#st. cloud state

[brutalistinteriors]

Centennial Hall, St. Cloud State University, Minnesota. S.C. Smiley and Associates

[illustratus]

St. Augustine: A View of the Plaza and the Ponce de León Hotel in 1890 by John Stobart

[auroraliiga]

Coach Saara Niemi with all the HIFK alumnae on Naisleijonat: Sanni Vanhanen, Sanni Ahola, Emilia Vesa, Krista Parkkonen, and Julia Liikala

[dancinginmybesttux]

I am so excited for PSEO this fall! A taste of college, if you will.

Go Huskies! SCSU 🤟🏻

[ceilidho]

take me home, country road

[ao3]

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 18) tw: minor character death, injuries, and misogynistic language

masterlist

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He’s far off still, the smoking gun held tight in his hand and aimed up at the sky. A warning shot.  

At first, you don’t quite believe it. He appears like a mirage in the distance after wandering through the desert for days, on the brink of starvation. Like a trick of the eye. You squint against the light, sure that you’ve mistaken the familiar felt pinch front hat and the speckled Appaloosa he sits astride for someone else, a stranger come to save you instead of the man you’ve been desperately pining for since Graves stole you from your home. 

But the longer you stare at the man coming towards you, the brim of his hat casting a shadow over his face save for the grim set of his mouth, the harder it is to deny that it really is John. 

Your chest is fit to burst. Heart pumping wildly against your ribcage. The sight of him is revelatory—a burning bush, a stream of light through storm clouds, St Elmo’s fire. The euphoric high is almost overwhelming.

“Son of a bitch,” Graves hisses beneath his breath, hand reaching for the revolver on his belt. 

John is quicker though, firing off another round, this time at the ground between them, alarming Graves enough to make his arm jerk away from his side. Even you yelp. The gunfire cuts your swell of adulation short, bringing you back flush to the surface of the real world again. Graves’ horse scrambles back a few steps, nearly rearing up before Graves gets control of him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, now—” Graves booms, right in your ear, so loud that you wince, curling into yourself. 

The gelding chuffs at John’s approach, unsettled. Graves digs his spurs into the horse’s side when it takes a few nervous steps back, making it whinny in pain. You’d tell him off, but you’ve learned by now to hold your tongue around Graves. He only knows how to impose his authority through pain. 

“Easy, alright—” Graves calls out, holding out the hand not tangled in the reins to show that it’s empty, the revolver still sheathed in its holster. “No one’s gonna do anything stupid.”

The horse John sits astride is the one he never dared to train you on. The one you know would buck you straight off if you tried to hoist yourself up on its saddle. He’s bigger than Buttercup, all muscle and broodsome aura like its owner, and he doesn’t take kindly to strangers. 

When it breathes out, you imagine its breath should smell sulfuric. Fire and brimstone. 

Closer to you now, you can see his eyes under the brim of his hat. He glowers at Graves, the same look you’ve seen only once before, staring through the window of the general store at the scowl carved into his face when he dragged a man across town, but intensified. Not so much as a glimmer of sympathy or understanding in his eyes. Just cold rage. 

The lines in his face are deep from lack of sleep, dark troughs under his eyes. Shoulders stiff; every muscle of his tensed, poised to react. You wonder how long after Graves took you John realized and followed the two of you in pursuit. 

“I’m gonna say this once and you best not try my patience: let the lady go.”

The sound of his voice rumbles through you, making the hair on your arms raise. Seldom have you heard him use that tone of voice, more man than sheriff. 

Graves’ hand tightens on the reins, knuckles going white. You don’t have to look over your shoulder to know that he has the same obsequious look on his face as he did back in town, indignation relegated to his extremities. You can see it in the tensed muscle of his forearms.

“Now Sheriff, you may have the run of this county, but I’ve got the power of the law on my side. The state of New York has issued a warrant for this woman’s arrest.” Graves’ smarmy evocation to the legality of his actions rankles you. He acts like the whole situation is out of his control, that he takes no joy in your apprehension. Simply a matter of duty. 

Not that it seems to make a difference. Even you could tell Graves that. 

“I won’t ask again.” John’s voice is threaded with fury, angrier than you’ve ever heard him speak. 

And true to his words, he doesn’t. The silence stretches between the two men, fraught with tension. Graves is a rigid line at your back. 

He’s the first to break the silence; the first to give. “At least let me show you the warrant, Sheriff,” Graves implores. “I ain’t just some vagrant that’s come and taken the sheriff’s wife without cause—and I assure you, there is cause.”

