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obsessivevoidkitten · 1 year ago

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Love Stings

Yandere Male Aqrabuamelu (scorpion man) x Chubby Female Reader (CW: Violent Noncon, oviposition, paralytic venom, reader gets stung, stalking, stalking, scratching, biting, claiming bites, crying, mild scent kink, blood, mild blood kink, Stockholm syndrome, kidnapping, escape attempt, general yandere behavior) Word Count: 4.7k (This was commissioned at the end of September. It is hard for me to write afab reader. Don't worry though, I do not accept payment until I am done or almost done. The customer wished to remain anon. I hope everyone likes it.)

To most people, the wastelands of Treregar were just that, wastelands. Harsh sunlight, miles of seemingly endless sand, with water sources few and far between. Nothing but the hardiest flora and fauna could survive there for any significant length of time. Let alone thrive indefinitely.

But you were not most people. You were a scientist. And to scientists, the wastes were a gold mine of research potential. Some of the strangest creatures and plants called this place home. And with the country now open to outsiders, researchers wanted to make a breakthrough there. You were in search of biological samples that could have medicinal properties.

But the wilder parts of this country were very dangerous. Especially the desert wastes. There were even reports of explorers and scientists going missing and of large chitinous beasts prowling the sands. But you were not going to be deterred by a few tall tales. The others had probably fallen prey to the harsh environment if anything.

Still... it didn't hurt to have a couple bodyguards. You had arranged an escort of a couple fairly priced and reliable mercenaries, two large men by the names of Mr. Whitley and Mr. Matthews, to accompany you while you procured samples for study.

You also came with fully stocked packs and kept to a region near a small river. You didn't believe in letting stories run your life, but there was no need to take unnecessary risks either.

The first thing you did on your arrival, after setting up a base camp with your escorts, was starting your task by taking samples of the river water and the muck at the bottom. There was a good possibility of finding new microbes that could be of interest.

The water was crystal clear, perhaps the purest you had ever seen, and there were no signs of anything dangerous. The biggest danger was the heat. Despite the water submerging your legs and wetting your arms whenever you collected a sample the heat was still stifling.

But you had known what you were signing up for when you started all this and it would only get harder as you started collecting samples outside of the water.

When you collected plant and insect specimens from the fertile banks of the river you had to keep wiping the sweat from your brow. You kept the samples preserved in a specially cooled container that would allow you to study them at length later when you were back home.

Once you had all that you had gathered that day packed away, you ate alone in your tent, Mr. Whitley and Mr. Matthews were not exactly the best company, but that was okay. It wasn’t their companionship that they were being paid for.

When you had finished your meal, if you could even call one unit of mystery field rations a meal, you decided that it would be a good idea to go to bed early. Tomorrow’s adventure would be deeper into the wastes and you would need all the rest you could manage. It was going to be a bit rough on you. You were used to working in laboratory conditions not out in the field. But you knew what you were getting yourself into.

Whitley and Matthews guarded the camp in shifts, but even under their protection you couldn’t shake the feeling like you were being watched as you settled into an uneasy sleep.

On day two of the expedition, after eating another bland ration for breakfast and refilling your water supplies, you found something before you even set out. Odd tracks outside your camp, a good bit away but they were still close enough to creep you out a bit. Whatever had made them was not small.

But you had protection from any threats and you were handy with the knife you kept in your belt at all times. And whatever had made the tracks was gone now. You put it out of your mind and pushed onward.

As the cooler morning hours passed, you were really suffering as you had to start your trek into the desert proper. The organisms suited to such a brutal environment were what you were really interested in. Far more so than what lived in the relatively cool waters.

The sun beat down upon you with all the heat it could manage but still you trudged on. Miles and miles of sand. Stopping only to diligently take new samples and record field notes any time you encountered something new and promising.

You and your guards were overheated, exhausted, and aching. But it would surely be worth it for the scientific knowledge gained by your collective suffering. You all had finally started the long march back to camp when you could have sworn you felt like you were being watched. Whitley must have noticed something off as well as he stopped your trek home to look around. But the worry was discarded when in the distance a giant wall of sand materialized as if from nowhere, It rushed towards you like a great red tidal wave.

A sudden sandstorm.

It was upon you and your escorts in a thrice, you could see nothing at all in front of you as looking up for even a moment would invite the angry sands to scratch at your delicate eyes. From all your studies on the region in your preparation for this trip you had found sandstorms to be very rare this time of year. Your luck was astoundingly terrible.

All you could do in this situation was stay low to the ground, wait it out, and hope that you and your body guards didn’t get blown away. You also prayed that they both had the good sense to not try to walk in this mess. That would only welcome disaster. Trying to stumble about in this weather was a guaranteed method to find yourself lost and stranded in the desert.

On and on the storm raged, sand scraping and biting into any exposed flesh, until finally the whirling winds gradually declined before subsiding altogether. Leaving no trace of what had just transpired except scratches on your arms and legs and the ebbing adrenaline leaving your system rendering you shaky on your feet.

You were sore and stiff from laying in the same position so long. You took a good look around you only to discover that disaster had indeed been welcomed. Neither Whitley or Matthews were anywhere in your sight. Idiots. They were large men, not easily slipped up by the storm and rolled down a hill as you were. The weather couldn’t have pushed them very far. They clearly decided to keep trying to travel despite the obvious foolishness.

Well… they were not exactly getting paid for their brain power. But they were paid to keep you safe. To guard you. And they couldn’t exactly do that if they were determined to be idiots who wandered away from you!

When you made your report they were certainly getting docked for this.

Assuming that you all met back up. You probably would. Eventually. If they lacked a compass like you did then they could just head east until they hit the river and then travel up until they hit the camp. If they didn’t have one they would have to wait a little while and see what direction the sun headed in.

The direction the sun sets actually changes a bit throughout the year, but the autumn equinox had only just transpired so it would certainly set at the most west that it was possible for it to set.

You hoped those two knew that. Surely they did.

Right then you had to focus on yourself though. Without those two you were far more vulnerable. You were not really worried about the wildlife or anything such as that, but if you became injured or something all alone then you would be screwed. Something as simple as a sprained ankle could mean your death out in this blistering environment if you were left exposed to the elements long enough.

You shouldn’t have ventured so far from camp. Your body was aching with exhaustion. You were a bit on the chubby side and your body was not used to being pushed so hard. You perked up when you saw a large figure of a man standing in the distance walking in the same general direction as you were.

“WHITLEY! HEY, OVER HERE!!”

He evidently heard you as he turned around to face your direction and started walking towards you. As you got closer you could tell that other than a few abrasions from the storm he did not seem to be in bad shape.

“I am glad I found you”

You wanted to tell him he would not have had to worry about finding one another if he had just stayed put but you thought better of it and held your tongue.

“I think something may be watching us, I don’t know. I just have an uneasiness and feel like the air has shifted with a barely noticeable scent. I lost my sword in the storm.”

“Then… we better hurry back to camp… Maybe Matthews will be there…”

“Right.”

You noticed he had undone his dagger from his belt and was holding it close, ready to lash out if something attacked the two of you. He may not have had his longer blade but you knew he was still deadly with that one. He would surely protect yo-

The sand in front of you shifted, and from it sprung a beast of colossal size. Hard black chitinous plating gleamed in the sunlight, covering a monstrous form from top to bottom. It was a hulking beast with a human shaped torso on top of the body of a massive scorpion.

Whitley, to his credit, didn’t hesitate. He dodged the tail that struck at him with terrifying speed. He jumped up high and slammed his combat knife into the chitin covered chest of the beast. His blade was deflected as if by plate armor. The tail struck again at an angle Whitley couldn’t dodge in time and his arm was impaled by a wickedly sharp stinger. He twitched in pain for a moment then went limp before being pushed aside by the clawed arm of the scorpion half of the great beast before you.

Then the thing turned its gaze to you. Unblinking, glossy, entirely black eyes stared you down. If eyes were the windows into one’s soul then those eyes let you look into the soul of a demon.

Hopeless though it may be with the speed of the monstrosity you did the only thing your fear stricken brain could think of. You ran.

You ran and you didn’t look back. Cruel though it may have been, you found yourself thinking that maybe it would let you go since it had already taken down Mr. Whitley. Many predatory beasts did not take down more than what they needed.

But the scorpion hybrid wasn’t after food. Humans were not in his diet. No, he was after something much better than a meal. He was after a mate. A nice wet cunt to stuff full of his eggs.

When Kurnugi first caught your scent in the wind a couple days ago he was instantly intrigued, he had never smelled something quite so enticing before. He had to investigate. Though a few miles away he sniffed out your camp and watched for a while.

He didn’t really like the thought of humans in his territory but he stopped himself from attacking and scaring you all away because of you. Your smell was nice, sure, but now that he had seen you he knew he had to know more. You looked so delightfully fragile and soft. He wanted to watch you a bit longer before deciding what to do with you all.

Kurnugi observed you as you went about your tasks at the river. Delicate hands carefully tending to samples. He did not understand why you were doing it, but he liked the thought of those careful little human hands tending to his dick.

At first the scorpion man thought that perhaps the two large males with you were mates of yours but concluded that wasn’t the case as they never shared your nest, never physically touched you, and hardly verbally communicated with you. They seemed to just guard you and keep a lookout.

But they had been unable to spot Kurnugi given how well he stuck to the shadows, used sand to submerge himself partially, and carefully remained downwind of his quarry.

The longer he watched the more he realized how good a mate you would make. Too weak to ever oppose or escape him and he could tell by the way you collected and analyzed your little samples that you must be very intelligent. And you were just so much softer than anything he had ever encountered in this rugged environment. Surely if you were in a place as brutal as this then you’d need much better and dedicated protection than the ones you seemed to call Whitley and Matthews.

Kurnugi was much larger and stronger than any two humans, of course, no matter how well built they were. But they had long metal blades that may be able to get between his natural armor plates. Better to stalk your group for a while and wait for a moment of weakness.

He discreetly followed your party as you traveled away from your base camp and readied himself to attack when he noticed how tired all of you looked. Then the sandstorm struck.

Even a desert evolved being such as a mighty aqrabuamelu would not travel during a sandstorm.

When it passed he could tell by the scents he detected that your group was split up. This was even better. First he went after Matthews, then incapacitated Whitley before your very eyes. He had made sure not to kill them. No, they would surely be taken and bred by other desert creatures. There were many that loved humans.

And then there was you. It was cute how you thought you could escape from him so easily. He allowed you to try, watching in amusement as your tired chubby legs did their best to carry you away from him.

