way to see you. in march's bandaged hands - she'd taken the lesser of the injuries, coming back onboard the express with a few scrapes - was a beautifully wrapped bouquet of flowers, a bittersweet get-well-soon gift in light of the news that they'd receive along with their permission from the doctors; you had amnesia and they were still testing what you remembered from the accident.

he was nervous - no, he was far more than nervous. it showed on his face the moment they all solemnly shuffled into the tight hospital room, grimacing as they brushed against each other to gather around your bed. except there wasn't a form of excitement on your tired face but rather a look of confusion. welt cleared his throat first, eyes darting to look at dan heng's sudden loss of colour that drained from his face.

"they don't remember," he whispers to himself, as if no one else was around him. he takes a moment to lean back on the wall, "they don't remember me."

it takes welt's hand on dan heng's back to guide him out of the room shakily but nothing feels real anymore. all the memories, chaste kisses and moments where dan heng had done more than warm up to you in light of his past and previous life. you remembered none of it, not an ounce of the love he'd grown comfortable enough to give you, nothing.

dan heng's legs feel weak under him as his heart tears apart. perhaps this was a clean slate in terms of his regrets in protecting you, he could have done better and now he has a chance to wipe it all clear for you - you're not angry at him but he knows it's because you simply don't remember what happened.

he'll protect you better this time, more closely and not taking his eyes off of you. maybe one day, he'll tell you about the relationship the two of you shared; the kisses under the stars and the nights curled up together reading your own books. he would still love you. he'd always love you.

it felt like a fever dream when amber came to find KAEYA while he was on a commission for the knights. he hadn't been drinking on the job when the brunette arrived nor had he consumed any that morning... so how come she was spewing nonsense about you being seriously injured on a commission?

the cherry on the top? you didn't recognise a single person who'd visited you on bedrest. not jean, not barbara, not mika or lisa, not even noelle. and as your partner, kaeya was terrified by that prospect. you saw noelle and jean daily, always in cohorts with them - hell, you would see lisa sometimes more than you saw him, thanks to the busy nature of his rank.

if you didn't remember them without a sliver of recognition, would you remember him? he found it hard to breathe the whole way back to the city of mondstadt with a restless young brunette at his side and - begrudgingly, kaeya hadn't even invited him along - the owner of the dawn winery. diluc was equally as pained to hear of your accident from amber and who was he to not be there during possibly one of the most painful times of his brother's life? he'd done him wrong before, multiple times and perhaps he had tried to brush their brotherly relationship off but he was his brother, his found family. now, he needed him.

there was only so much dread that could consume kaeya's tall body. the peaceful sounds of mondstadt no longer soothed him on his walk to the city like it usually did after a commission, no. in fact, it was killing him. he wanted to hold your face in his hands, his breath fanning over your lips as he stares into your hands. he wanted to see that beautiful smile of yours again, the way you roll your eyes at his drinking antics.

what was he supposed to do if you had forgot about him too? amber says you'd taken heavy trauma to the head. amnesia... amnesia is what ruined his life this time? not family issues and abandonment, not a family death and the awful grip of guilt and anger... amnesia. memory loss. something that had so bitterly taken his beloved from him. you'd been the first person kaeya had truly warmed up to since he drifted away from diluc. the first person to see his true sides, to see his sheer raw emotions.

kaeya had had plenty of time to prepare for this endeavour on the way into the city, knowing the chances you'd forgotten him were plenty high with how you'd forgotten the other knights. yet to hear you utter the words "who are you?" with such an innocent look to your face, overridden by confusion, it shattered his heart. his lungs felt like he was suffocating and he almost wanted to choke out 'your partner' into the air but he doesn't.

instead, with the reassuring touch of diluc's calloused hand on his shoulder, kaeya forces a weak smile onto his face, sun kissed skin glowing in the golden light of the sunset that breaks through the open window in your room as he clears his throat to reintroduce himself to you, "i'm kaeya."

his voice cracks, a dead giveaway to those in attendance that he was struggling with the reality of this. because of you, he'd lacked to drink as much on the evenings but now... diluc was already preparing to drag his brother away from the taverns, muttering curses that drinking was not the right coping mechanism. he'd be at his brother's side even if the latter reeked of wine.

kaeya would love you all over again, he'd spend so much time with you it would be suffocating if only it meant you fell in love with him again. a second chance to right his wrongs, to kiss those lips again. you were his, he wasn't going to let you fall into the hands of anyone else. he'd fix this.

⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹

#( sealed letters )#© thexianzhoujade #kaeya x reader #dan heng x reader #genshin angst #honkai star rail angst #hsr angst #genshin impact angst #genshin x reader #hsr x reader #genshin kaeya #hsr dan heng

337 notes · View notes

theaquamarinearchives · 9 months ago

Text

[ forget you ― dan heng & kaeya ] "the day i needed you the most was the day you weren't there at all." cw. gn!reader, angst with no comfort, amnesia, established relationships, mentions of alcohol & drinking (kaeya)

aquamarine's findings. another old blog repost (i'm just getting through all of my old works tbh, just assume it's an old blog repost from here on) // past me said "i'm not sorry" in the notes

"they don't remember," he whispers to himself, as if no one else was around him. he takes a moment to lean back on the wall, "they don't remember me."

━

the archives' notifications. @bisexuawolfsalt, @lovingluxury, @auroratumbles, @ryuryuryuyurboat, @soleillunne

@zamorazz, @zworllyx

#: recorded in the archives #・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗#kaeya x reader #dan heng x reader #dan heng angst #kaeya angst #hsr angst #genshin angst #hsr x reader #genshin x reader

178 notes · View notes

mooooonnnzz · 6 months ago

Text

Masterlist!

i have been inching to do a masterlist and i finally got the energy to make one!

Avatar Way Of Water ཐི♡ཋྀ

❥ Neteyam:

🐚 What Love Would Do To You ~ The stages of getting to know Neteyam and falling in love with him <3

🐚 If you go, I'll stay. ~ Neteyam has to say goodbye to the one he loves the most

🐚 I've never been in love before ~ Neteyam HC of him falling in love

🐚 Under The Moonlight ~ A moment shared between two lovers

🐚 The Lamp Is Low ~ More HC's of Neteyam

🐚 Neteyam tail HC ~ Metkayina reader who's very amused by his weird tail

❥ Kiri:

💙 I won't say (I'm in love) ~ You confess your feelings towards her and she doesn't know how to respond

💙 Kiri's tail HC ~ Metkayina reader who is very amused by Kiri's weird tail

❥ Lo'ak:

🌊 Perfect Pair ~ Lo'ak HC

Spiderman Across The Spiderverse ꔫ

❥ Miles Morales:

🕷️ Don't text and swing! ~ Miles loves texting you, what could possibly go wrong?

🕷️ I'm Spiderman!...Surprise? ~ Hcs of you finding about miles which ultimately leads to him telling you his “secret”!

❥ Miguel O'Hara:

🕸️ How do I do this? ~ Miguel attempts to tie up your hair and fails miserably. (bad attempts of me inputting Spanish in the story is ahead, be warned😭 )

🕸️ Miguel takes his daughter to HQ ~ Miguel takes his daughter to HQ! How bad could it be?

🕸️ Babysitting Mayday! ~ Miguel has a daughter who adores Mayday

🕸️ Manicure ~ You paint Miguel's nails!

lowkey wish i wrote more for dad miguel hes so cute as a father

The Legend of Korra ཐི♡ཋྀ

❥ Korra:

💧 Nervous ~ You want to ask Korra out but you're to nervous. With the help of Bolin and Mako you finally ask her out.

i wrote like one fic for her and dipped i apologize

Gravity Falls ꔫ

❥ Stanford Pines

📖 Who Knows How Long I Loved You ~ Stanford Dad HC's!

📖 You Know I Love You Still ~ Stanford Dad HC's + inclusion in the ep in "not what he seems"

📖 Heartbreak, Heartbreak ~ Stanford Husband HC'S

📖 Forwards Beckon Rebound ~ Ford's unsatiable hunger for knowledge almost costs you your life and ultimately lead to his demise.

📖 World/Insured ~ Ford pushes you in a portal accidentally!!

📖 World/Insured Part 2 ~ Stan and Ford bust their ass trying to get you back.

📖 World/Insured Part 3 ~ Stan and Ford bust their ass trying to get you back. 2x

📖 2010 Toyota Corolla ~ HC's of Ford reacting you having a partner.

📖 I'm Glad There Is You ~ HC's of Ford reacting you getting broken up with!

📖 Mable’s Surprise Birthday Special ~ It's your birthday! And Mable couldn't help but rope everyone along and record the whole thing.

❥ Stanley Pines

🎱 Love You Forever and Forever ~ Stan Dad HC's :3

🎱 Clean Slate ~ You try to bring back Stan’s memories after the memory wipe.

🎱 World/Insured ~ Stan watches Ford pushes you in a portal.

🎱 World/Insured Part 2 ~ Stan and Ford bust their ass trying to get you back.

🎱 World/Insured Part 3 ~ Stan and Ford bust their ass trying to get you back. 2x

🎱 2010 Toyota Corolla ~ HC's of Stan reacting you having a partner.

🎱 I'm Glad There Is You ~ HC's of Stan reacting you getting broken up with!

🎱 Far From The Weight Of The World ~ Making a deal with Bill wasn't one of your smartest ideas.

🎱 Mable’s Birthday Special ~ It's your birthday! And Mable couldn't help but rope everyone along and record the whole thing.

🎱 Dream about me ~ Stan never really accounted for how similar you are to Ford.

❥ Mable

🌠 Heartbreak, Heartbreak ~ Her Grunkle Ford is married to you?! How did he not scare you away?

🌠 By Your Side ~ Trying to shield them from danger was proved harder than you thought.

🌠 Mable’s Surprise Birthday Special ~ It's your birthday! And Mable couldn't help but rope everyone along and record the whole thing.

🌠 Endless Season ~ WIP

❥ Dipper

🌲 Heartbreak, Heartbreak ~ He believes Grunkle Ford did some hypnotism on you. There's no way you willingly married him.

🌲 By Your Side ~ Trying to shield them from danger was proved harder than you thought.