And then he rushed towards you, he closed the distance in surprisingly few seconds and stabbed your soft rear with the tip of his stinger. He was careful not to stab too deeply, but it was still pretty painful. You thrashed for a few seconds before crumpling to the sand.

The venom had paralyzed you, no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t get your limbs to cooperate at all. You could still feel everything though. The sand on your face, the tears about to burst from your eyes. You were certain death was what awaited you.

Instead the scorpion simply bent over to gently scoop you up in his humanoid arms. He held you close and buried his nose in your neck to revel in the intoxicating smell of his new mate, now finally in his possession.

The amorous aqrabuamelu rushed off to his den, holding you tightly to his hard body as he did so. He was excited to get you acclimated to your new home, and to his cock. He was sure after his displays of strength that he would have you moaning for his eggs in no time. Luckily his home wasn’t too far.

The entire trip he happily talked in a chittery voice to you, though you had absolutely no idea what he was saying. He sounded extremely excited though and rubbed your back soothingly as he spoke.

When he came to the entrance to his abode and scuttled into the cave in such a hurry that he almost tripped over himself. He placed you, all nice and paralyzed for him, on his raised pile of bedding and made short work of your clothing. Every inch of skin from your soft human breasts to your inviting pussy were laid bare under his hungry gaze.

He pulled you to the edge of his nest over to where he was standing. He gripped your thighs with his large hands and slowly spread your legs, as if unwrapping a precious gift. Savoring the moment before it was entirely open.

The venom was still coursing effectively through your veins, offering you no recourse. You could only stare into the terrifying red eyes of this abomination as he looked at you and drooled. His intent with you becoming all the more evident as his engorged cock protruded fully from the genital slit at the meeting of his scorpion and humanoid body segments.

There was no way something like that could enter a human without some degree of pain.

Seeing it you wanted to scream. To kick and fight. But you were a prisoner in your own body. All the struggle you could force out of your body were choked cries and grunts of fear.

The scorpion caressed your sides in a gesture meant to be comforting to his scared little mate, but any touch from him only brought about more terror.

He crouched down at the edge of the bed so that his head was level with your crotch. He inhaled the scent deeply before licking the outer folds of your sex.

"Mmmm~"

You could feel it in your entire body as he hummed loudly in contentment. Your flavor was better than he could have imagined.

Your cunt was wetter than it had ever been before. A fact that made you all the more frustrated and angry at yourself. It was bad enough you couldn't get your body to move.

Kurnugi was making out with your entrance, gripping your hips painfully and drawing blood as he lost himself in thoughts about you carrying his spawn.

He enjoyed every heavenly drop of your juices, mixing in a heavy amount of his saliva into you so that you were as lubricated as possible.

He decided you were as ready as you could be and rose up to press his cock against you.

Kurnugi rubbed the tip of his strange inhuman prick against your pussy, grinding against it. He let out a low moan as he plunged into you all at once, unable to hold himself back from doing so any longer. The paralytic you had been drugged with must have started to wear off by that point because as he shoved himself into you you were finally able to scream a bit and grip the bedding beneath you.

The length was insane but the worst part was the thickness. It was like it was trying to rip you open. He gave you time to adjust before he began his thrusting, but there was just no getting adjusted to that type of size in such a short amount of time without a lot more preparation.

You flinched and gasped in pain as he began slowly moving in and out of you.

The scent and sight of the bit of your blood that mixed with your fluids and smeared on his cock only seemed to excite him and he increased the pace, the outline of his cock plainly visible under the skin of your belly. He used one of his hands to rub at the outline as it moved back and forth inside of you, effectively giving himself a handjob while he bred you.

He lowered his head to your chest and ferally bit and licked at your breasts. Instinct demanding he marked and claimed what was, by all laws of the desert, his property.

After what seemed like an eternity you finally had acclimated to the size of the man taking you and began feeling less pain with flashes of pleasure. Chasing those brief flashes, you weakly grinded into each thrust from the scorpion.

Kurnigi’s roaming mouth had found your neck and was sucking and nipping at your soft skin there as if his life depended on it.

The stimulation was only feeling better as the two of you continued, your cries of fear and pain having long since been replaced by weak lusty moans and shivers of delight. You came a couple times and by the third you were completely fucked out. You had never orgasmed so hard in your life and were barely aware of anything other than that nice feeling between your shaky legs.

Kurnugi finally hit his climax as well and bit your neck hard as he did so, injecting something into your neck to leave a permanent claiming mark on you. You flinched in pain but it receded quickly, you were too out of it to really care what he did to you at that point.

Until you felt him cum into you. Your eyes went wide at the sensation as you felt relatively large round masses being pumped deeply into you.

Eggs.

You were shocked and disgusted, but there was nothing to be done about it then. You let the aqrabuamelu lick your various scratches and bite wounds clean before tucking you in with blankets so you could sleep while he made a meal.

He was so jubilant that his pregnant little mate was cozy in his nest while he took care of you. He had a nice home, a large territory, and now a soft mate to dote on and stuff full of his big prick whenever he needed to. Life was perfect.

THREE MONTHS LATER:

It had been around three months since you had been abducted. And it was hours since you had run away from the monstrosity that had kidnapped you. His name was Kurnugi, you had learned, managing very limited communication with the brute. He had finally let his guard down, finally trusted you since you had never been anything but compliant since you had been with him, and he had finally left you alone to go hunt for a longer period of time.

You did not waste the opportunity, it was clear that your bodyguards had not managed to leave the desert, probably succumbing to exposure. Either that or no one had cared to send a search party to look for you thinking you were a lost cause. So it was up to you to rescue yourself.

Once more your legs burned with a familiar exhaustion. Kurnugi was a skilled hunter that moved fast. Once he returned to his den he would begin tracking you immediately. If you were going to succeed then you had to get as much distance between yourself and that cave as you could possibly manage. It didn’t help that you were pregnant with his many eggs. It surely made travel more difficult.

As you made your way up the river you considered walking in it to hide your scent, but you decided against it. The wind was blowing your scent in the direction that you were fleeing from so it wouldn’t help you at all. The slog through the water would only slow you down. And that was the last thing that you needed right then.

The last thing other than suddenly finding yourself laying with your back against the hot sand and looking up with an absolutely outraged Kurnugi looking down at you with a malicious grin on his face.

How had he snuck up on you so silently?

You had expected to be immediately paralyzed by one of his stings, but the scorpion had other things in mind. He wasn’t just angry. He was hurt. You had tried to leave him the first opportunity you had. Had he not proven himself against lesser males to be a strong mate? Had he not provided food and water and shared his home with you? Had he not given you a nice belly full of eggs as any mate would desire?

The aqrabuamelu clearly had to show you your place. He had been too gentle with you. Not done enough to prove that you were, beyond any whisper of a doubt, his property.

And in that vein of thinking he did not bother with his venom, no, he wanted you to have the full ability of movement and still be just as utterly powerless to do anything to avoid him using you as he saw fit.

He pushed you over onto the ground and flipped you so that you were facing the sand with your ass up. Then, right in the middle of the desert, he ripped off the pants he had made for you out of leather and plant fibers.

Kurnugi crouched so that his cock was level with your cunt, his strong hands gripping your hips so hard that they would undoubtedly be bruised. You cried out and struggled just as pathetically as he had predicted that you would.

“Please! Please NO!!! I’ll behave! I-I’ll never leave again. KURNUGI PLEA-”

Your words became a pained shriek as he interrupted them by ramming his entire dick straight into you. No prep at all. He understood your cries for mercy and carried on anyway.

Each thrust into you was slow, powerful, and deliberate, driving your face into the sand as his nails bit into your flesh.

You were right about one thing. You’d never try to leave him again after this. He was going to fuck it into your brain so you’d have no chance of forgetting.

Tears dripped down your face, wicked away by the thirsty air and ground. Your legs shook and you would have collapsed were it not for the strong hands propping you up. Your abused cunt felt like it was being torn apart.

Kurnugi was once more excited by the scent of your blood and began pulling you back and forth over his prick like you were just a cock sleeve built for his pleasure. All you could do was sob and take it and try not to puke.

With a final slam he came in you hard. No eggs this time, since you were already full of them, just fluid that thankfully soothed your insides, if only a bit.

The anger of the aqrabuamelu was finally quelled and he panted with his throbbing cock still twitching and pumping cum into you. He picked you up and renewed the bite mark he had left on you. He did not have to since it was permanent, but he wanted to so you’d remember you were branded property.

Luckily the pain from the bite had been swallowed up by the disorientation and pain from the rape.

A small comfort.

Kurnugi picked you up effortlessly and cradled you close to him.

You couldn’t quite tell what he had said, but you knew it was meant to be soothing. He rubbed your back and chittered sweetly in that foreign language of his. Evidently happy to have that nasty business out of the way and content in the knowledge that you wouldn’t be trying that again.

7 MONTHS LATER:

You couldn’t wait for the eggs inside you to hatch. Kurnugi had assured you that you would be a great parent and since the eggs absorb the DNA of the parent they are deposited in he was confident that they would be the cutest babies in the entire world.

He was so wonderful to you. He doted on you and helped take you for walks when you were restless. He caught or foraged and then prepared all of your meals. He cuddled you close and kissed your swollen belly and made every effort to cheer you up when you were feeling down.

And you were sweet to him too, you learned how to craft things from the leather and fibers he made so you made him little trinkets that he either wore or decorated the den with. And you always greeted him by kissing him softly whenever he came home.

Things were a lot easier now that you could communicate.

And now that you understood that you could never go anywhere without him and to try to do so would be very hurtful for the both of you.

But why would you ever want to do something like that?

#yandere #yandere terato #yandere teratophilia #yandere monster #yandere x fem reader #yandere x female reader #male yandere x female reader #female reader #monster boyfriend #yandere scorpion #yandere scorpion man #yandere aqrabuamelu #yandere monster man #monster husband #My OCs #My OC Kurnugi

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simpee9000 · 6 months ago

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Not Just Friends - Prologue -

Based off this blurb + Fem Reader : Not edited : 3.2k Words : Full M.List

Childhood best friends turned into something more, at least with the label. Katsuki Bakugo, a fast-rising hero and fast-learning guy who is ever so slow in getting attached to and loving someone. Even three long years into a relationship, and your friends even forget you're even dating. Nothing happening, spare a few kisses.. like 3 kisses, during high school. Graduated and living together, and you guys have done absolutely nothing to further the relationship. Are you sure you're not just friends? (this is just a prologue, all chapters will have a different writing style) CW: Smut, brief domestic violence discussion, virginity loss, gore with pro hero stuff (lmk if i missed any) (applies to all chapters regardless if it's discussed or not)

Bakugo, or to you, Katsuki has been a huge figure in your life. Probably the biggest motivator as well. There since you were young and immature, running around in random neon clothes your mom let you wear after your 4-year-old self argued with her for half an hour.