🌲 Mable’s Surprise Birthday Special ~ It's your birthday! And Mable couldn't help but rope everyone along and record the whole thing.

credits to headers: natsusaki and anitalenia

i wonder if anyone catches that some of my titles r songs/lyrics. i usually name them after the song that i listened to while writing them

my summaries lowkey suck

#my writing #moons masterlist

140 notes · View notes

dolljunk · 5 months ago

Text

So for my friend @houseofmous birthday, I wanted to give him a doll that was to his tastes but also had a bit of my flair added to it so I mulled it over for a bit.

I had this vintage 1980s Pizzazz doll by Hasbro kicking about with a stained mouth, (everybody is so creative) which took several weeks of destaining but after that, I realised the factory paint was…. not my taste so I wiped her.

There is a prototype Pizzazz that was slated for release in 1988 that was going to have a new headsculpt and new makeup so, while I couldn't exactly get Pizzazz a new sculpt I figured I would try painting her eyes to have that makeup.

Since her makeup was white heavy, I thought that it would be fun to incorporate this Glow in the Dark hair as I really hated the mullet she had and figured replacing her short hair portion would make her really unique.

While I did try to copy the style of her 1988 prototype makeup, I couldn't resist adding a few of my own flourishes to her so she's not an exact replica but rather how I ncould bring out the sculpt's beauty.

For my very first vintage Jem doll custom I'm incredibly proud of how she turned out and it has ripped the bandaid of doing other vintage Jem customs for me.

83 notes · View notes

crazy56u · 7 days ago

Text

It's late, I'm bored, I wanna ramble about a thing.

So, a while back, I did that thing again where I had an art commission made (shoutout @thenovika); it never got shared on here, but it was shared on other places. And I feel like talking about it a little bit, just for kicks. And also to share the deep lore that's been burning in my head concerning it, some of which might not 100% track, but fuck it, it's my imagination, and I decide the path it takes.

To start, said commission is this:

(shifting to "Read More" mode now)

Firstly, yes, this is using "Quantum Leap Jesus Painting" as a reference.

Believe it or not, this is the last time this becomes relevant in this rant; things are gonna deviate quick here.

Secondly, this post is mainly a (very long delayed) response to some people's interpretation of what is going on in the image; namely, that Julie-Su is dead.

This was never my intention... however, admittedly, my intention is somewhat worse. Essentially, the intrusive thoughts were angry.

Let me explain: For those unaware, in the Archie comics, prior to the Big Legal Kerfluffle that resulted in the SGW reboot, Rouge was, to be blunt, a self-serving bastard, and basically didn't give a shit that Knuckles had a girlfriend.

Later on in the comic, Knuckles was going through The Shit due to briefly being evil (long fucking story) and trying to "free" people from technology and shit, and decided after everything was said and done that he needed to self-isolate.

Fast forward two issues, and Knuckles decides to return to public life... mainly thanks to Rouge wanting to further an agenda (that I don't really think gets revealed, given how the comics soon quickly fall down a cliff in terms of #shenangans and #lawsuits).

And here is where the thoughts started getting loud; Rouge could've tried to have it both ways: Get Knuckles back in to the fight, and also keep him to herself.

After all, Knuckles did have a good reason to stay away from Julie-Su after The Shit happened...

Yeah, he almost did that; stands to reason he could be convinced to keep his distance... or, rather, be convinced Julie-Su wanted to keep her distance.

Here is where the real shit kicks into gear with how this plays out in my brain: In order to play both sides (and, this is important, there is a very small window of opportunity Rouge would have her to prevent Knuckles from properly reuniting with her), Rouge confronts Julie-Su privately shortly after The Shit and, upon pushing just the right buttons (basically insinuating to her that it was her fault Knuckles went through The Shit at all), Rouge manipulates her into having that long-awaited rematch between the two of them in a private location... where she basically wipes the floor with her (she can kick Knuckles' ass just fine, this wouldn't be nothing in comparison; plus, cybernetics can be shorted out, just a tip), and knocks her out (see the first image).

Now.

You may have noticed my decision to use the phrase "play both sides".

Well, that's because that was what I was thinking of.

As much as she wanted Knuckles for herself, Rouge wouldn't kill Julie-Su directly.

She'd kill the idea of her.

She'd take her home. To a familiar face.

Who is on the record not above screwing with Julie-Su's brain to get what she wants.

(Plus, it's implied that chip never came out...)

And now also has a new partner in crime to help make the transition process smoother.

And Rouge 100% would A) know how to contact Lien-Da, B) talk her into taking part in this plan, and C) turn a blind eye to it all after the fact.

So, yes, in a very warped sense, everyone wins.

Knuckles gets to start moving on from The Shit, no longer burdened with one of the biggest reminders of how deep that went.

Rouge gets her prize.

Lien-Da gets to clear the slate and start fresh with a new ally, and a new member of the Dark Egg Legion.

And as far as everyone is concerned, Julie-Su has left for greener pastures, for her own good.

Rouge wouldn't kill Julie-Su. Not directly. Too many lost resources that way.

...but maybe it'd be merciful the other way around...

#art commission discussion #dark thoughts inbound #borderline psychotic ranting #shaky understanding of lore #sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #rouge the bat #knuckles the echidna #enerjak #julie-su #lien-da #julie-su the echidna #lien-da the echidna #quantum leap jesus painting

14 notes · View notes

jesterfairy · 27 days ago

Text

.♠︎.💜 𝐀 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐈 𝐂𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭 💚.♠︎.

Chapter 1: The Game Begins

___. ♡ ✦ ♧━━━♢ ✦ ♠️ ✦ ♢━━━♧ ✦ ♡. ___

Chapter Word Count: 5,487

Fic Summary: Alina Vale dreams of escaping her dead-end life as a diner waitress, finding solace in painting Gotham’s haunting shadows. But when a routine trip to the bank turns into a living nightmare, she finds herself face-to-face with the Joker—a man as captivating as he is terrifying.

As his twisted games unravel her defenses, Alina is forced to confront the pull he has over her, a collision of fear and desire she can’t control. Trapped in his world of chaos and power, survival means facing not only him but the darker parts of herself he’s brought to life.

A story of obsession, control, and the intoxicating allure of letting go.

Genres: Dark romance, Gothic romance, Stalker romance

Pairings: TDK Joker x Female OC

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: non-con, extremely dubious consent, violence, psychological manipulation, kidnapping, stalking, slow-burn, toxic relationships, trauma bonding, childhood trauma, graphic sexual content, stockholm syndrome, dead dove do not eat

A/N: This story is the result of my obsession with imagining what it would truly be like to fall for the Dark Knight Joker and how such a twisted romance could unfold realistically while keeping the Joker in character as much as possible.

If you love dark romance with toxic dynamics, morally gray situations, and tons of smut, you’re in the right place! Please be warned though, this story is going to be quite dark with a lot of extremely dubious consent bordering on non-con. Please mind the warnings.

___. ♡ ✦ ♧━━━♢ ✦ ♠️ ✦ ♢━━━♧ ✦ ♡. ___

Chapter 1: The Game Begins

The sky above Gotham was an unbroken sheet of slate-gray clouds, pressing down on the city like a suffocating blanket. Relentless rain poured over cracked sidewalks and grimy streets, turning everything into a slick, shimmering mess. The cold bit through Alina Vale’s coat as she pulled the hood tighter around her face, the black fabric already soaked through from her walk. It wasn’t supposed to be like this—her day off, a rare reprieve from the monotony of her waitressing job, ruined by late rent and a malfunctioning bank app.

Everything always felt heavier in Gotham, especially on days like this. The towering buildings loomed like sentinels, their Gothic spires dark and imposing against the stormy sky. It was a city that ground you down—and Alina had never felt strong enough to fight it.

She shivered as she pushed open the heavy glass door to Gotham First National Bank, the warm air inside a stark contrast to the chill outside. Her combat boots squelched as she stepped inside, the hem of her short grey dress swaying over her black tights as she scanned the room. A line of impatient faces greeted her, all waiting for their turn at the counter. No one noticed her, everyone too caught up in their own misery.

Alina wiped the rain from her face, her mind drifting as she waited. Overdue rent. The landlord’s cold, cutting voice on the phone. Her own pale reflection in the mirror that morning—a face she barely recognized. It wasn’t just these problems that made her feel small. It was everything. Her life. Her past. The choices she’d made—or failed to make.

The door creaked open behind her, and an elderly man shuffled inside, his cane tapping lightly against the marble floor as he closed the door behind him. He stepped into line directly behind her, shaking off the rain from his coat with a slow, gentle motion.

“Cold out there today, huh?” His voice was soft but carried a warmth that contrasted with the bitter weather outside.

Alina turned, meeting his gaze with a small smile of her own. His eyes crinkled at the edges, and for a moment, the weight she carried felt a little lighter.

“It’s awful,” she said, her voice a bit brighter now. “I wasn’t prepared for it to get this bad so fast.”

The old man chuckled, nodding in agreement. “But it’s Gotham. We’ve seen worse.” He gave a little shrug, leaning slightly on his cane. “Stick with it. Something about you tells me you've got the spark to handle it.”

Alina felt a flicker of warmth at the unexpected kindness. "Thanks," she murmured, her voice warm with gratitude. "I guess we Gothamites are tougher than we look."

The man smiled warmly, his kind eyes twinkling. “That’s the spirit.”

For the first time that day, Alina felt something other than dread. It wasn’t much, but in Gotham, moments like these were rare, and that made them worth holding onto. Still, as she stepped forward in line, the brief warmth began to fade, replaced by the familiar weight of her worries.

Her hands trembled slightly as she clutched her wallet and paycheck. It was barely enough to cover the rent. Once it was gone, she’d be back to nothing, scraping by until the next payday.

And then in an instant, things got so much worse than she ever could have imagined.

The doors to the bank slammed open, the sound reverberating through the marble walls like a gunshot. Alina flinched, turning to see a group of masked men pouring into the room, guns raised. Panic spread through the crowd like wildfire as people screamed, dropping to the floor.

Alina’s heart stopped when she saw him.

The Joker.

He strolled in behind the gunmen, his presence commanding the room instantly. Rain dripped from his soaked purple trench coat, clinging to his tall, lean frame. The grotesque smile painted across his face twisted unnaturally, the scars at its edges seeming almost alive.

She had seen his face on the news countless times, heard whispers of the chaos he left in his wake, but nothing could have prepared her for this. He wasn’t just a man; he was chaos incarnate, a force pulled straight from Gotham’s darkest nightmares.

But he was real. And he was here.

The room fell silent, fear pressing down like a rising tide. Alina dropped to her knees, the cold marble biting through her skin. Her pulse roared in her ears as she stared in disbelief.

The Joker himself—standing mere feet away.

All around her, the hostages were frozen and pressed to the floor like statues. No one moved, no one dared to.

The Joker sauntered lazily into the center of the room, his shoes flinging water across the polished marble floor. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction as the terror settled around him, as though this moment—a masterpiece of fear—was something only he could create.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled, his voice an unsettling blend of gravel and silk, low yet playful. It carried a theatrical lilt, every word dripping with mockery and menace, pulling the attention of every terrified soul in the room. “What a wonderful day for a little... social experiment.”

The words hung in the air like a noose tightening around each hostage’s neck.

Alina’s stomach dropped. She didn’t need to hear more to understand that whatever he had planned wasn’t going to be quick. This wasn’t about money or valuables. This was about them—the people trapped here with him.

The Joker continued to move with unsettling grace, each click of his shoes echoing like the toll of a distant bell. Every gaze was fixed on him, as though the air itself bent toward his presence. His grin sharpened as he prowled the sea of horrified faces, dragging their fear into the light.

And then his eyes found her.

Alina felt it immediately—his gaze cutting through the crowd and sinking into her like a blade. It was more than being seen; it was being pinned, dissected, exposed. Her chest tightened, her heartbeat drumming a frantic rhythm she couldn’t control. She froze, every instinct screaming at her to stay invisible, but her stillness only seemed to deepen his interest.

Surely, she wasn’t imagining it—was she? The weight of his stare felt deliberate, as if he had singled her out for reasons she couldn’t grasp. Then, with a flick of his head, he moved on, the connection cut as abruptly as it began.

The sharp clap of his hands cracked like a whip, slicing through the oppressive silence.

Hostages jolted, some gasping, others shrinking into themselves as if the sound could strike them. The Joker’s grin widened, his jagged scars pulling tight across his face as his tongue darted out, a slow, serpentine flick over scarred lips, savoring the terror that hung heavy in the room.

He spun on his heel, arms thrown wide. “Oh, come on, people! Don’t get so jumpy.” His strange voice leapt between high-pitched glee and gravelly menace, each word twisting unpredictably. “We’re just gonna play a little game! Simple rules: I explain. You play. And we’ll see how many of you… walk outta here.”

He chuckled, a rasping sound that danced dangerously close to genuine delight. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”

A chill raced down Alina’s spine. She had heard about the Joker’s games—on the news, whispered in the streets. He thrived on pushing people to their limits, making them squirm and break. And now, she was caught in the middle of one.

One of his henchmen dragged a wooden chair to the center of the room, its legs scraping loudly as he set it down. It stood before the group of terrified hostages like an altar, foreboding and terrible.

The Joker circled it slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. His fingers trailed along the back of the chair as he spoke, his voice soft but clear, carrying through the deathly silent room.

“This chair,” he began, “is where the magic happens. One by one, each of you will sit in it. And once you do, you'll have a choice.”

He paused, savoring the fear radiating from the crowd, his expression sharp with twisted delight.

“Option one ends this nice and quick: die a hero. I shoot you, and everyone else walks free. Simple. Noble. Clean.”

The weight of his words struck Alina like a blow, stealing her breath.

“Option two,” he continued, his voice dropping into a chilling drawl, “you pick someone else to die in your place. Round and round we go, until someone decides to end the game the right way.”

The hostages remained motionless, their eyes wide with terror as the realization of their fate settled over them like a choking fog. Alina struggled to still her racing heart; she was trapped, just like the rest, at the mercy of a madman.

“But here’s the fun part,” he said, his voice dripping with glee. “If you refuse to play, if you think you can just sit there and wait it out. Well…” He trailed off, raising a gloved hand toward the back of the room, where one of his henchmen stood, holding an assault rifle.

“This is Ernie,” the Joker said, gesturing with a casual flick of his wrist to the hulking man. Ernie was tall and broad, his face hidden behind a clown mask frozen in a sinister smile, the grim weapon cradled in his hands like a precious toy. “Ernie here will handle... the messy part. Can’t decide? Ernie will decide for you. And trust me—he’s got great aim.”

Ernie gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod, the eerie grin of his mask fixed on the terrified crowd.

The Joker stepped closer to the chair, his tone growing darker. “Everyone gets twenty seconds to decide—tick-tock, tick-tock. If you let the time run out, Ernie makes the call, and let’s just say he’s not picky.”

The Joker clapped his hands together suddenly, the sound sharp and jarring in the tense silence. “Now, why don’t we show everyone how this works, huh? Ernie, my friend, would you be so kind as to give them a demonstration?”

Before anyone could react, Ernie raised the shotgun with chilling precision, his gaze momentarily sweeping the crowd. Panic rippled through the hostages as his focus landed on a man kneeling at the back.

Without a word, Ernie pulled the trigger.

The blast echoed through the bank like a thunderclap as the doomed man crumpled to the floor in a lifeless heap, blood splattering across the white marble in a stark, violent display.

Screams erupted from the hostages, their fear spilling out in a wave of horror and panic. Bile rose in Alina's throat as she stared at his lifeless body. This was real— it wasn’t some twisted bluff. The Joker was going to kill them, one by one, unless...

“See?” the Joker said, as he nonchalantly motioned toward the fallen man. "No hesitation, no mercy. Wasting time wastes lives.”

His gaze shifted back to the terrified hostages, the playful menace in his voice returning as he spoke. “So, remember, my friends... if you don’t make a choice in twenty seconds, Ernie gets to have a little fun again. And if you still can’t pick after that, well...” He trailed off, chuckling softly. “Then it’s your turn to die.”

“Now, who’s first?”

The Joker's expression darkened as he slowly scanned the terrified crowd with a sinister smirk.

“Any volunteers?” he asked, his voice dripping with mockery.

The room remained deathly silent, the tension thick and suffocating.

“No takers?” He arched a brow, his voice laced with feigned disbelief. Then, he let out a low chuckle and said, “Well… looks like I get to choose.”

He strolled through the cluster of terrified hostages, savoring their panic as his gaze flicked over each frightened face. A mother clung to a small child, shielding him with her arms as she murmured soft, trembling reassurances drowned out by the oppressive silence. Nearby, an elderly woman hugged her purse to her chest, her frail frame trembling with every shallow breath. Each expression—a mixture of dread and helplessness—seemed to feed his twisted delight.

When he stopped in front of Alina, her breath hitched painfully in her throat, but she kept her head down, willing herself to disappear into the crowd.

But he lingered. Too long.

Her pulse quickened as his suffocating presence loomed over her. Despite the fear crawling under her skin, something defiant within her refused to shrink away. Her fingers pressed into the floor, grounding her against the overwhelming urge to melt into the marble.

And then—almost without thinking—she looked up.

Her gaze locked with his, and the world seemed to blur. His eyes weren’t the soulless black she’d imagined, but a rich, burning brown, flickering with something she couldn’t decipher. They pierced into her, stripping away her fear and leaving her raw.

His lips curved faintly, a flicker of amusement sharp enough to twist her insides. For a heartbeat, time froze. Something in his eyes—dark and consuming—sent a shiver racing down her spine. A strange, unwelcome sensation stirred in her stomach as she stared back, caught in his gaze like prey tangled in a snare.

The silence between them thickened, heavy with an unspoken challenge. His eyes bore into her, deliberate and predatory, daring her to hold his gaze—to see how long she could endure him.

Then, just like that, he turned away, his attention shifting to the middle-aged man beside her.

The spell broke. The world snapped back into motion, but Alina remained frozen, buzzing with the aftershocks of that terrifying shared moment. She let out a shaky breath, struggling to pull herself back together.

“You,” the Joker said, his voice sharp, making the man beside her flinch. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

The man’s face went white as Joker's men dragged him forward, his legs buckling as they shoved him into the chair.

The Joker crouched in front of him, twisted amusement etched into every line of his face. “Alright, sport. You’ve got twenty seconds to decide—be the hero, or pass the buck?” He tapped his wrist as if checking an invisible watch, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.

The man trembled as he glanced desperately at the other hostages—looking for salvation, or maybe looking for someone to sacrifice. Alina could see the panic in his eyes, the way his mind raced to process the impossible decision in front of him.

Finally, his lips moved, but no words came out.

The Joker leaned in closer. “Come on, now,” he cooed, his voice dripping with mock encouragement. “Time’s running out. You’ve got 10 seconds left. Die a hero, or point a finger and keep on living. Easy, right?”

Another 5 seconds passed when finally, the man pointed to a man standing nearby. His voice cracked as he finally spoke, barely more than a whisper. “H-him…"

The chosen man staggered back, his eyes wide with terror. “No! Please!” he stammered, his voice rising in desperation. “I have a family—please, don’t do this! I’ll do anything, I’ll—"

Without a word, Ernie raised his gun and fired.

The crack of the gunshot ripped through the air, loud and final as the chosen man’s body crumpled to the floor, blood spreading rapidly across the marble. Alina’s pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting the overwhelming urge to retch as the sudden, brutal finality of it hit her like a punch to the gut.

Ernie holstered his gun with an eerie calmness, stepping back without a glance at the man he’d just executed.

Alina felt her limbs go numb as a wave of helplessness washed over her. The reality of the game, of what was happening, began to sink in deeper. There was no mercy here. No humanity. Just survival.

She couldn’t stop her mind from racing—who would be next? Would it be her?

The Joker chuckled, his eyes glinting with wicked amusement. “See? Easy as pie,” he crooned. "Ernie doesn’t mess around. Now, who’s next?"

Without warning, the Joker pointed a gloved finger toward a young woman near the front of the group. “You,” he said, his voice sharp and playful. “It’s your turn.”

“No!” she cried, shaking her head as tears streamed down her face.