You were the third addition to Katsuki and Izuku's friendship. Butting in on their rivalry often. Defending Izuku while shooting Katsuki a nasty glare. Helping Izuku with his bruises but also helping Katsuki with his, if he ever got any. You stuck to either boy's side, depending on who you saw first. Which, more often than not, was Katsuki. But you left his side whenever he picked on Izuku. Helping Izuku's muddy self get out of the river before considering Katsuki.

That was in elementary school though, in junior high you stayed a balanced friend between the two. Stopping fights between the two boys, scolding the blonde boy every time. Yet you helped him clean up any time he picked a fight with anyone else. Wrapping up his bloody knuckles any time he needed, either from too much training or him being an asshole. You look back fondly on those times. Any time you so much as touched him, he sparked up, hands shooting out small explosions as he blushed. He felt bad obviously, but he was a preteen going through puberty and a pretty girl was touching him, what did you expect? He grimaced at every 'ow' that left your lips after he sparked up with your hand caring in his. He grew into his quirk and his control. So once the first year of high school hit, he was okay with small touches from you.

Thinking back on it, it was surprising he was okay with you, quirk-wise. He always gave Izuku hell for it, but never you. Maybe it's because you didn't have the drive to be a hero, wanting to stick to doing the sideline work of being a support tech. You weren't quirkless, but until the first year of junior high, you thought you were. Not having a flashy quirk or even a showing quirk at all. Only finding out because you've always aced every test and had an incredible academic ability. After a few too many recommendations of sped-up courses, did your parents take you to the doctor. Seeing that you did in fact have a quirk. Hyper-intelligence. You were basically a genius with an insanely good memory. It was an odd mutation of your parent's quirks. Your mom was able to remember everything she read and your dad was able to see the composition of anything he saw.

So along with Katsuki and Izuku, you strived to go to UA. Wanting to be in their support course, having strive to be a huge support tech in the future. Hopefully with your own company. You were well on that path as well.

You were there for that god-awful attack Katsuki dealt with in middle school. Seeing him covered in the sludge monster, gasping for air, haunted your dreams. You were walking with him after all. Watched the sludge climb up his body as you frantically tried to pry it off, your hands just slipping through the muck. Being pushed away once Katsuki started to cough violently. He didn't want you anywhere near what was happening. Looking wide-eyed at you before coughing for you to get help. So reluctantly, you did. Looking back at the blonde as he was submerged before you bolted for help, screaming for it down every walkway.

Only to come back to watch your other best friend running in to try and help. Screaming his name as well as you ran to get to them. Being pushed back by the wind All Might made when he came to help. Falling on your back as you watched, with tears in your eyes, Katsuki being freed from the sludge, gasping for any air he could. A hero lifted you up and held you from running to your friends, despite your frantic yelling for the boys. When they were cleared from the medics, you were allowed to see them. Instantly hugging Katsuki while yelling at Izuku over his shoulder, telling him he was stupid to run in without a quirk. Even though you were about to do the same. Katsuki rubbed off on you in that way. Yelling at others all while knowing you'd do the same.

By all means, you knew that wasn't going to be the last time you saw the boys in danger. Especially after Izuku got a quirk just in time for the UA testing. You weren't worried about the exam portion, the three of you studied together for that after all. Well, you studied with both of them, but they never studied with each other. Your test had an additional few tests but you passed them with ease. Just like how you knew Katsuki would pass his. You were worried for Izuku and his trial, which you were right to be, he broke both his arms with only one shot of his quirk. And after all that, it was still unlikely he'd get in. When you did get the letter of acceptance, you were with Katsuki, Izuku told you to go with Katsuki as he would probably not get in and he wants to be with his mom. Katsuki and you yelled and jumped around his room in excitement at the bold lettering of 'acceptance,' well you were jumping, he was being cocky and acting unaffected about it. Izuku called you only minutes after to let you know he got in as well. Katsuki rolled his eyes as he heard the news. Complaining once you hung up about how he didn't know how a nobody like him got in.

Getting into UA started everything for you. You got an insanely good internship after the sports festival. You followed Mei's lead, with Katsuki's and Izuku's advice, and showed off a suit similar to the American hero, 'Iron Man' just with your own flare and adjustments. Getting scouted for Endeavor's hero agency's personal tech crew. Following under the head of their tech.

With being in UA you got some insider information about what the hero course was doing. Making the hero outfit of both Katsuki and Izuku and doing any upgrades they needed. Eventually doing their friend's suits as well. Insider information wasn't enough, unfortunately. You were aware that the hero course went to the forest for training but you only knew Katsuki was taken when you met up with a beaten-up Izuku in a hospital bed. Having got a frantic call from Kirishima the second they got phone service. Him telling you to meet at this hospital because Izuku was in bad shape due to a villain attack.

You were involved in the rescue plan for Katsuki. Bring stealth equipment for a disguise. You weren't able to get anything else due to the time frame but you were there and it was successful. Holding your hand out alongside Kirishima for Katsuki to grab. You were also there for the fall of All Might, and consequently the fall of the boys beside you. Katsuki having his lip quiver as Izuku stood in shock.

Since you were there, and the villains saw your face and technique, you were invited to the dorms as well. They were supposed to be only for the hero course but they made changes. You dormed with the Class A girls.

You saw the boys leave that one night, deciding to stay in bed and let them hash it out. They should be grown enough at this point to not kill each other. Regretting that decision when you saw how beaten and bruised both the boys were the next day.

Their Provisional license exam was at the same time as yours. Yours being a test of how effective your gear is and if it's safe enough for the public heroes. Coming back to the dorms to see a happy Izuku and a distraught Katsuki. You spent that night in his dorm room, helping him prepare for the extra course he now had to take.

Being within the top best-performing techs within UA, you were recruited to help with the War. Making sure everyone had good and up-to-date equipment, giving extra support items, but also being within the team itself. They needed any help they could get and you had a suit good for fighting. Aizawa asked you himself. He knew his two best boys trained you enough to know how to defend yourself. So you were in the evacuation crew. Only parting from that when you saw the boys running in the direction of mass destruction.

You stood by Aizawa's side as you saw your best friends get pummeled within an inch of life. You stood there, holding Aizawa up as you watched Katsuki take three stabs in the chest for Izuku. Leaving the teacher's side instantly, running up to the limp and bloody body that was Katsuki. Hands searching his body to try and stop the blood. Bloody hands ripping his hero suit to push it into his wounds. Crying for him to stay awake. When his eyes were fluttering shut you placed your bloody hands on his face, trying to ground him as you shook his face. Bringing a hand up to slap him awake. His eyes shooting open to look at you. Iida eventually pulled you off him, helping Katsuki stand, and dragged him off the battlefield.

You had to bite your lip to hold in a yell when you saw Katsuki go back into the fight. The bloody handprints you left still on his face.

The hospital trip was a rough one as well. Waited the miserable hours for either of your best friends to wake. When one was being examined you went to the other. Constantly checking on both. Luckily, the moment Katsuki woke up, you were just coming back from grabbing a drink and some snacks.

Katsuki snapped his eyes open when he heard the door open, body jolting to sit up. You dropped your food, pushing Katsuki back into bed with a hug. He was mainly confused. He remembers the fight but he didn't expect you to be here. He wrapped his IV-ridden arm around you, hugging as tight as his ribs allowed. After all, he was extremely worried about you going into the battlefield. You didn't have nearly enough training. When he finally passed out from the pain his last worry was if you'd be alive when he woke up.

His brain was foggy, he was just getting his senses back, feeling you, smelling your hair that you must have washed the night before, and hearing the small sobs of relief you were letting out. "Stop crying, I'm fine," Katsuki rasped, voice still shattered from everything.

"You almost died," you pulled back, placing your hands on his face, getting the flashed memory of your bloody hands on him as he struggled to stay awake and alive.

He really took in your appearance then, forced to look at you with your hands squishing his face. You looked like a wreck, it was obvious to anyone that you hardly slept. Your clothes were wrinkled and your hair was a mess, as if you ran your hands through it too many times.

"Kats?" you called for his attention.

"Huh?"

"You can't do that to me," you scolded, knowing deep in your heart, something like this would happen again.

He knew that too, which is why he just pulled you in for another hug. "Why's my quirk weird?" he whispered, not feeling the usual sense of his quirk.

"What do you mean?" you asked. You tried to pull away but his grip was firm, keeping you pressed into his arms.

His face reddened. The reason he felt off was because he didn't feel the normal energy rushing through his hands that came out as sparks at your touch. "Just not sweaty, y'know, like normal."

You laughed lightly, voice still fragile from how much you've been crying, "They put you on quirk suppressants, they expected you to explode with anger or something when you woke up."

Ideas flashed before his eyes. He was on quirk suppressants and was unable to use his quirk, at least right now. He wasn't sparking up at your touch.

He left his arms loosen, you pulling back once again to check his face, make sure he really was there. Placing your hands on his cheek, squeezing your eyes shut at the memory before looking at him again. He thought over his next move, looking at your expression for a while. He reached his hand up to hold yours against his face. Looking up at you before his other hand reached up and pulled you in for a kiss.

That was the first kiss between you two. Put off as the heat of the moment and never discussed afterward. Both of you knew it wasn't, but you would die on the hill that it was. Right after you parted, a doctor came in to inform you that Izuku was starting to wake up, and he needed to run some tests on Katsuki.

After that, everything was insanely busy. Preparations for the war were already taking place. Izuku was asking for your help with his suit. The last suit he asked for before he wrote a goodbye letter and went MIA. That was hard for both you and Katsuki. You spent nights awake together going through the tracker you left on his gear, keeping track of his location and health.

Those nights together feel like a fleeting moment that you could never grasp again.

When the second year was supposed to start, you saw your childhood friend die in front of you. With nothing you could do as he laid limp on the cold ground. He was beaten and bloody just like everyone else. Just like you were. You went into the fight on a whim, just having finished a suit for yourself, and after about 20 minutes of fighting for your life, you were knocked down. Laying limp while you saw Katsuki get his lifeless body thrown to the side.

You woke up in the hospital before him, body still bruised but you were healed more than most. Katsuki's room was the first you went to, after asking every hospital worker if he was alive. His room was cold, not lively with his usual energy, but his heart was still pumping. Notes from his mom littered his table, just like yours but with more. You couldn't stand looking at him for more than twenty minutes. Choking on your tears as you decided to see Izuku.

Walking was too much for you, despite your healing, seeing Izuku's entirely broken body broke you even more. You passed out after a few moments of seeing the green-haired boy. Head flooding with the reality that both of your best friends almost died, and one did.

The nurse kept you in your room from then on, you passed out and hit your head. Gaining a major concussion with the fall. You were completely bedridden and required to be in a room with little to no light. So it was a shock when a bandaged Katsuki slammed open your door, multiple people behind him telling him to lay down and rest.

You had the horrible hospital food halfway in your mouth when he barged in. Dropping it as you stared at the boy.

"Are you okay?" he asked despite the protests behind him.

"Yes? Are you okay?" you asked back, more confused than anything.

Katsuki shoved the people off his shoulder and pushed his way into your hospital room, closing and locking the door behind him.

"What are you doing? You died! You need rest," you protested, finally having your brain start working.

He scoffed, walking to your side, with a a limp, "Can't sleep, 'think I can knowing you're in the hospital room down the hall?" He pushed you to the side of your bed, making a spot for him to lay next to you.

"When'd you wake up?" you asked softly, accepting he wouldn't have it any other way.

He stayed quiet for a moment, "Like thirty minutes ago."

"Bakugo!" you slapped his arm, super gently compared to normal, "Have you let them run their tests? How do I know you're okay?"

"Relax, and don't call me that," he huffed.

"You died!"

"I know," he sighed, looking away, "They ran a few tests and said I'm fine. Shouldn't be up but y'know how I am."

You let out a sigh of relief, "You should go to bed, Kats."

"Told ya, can't sleep," he looked at you

"Yeah but they need to-"

"I'm on quirk suppressants, can I kiss you?" he interrupted you, a blush coating his face.

"Huh?" you blinked, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Please?"

"I mean sure but-"

He didn't let you continue anymore, pressing his lips to yours after he got your consent. This kiss was more passionate than the first. Like the other just escape death, like how it was. His hand cradled your face, pushing you closer just to kiss you softer.

When you both pulled back, you let out small breaths. Foreheads resting on each other as you stared at each others' lips.

"Been wantin' to do that," he whispered.

"Me too," you smiled. Any conversation before being forgotten, for a moment at least.

You heard the door handle to your room jiggle. Keys being tested on the lock.

"You're okay though?" he pulled back, looking at you for any injuries.

"Just a concussion, you have it worse," you frowned, looking at all the cuts that were covered with a bandage.

"I've lived through worse," he said for comfort.

"You died from this," you furrowed your brows. "Let your doctors run their test, otherwise I won't talk to you."

"But-"

"Go," you stayed firm. Just in time for the doctor to unlock the room and rush him out.

About two months or so later, you two had the chance to sit one one-on-one together. No physical therapy appointments to attend or any work to do. Just time to talk. The war left a lot of cleaning up and school only started again a week ago. Everything was changed and fixed. Which left little free time other than sleep. You've seen each other between the kiss and now but it was always in groups.

You talked for a while that day. Deciding to actually become something more. To be more than childhood best friends. So you did, about halfway into the second year.

The second year was busy, with all the changes to the hero world and the world in general. You never got time alone to work on your relationship. Staying normal besides the title change to your relationship, never even kissing again. It was hard but you worked through it, too busy to even think about it. The third year was the same, just only sharing a kiss if he got injured or when you got a huge job offer. You also shared a kiss at graduation, when you agreed to live together after school.

Getting a two-bedroom apartment together, right next to where you both worked. At first, you thought that the second bedroom was going to be an office. But it ended up being his room. The two of you not sharing a bed despite almost 2 years of a relationship at this point. Yet you worked with it, if he needed more time then that's okay. He was everything to you. And you could tell you were everything for him as well. It just got a little weird when your friends forgot your relationship, asked if you were unhappy or abused, or even flirted with you.

-Next Part-

In them m.list of this fic comment if you want to be added into a tag list <3

I'll no longer add people to the taglist if they haven't commented there. It's too much to keep up with all the new part. Hope you understand <3

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kagrenacs · 1 year ago

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Long awaited, here is the soil map of Skyrim using the Canadian System of Soil classification. Brief description of my conclusions under the cut:

Chernozem: Whiterun Hold is likely home to the majority of Skyrim’s Chernozems. The majority of biological carbon sequestering in grassland environments are below ground, within the root systems. Organic material- humus, builds up, causing the upper layers of the soil to take on a dark colour. Additionally, Solonetzic soils could be present, peppered throughout the hold if the parent material to the soil is salty enough.

Cryosols are formed in Skyrim’s far North and high alpine regions. The mean annual soil temperature being 0 degrees C, with permafrost conditions. Freeze-thaw cycles lead to permafrost at the soils surface, but also cryoturbation: soil movement arising from frost action.

Additionally in mountainous regions, you would find Regosols. Soils which develop on unstable landforms and have had little time to develop, such as mountain slopes, or river floodplains.

Gleysols occur across the landscape of Skyrim, but primarily in Hjaalmarch. Gleysols are commonly found in depressions or low-lying areas where water saturates the soil continuously, leading to a molted characteristic to the soil.

Organic soils would primarily be found in the water saturated soils of Hjaalmarch. These are wetland soils found in forested areas and are commonly known as peat, muck, bogs or fens.

Borrowing from the USDA soil taxonomy, Inceptisols are light colored soils with moderate alteration, occurring under cool and cold climates. These soils would be found in the Eastmarch caldera.

Luvisols are associated with forested landscapes overlying loamy glacial till, or on clayey lacustrine deposits. Lake Honrich dominates a large portion of the Rift, according to UESP, seemingly draining from the lake. I believe this to be the site of a melted glacier, the lake being meltwater. Clay sediments are associated with lakes because of their deposition, coarser sediments bordering the lake near the shore, and finer particles at the deepest reaches. Additionally, at the end of the Karth river, where sandy deposits would be deposited at Solitude, before the stream looses power further down the river, leaving only clay to be deposited.

Podzols are associated with igneous parent materials, coniferous vegetation and high acidity. Primarily they are found in Falkreath Hold and Southern Eastmarch.

Brunisols are an intermediate stage between Regosols (undeveloped soils), and Podzol or Luvisols. I believe with the unstable, mountainous landscape of the Reach, soils would remain still rather undeveloped. Brunisols would also be interspersed among the Luvisols.

#kagrenac's journal

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fr-familiar-bracket · 8 months ago

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#flight rising #flight rising polls #fr #fr polls #fr familiar bracket #round 2 #golden porpoise #river muck

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jolalibrary · 7 months ago

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midnight bedsheets

joel miller x f!reader | joel masterlist

summary: you and joel find some bedsheets.

wordcount: 1.2k warnings: fluff/little smutty - allusions to smut. mostly fluff those guys. i needed this. post outbreak. joel is smitten. soft!joel because he's my fave. AN: written on my phone so, mind the errors.

When the two of you had split up, Joel had a feeling that you wouldn’t look for one goddamn thing he’d asked you to.

He’d seen it.

That glimmer of fucking mischief shimmering in your eyes, tracing your lips with the tip of your tongue, hand on your hip, I’ll be sure to keep my pretty eyes open, Miller.

He doubted you would. But he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, doubt your eyes were pretty.

They had burned themselves into him by now. To the point he knows the exact shades that make them up; all well known to him, able to pick them out from a lineup, if he so needed to.

Having seen them in all manner of ways—looking up at him, next to him, underneath him. Seen them when the sun shined, when the snow fell; when the rain fell and the thunder clapped.

Kicking his foot against something picked over, he listens for your boots, for you turning over your side of the store. Clicking his tongue, shaking his head, heading your way, knowing, before he finds you, that you’ve located something they weren’t looking for.

Sometimes, he doesn’t like knowing you so well. Finding you on your hands and knees, ass in the air—hips wiggling as you stretch yourself, reaching and reaching, shirt having risen and exposing more of your skin to him. Tempting him, like the fucking temptress you are—

“Y’need any help there?”

He shouldn’t think what a sight it is, but he does.

Flicking his thumb against his finger, fighting himself about getting down onto his knees behind you and reminding you of how good he can make you feel.

Memories of you like this, his knees on the outside of yours, the feel of you enveloping him as he slid his cock into your—

“No, I’m good.”

“You sure—”

Whatever you’d been grasping for, must have come loose. Because you shoot up, resting back on your knees—head looking over your shoulder, a smirk on your face.

And not just any smirk. That smirk. The one that makes him hot under the collar of his jacket and makes blood rush to his cock.

It’s the one you sent him when out in the river washing two days ago, when you flung your soaked shirt at him—the slap sounding out in the quiet of the world. Should come warm me up, Miller. A thing he repeated in a grumble under his breath when he removed his boots, layers and trudged out to pull your wet, clean skin against him.

Now, though, he watches in real-time as the smirk shifts into something softer when you stand—when the thing in your hand comes into view. Wrapped in crinkling plastic packaging, the fabric inside folded intricately as he catches the words: Deluxe and Bedsheets.

He watches as you smear your fingers over the front, removing the thick dust, it clagging and clinging to your skin as you try to peer through the muck at what you’d found.

“What y’found?”

“Bedsheets,” you reply, not looking up—voice distant, soft, almost too soft for you.

His weight shifts as he swallows. Already imagining what you’re thinking. Remembering summer breezes in backyards, big sheets billowing, drying off as laughter plays. Hell, he can hear it himself—practically could lose himself to the memory if he tries hard enough.

“We’ve not got room for it.”

Looking up, your eyes narrow—a little bit of fury in your eyes as you roll your jaw. “But, we’ll make room. Right?”

Right. He thinks.

“Joel?”

“Fine.”

He’s not sure when he’s stopped being able to say no to you.

It’s days until the two of you are back in the familiar peeling walls.

The scent is both dire and familiar all at once as he helps you remove the bag from your shoulder, it thudding on loose floorboards as he begins to remove his.

He waits. Waiting for the moment you ask for it, the thing he’s somehow folded and squeezed into his pack. The thing which sat at the base, stared at him when he dug in for his bottle or foil-wrapped food.

You last thirty seconds.

He’d been counting. Grumbling for water as he tells you he’ll grab it, hands finding the plastic with ease—briefly, allowing himself to grasp at it, feel that familiar texture that reminds him of normalcy and shopping.

“You gonna help me?”

Shaking his head, Joel grabs the glass you’ve poured for him. Taking a sip. Letting you stew.

“Think of it like this, the quicker you help me make the bed, the quicker you can make these sheets yours.”

Chewing his tongue, he swirls the murky water in his glass, giving you a minute, not quite biting immediately. “How am I gonna do that?”

Shrugging, your fingers slide down the buttons of your shirt, popping not one, but two open. “Use your imagination, Miller.”