Two of Joker’s thugs moved forward, dragging her toward the chair with mechanical precision. She clawed at their hands, her sobs rising into a crescendo.

“Please!” she pleaded, trembling violently as they forced her into the chair. “I have twins at home—they’re just babies. Please, don’t do this! I’ll do anything, please!”

Alina’s heart ached for her, the sharp pain of helplessness clawing at her chest. She clenched her fists against the cold marble floor, willing herself to look away— but she couldn't.

The Joker crouched in front of the woman, his head tilting as if studying her.

“Oh, my dear,” he crooned, his voice smooth and chilling. “That’s what makes this so much fun. Everyone thinks they’re special—that they’re the exception.” His gaze flicked lazily toward the crowd. “But here’s the thing… no one is special. Not in my game.”

The woman’s sobs grew louder, her hands gripping the chair like it could somehow save her. “Please… don’t make me do this,” she begged, her voice breaking. “I can’t… I can’t…”

The Joker tapped his wrist, his tone darkening. “Oh, you can. And you will. Tick-tock.”

She shook her head, the seconds slipping away. The trembling of her body grew violent as she gasped out one final, broken “Please…”

“Ernie,” the Joker said with a casual wave of his hand, not even glancing at his henchman.

Ernie adjusted his grip on the weapon, his movements steady and precise. The room seemed to quiver under the weight of collective fear—gasps, stifled sobs, and the sound of shallow, panicked breaths breaking the stillness as he raised the gun.

For a moment it felt as though time itself had stopped.

Then the gunshot ripped through the air, defending and final as a man crumpled to the floor with a sickening thud.

The woman screamed, her sobs turning into wails of despair as she realized what had happened. She had taken too long. Someone had died because of her hesitation.

“See?” The Joker turned to the crowd, spreading his arms as though presenting a masterpiece. “That’s what happens when you waste time.”

He twirled on his heel, glancing back at the crowd of terrified hostages. “Your twenty seconds restarts now. Go beyond that and it'll be lights out for you too. What's it gonna be?"

But the woman sat frozen in terror, her breath coming in ragged sobs as she failed to steady herself.

A lump rose in Alina's throat as she watched her struggle.

“Time’s running out,” the Joker hummed, his tone faintly annoyed. “Who's it gonna be, lady? You or someone else? Don’t worry, I’ll make it nice and quick.”

The woman's panicked gaze darted around the room, seeking salvation in terrified faces. Finally, with a trembling finger, she pointed toward a middle-aged woman standing across from her.

“H-her…” she stammered, barely audible. “Please… please don’t…”

The middle-aged woman’s eyes widened in horror, her steps faltering as though she could outrun her fate. “No!” she cried. “Please, I have a family—don’t—”

The shot came without preamble. The older woman crumpled to the floor, lifeless.

The young woman in the chair let out an anguished scream, her wails reverberating through the room.

“Now that,” the Joker said, his tone almost admiring, “is what I call dramatic.” He wagged a finger at the broken woman. “Two lives on her conscience now. What a mess.”

“Now,” he continued, his voice dark and commanding, “who’s next?”

The game continued, the atmosphere in the room growing more desperate with each passing moment. One by one, the hostages were dragged to the chair, each of them forced to make the same impossible choice. Some screamed, some begged, others pointed fingers with barely a moment’s hesitation.

Alina’s heart trembled with every gunshot, every sob. There was no escape. She watched as person after person broke, giving in to their fear, sacrificing someone else in order to survive just a little longer.

Until finally, Alina's turn came.

A cold sweat crept over her skin as two of Joker’s men seized her, their grips bruising as they shoved her into the chair. In the blur of chaos and fear, her wallet slipped from her grasp, landing on the floor with a hollow thud.

She didn’t move to pick it up, too terrified to care about something so trivial.

The Joker, ever observant, caught the movement. With a slow, measured motion, he knelt down and plucked the wallet from the floor, flipping it open casually as if it were his own.

Before Alina could react, a sudden shout pierced the tension-filled air. One of the hostages bolted for the door, his shoes squeaking against the slick floor as he made a desperate dash for freedom.

A gunshot rang out as one of the goons discharged his weapon at the doomed man.

Alina’s head snapped toward the sound, her heart hammering as the would-be escapee crumpled to the ground, blood pooling beneath him. Bile rose in her throat— the gruesome violence just another reminder of what could soon be her fate.

The Joker stood back up, completely unfazed. He tossed the wallet lightly into her lap with a flick of his wrist, laughter dancing across his gaze.

"You can’t just leave your life lying around like that, sweetheart. Someone might snatch it up,” he said, his voice dripping with twisted mockery.

Alina, still too shaken by the chaos and death around her, barely registered the wallet now back in her lap.

With measured steps, the Joker closed the distance, his eyes fixed on her. Alina’s pulse quickened as he loomed over her, savoring her discomfort like it was a private performance just for him.

A smirk played on his red-stained lips as his eyes lingered, sliding over her trembling form with a deliberate intimacy that made her stomach twist.

Finally, he crouched down, their faces mere inches apart, his eyes locking onto hers with unsettling intensity. His grin stretched wider as his tongue flicked over his lips in a slow, deliberate motion—a gesture that felt calculated, primal, and disturbingly intimate. It made her skin crawl with revulsion.

“Well, hello, beautiful,” he purred, his voice low, each word dripping with unnerving reverence.

Alina’s breath hitched. His words were soft but his voice carried weight—a dark, magnetic pull that wrapped around her fear and squeezed. It wasn’t just the words he spoke but the way he said them—a predator’s promise, steeped in mockery, with a subtle, insidious charm that tugged at something she couldn’t name. Her chest tightened as she fought the instinct to lean back, to shrink away from the quiet menace in his tone.

His gaze raked over her once more, traveling slowly from her wide eyes to her trembling hands, before snapping back to meet her stare. “You look a little nervous,” he mused, his voice brushing over her like a velvet knife, teasing and cruel.

He leaned in closer, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he murmured, his tone thick with cruel delight. “We’re gonna have fun.”

A shiver flicked through her, the teasing threat in his voice twisting her pulse into a frantic rhythm. He was savoring this—feeding on every hint of her discomfort.

Before she could react, his hand moved with unnerving calmness, brushing against her cheek as his gloved fingers tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was deceptively tender and laced with an unsettling dominance, as if he was marking her with his caress. Along with the leather of his gloves, a faint, dizzying scent clung to him—a sharp blend of smoke and gunpowder, with a raw, masculine warmth beneath it. It crept into her senses and settled there, as invasive as the weight of his gaze.

Her skin tingled where his fingers had been, a strange mixture of dread and a dark, unwanted curiosity awakening inside her. She was too terrified to question what it meant, too consumed by the weight of his gaze and the chaos unraveling around her.

His smile deepened, eyes flickering with something dangerous, something primal, before he finally pulled away, leaving her breathless and unnerved.

The Joker stood again, straightening his coat with a quick snap. He turned to the room, glancing over the other hostages, then back to her.

“So, dollface,” he drawled, his voice laced with unsettling charm, “What’s it gonna be? Are you gonna save them all, be the big hero?” He leaned in closer, his breath grazing her skin like a dangerous caress. “Or are you going to pass the buck, like everyone else?”

Icy dread coiled deep in the pit of Alina's stomach. She had watched it unfold with the others—the desperate fear, the decisions that shattered lives—and now it was her turn. The weight of it pressed down, locking her in place. Her mind screamed, but her voice refused to come.

The Joker tilted his head, the faintest flicker of amusement ghosting across his features. “Tick-tock,” he murmured, tapping an invisible watch on his wrist. “Don’t take too long, sweetheart. We wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt because of you.”

She looked around at the hostages, her gaze catching the torrent of raw terror passing over each one. A woman near the back whispered frantic prayers, lips barely moving. A young man clutched his knees, his body trembling as he fought back sobs.

So many of them had already played the game, pointing fingers, sacrificing others to keep themselves alive a little longer. But what had it bought them? They weren’t free—they were just as trapped as she was, caught in the Joker’s web of chaos.

Was this truly all they could do? Break apart, piece by piece, just to survive a few moments longer?

The weight in her chest grew heavier. Memories she didn’t want to face pressed against the edges of her mind, threatening to break through. Not again. Not someone else because of me. Her jaw clenched as tears threatened to spill, but she wouldn’t let herself cry—not here, not in front of him.

She had survived Gotham, survived worse things than this—hadn’t she? But a quiet voice inside reminded her that it wasn’t completely true. The city hadn’t just suffocated her—it had slowly chipped away at her, piece by piece, until she’d started to let it. But here, now, she had a choice. She wouldn’t let the Joker, of all people, take the last shred of dignity she had left.

“Times up.”

The Joker’s voice snapped her back to the moment, sharp and final. He nodded toward Ernie, who, with chilling precision, raised his gun and aimed it at the kind old man she had spoken to earlier. The man trembled under the barrel, his fear raw and unhidden as his eyes locked with hers.

No. Alina's pulse roared in her ears, and before she could stop herself, she shouted.

“Wait!”

Her voice rang out, startling even her—an act of pure instinct. Every eye in the room turned toward her, including the Joker’s.

Panic surged through her veins, but beneath it, a strange calm settled over her, the weight of her decision crystallizing in that single, defining moment. Her life had been a string of powerless moments, defined by mistakes that still haunted her. But here, she could finally do something that mattered.

She wasn’t going to let more innocent blood be spilled—she couldn’t.

“I’m staying in the chair,” she said, her voice soft but true.

Ernie shifted, his weapon steady, the cold barrel still trained on the old man. His finger tightened slightly on the trigger as he prepared to fire.

Then, with unnerving calm, the Joker raised a gloved hand. The gesture was silent and absolute. Ernie froze mid-motion, lowering his weapon as tension rippled through the room like a taut wire ready to snap.

The Joker’s men stood motionless, their focus locked solely on him.

For a brief moment, the Joker’s expression faltered, his eyes narrowing in a flicker of surprise. Then, his head tilted, confusion dissolving into sinister curiosity. A shadow of a smile played on his lips, more menacing than any grin.

“You’re staying in the chair?” he repeated, his voice low, almost a growl. He stepped closer, circling her slowly like a predator assessing its prey. “Now, why would you go and do a thing like that?”