“Filthy, woman,” he snorts, glass slamming down as he moves around the table as you laugh.

A sound that’s beautiful, and warm. A thing he won’t admit, even as he helps, as he takes a side of the bed before your hand brushes his, handing him the packet. Reading you. Tilting his head as he rips it open, being sure to focus on your eyes, knowing they'll widen, biting the inside of his cheek when they do.

And he knows that look. The one that, if you weren't so stubborn, would be matched with your mouth falling open, all in awe.

It makes him half tempted to move around to your side of the bed and see if he’s right. Undo the button on your jeans, slide his thick fingers against the fabric covering your mound, and see if there's a patch, a damp slither as he spots you pushing your thighs together.

But, your face is blank. Unreadable. A thing you're good at, so easily able to bury the effect he has on you as you begin to hum.

A thing he tries not to shake his head at, because it’s nice. Normal. For a moment able to close his eyes and pretend they’re in a bedroom, in a house, something they’ve chosen rather than been given.

It running through his mind. As it does sometimes.

What you’d be like if the world hadn’t pushed you to adapt, whether you’d be as charmed by him as you are now. His eyes catching yours as the two of you shake your pillows in the new sheet—a smile there, kissing your eyes and gracing your lips.

And he hopes you would have been.

Thinks maybe you might have been.

It’s only when it’s done, the bed dressed, does he see the beauty of what you’d seen. The sheets a deep blue, almost midnight, decorated with intricately stitched swirls and stars that break up the expanse.

“It’s like that time we hunkered under that tree,” you say, eyes gazing down at it. “When we saw all those stars.”

He hums. Taking the corner between his finger and thumb, feeling the rich cotton—how it’s not over worn, likely has its thread count.

“Remember what we did under them?”

Biting the inside of his cheek, he flicks his gaze up at you—chin still tucked to his chin. Seeing how another button is undone, exposing the valley between your breasts.

“Get on the bed.”

This time, he didn’t have to ask you twice. Thank fuck.

an: I’m a bit rusty with Joel, so forgive me 🩷

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flagellant · 2 years ago

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Re: God->man->God

That sublime awe (perfect words, thank you for them) is why I never understand Loveraftian horror.

I already know about the Thing that Should Not Be, bigger than our four dimensions can encompass and older than time itself

And They would recreate existence again to hear us say "I love you".

"Whom shall I fear" indeed.

My favorite cosmic horror has always been "It isn't that they are so large and incomprehensible that they do not care about us any more than you care about a single flatworm in the river muck of some Siberian woodland".

It's been "This magnificent thing which defies explanation and is so grand and big it refuses to obey such tiny concepts like physics and reality cares about us so much. It loves us. It is fascinated by us endlessly. It wants to bring us closer to it, to talk to it, to hold conversations. But it cannot understand us. And we cannot understand it. And so it is terrible and dangerous."

Cosmic horror where the haunted house loves you so completely that it creates a door to a perfectly black hallway in your living room. You can walk down it for five and a half chilly minutes. Cosmic horror where your lonely domicile is so grateful that you live within its bones that it grows new ones for you.

It flexes its wallpaper tendons. It splays its stony foundations out for you, home-liver. It takes itself and it builds a home from which you are safe from all the outside world which could harm and age you. Here in these eternal attics and parlors and boudours and stairwells, the house will love you so deeply that no one will ever see you again.

Horror which is scary because the incomprehensible doesnt care about you will always amount to nothing when you know about horror which is scary because the incomprehensible cares about you in a way which you cannot tell it you do not want.

#my writing #my essays #my essay #house of leaves

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slater-baby · 4 months ago

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im a mess right now😞my dog just died…could you please write some comfort?

my dog had a heart disease but he was doing fine…but today he started throwing up blood…he got to the vet but it was too late…his little lungs were filled with blood….im devastated. i went to see his body and he looked like he suffered so much…the vet tried to bring him back but he didn’t….

tomorrow he’s going to be cremated 😞

hello, hon, I am so sorry to hear that your dog passed away <3 I'm sure your dog was loved just as much as family, and I'm sure he took that love with him when he passed. Here's some comfort for you ❤️ sending so much love and hope in your direction!

**small note: I wrote comfort over fluff, so it’s emotionally heavy. Sorry if you wanted something lighter!!

Broken, Together

Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!Reader

Tags: slight blood and injury, hurt/comfort, reunion, fluff, confessions, flirting, implied sexual content, implied relationship, getting together, literally just straight tension between the two of them Word Count: 5.5k

“Hah—fuck,” you groan, not even bothering to mind your volume. Birds—what few of them were left—fly wildly from the tree next to you, running away from the pain of your shivering voice.

Let them, you think, resting your tired face against the plain of rock beneath you, There’s no helping this now.

The rain falls in merciless sheets, pelting you like miniature balls of ice with every minute of this miserable downpour. The river behind you is overflowing now, running red with untreated cuts and gloomy skies, and whirls around your dragging feet with every move, swallowing you up in muck. Listlessly, Scarlet trails of blood follow your path, but you can barely feel it pouring from the gash in your stomach.

You’d given up on walking a long time ago. Compared to the pain in your side, the fracture in your ankle was nothing, but they’re both a unique agony in their own right. You’d walked on the injury long enough, stumbling through the forest with your rifle and helmet. However, one wrong footfall had sent you tumbling down a cliffside, shards of rock and rubble imprinting themselves on every broken bone in your body—and not gently, either.

That had been half an hour ago. You’d barely made it a quarter of a kilometer since.

The moss of the river bank tears into clumps within your grasp, washing away in the stream as you heave yourself up onto the bank. The scream you let out rings throughout the forest like a siren, and there was no doubt about it now: anyone who might have heard that would be coming soon enough. If they hadn’t trusted the sound the first time, they’d be running come the third.

Somewhere behind you, the war zone rages on. Dropping bombs paint the sky an eerie, smoke-shade of reddened blood. The nightscape is starless, hidden beneath a layer of dust and grime that not even the most powerful of telescopes could have seen through, but you look anyway.

Uselessly, you flop onto your back atop the river, unable to contain the tears of pain that leave you with the movement.

“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself once more, shakily setting your hand atop your bleeding cut. The treetops dance above you, swaying with every gust of the wind. It’s a gentle movement. Serene, almost.

It’s not a bad place, you think idly, Wouldn’t mind staying here for a bit…or forever, at that.

Your lower body floats in the stream water. The rain washes away the dirt on your face. The searing pain of your injuries continue, but for the first time in days, you manage to take in a single, clean breath.

No one was coming for you. Your teammates had forgotten you—not that you blame them. If anything, you should be the sorry one. When the bombs had dropped and the five of you had been tossed in different directions, they were hardly the first thing on your mind—that’s not to say they were the last, however. Though, to claim that you’d even thought of them within the last twenty-four hours would be a stark lie. No, you were much too focused on your own dripping blood to do anything more than sit in the darkness and lick your wounds.

You sigh, trying desperately to find a star between criss-crossing tree branches, but your mind ranges on.

You didn’t come for them.

So they wouldn’t come for you.

If they aren’t already dead, that is, your mind helpfully supplies, Forty-eight hours alone, wandering through a war zone without backup and with no ammo reserves to speak of…better men had died from less.

Your fingers slip when another swathe of blood pours from the wound.

Well, at the very least, if they were well and truly gone, you’d probably be joining them soon, you smirk at the thought, Apologies can be saved for then…

The idea should have been a grim one, something that made your skin crawl and tears spring to your eyes. Yet, you find that it does the exact opposite. Instead, it falls over you like a worn blanket, painting yellow strings of warmth up your exhausted skin. An easy smile overcomes your face, and with little more to spare, you let your eyes fall closed, imaginary clouds swirling in the mass of darkness. Like that, you fade into the grass and rocks, fall away into the clutches of the earth underneath you, until it’s impossible to discern where the moss begins and where your camouflaged body ends.

Every breath is a trembling affliction, some sort of well-endured soreness. And for what seems like hours, you relish in the idea that soon enough, this will all be over. Soon enough, you really will fall back into the place you come from, back into the cradle of the distant star your very atoms were born inside of.

The moss is like a pillow.

The rocks feel like home.

The sky hangs overhead like a mobile, and with it, everything spins…

…and spins…

Until it doesn’t.

A loud snap resounds from the edge of the riverbank, and before you know it, something solid rams itself against your shoulder, falling headfirst into the stream at your feet. All at once, what feels like five hundred pounds of weight crushes down on top of you, replacing your comfortable end with a set of broken ribs instead.

“Fuck—,” you scream, automatically shocking into action despite the agony curling in your stomach. Uselessly, you try to push yourself back up the bank, but whatever—or whoever—just interrupted your reverie has a different plan.

A set of shaking hands grapple at your clothes, protruding from the water like a leering monster. They thrash though the waves, yanking you back down the rocky bay. You shriek as they pull your body into the water, nearly shoving you beneath the surface as they stagger to their feet. The shadow of them—the enormous, looming ink of it—consumes you when they emerge, haphazardly digging their claws into the collar of your uniform.

“Don’t—” they pant urgently, like they’d been suffocating mere seconds before, “Don’t you dare fucking move, you hear me?”

Flecks of water and spit rain down on you with his every word. Through the haze of your pain, you note that his voice is hollow and grisly, like he’d been choking up blood for hours before he came. With wide eyes, you clutch at his meaty forearms, trying to shove him away.

“Don’t fucking move!” He shouts again, jostling your body in his grip as he stumbles over his own two feet, “One more move, and I swear—swear to god, I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out.”

Something cold and wet is shoved up against your forehead. The barrel of the gun shakes with the force of his shivering. Between words, white plumes of breath fan over your face, and just barely, you can make out the shine of his irises through the fog of night.

“Woah—woah,” you tremble, limping lifting your hands in surrender, “I’m—I’m unarmed. Swear to god. I’m…fuck, I’m dying anyway. Couldn’t—couldn’t hurt you even if I tried…Swear it.”

For a few seconds, only the stunted sound of your shared breaths taints the air.

“I swear,” you whisper, like you still had anything left to plead for.

The man above you pauses, breathing deeply, and for a second, you take in the look of him. His face is…

Well, it’s a mess, to put it lightly. He’s covered in blood—watery rivulets of it—from bones to teeth, gathering in the slits of his gums. His lips are blue and split down the middle, front teeth broken crudely. His hair is matted with sweat and dirt, and mottled wounds cover his hollowed cheekbones. And his eyes are…Well, you can’t even see them. They’re swollen shut almost completely, a shade of purple so dark you might have mistaken it for black. Judging by the way his muscles contort around his words, he’s feeling every ounce of the violence inscribed upon his face.

“Just let me go,” you ask him gently, “Let me go, and—and I swear I won’t follow you. The allied FOB, it’s—” you point over his shoulder into the tree line, “It’s back that way…at least, I think. Whatever country you’re f-from, they’ll take care of you.”

The longer you continue speaking, the more skeptical the man becomes. Though, ‘skeptical’ might be the wrong word to describe it. If anything, he seems…confused. Shakily, he lowers the barrel from your forehead, and the purple skin around his eyes draws tight for a split second, almost as if he were trying to squint at your face.

“Rogue?” His voice is gentler this time, softer, “Rogue…is that you?”

At the sound of your callsign, your blood runs cold, brain shocking back to awareness.

“How—” you grab onto his forearm, ready to fight for your peaceful death if it comes down to it, “How do you know my name…”

A sharp breath escapes him, and all of a sudden, he’s holstering his gun, grabbing you under the arms to haul you up. His broken lips curve into a hazy smile.

“‘Cause—’cause it’s me, Rogue!” he huffs, a shivering laugh following the noise, “It’s me, Ghost.”

At that, you force your eyes to open impossibly wider. Puzzled, you squint at his ravaged face, fingers tightening around his wrist.

“Ghost?” You furrow your brows, “You’re not—you’re not Ghost. Ghost doesn’t show his…”

“Rogue, just—just look.”

He reaches down towards his belt, haphazardly sinking to his knees in the muck when your weight becomes too much for him to support. Like that, both of you fall back into the freezing lap of the stream, an odd peace overcoming you. It takes him a minute to find it. However, soon enough, he pulls a sheet of sopping, black fabric from under the surface, shakily holding it up in front of his face.

There, against a muddy background, stands that familiar white skull. It’s chipped around the edges and somewhat sad looking, what with the water. Yet, there’s no denying it. That’s Ghost’s mask, the same one you stared at over a hand of playing cards or over a couple drinks at the bar. Instantly, his hands hardly feel like chains around your wrists anymore.

“Ghost?” You huff, sitting up with more strength than you can remember having in the past forty-eight hours.

The man—Ghost—can’t contain the smile that overcomes him, not even when you’re sure the pain of it must be blinding.

“Yeah,” he answers happily.

“Ghost!”

Without even thinking, you grab him around the strap of his vest, yanking him into a tight hug. The water pushes in between your bodies, in between your beating hearts, and yet, his warmth sustains you. It survives you. You, with your cold hands and trembling body. Him, with his warm chest and blue lips.

“Holy shit,” you laugh into the crook of his shoulder, feeling more alive than you have in days, “How did you—Fuck, where have you been? Are you hurt? How are you?”

“Fuckin’ better now that I found you, love,” he chuckles, locking his arms around your waist. You can feel him resting his chin against your shoulder, stubble scraping over your cheek. It’s weirdly close, to feel him like this—to feel his arms, chest, cheek, and smile bleeding life back into your body after you’d gone so long without it.

“God, me too,” you exhale, relaxing inside of his grasp. You’d never considered it before, but something inside of the way that he holds you—like he’d sincerely missed you all these hours—is so comforting you can’t even begin to describe it. No, you can only melt into it, counting every beat of his heart as they come and go against your sternum.

“You’re…” Another sharp breath; this time, worried, “You said you’re dying…?”

His arms weaken around your body, almost like he wanted to pull back and look at you, but you don’t let him. Instead, you hook your arm around the back of his neck, pressing him into your shoulder. Some part of you—small and nagging—doesn’t want even an inch to separate you any longer.

“I—I don’t know,” you shake your head stupidly, some dumb smile on your face, “I guess…I thought I was. It definitely felt like it. But I’m not so sure anymore. God, now that you’re here, I…”

Your words trail off, their meaning too heavy for you to shoulder alone. Unconsciously, your fingers tangle in the hairs at the base of his neck, and you squeeze them lovingly, chest stuttering with a sort of happiness you never thought you’d feel again.

Unwillingly, you can feel as tears gather in your eyes. They burn against your freezing cheeks when they fall.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Ghost,” you whisper, voice trailing off into a small cry.

He doesn’t say anything—he can’t. The only response to your words is the way that his muscles tighten, the way that his chest rises and falls rapidly when he pulls you in all the harder, holding you steadfast against his thrumming pulse point.

“Me too, love,” he rasps, voice choked, “Me too.”

For a minute, it all fades all. From the fires raging in the distance, to the death you thought was waiting so near, they all fall limply in the face of your embrace—in the face of the emotions coursing through you.

Maybe you wouldn’t die here.

You didn’t want to die here.

Not anymore.

Not now that you have him.

Not anymore.

“Fuck,” you pull back with a sniffle, crudely wiping snot away from your face. You reach out with your dirty hands, gently cupping his swollen cheeks. He winces at even the smallest touch, instinctually grabbing your wrist to lighten your touch.

“Where have you been?” You ask with a grimace, looking at his battered body, “Are you dying?”

“No,” he chuckles, but it cuts off into a small grunt. He drops his face, tucking the mask under his belt, before reaching up a finger to play at the cut of his split lips.

“Hope not,” he huffs gleefully, lifting his face into the light for you to look at, “Probably got a pretty good concussion going on. Head sure fuckin’ feels like it. But…I think m’alright.”

You nod, pulling your hand away from his cheek to run it through his buzzed hair, checking for cuts along his scalp.

“You don’t look like it,” you joke, “I mean, I’ve never seen your face before, but…I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”

At that, Simon laughs heartily, not even trying to resist the grin on his pale lips any longer.

“Yeah, that,” he sighs, running a hand over his jaw, “After the first fire run, I ran into the tree line. Wasn’t much cover anywhere else, so I figured that was the best shot at survival—and I wasn’t wrong. Only problem was that I was running in the wrong direction,” a grim countenance overcomes him for a minute, “Ran East for just a minute too long, accidentally ran straight through their bloody lines. For what it’s worth, the bastards didn’t notice me for a few hours…but, once they did…”

He sighs, rolling his eyes—like this were all just some stupid inconvenience for him instead of a life-threatening injury. You resist a laugh. Simon was like that, always confident in himself and his abilities, even when one simple mistake could prove so deadly.

“Some prick from Kortac thought it’d be a right laugh to get a look under the mask…paid for it with his life. But, not after he banged me up good,” he continues, “He tried to smash a rock over m’head, but couldn’t manage it, so he brought my head to the rock instead. That was yesterday. The swelling’s flared up pretty bad, and when I tried to put the mask on, the faceplate felt about two sizes too small…”

He huffs, looking down at his sodden mask.

“Figured I’d rough it for the night,” Simon chuckles, “Hasn’t been too bad. Mask woulda gotten in the way, anyway. M’eyes are so swollen I can barely fucking see…Didn’t even know you were there ‘till I tripped right over you.”

He looks down at your body and at the swirls of red blood cascading through the ripples around you.

“Sorry about that, by the way,” he breathes, reaching down to idly put pressure on your seeping wound.

“It’s alright,” you grit, hurriedly grabbing a hold of his shirt at the sudden sensation, “Better—than the fucking stab wound, I’ll tell you that…Though, you could do to lose a little weight, LT. Swear to god you almost cracked a rib when you fell on me like that.”

“Well,” he snarks, “Noted, love. Guess I won’t be on the cover of Vogue anytime soon, anyway. Not with a face like this, at least.”

“Exactly,” you giggle, but it quickly turns into a pained gasp when his fingers pull the two sides of your flesh back together. You writhe in the water, curling into his chest in some vain attempt at hiding yourself from the pain.

“You good?” He asks absently, rubbing over your stomach without hardly batting an eye at the way you cling onto him.

“I’ve been better,” you mewl, eyes wrenched shut, “Still—still not sure I’ll ever do better, though…”

“Don’t say that—”

“Ghost—”

“I said, don’t say that,” he scowls (or, well, as much as he can with his bruised façade), “Not yet, at least. I won’t let you.”

For a moment, all you can do is sit there against his chest, looking at where the scant moonlight phases through the colors of his blonde stubble. Although his face isn’t a pretty sight at the moment, you can’t help but memorize it, running your eyes over his each and every detail, like you were looking at him for the first time all over again.

“You promise?” You ask hesitantly, grabbing onto the back of his collar.

“I promise,” he answers without a second thought.

At that, you take in a low breath, before nodding in response. The hand against your stomach tightens for a beat—a token of reassurance—before he’s shifting on his knees.

“Here,” he huffs, getting his feet underneath himself, “Over that hill, you see it? There’s an overhang. Might give us a bit o’ cover from the rain.”

“Okay,” you follow listlessly, hooking your arm around his neck. However, just when you begin to come to your feet, the crackling bones in your ankle <em>scream</em> in protest. Limply, you fall against him.

“Fuck,” you grunt, looking down at where your feet disappear in the water, “Stupid legs…”

“Can you walk?” He huffs, stumbling over his own two feet. It nearly sends the both of you tumbling back into the water. Mentally, you chuckle at the pitiful image the two of you must make.

Maybe that concussion was worse than he was letting on, you raise your brows, staring at his grisly face.

“Far enough,” you reply instead of speaking your mind, carefully curling your hand around his back. Although your strength is marginal, even just the suggestion of your touch seems to straighten him up—enough to get onto the bank of the stream, at the very least.

“Good, ‘cause—” Simon’s voice peaks on your first step, a deep, hollow noise escaping him, “‘Cause once we’re there, m’not sure how much longer I can—bloody stand.”

“Right—back at you...” You grit, wrenching your eyes shut with another blistering step.

Fire-starters were a fickle thing, you’d learned.

Especially in the rain.

“Damnnit,” you curse, scowling down at fingers once more. The rain had done a number on Simon’s dwindling supplies, and none but a single fire starter remained. Good thing he was a heavy smoker, otherwise you’d have to light this fire caveman-style.

Yeah, you take a deep breath in, Maybe you could lay off all the warnings about lung cancer…it all seems like a trivial fucking problem in the face of this.

“Here,” Simon weakly shuffles closer, jacket halfway down his arms.

He pries the lighter out of your hands, flicking his thumb across the wheel. Without further persuasion, the flame blinks to life, a stark burn against your frozen skin.

“Fuck—!” Simon’s arm jerks, and he hurriedly covers his eyes, nearly dropping the lighter against the ground.

“Woah—you okay?” You yank the lighter out of his hand, hurriedly nestling the sparks against the kindling. It goes up in flames (thankfully) hardly a second later.