Fear coiled tight in her chest, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. “Because,” she said softly, her voice steady despite the pounding in her ears, “I can’t let this continue. I’m ending the game.”

The Joker stopped in his tracks, his dark eyes narrowing as he stared down at her, equal parts amused and intrigued.

“Well, well,” he murmured, his tone darker now. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a real anomaly here, folks.” He crouched again, inches from her face, studying her like she was the most interesting puzzle he'd ever encountered.

“You think you’re better than the rest of them?” he asked, his voice a sharp murmur. “You think you’re special?”

Alina shook her head. “No,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Definitely not.”

The Joker’s scars stretched wider, a glint of something wicked sparking in his eyes as his tongue flicked across his lips. He seemed to savor her defiance, lingering far too close, the silence between them taut with electricity.

And then, in the distance, a faint wail broke the silence of the moment.

Sirens.

The Joker’s head snapped up, eyes squinting slightly as the playful edge in his gaze sharpened. He stood, slow and deliberate, as if savoring the last moments before the inevitable.

“Well... looks like our fun’s being cut short.” He straightened, looking past the terrified hostages toward the growing sound of law enforcement closing in.

“Such a shame,” he said, almost regretfully, turning to Alina with a sly smile. "We were just getting started.”

Alina’s heart pounded as the room suddenly buzzed with a different kind of energy. The Joker’s men shifted uneasily, their focus flickering between their boss and the doors, but none dared to act until he gave the word.

Alina watched in mounting terror as Joker's hand slipped down to his waistband, fingers brushing against the gun tucked there.

Was he going to kill her? Was this the price she would pay for staying in the chair?

The Joker’s eyes glinted with a sinister playfulness as he drew the gun with excruciating slowness, the polished metal catching the light in chilling flashes.

This is it, she thought, her breath shallow and uneven. This is the price I’m paying to save everyone else. The cold realization settled over her like a shroud, numbing her to everything but the steady thrum of her heartbeat. She forced herself to sit still, her trembling hands gripping the arms of the chair like anchors. If this was how it ended, she would face it head-on—without screaming, without begging.

But then, with a sudden flick of his wrist, he flipped the gun into the air, catching it effortlessly. His grin widened, and he twirled the weapon once before holstering it again, as though it were a toy.

“You didn’t actually think I’d shoot you, did you, sweetheart?” he purred, his voice laced with amusement. Suddenly he closed the distance between them and reached for her face. She flinched, bracing for certain violence, but his fingers brushed her cheek lightly, sending a shiver down her spine. “No, no... what a waste that would be.”

He straightened, stepping away as he cast a lingering look over her. Then, almost as if to himself, he whispered, “We’ll pick this up again soon.”

The Joker’s eyes darkened as he turned to the room full of hostages, his voice carrying a casual weight as he addressed them. “You all owe her your lives today. But don’t get too cozy. Gotham doesn’t forget... and neither do I.”

With one last smirk in Alina’s direction, he spun on his heel, his long coat swishing as he strode toward the exit. His men, glancing nervously at the approaching sirens, followed close behind.

The Joker didn’t glance back as he disappeared into the stormy night, his laughter echoing through the cold air like a final, twisted farewell.

Alina sat rigid, aware only of her own shallow breathing. The hostages sat frozen too, the weight of their ordeal settling over them like a thick fog.

Finally, Alina slowly rose from the chair, her legs trembling beneath her. The Joker had let her live. But the way he had looked at her, touched her... it hadn’t been mercy. It had been a warning.

A promise that this was far from over.

___. ♡ ✦ ♧━━━♢ ✦ ♠️ ✦ ♢━━━♧ ✦ ♡. ___

A/N: Thank you so much for reading the opening chapter of my first Tumblr fic! I hope you enjoyed it and found my Joker to be in character. Feedback is always welcome and I’d love to hear your thoughts! 🖤💜💚

Stay tuned— I've already written 6 more chapters plus a bunch more that just need editing. I'll try to get the next 6 up ASAP.

Navigation Links:

Masterpost | Next Chapter →

#joker fic #Heath Ledger #The Dark Knight #Joker Fanfiction #TDK Joker #Joker x female OC #dark romance #Kidnapper x victim #Stockholm syndrome #Stalker romance #Gothic romance #A Poison I Can't Resist

12 notes · View notes

duffyyy911 · 12 days ago

Text

A Line in Black - 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 4 - 𝙳𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝙺𝚗𝚘𝚌𝚔

Summary: The detective gets a rude awakening after trying to block out the previous night's events.

Content Warnings: Mentions of alcohol and smoking. Mentions of prostitution. We aint getting freaky just yet gang dw

Word Count: 8k Author's Notes: I wanted to get some more dialogue and tension into this chapter, so nothing precisely exciting happens besides a riveting back and forth between the reader and Lest. I am going to be starting a new job soon, so Idk how frequent chaps are going to come out after the next one, but I'll work hard as long as yall keep reading!

Proofread by: @6selkie @sillyb0nez Masterlist: Here

The faint hiss of the waters mist, a gentle greeting that was followed up with the roar of the tide hitting its mark and tumbling back into the sea. The bitter taste of salt on the air, the same savory feeling that invited itself onto your tongue every time you took a deep breath in. You felt the frail chunks of paint chip off beneath your thumb as you gripped onto the rusting railing of the stern-side bridge deck. You pulled your eyes open with great difficulty, prying the two lids apart as if they had been glued together for a length of time that had all but slipped away in the moment. You looked out onto the waters, a curved horizon of deep blue washing into a cascade of rich orange and grays as waters met an open painted sky in the distance, the evening clouds falling down to the skyline in front of the embers of a sunset. You could hear the distant cawing of the seagulls turning in circles far above your head, the whipping of the short nautical flags hanging from their mounts, and the creak of the ship’s elongated hull breaking the waves. The harsh wind blew in from your side and you braced, then quickly fastened the buttons of your tall blue wool jacket. You think for a moment as you do, pausing on each twist of the buttons through their slits. You try to remember where you even found the jacket. Or when you even put it on. You looked back out over the horizon, side-eying a flood of blackened dark clouds rolling in from the distance and beginning to wipe the slate of the sky clean. The rock of the tide picked up and shifted the ship beneath you, the vessel billowing out a low, deep groan as it took the ocean’s whipping. You felt the sailing cap upon your head slip and slink lopsided against your ear. You slowly readjusted it, and you looked on in silence as the storm blew in.

As the winds picked up and a heavy rain blew in with a sea storm’s darkness, you headed inside for the night in the bridge quarters. You hadn’t even stopped to look at the messy state of the wheelhouse, a picture’s example of the kind of quarters sailors keep, before you had grabbed a hold of the valve to the hatch door at the back of the cabin and began to give it a turn. With great force, the wheel slipped and slowly spun out of its place. You toed in through the hatch and took a moment to shut the heavy metal door behind you and twist the wheel back. The loud splatter of the whipping rains outside died down a bit, mixing into the gentle roar of the waves and the distant crackle of thunder on the air beyond the waters. You hung up your coat in your dim bunkroom, catching the collar on the hook screwed into the motley coat of dim green painted on the wall. You go to throw your hat on your bed, glancing at the empty bunk lying half-made and wamthless. That’s when you got a glimpse of them. The person sitting in the low armchair at the end of your bunk, between the back and a tall slim wall closet. You only caught a glimpse of their legs and the legs of their quite expensive looking pants, but every time you tried to recall what they looked like, you couldn’t. Their color, their shape, nothing came to you once you looked away.

“Rough sea out there, captain?” They hummed, cupping their hand around a crystal ashtray in their lap. They puffed on the end of a slender cigarette, ashing it into the tray from time to time with a hollow flick beat everytime the paper tapped against the glass. Fwick. Fwick.

“Not until just now. Storm’s coming in, might be a long one.” You grumbled back. You turned about and slowly sank down to the creaking bunk mattress as you took a minute to breathe. Your hands looked a lot more worn and aged since the last time you looked at them. You rub the callouses built up by reigning in lines at night and hauling up trappers boxes in the morning, wondering where you even found the time to do all of it. Your thoughts began to linger for a moment, dancing away until they were pulled back by the almost silent fwick of the cigarette being ashed once more. “I thought you were going out on the boats?”

“The whales didn’t come back today.” The person sighed deeply from over the shoulder of where you sat. Every glimpse you got of them, unrecognizable once you blinked away. Fuzzy and featureless, like a little kid’s drawing that had been scribbled over. “So I had them bring the dingy back in.”

“Figures.” You murmured as you slipped off your shoes and moved them under your bed bunk with a kick. “I’ve got the line in, all I have to do is make the rounds before turning in.” You mentally go down your list of many chores one could not just leave until tomorrow when they run a vessel.

“I was thinking.” They spoke up as you slowly laid yourself back into your thin uncomfortable mattress. You threw your wrist over your eyes to block the sharp light of the cabin’s ceiling lamp that wobbled back and forth from the rock of the wave.

“Does it pay well?” You joked to keep yourself from dozing off.

“No-” They paused with a breathy dismissive chuckle on their voice. “No, it’s nothing.”

“What? Come on.” You encouraged them. You blindly threw out your arm across the bed in their direction. Although it didn’t land its mark, eventually you could feel warmth on your fingertips as they grazed the ends of another’s. Your bones ached, a body in need of rest. And if you had to stand back up, you just might fall apart at the joints.

“Well, I was-” They paused again. You could almost picture the stupid smile on their lips. Whatever they looked like. “Do you remember that little village? It was somewhere south of Ionia, I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” You hummed half-asleep. You had no clue what they were talking about, but you weren’t about to pull aside a detour conversation about remembering the umpteenth place you had stopped along the way.

“I was thinking-”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

A series of heavy knocks on the door of the cabin thundered out. Neither of you two said a word, or seemed to react at all. You sighed deeply, feeling your chest rise and fall as you pinched the bridge of your nose. The comment about falling apart at the joints may yet to come true.

“Captain. I think she’s here to see you.” They hummed with a monotone canter.

“What? Who? What for?” You sat up from your daze on the bunk.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“She sounds very displeased, captain. You’d better hurry.”