“Yeah, s’just—” he furiously rubs over his eyes with the palms of his hands, shoulders tight in agony, “The light is just…This—fucking headache won’t go away…”

“Ghost,” you shuffle closer to him, wrapping your arm around his shoulder, “Maybe you should lay down for a minute. I’ll—I’ll finish setting everything up, and we can figure things out in the morning.”

“No—no, Rogue, I won’t fuckin’ leave you by yourself,” he rakes a hand through his hair, under-eyes blackened and tired, “You’re hurt, too. That cut needs cleaned and dressing—and don’t you dare fuckin’ tell me otherwise.”

At that, you snap your mouth shut, swallowing the very words he’d just predicted. His eyes are woefully deadpan beneath all the swelling.

Gotcha.

“Ghost, you’re just as bad,” you come closer, holding his shoulders.

“Don’t say that,” he pulls your hand off of his shoulder, clutching it in front of his chest, “Don’t compromise yourself for me just because of a stupid little—”

“I’m not compromising myself—”

“I said no, okay? So just—”

“Ghost, your face is fucking purple right now—”

“And that’s okay so long as I know you’ll make it through the fucking night!” He whisper-yells, voice strained, like even the act of talking were painful in and of itself, “This headache can last as long as I know that you’ll last, okay, love? You get what I’m saying? Do you understand now?”

With every word that he speaks, his fingers curl tighter and tighter around your own, until you’re sure the shaking in your frame is from the blistering way he melds your skin and not the frigid winds whipping up your back. Unbidden, you’re speechless, and eventually, his voice dwindles into nothing. However, his hold remains.

“Ghost…” you begin, but you don’t know how to continue. His breath materializes like falling snowflakes between the two of you, and from his height, he curls over you closer.

“You remember what I said back then? That night at the bar?” He leans his face down, forcing you to meet his eye.

Your breath hitches at the mention, a glowing heat gathering in your cheeks. You barely have the bravery to raise your lashes to look at him, but when you do, he remains the same, bloodied man that he’d always been.

“I’m done letting you think that you’re unimportant, Rogue,” he whispers, his very words woven into the plains of your skin, “Not to me. Not to any of us. I’m done. Do you hear me?”

Shakily, you nod your head, looking down at your intertwined hands. Something inside of you—small and fragile—revels in the heat of his skin, and yet, another part of you shudders in the shadow of it. The cast of its unfamiliarity. The way that he touches you. The way that he speaks to you. The thoughts you know he has of you…and your own inability to muster your bravery.

“Let me take care of you. For once,” he continues, pleading.

Briskly, you swallow, closing your eyes. His scent wraps around you like a blanket, and with shivers running up your spine, you submit to the uncertainty of it. To a man whose face you’d never seen before…to a man whose lips you hardly remember the taste of.

Unwittingly, your brain thinks back on that night in the bar.

Kentucky bourbon.

Slurred dialogue.

Linen sheets.

Dripping sweat.

The truth of him—one that you didn’t even know had existed…

God, you remember the way he tastes. In the recesses of your drunken memories…

Lime and hops. Stringent alcohol and cigarette smoke. Victory, virility, vitality and all of their counterparts. It was wasted on you. Or, at least, you thought it had been. Ghost, on the other hand, had never given up quite so easily.

“Simon,” you say for the first time in months—for the first time since that night. His chest stills against you.

“Then,” you press your hand to his sternum; it looks inconsequential against the mass of him, “Let’s do it together. Take care of each other, I mean. Can we do that?”

You look up at him from where you sit, shadowed beneath everything that he is. Through the darkness, you can see the way his jaw grinds for a few seconds, before he gives in.

“Only if you let me make the first move,” he huffs, a small smile overcoming his lips.

You can only scoff, eyes dropping back onto the ground between your legs. Blood rushes to your face, and your fingers fidget against his chest.

“Don’t you always do that?” You quip under your breath.

“Well,” he shuffles closer, gently grabbing your shoulder, “You tell me, love. Was that night in the bar a one-off or…?”

“Simon,” you keel forward with an embarrassed laugh, looking over his shoulder instead of his face, “You—you can’t just say things like that…”

“Why?” he turns his head, lips brushing against your cheekbone. His fingers fumble at your collar, painting shivers into your being with every brush of your touching skin. The sound of the zipper is stark when he begins to edge it downwards, “Afraid you might like ‘em?”

At that, you don’t even have the strength to make a joke. No, you hook your arms around his neck, placing your chin on his shoulder while he slowly opens your jacket.

“You don’t have to say anything,” this time, he presses his cheek into yours; it’s so dreadfully, beautifully warm, “But I know you’ll listen.”

His words are like a balm, distracting you even when his fingers begin to pluck at the hem of your shirt.

“Can I push it up?” He asks you gently, “Just enough to clean the cut. I won’t look if you don’t want me to. I swear.”

“Why?” You mumble, hiding your face in the crook of his shoulder like that might give you more bravery, “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before…”

“Trust me, love, I remember,” he shifts on his knees, nose brushing your hair, “But I know how you get about that stuff…All delicate ’n whatnot.”

“M’not delicate,” you giggle, even as something cold and wet presses into your bloodied stomach.

“You’re not,” he replies mindlessly, “But you felt that way. That night.”

That night.

Your skin bristles viscously at the thought, but even more viciously at the feeling of his fingers holding your wound closed. Instead of focusing on the pain, you try desperately to lose yourself in the memory of it, of how his bare skin had felt against yours that night. He doesn’t see it, but you can’t help but smile dreamily at the thought of it.

That night.

God, that night.

You were younger than him. Callow, too. Half the time you felt like some bloodless kid standing next to the rest of them. Unintelligent. Unimportant. The charity case that somehow made it to the big leagues.

Of course you’d always had eyes for Ghost—who wouldn’t—even before he’d dropped the pretenses and admitted that he thought of you as friends. You still remember the night he’d finally told you. You’d nearly drove yourself insane with all of the swirling thoughts that had swallowed you up when you’d laid down for bed.

After that, you felt like a teenager writing his name in the margins of her diary, in looping hearts and gel pen.

He was so far above you, and you, so beneath him. By all means, you were nothing to him.

Until that night.

Until you were in your cups, falling off of your barstool.

Until he pulled up his mask to take another drink, and you saw his smile for the very first time.

Until the boys went home and only you remained.

Until he pulled you close and told you that he thought you were beautiful—that he thought you were everything.

Until the only thing you could sense was the whiskey on his breath and the slick heat of his sweaty hips pumping back and forth between your legs.

Swallowing, you pull your fingers into his jacket, holding onto him like he might disappear into the very earth that had encompassed your tomb not an hour ago.

That night, you weren’t some small thing any longer. You weren’t some crushing high-schooler or immature teenage girl. You felt like the woman you’d finally become, the one you swore he’d made you.

If only you could’ve had the courage to look him in the eye and admit to all of it in the months that’d followed…

“I think you’re delicate,” you murmur in the swathe of his shirt, “Not back then, but now…”

You pull back, cupping his jaw. His skin and taut and thin, mangled and grisly. You can tell that the singular point of contact is agonizing to him, but he doesn’t resist it. No, he lets you hold him there, even when a wince works its way up his throat.

“Is that how I seem to you?” He asks, breathing you in.

“Simon, like this…” you follow the marks with your eyes, from his chin to his hairline, “With everything that’s happened to you…I guess, I thought you were invincible, but…”

Listlessly, your hands drop to his collarbones, plucking at a loose string on his shirt.

“But you’re fragile,” you whisper, lips brushing against his chin, “Human.”

The words are chock full of some unspoken emotion, something that had been boiling inside of you for so long, but had never quite managed to spill over. Until now.

“I guess that I…” you take a deep breath in, “I guess that I thought I couldn’t hurt you. That nothing could. And…I’m sorry for that, Simon. For thinking that of you.”

When you raise your head, he looks deep into your eyes, into the flickering shadows and dancing firelight. They burn his senses, grate on his nerves, rip out his heartstrings—and yet, he remains still. Fighting, still.

“Rogue, listen…”

He pulls his hand from underneath your shirt, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you close. When your bodies meet, when his chest becomes flush with yours, hips nestled just above yours, a warmth you’d nearly lost in that freezing stream returns to you. Everything you’d felt that night—the night when you’d finally done right by yourself and by him—comes rushing back, just as jarring as the headache that rocks his world.

“Everything out here—everything that’s happened…” he speaks, “The light, the sound, the people, this world—they hurt me…but you don’t. You never have. Never could.”

Transfixed, you push your hand into the pocket of his jacket, pulling him closer.

“I promise you, love,” he whispers, “Nothing you’ve done, nothing you’ve said has ever done that to me. You’ve a kind heart. A soft one.”

The words are raspy and low, a salve or medicine.

“Sometimes, though, I just wish you’d hurry up and give it to me,” he chuckles, though it quickly transforms into a wince.

At that, you can’t help but chuckle too, muscles tightening around his comforting embrace. Here, the world is just as peaceful, just as calm. It’s just as serene as the stream or woods, just as bright as the furthest shining stars. But unlike the rest of this world, you don’t want to leave it. Not now. Not yet.

“Then…” you swallow the emotions in your throat, “Would you mind waiting for me for just one more night?”

His chest rumbles with a hearty laugh, his big palms sliding over the curve of your back.

“Hardly,” he answers, “As long as tomorrow comes, I’ll have you. I promise.”

184 notes · View notes

aerynwrites · 1 year ago

Text

Scars

Halsin x afab!Reader

A/N: some friends and I were talking in discord and one of them gave me permission to use this wonderful idea! I hope y’all enjoy ❤️

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: major insecurity in reader regarding scars, talks of self hatred, self depreciation, all is comforted tho, hurt/comfort, canon typical violence, partial nudity, fluff, kisses, love confessions.

The battles are done, the enemies defeated, and yet it feels like the work doesn’t quite end there.

This battle was harder than the rest, bending and breaking all of you more than expected. So much so that blood still oozes and bones still need mending despite the healing spells Shadowheart was able to bestow upon your group. Even her magic was depleted leaving her with the the rare wounds to show for it.

Return to camp has become a habitual affair, those that are able, help the companions wounded before everyone returns to their tents for the night.

You, however, slink off on your own from the get go, avoiding the healing hands in favor of your own mediocre care.

It’s better for you this way. Safer. At least mentally. The small river a short distance from camp has become your solace. Far enough away to seclude you but close enough that if danger were to arise, help would be close by.

You’ve come here after most battles, rinsing off in the clear water before tending to your own wounds as best you can, too ashamed to ask anyone for help - too scared to bare yourself before them.

Especially since a certain druid joined your team.