“Yes, but what for?” You huffed as you stood up from the bunk, blindly putting your shoes back on after what seemed like only mere seconds.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“The door. Captain.”

“But what for!” You barked coarsely. You grabbed a good hold onto the valve to the turn locks and gave it a good spin. You wondered at who was making all that racket. Something big enough to shake such a heavy metal piece. The rusted hinges to the hatch wound up, and the door swiveled open. And in the nothingness of the void beyond the frame, you fell through like flopping limply into water. An ocean.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Detective!”

“What? I’m up!” You jerked awake from your stiff slumber on your old mattress. You didn’t even know who you were responding to yet, the way you were ripped from that dream that was now beginning to fade.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The knocking was practically shaking the drywall at this point. The thudding of a closed fist against wood did not help out your now increasingly tightening headache that had creeped in on it que. “I’m up!” You hollered once more. You tasted your dry mouth with discomfort creasing across your face as you looked about. Your room, as empty and sad as you remember it. Your jacket was laying crumpled up at the foot of the bed, draped over your legs. You took a second to check your clothes, still the same ones you had on last time you remember, damper now that you had overheated in the night. You glanced out the window, looking to the sky above the rooftop surrounding the alleyway. Bright, blue, cloudless. A restful day, it seemed.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Now who’s the deaf one!” You called out. You rubbed the corners of your eyes with your dry hands as you breathed in with some struggle. The muscles in your chest felt tight, and there was a weird swell in the back of your nose that bothered you every time you inhaled or swallowed. You were starting to hope this wasn’t the start of another cold, one that you could not afford right now.

“I’m coming in.” You heard your caller announce through the thin door. You already knew who it was. There would be nobody else in this entire city that would be able to get a hold of you so quickly. Because if it was Lyric, he would have already invited himself in. “You’d better have clothes on.”

“It’s not a red carpet night at the cabaret. So, yeah.” You groaned as you sat up fully and scooted to the edge of the mattress. You planted feet onto the cool slickness of the floorboards, your knees sticking up and against your chest as you took a moment to collect yourself. Your head spun like you just got flattened by a freight train, but your senses were slowly returning to you piece at a time. You watched the knob twist and the door swing slowly open with a gentle and hesitant push.

Lest stopped half way in through the doorway, pausing when she took a good look at your living conditions. You weren’t sure if the brief twitch in her right ear that shot up its spine and flicked off the tip, or the subtle flare of her bottom eyelids, or the single step back she took before she masked the actions in an instant, were signs of shock or disapproval. But there her eyes went, flicking around and silently casting judgement that would never be shared.

“Is this where you’ve been all day?” She asked impatiently, leaning against the frame of your door with an undecided half-fold of her arms. She herself, however, looked entirely out of place in your habitat. She stood tall before you in a maroon peacoat, one long enough that its trim was glissading down far past her knees and almost all the way down to the floor. She kept her same headscarf, the folds of which she still hid behind at times when she spoke to you. Overtop of the pinkish scarf, she wore an equally wine hued breton cap with a single band around the base of its trim, which seemed to also have slits fashioned into its top to accommodate your boss’ ever tall ears.

You blinked at her in silence, your right eye closed to block the light coming in from the window while the other followed the yellow of Lest’s irises subtly darting around the room before they came to a stop after meeting yours.

“I mean, where else would I be?” You wiped your palm down your face in exhaustion, a vain hope that maybe something could speed up the recovery. You felt like you were a schoolboy in trouble for something you weren’t quite sure what you did. You scratched behind your ear in thought, what had you done recently? “Why? Were you looking for me? For how long?” You croaked out the measly questions one at a time.

“All day.” Lest exhaled with feigned disbelief. “First I looked in the nearest bars, none of them had heard or seen of you except for one. They said you had got in a fist fight, then left and they hadn’t seen you since.”

“Oh yeah?” You idly asked as you slowly stood up with great difficulty. You could feel the blood rush to your already tight head, its pulsating rhythm growing more intense for a short few seconds before dying out again. You threw your arms back and up behind your head, stretching with a cat’s yeowl as you felt the muscles in your back stretch apart reluctantly.

“Then, I went to the police department across the bridge, to see if you were in the tank.” Lest continued on, a droning working its way into her voice as she caught on that you were only half listening. “Aren’t you going to ask how I got in?” She cocked an eyebrow, fully committing to folding her arms as she watched you walk by her and into your cramped bathroom.

She might be good at keeping a straight face at a poker game, sure, but you could read a little more into the contents of a person’s book than most people. Whatever you did, going missing like that did genuinely worry her. Most people would have just asked around, maybe sent a letter. Wait some more. But her? No, she came to look for you directly and she didn’t stop until she reached your bedroom door.

“I probably left my door unlocked.” You shrugged as your bare feet made contact with the cheap tile. You flipped on the stingy fluorescent light with a flinch and a shudder that trailed up your spine. You bent over your bathroom sink to get a better look at yourself. You had to admit, you felt a lot worse than you looked. But you looked far from ideal, about only a single dollar out of a million. You pulled the skin of your right cheek down, checking under your eyelids as the flesh shifted and stretched. “Or, you unlocked it. Bavo, if so.”

“Your landlord.” Lest snorted. “She was dropping a cardboard box off, told me it was for you.” She peered at you from around the door, in a spot where if you craned your neck just right you could see through both doors and get a full look at the reflection of the mirror.

“Where’s the kid?” You inquired gravelly, noticing that the boy was all but missing. You back stepped out of your bathroom and squeezed past Lest at the door, who seemed to insist on keeping herself planted to where she was standing. You trod through your open office, or living room, kitchen, whatever you had resided in calling your pitiful two room apartment.

“I sent him home, what do you think?” Lest remarked with a short waver in her voice, a subtle sneer pinching back her nose that you didn’t need to look back at to visualize. “I’m not his keeper.”

“That’s fair.” You hum absentmindedly. You approached the squarish low cardboard box by the doormat, your footsteps dancing between the juts of sunlight cutting past the checkrails of the kitchen window. “That’s really sweet of you to have me bailed out. Looking for me in a Pitlie police station, no less.” You tagged on with a croak of sarcasm.

“I would have just asked you through the bars, detective.”

“Asked me what?” You bent down and spun the box over. Completely bare, only held shut by a loose line of duct tape. You punched into the sides of the box to loosen the tape to open it up, glancing at Lest still in the slanted disapproving lean she had given when she opened your door. You gave her an earnest, but obviously confused grin. You genuinely had no idea why she had stopped by. You must have drank heavily before, because the last thing you could recall was wading through a river of garbage in the sump and some vague memory of wriggling down a vent like a sewer rat.

“For an update, I thought you were following up on a lead?”

“Right.” You hummed once more. You opened the box up slowly, looking into the space to find a pile of folded, albeit second-hand looking, clothes. A little note sat on top of the top stack of shirts, a brief thank you letter from your landlord for the advance on rent. The glad, almost proud feeling rising in you could not be underestimated. This was like the equivalent of finding out you had inherited a lot of money from a dead relative you never knew, or finding some priceless thing sitting in a drainpipe. As you marveled at your new gift, you glanced up to see your employer still awaiting your response. “I don’t do business this early, miss.”

“I paid you a commission, you do business whenever I need it done.”

“You came into my house.” You reminded her as you squatted down and picked up the hefty box. “That’s like if I had a lead, and I just walked into your hotel room while you were still sleeping and started making a report.” You squeezed past Lest in the doorway again, back into your room. You let the box fall from your arms and land with a muffled thud on your mattress.

“I wouldn’t be sleeping past midday.” She turned her nose up at you as you walked by.

Despite her little sneers and the wrinkling of her short nose at your lifestyle, your boss didn’t seem like the snooty kind, the opposite in fact. A real woman of the people, hiding in plain sight like those with the moxie for it ought to. Yet she did have a bad habit of talking down to you, not in a demeaning way. But one that showed that it had been quite a long time since she had spoken with someone in the same class bracket as her. If she had collected this ever-relevant list of wealthy clients for this long, your suspicion would be that she mostly works in Piltover. Not only did she work in Piltover, but she also walked through it freely. That means she fit in with Piltover’s society, a necessity perhaps, but one that seemed to subtly leave its mark. It explained her emphasis on privacy, all the little shortcuts she knew, her obtuse but cutting taste for attire. How she treats you like an equal but speaks to you with strange reluctance. It was kind of like putting on a costume, but eventually forgetting you were wearing one. And soon enough, the costume becomes just clothes.

“I’m a detective, not a soldier. Just give me a minute.” You objected honestly as you took some of the second hand clothes from the box and tucked them under your arm. Lest held the impatient furrow in her brow, yet her eyes flicked to the side briefly. “Go find something to eat, go sit down. Go read, or turn on the radio. Occupy yourself, it’s a nice day out.”

“You missed most of it.” Lest muttered under her breath as you closed the door to your bathroom. Even after you had run the water in the shower, you could still hear her outside the door. Pacing around the living room in a soft, troubled tempo.

As you took off your shirt, you couldn’t help but notice that there was some marking on your wrist. You turned your hand around, your eyes trailing along a message in marker that ran up your forearm before seeming to wind around your back. “Hey, you got a pen and paper?” You called out to Lest through the door.

“What? No?”

“Look in my desk. I’m about to read out the results of that lead I followed last night.” Your eyes flicked back and forth through the words sprawling up your arm.

There was a short pause in the pacing you could hear before, then the scoot of your desk’s drawer being opened. “Okay?”

“Meet me at the corner of East Side commons and …” You read aloud slowly. You paused as the words spiraled under your arm and around to your back as they went. You turned around and began trying to read the reversed message in the mirror from over your shoulder. “Glass st-reet. Al-cobe di-district.”

“Is your liver finally failing?”

“Shut up, it’s backwards.” You called back as you tried to read faster than the mirror could fog.

“What is? What are you reading?”

“Just keep writing!” You cleared your throat and continued to read. “Nine tonight. Dash, Ronk.”

“What’s a ‘Ronk’ and why does it sound filthy?”

“Ronk is a jobless vagrant I met in a dive bar last night.” You jokingly boasted.

That’s right, Ronk. Now, it was starting to come back to you. You had lost your lead, and you went to that stupid place and almost got your head kicked in by two junkies.

You finished undressing and tried to spend the least amount of time under the water because of the present company. Little vague snippets of what you could recall from last night ran through your fingers as fluidly as the water. The sump. The factory. The vents. And the sound of that gun firing. You could still taste the metallic tinge on your gums as you thought about what you witnessed. Your movement slowed to a crawl as you lingered on the image, the scene replaying back and forth like a scarred record. The pipes groaned through the thin wall as it continued to push water out of the showerhead, bringing you back to your senses. The water washed away the repeating thought along with the marker on your skin.

You turned the valve off and stepped out, taking a long while to dry and dress as you kept trying to pull up more memories of last night. It was like some kind of uncomfortable slideshow, no wonder you ended up drinking so much. You changed into your not-so-newer clothes, an unlikely gift from a landlord you were assuming hated you. Dark and faded but new-ish slacks, a blue button-down that was one size too big for you. Old wool socks that had most of its holes patched. To someone across the river, they wouldn’t even donate this stuff. But to you? It was quite literally the one thing you needed. You gathered your old clothes and tossed them in one big ball at your suitcase still hanging open by your bed, scooping up your jacket as you passed by.

“Are a fifth of whiskey and a single tomato the only things you have in your house that’s food grade?” Lest asked when you caught her looking into your refrigerator as you rounded the corner. She batted the door with her hand inattentively, swinging it back and forth in small movements before closing it shut with a single push.

“No way, there’s whiskey in there?” You quipped as you brushed past her. You put on your jacket, then took a leaning sit against the doors of your lower kitchen cupboards.

“When was the last time you bought groceries?”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged sheepishly. “I’m more of a buy by the meal kind of person, I guess.”

“When was the last time you ate, then?”

You hummed in thought, though you only were dragging the answer to her question. “Last tuesday, I think? Probably then.”

“And you’ve been surviving off what? Bar peanuts and grain alcohol?”

“And these little cracker things that I’m given at the stalls up the road.” You articulated, drawing a little square in the air. “I don’t know what they make them out of but they’re saltier than a mineral lick-” Your humor deflated when you looked back to Lest’s unamused stare. “What can I get for you, miss?”

“Results.” She batted her eyes once, awaiting a real answer. It made sense, the switch up. You rushed her for money, now she rushed you for results. Cash didn’t buy time, it shortened it. It was the mitigation of society, and its erosion. It was all that you needed. So you could swallow the bitter pill of grovelling after another paper trail. Maybe all it took to convince you was a pretty face and a cigarette shared.

“Listen.” You exhaled a very audible and lengthy sigh. You mulled over how to break what happened to Aquil to her. You weren’t sure just how invested she was in this guy. Was he just a client? Were they friends, then would she be friends with someone like him? Did she know him well, or not at all? More so? You shook yourself out of that kind of thinking, it felt wrong to theorize about someone like that. “I don’t think that guy is going to be a recurring client anymore.”

“What did you do to him?” Lest asked sternly, bowing her head slightly and looking up at you past the black end of her nose. You were used to the inconsequential disappointment she had shown you so far, but this was different. This was like staring down a wild cougar, and you weren’t sure whether to talk, or run.

“I didn’t do anything at all to him.” You threw your open hands up concedingly. You stared at her silently, the words you wanted to say catching on your lips as you slowly lowered your posture. You weren’t good with things like this. You barely could handle breaking bad news to people, and this was beyond that scope. “He-” You paused. “He’s dead, miss.”

“Oh.” Lest stated plainly. It was like watching a tire deflate in slow motion. The tenseness in her expression slowly faded bit by bit, her body language laxing until she too took a sitting lean against your kitchen cabinet. Mirroring you in a way, adjacent in front of you. You read her eyes, her silent language, the way she held her elbow with one hand while the other put a thumb to her lips. There was regret stirring in her, sure, but not grief. Her stare at the ground held dejection, but also thorough thought.

“Did you know him at all? Know well, I mean.” You inquired hesitantly.

“Aquil? No.” She shook her head softly. “I mean, in a way. We were from the same neighborhood, but it wasn’t like I knew him back then.”

“Back then?” You asked. You retrieved a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes from your pocket, a leftover from the previous night. You took a second to find the least creased one, then offered it to Lest.

“You have to be from Zaun to really understand. It’s an old country without a new one. Things felt and looked a lot different when I was a child. The sump used to be a real community, it had to be. We were packed down there like sardines in a can. Slums, sure. Poor, sure. But a bond? That’s all we had.” Lest simpered with a half-feigned smile. “It’s always so strange to hear about someone, who grew up a block away from you, dying. You hear that kind of news from now and then, but the feeling doesn’t really change.” Lest took the cigarette gracefully, lighting it with her classic scratch lighter. “How did it happen?”

“The people he was meeting up with decided that he was a loose end, I guess.” You paused, bowing your head into her peripheral. “Can I get you water? I don’t have any food, but there's stalls up the road, like I mentioned before.”

“No, no water. It just makes me thirsty.”

“How’s that?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Lest flicked her cigarette with her thumb by the filter, ashing it onto your floor without thinking. “Why did they do that? What happened to Aquil, I mean.”

“I think he figured out too much for his own good.” You shrugged. “He learned one too many names, and that meant he had to go.”

“Names. Whose name?”

“I’m not sure, someone I’ve never heard of before. He just mentioned a person called Lenare. And then what happened, happened. Do you know it?”

“Lenare…” Lest hummed in thought, then took a drag of the cigarette. “No, not really. Lenare.” Lest paused, her eyes reading the space in front of her, then flicking back to you. “It sounds a bit rich to be from around here, don’t you think?”

“Rich, sure.” You nodded. “But Piltover rich? No.”

“Did they mention anyone else?” Lest took another drag of the cigarette. “Anything else that could have given you an idea of where they came from?” She exhaled the smoke with her words in one breath.

“I mean-” You paused. You already followed up the lead about the bar, there was no point bringing it up. You didn’t really want to gloat that you got into a fist fight over a drink the previous night, though she seemed to already figure that out on her own. “One of them mentioned prying the other off a black cat. The bar I went to last night was the only black cat I know, and they weren’t anywhere to be found.”

“Huh.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Did they say ‘the’ black cat? Or ‘a’ black cat?” Lest hummed in thought.

“I don’t think it makes any difference.” You shrugged. The question was rather semantic. The men could have said it any kind of way, it didn’t really change all too much. Besides, your memory of it was still in a blur.

“It makes a world of difference, detective.” Lest pulled her stare from a thousand yards, planting it on you as you made eye contact with her. “Did they say ‘a’ black cat, or ‘the’ black cat?” She asked again firmly before flicking her cigarette once more.

“They just said black cat, I think.” You murmured. “Like I said, the only black cat I know was a dive bar in the lanes.”

“Black cat isn't the name of a place.” Lest paused. “It’s the name of a person.”

The icy wind blowing off the eastern seaboard tended to be cut down by the aggregate of taller buildings in South Piltover. Though it was across the bridge from the triumph of the Piltover of the new age, the South district retained a modicum of its splendor in relative safety. Low, paved streets towered over by stone city dwellings, tight packed offices, lackluster institutions, commerce halls, and expensive skinny townhouses. A wave of neo-classical mixing into a newly emerging art deco design of architecture.

Your heavy work boots clacked against the smooth pavement of the lower city’s sidewalks in a tandem temp with your boss’ light step. You kept your hands stuffed into your jacket pockets in your usual manner as you walked, keeping yourself alongside Lest as both of you knew where you were headed. You had been distracted from your thorough conversation for a moment as you absently looked over your shoulder to make sure there wasn’t anybody trailing behind you two. Not that you’d need any reason to think so, but you can never afford to not be too careful until you’re over the river and bridge. And you never cross that bridge, not ever.

“Besides the point, I think it was a conservatory before that techno-whose-it church bought the building. Never been in it myself, but at least they kept the greenhouses intact. It’s the only pretty thing about the place anymore.” Lest commented, finishing an answer to your question about a building you had passed only a block away.

The building had been taken over by a sect of the church of the Gray Lady, some technology cult that helped the down-and-outs of the fissures. Nowadays, the place had been boarded up and kept a shut up secret behind a terrifically tall iron barred fence. Some even wonder if anybody even occupied the place, or if it was simply bought and left alone once more.

“Come again?” You asked, turning back from looking over your shoulder.

“Are you religious at all, detective?” Lest asked as she kept pace alongside you. It was more like you were trying to keep up with her, the way she’d walk.

“Me?” You chuckled. “I mean- I’m not a believer in anything.” You paused. “But I’m also not a non-believer, you know? There’s enough mythos to go around in the world, anything could really catch me. I guess I just haven’t been given the opportunity for it. The only god here in Piltover and Zaun is progress, I suppose.”

“It’s all relative, you’re right. Just happenstance.” Lest shrugged. “People here in Zaun aren’t really given that opportunity.”

“What about you?” You asked sheepishly. “I thought the Vastaya were supposed to be descended from the Arcana? Isn’t that all second nature to you?”

“I thought Humans descended from the apes? Why aren’t you all swinging from branches and flinging your excrement at each other? Isn’t that your second nature as well?” Lest retorted with a snort as she walked. She glanced at you, a look that you knew all too well by now. It was time to pay the cigarette tax. “Things change, detective. Like I said, it’s all happenstance. Did you know, in Stonewall, they worship goats? Just because they give the people milk.”

“It’s all harmless, though.” You chuckled. You took your creased pack of cigarettes from your coat pocket and tried to find the second best from the one you had offered her earlier in your apartment. “Everyone needs hope, you know?”

“That’s the irony of it, though.” Lest remarked as she took the cigarette you passed her. “People look for hope anywhere, but never in themselves. It’s like a disease that makes you blind to it.”

“Okay, hold the line.” You shook your head as you came to a sudden pause on the pavement. This whole analytical game Lest liked to play was beginning to wrack your nerves, it was pedantic. Lest came to a stop as well, turning to you as she lit the cigarette. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“This whole psychological semantic philosophy. That people are categorized and hope is a disease. It’s an old act, Lest.”

“I’m supposed to be playing an act, now?” Lest raised an eyebrow.