Before Halsin had come along you’d been able to slip away with no questions asked. Every now and then Shadowheart would tease you about how she could get the job done quicker but it would end there. Now…now it’s like you can feel Halsins stare each time you leave camp, his offers of help being brushed off with a flippant wave of your hand.

You enjoy his company. More than enjoy it really - so much so that a small crush has started to develop for the larger man. A part of you has longed to accept his offers of help, longed to open up to him in a way you have to no one else.

Yet, each time, the acceptance dies on your tongue and you tuck your tail and run. Just like you always have.

You sigh as you approach the waters edge, stripping down to nothing but your under things in order to sit on a rock submerged below the water enough that you can rinse away the muck of battle in order to assess the damage.

It’s the same process as always. Rinse off, tend to any wounds then dress and head back to camp. But tonight proves more difficult.

You have more injuries than normal, which means more stitching - a task proving difficult due to what you assume is a larger wound on your back. You’d taken a nasty blow to the shoulder towards the end of the skirmish and now it aches terribly and refuses to move the way you need in order to tend to yourself properly.

With a wince, you reach behind you with your good arm and try to feel for the wound, hissing and snatching your hand back when it brushes over the edge of what seems to be a nasty gash.

You’ll never be able to reach that on your own.

Muttered curses slip past your lips, as you turn to focus on the things you can fix instead. However, just as you move to tend to the shallow claw marks on your arm the all too close snap of a twig startles you.

Your head whirls to look behind you, and your eyes widen in mortification to see Halsin standing several yards away.

“Halsin! What are you doing-“ you cut yourself off as you reach for your shirt on the bank behind you, desperate to cover up before he can see anymore.

Before he can think you’re hideous.

The thought is fleeting, but drives your actions all the same.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to startle you,” Halsin finally speaks, holding out placating hands, as if dealing with a scared animal.

His words stall your movement just long enough for you to notice that the large elf isn’t looking at you. Instead his head is turned off to the side as if he doesn’t want to intrude on your privacy if it’s not wanted.

Your shirt hangs limply in your hands before you gather it to your chest. “What are you doing here?”

With his head still turned away, Halsin clears his throat. “I know you prefer to tend to your injuries yourself, but I saw the wound on your back when you all returned from camp. I only came to offer my help - and if you refuse I will turn now and leave you in peace.”

The air is silent as his words settle between you, and you open your mouth to give your typical refusal before stopping short.

You do need help. There’s no way you’ll be able to take care of the injury on your own. Not properly anyways. And infection is dangerous - even with healers around to help.

You let out a soft sigh, turning back to face the water, your shirt still clutched tightly to your front like some sort of lifeline.

“That’s - yes. I can’t…I can’t reach it on my own,” you admit softly, trying not to quake in shame as you hear his soft footfalls approach.

The thud of his boots in the grass and quiet splash of water is the only thing that lets you know how close he is, your eyes still trained on the river in front of you.

Soon you feel a presence at your back, and Halsins voice meets your ears once more.

“May I touch you?”

The question is simple, yet it ignites a bitterness you hadn’t realized was there. “You have to in order to treat me, don’t you?”

If Halsin reacts to your snappy reply, he doesn’t say anything, instead you feel him settle onto the rock behind you, water rippling between your bodies as a gentle hand rest on your shoulder

“It is ideal, yes, but I will not force my help upon you if you do not wish it.”

His breath is warm against your neck, and you can’t suppress the shudder that runs through you. Shame wells in you again, but this time at yourself. He’s just trying to help and you’re letting your own insecurities - your own self hatred spew at the wrong person.

“I’m sorry, yes - it’s fine. I’m not…used to this is all. I don’t like people seeing me like…like this,” your admission is a soft, broken thing, almost lost amongst the babbling water if it weren’t for Halsin’s close proximity.

He lets out a low hum just as you feel the unfamiliar warmth of healing magic along your back, seeing the golden glow from the corner of your eye.

“A good healer would never shame those needing his help,” he tells you, the hand on your shoulder giving you a reassuring squeeze. “My aid is available whenever you require.”

You shake your head, a scoff slipping past your lips. “That’s not…thank you.”

Your initial words die on your lips, the true reason for your hesitance unwilling to reveal itself so soon. And if Halsin notices your deflection he doesn’t say anything, instead he lets silence fill the air between you until finally that comforting warmth disappears from your skin, the glow dissipating.

“Is there anything else I can help with?”

The automatic refusal sits on your tounge once more but you stop yourself, instead moving to hold up your other arm, showing him the claw marks that have already started to scab.

“Of course,” he says and you can hear him shift behind you. “Would you be comfortable facing me?”

You nod, and for the first time you find yourself telling the truth. For the first time in as long as you can remember you feel some semblance of safety with someone seeing you like this.

Slowly you turn to face the druid, finally letting the shirt you were holding drop from your grip, tossing it back to shore. You still have your underwear on, and you’re sure the man before you had seen worse.

Once you’re settled, you find yourself fave to face with Halsin for the first time tonight, and the first thing you notice is his smile.

It’s a tiny thing, small and reassuring and kind. An emotion you’re not used to seeing in this state of undress.

He gently takes your arm in his hand and applies the same treatment as before. Magic emits from his palm, wrapping your arm in small tendrils of golden light as the healing warmth envelops you once more.

“Will there be scars?”

The question falls from your lips before you can stop it, and you watch as Halsin’s brow furrows.

“This one should leave minimal scarring, if any at all. The creatures claws did not dig deep. But the wound on your shoulder was…” he pauses. “Even magic cannot overpower nature at times. It will most likely leave a mark,” he smiles again, “but you do not seem a stranger to those.”

His words cut deep, hitting you where you know he doesn’t mean too. But your shame, your insecurity rears it’s ugly head again, and you yank your arm from his grip - the magic dispelling as his touch does.

“You don’t have to be an ass about it,” you hiss, moving to stand uncaring of your half healed wound, or the way you teeter on unsteady feet.

“Wait,” a strong hand reaches to capture your own before you can leave. “I meant no offense, truly.”

His words cause you to pause, and you reluctantly turn to look down at where he still sits in the water. His smile is gone, lips downturned and eyes pleading.

“Then what did you mean if not to make fun of my disfigurement - of the very things I hate most.”

Halsin stands to join you, eyes searching your own until he has his feet beneath him and then your hands clasped in his own.

“I did not think it was something you felt ashamed of or I would not have made the jest. I apologize for not treading more carefully but…” he pauses again, weighing his words. “Your scars…they are nothing to be ashamed of.”

You want to laugh, can feel it bubbling up in your chest. A bitter, nasty little sound that wants to make itself known. But you choke it down, the weight of his words helping you to do so.

“But they’re…ugly. Hideous. I’ve heard it enough throughout my life that…it must be true.” Your words are broken, reflecting exactly how you feel inside. How you’ve felt for so long.

Quickly a hand comes up to cradle your cheek, thumb wiping away tears you hadn’t even realized started to fall.

Halsins mouth is set in a thin line, eyes serious as he guides you to look at him.

“Whoever whispered those lies into your ears deserves a fate worse than the Oak Father can give,” he tells you, eyes falling down to take you in entirely. “Nature may be beautiful, but it is far from perfect - and sometimes it is far from merciful.”

Slowly, he takes drops his hand from your cheek, instead taking your hand in his and guiding your arm upwards. He uses his other hand to begin tracing the scars that cascade across your skin, some small and some large - all with different stories.

His fingers are gentle, barley a whisper on your skin as they travel upwards towards your shoulder and eventually he turns you to face away from him again, his fingers continuing their journey down your back.

“Scars are a part of one’s life, just as nature intended. They tell the story of where life has taken you, of where you’ve been.”

His breath ghosts against your shoulder and a shiver runs through you as his lips ghost over the scar of the wound he just healed.

“Some may have more than others, but that just means their stories are easier to read,” he comes around to your front again, looking down at you with a reverence you’ve never seen before.

“Would you look upon my face and call me hideous for the scars I bear?”

Your heart leaps into your throat, eyes widening. “No! Of course not, you’re…I think you’re…beautiful.”

Halsin smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Then why can you not show yourself the same kindness?”

“I-I don’t know. I’ve never…thought about it like that.” You say honestly, eyes casting downwards.

Halsin quickly redirects your attention, bringing up his arm and removing one of his bracers, showing yet another scar. It’s white and faded with time but you can tell it was from a terrible wound that was never treated properly.

“I received this one early in my youth. I thought myself a proper druid, ready to take on even the toughest foes. However, a displacer beast was quick to show me otherwise. I was left with a scar and a lesson learned, encouraging me to not only work hard to attune with nature and its magic but to step back and think before charging head first into a situation.”

His words are wise, and you find yourself studying the scar with curiosity rather than disgust as you have with your own.

The next while continues on like this, Halsin slowly showing you his scars and telling the stories behind them. Eventually you both end up sitting on the bank to dry as the stories continue. And eventually, he gets you to open up too - staring with small mundane scars and stories before eventually revealing the scars you hated most and what led to them. Except…as the night goes on, you find the hatred giving way to nostalgia. Some of them came from memories that make laughter bubble in your chest. Like the time an old childhood friend wanted to try to knock an apple from your head with an arrow but instead left you with a scar on your temple and a fear of inexperienced archers. Or the time you had slipped in the river trying to catch frogs with that same friend and gained a scar on your knee.

Another pleasant story had just finished and Halsin smiled at you, eyes crinkling at the corners in the way you’ve come to admire.

“See, your scars, no matter how much you may detest them, tell your story - each one a different page.” Slowly he takes your hand in his own, placing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. “And I would be happy to know each and every one if you’ll let me.”

His words make butterflies erupt in your stomach and heat rush to your cheeks as you nod.

“It might take a while,” you gesture to yourself, “there’s…lots of pages.”

If it’s even possible, his grin widens. “All the better - it just means more time spent with you.”

You move before you can think, acting on what little bit of courage has gathered in your chest as you lean towards him and press a quick kiss to his lips. You move to retreat, just in case you have read the signs wrong. But a warm hand comes up to rest at the back of your neck, keeping you in place as he kisses you back.

His lips are warm and gentle against yours and you feel like you might melt into a puddle right here. But your elation is cut just short as Halsin pulls away, gazing at you happily.

“You are beautiful,” he says softly, “enough to rival nature itself. Please come to me if you ever need to be reminded of that.”

Suddenly bashful, you give him a small nod before leaning into him again, but this time just to rest your head on his shoulder as your arms slip around his middle. Halsin returns the embrace, strong arms slipping around you and cocooning you in a comforting warmth.

You still have a long way to go, but with Halsin at your side…the journey might be a little more bearable.

#halsin x reader #bg3 x reader #bg3 halsin #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #halsin

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