“This whole jaded mystique and smoke stained glamour.” You paused, gesturing to Lest’s whole self. “And what’s with this cardinal press girl look?”

“What’s with your washed-out sleuth getup, hm?” She flashed you a smirk. “I wasn’t informed that part of your contract entailed a critique of my person, detective.” Lest continued walking ahead of you, disregarding whether you were following her or not.

“I’m just trying to get you to lighten up a little.” You huffed as you jogged to catch up with her now fast stride. “I’d appreciate it if you’d just take some time to talk to me normally.”

“Lighten up.” Lest snorted at the comment. “Or is it that you just want to pick my brain? Oh so badly, detective.”

The both of you rounded the next corner at a junction in the street. You glanced at the street sign sticking out from its post, the name reading Drop Street. The turn at the corner opened up the view of the descender stations. They were little metal shacks, of sorts, sticking out of the ground by the sidewalk like covered entrances to a subway. They were solid in structure, kept together as one giant unanimous welded piece. Two wide entrances stood opposite from one another, kept open by a folding grate fence. A large solid metal beam bridged the gap between the tall rooftops of the buildings lining the wide road. Huge winch systems hung from two points on either side of the beam, the wire being held back by metallic struts as they latched onto both of the descenders adjacently.

Lest stepped into the unclean cabin of the left descender first, as she had still insisted on walking just a tad bit faster than you. You stepped in second, your eyes kept glued to where you placed your foot. The descenders were held up by only the wire, and if they weren’t there then it’d just be a stark hole in the ground. As you stepped onto the carriage, you watched it wobble and reveal a peak of the dark descent into the earth when the metal flooring moved away from the ledge.

You hated heights. It wasn’t falling that scared you, it was the height itself. You couldn’t explain it well, not even to yourself. You kept a cool composure despite the glimpse of how far the tunnels really went. To your right when you stepped in, a large lever stuck out of the metal flooring. It was elongated with a squeeze trigger, sticking out from a wide semicircle cap that had been painted with black marks. Single tallies, three in all. First was for the Promenade, second for Entresol, third for the top levels of the Sump. As you knew far too well, the only way to get to the bottom was to go by foot. You squeezed the handle onto the lever, pulling it back until it reached the second mark. The winches hanging above you began to whirr, their motors jumping to life after being given a command. After a short moment, the wire fences folded back out and the cabin shrugged, then began to slowly descend into the hole.

You and your employer found yourselves engulfed in darkness once the cabin had fully descended through its slot, moving through the hole burrowed through the earth. You looked for her in the dark, trying to catch the glow of her cigarette that seemed to have gone out. It was just the wall of darkness in front of you, the twitching pings of the taught cables, and the hollow hushed flow of wind flowing through the tunnel. The scratch of zinc on flint startled you a bit as a small flame emerged from Lest’s lighter. She brought it up to relight her cigarette between her lips, the flame illuminating a portion of her deadpan face. The light glared off her eyes, turning them into wide saucers of yellow before the flame went out and the darkness returned once more.

The descender lowered through its exit in the earth, bringing light from the Promenade level as the cabin descended over the boundary markets in full rush hour. You quickly averted your eyes to look at anything else before Lest noticed that you had been trying to stare at her the whole time. You looked out at the boundary markets through the metal grating. Merchants running their stalls that were hobbled together by rotted wood, bent nails and tattered tarps, all in rows numbering by the dozen. You saw the common man, the vagrants and the people just trying to get by. Scavengers with wheelbarrows full of junk, and urchins running about begging for money that nobody had to spare. You watched a line of people, which winded all the way to the end of the market boundary and disappeared behind the side of a tall brutalist structure, a cathedral of sorts. The line moved forward body by body, each person waiting to buy what measly foodstuffs they could afford.

People were hungry. This whole damn city was hungry. You were hungry. You forgot about food for so long, remembering it made your stomach churn. “Give me a hit of that.” You muttered to Lest as you turned back and extended your arm.

Lest gave you a confused, yet curious look, a flare of her amber eyes. One that told you to get your own, but with an air of sympathy as she read your tense expression. She passed you the cigarette reluctantly, and you took a heavy drag. “Sometimes I wonder if you can handle ideas that go beyond what you’re going to wear, or eat for lunch.” Lest muttered, finally commenting on your conversation from before.

“I don’t eat lunch, remember?” You faked a chuckle, then took another heavy drag and passed it back. “Have you ever been hungry, miss?”

“We all have.” Lest shrugged.

“No, I mean real hunger. The kind of feeling that makes you want to eat a handful of dirt, or bark off a tree. The kind of hunger that makes you shake. The kind that makes you stop being hungry if you ignore it for long enough.”

There was a long pause between you two. The only company in the way of sound being the murmur of the busy streets below and the creaking. Lest didn’t look at you, keeping her eyes to her cigarette as she moved it around between her fingers. She took a final drag of it, put it out on the metal, then pushed it through the hole in the grate. “Like I said, detective.” She glanced at you, then back to the grate where her stare remained. “There’s things that you’d never guess in your wildest dreams.”

The descender reached the bottom of the Promenade level and cut through the earth once more, travelling deeper into the Entresol and returning the cabin to the pitch darkness of before. The darkness returned with the silence between you two. That invisible wall felt like it was being built back up brick by brick. What felt like an eternity passed, just the two of you and the darkness. The cabin emerged from its second pass through the earth, coming out into the light of the second level of the city. The cabin came to a slow, agonizing stop before a raised platform constructed from rebar, old pipes, and corrugated tin sheeting. A grand stand of rust, elevated to allow people to step down into the portion of the Entresol.

You looked out through the thin slits of the gates as they folded back in on themselves with sluggish struggle. The station was in the back end of one of the largest housing projects above the Sump. A shanty town of scrap shacks and hobbled-together structures, packed so tightly within the small space that one would forget that they were in the lanes at all. It was called Drop Street after the one above ground, but local residents had given it a new colloquial name. Alley of alleys, as the only thing that divided the labyrinthian maze of favelas was a single wide lane that split the wall of residencies like a straight, unmoving river.

You peered down the narrow lane, the ending to which seemed to fade into a dark endlessness as the district had barely enough power to spare for lighting the way. It was just a lane of shack houses stacked upon one another, reaching high up and beyond where you could see the end of it. The only main source of light was a harsh mining lamp that hung from a post by the platform, lighting just that portion of the alley in a warm but uncomforting orange glow. The alley split off into separate offshoots, each giving the Alley of alleys its name. In a way, it was like the mine shafts that the people of the Fissures had toiled in a long while ago. It was an ironic mirroring of their serfdom, like the people hadn’t known how else to build a town. Or, they simply couldn’t. And yet nobody walked the street, not a soul. It was like they were ashamed to be seen here.

You glanced back to Lest, who had already strode forward once the gates had retracted. She descended down the staircase of rusted sheet metal that led up to the platform, taking one careful step at a time until she was on solid ground. You half expected her to glance back to you in return, to wait for you to follow. Yet she continued walking as if you weren’t there at all. You got the queue to catch up, and you descended the stairs with a hurry, your work boots stomping the loose metal as you descended.

“I’ve got to ask.” You spoke up, finally catching up to your employer and keeping pace besides her as the both of you took a cautious stroll through the wide lane. “Whoever those guys mentioned, surely they’re not down here. I mean-” You paused, glancing down the offshooting alleys as you passed them one by one. Each lane was labeled with a name embroidered onto sheets of scrappy metal and pinned to the sides of the shanty walls, the only identifier to separate the rows. Waterhall, Captooth, Stormway, Emberfit, Dogheal. All of them sounded much more interesting than they looked, as every glance you gave to each of them held a sadder and more depressing sight than the last. “I don’t think anybody’s down here that wants to be seen.”

“Maybe you’re the one that doesn’t want to be seen down here, detective.” Lest hummed as she walked. She didn’t seem bothered at all by the surroundings, like she’s seen it all before, and worse. “It must be so convenient living up top. I’m sure one forgets places like this exist, once they’re out of sight and mind.”

“It’s not like that.” You muttered. She was talking to you like you lived across the river. Things may be bad down here, but they certainly weren’t perfect around where you lived. You followed Lest as she turned down one of the alleys, one marked with the name Epswell. This lane was as dark as the last, so thin you could barely walk down it. You felt like you were going to bang your shoulders against the scrap walls with every step. You passed door after door after door, like you were wading through and endless purgatory of locked doors and glimpses into impoverished lives through holes in the tin sheets or rifts in walls.

You kept your attention to your boss who walked in front of you. This wasn’t your home, and it wasn’t your business. You were here to follow a paper trail and follow it you would. All the way up to a single door, painted with chipped blood red. A tiny triangular sign dangled from a post above the frame, spelling out the title ‘Madame Blance’s’ in a yellowish glow in the dark paint.

“I know this place.” You hummed, looking up to the sign as Lest finally turned back to you and awaited on the other side of the frame with crossed arms. “I’ve heard of it- I mean.” Madam Blanche’s was almost mythical sounding in the mentions of it you’ve overheard at bars or on the street. It was cheap, it was always open, it was hard and yet so easy to find. It was a brothel. “Why here? It’s not my birthday, you know” You tried to joke to lighten the mood.

“You want to know who Black Cat is?” She crooked her eyebrow, then nodded to the door. She seemed more impatient with you than usual, and you weren’t sure if it was because of the scathing critique you gave her earlier, or if it was because she realized you didn’t belong down here. “You’re just going to have to be brave and head inside.”

“No objections from me, boss” You shrugged, looking back up to the sign again. “How do you know this place?” You snorted. “What, did you hang around here before you picked up painting?”

“Oh, you’re a real comedian, aren’t you?” Lest croaked with a clenched jaw, the feline irked squint in her eye giving you the impression that you should probably stop being a smart ass.

“Right. Right.” You yielded, taking a small step back. “You want to find our lead at the bottom of a whorehouse?” You reached forward and grabbed the knob of the red door. As you turned it, the handle felt so loose you could have pulled it off if you gripped too hard. You pulled the door open towards you, and held it for her. “You lead the way, then.”

𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 Taglist: @6selkie @madschiavelique @roku907

#arcane #lest arcane #arcane lest #arcane fic #arcane x reader #canon x reader #lest x reader

8 notes · View notes