John doesn’t say a word, blue eyes still severe. Colder than the waters of Cocytus. 

Graves must take his silence as permission because he reaches a hand into his pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He holds it out to John at first, perhaps expecting the man to come close enough to take it from his hand, but John doesn’t even glance at the hand offering him the arrest warrant, eyes still locked on Graves. 

“See now, I’ll even read it out—” he says, clearing his throat and half turning the paper back to him. “‘Whereas it has been represented to Government that—’”

“Give the letter to my wife,” John cuts him off, gesturing towards the warrant in Graves’ hand with his gun. “She’ll deliver it to me once you’ve handed her over.”

The interruption stuns Graves into silence, the warrant still held in his outstretched arm. He must not be accustomed to men deferring to women instead of him, much less a criminal like you. Your stomach cramps with nerves. The blow to his ego worries you more than John getting his hands on the arrest warrant. His behavior up to this point has been predictable—violent, but unsurprising. You aren’t interested in finding out if losing his temper changes that. 

John’s eyes flick to yours. The first time he’s really looked at you since arriving unannounced, just a quick glance over you to ensure that you’re well. He must not like what he sees because the skin around his eyes tightens. 

The moment of inattention is all Graves needs, eyes trained on it like a hunting dog. John’s eyes barely twitch away to meet yours and Graves draws his gun, his aim wild when he shoots. 

You don’t see what he hits, but the gunfire drives John’s horse into a panic, throwing its head back and rearing up onto its hind legs. Graves fires again and the ground between you explodes, dirt and debris erupting into the air. The horse roars, the sound deep and throaty. 

Graves grabs you by the back of your dress, forcing your back to arch and shoulders to pull back, using you, for all intents and purposes, as a meat shield. You can hear John try to take control of his horse, but it’s near mindless with fear, braying and bucking when Graves fires again, white smoke billowing from the muzzle. Panic seizes you by the throat when John’s horse bucks him right off, bellowing a curse when his body slams to the ground. 

A scream bursts from your throat, but Graves holds you in place before you can slide off the saddle, spitting a tense shut the fuck up into your ear before digging his heel into his horse’s flank and steering him around, beating a hasty retreat. His horse moves in a wide arc until his body is turned back in the direction that Graves was originally heading. 

You struggle against him until the horse moves at a speed too dangerous to chance falling from its back. It covers ground fast, moving at a breakneck speed. 

“Stop—let me down!” you scream, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. The howling wind carries your voice away. 

The violent toing and froing makes it impossible to cast a backward glance and see if John is in pursuit. All of your senses narrow down to what’s in front of you; from the saddle horn digging into your stomach and the air whipping past your face to the feeling of Graves’ breath wafting over the back of your neck as he pants. 

A booming crack fills the air and you scream, fear soaring to an unfathomable height. 

Graves grunts and tenses behind you, his hands spasming around the reins and letting go involuntarily. Then you feel the body behind you slump to the side, his weight almost unbalancing you until he falls off the horse altogether, feet slipping out of the stirrups. 

The blood in your ears masks the sound of his body hitting the ground. Your head whips around to follow the trajectory of Graves’ body, but a wave of vertigo slams into you, a head on collision that forces you to dig your fingers into the horse’s mane and turn your body back around. 

The horse barely notices the body slipping off its back though, tunnel vision on the road ahead. Legs pumping furiously beneath it, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt. You’d have thought the horse would’ve slowed up with the sudden unburdening of the other person astride it, but if anything, it picks up speed. 

You can’t calm down enough to catch your breath; it gallops ahead of you as well, your vision growing spotty with the short, jagged breaths you take in. Lungs collapsing under the weight of your chest. Eyes squinted against the piercing wind. Sunspots brighter than light itself. 

Your instinct is to make yourself small; shield yourself from the impending pain. That inescapable reality rushes towards you as quickly as you race towards it. You’re going to fall. It’s almost certain. You whimper when a particularly rough stride makes you slip an inch to the right, your fingers gripping into the horse’s mane ever tighter, desperate to keep yourself astride.

Someone’s voice breaks through the noise and you open your eyes. 

In your fearstruck state, you almost don’t recognize the man riding beside you and keeping pace until he says your name—your real name—and you snap back to yourself. No time to contemplate your name in his mouth though, no time for anything except keeping from slipping into total panic.

“Pull up on the reins!” John roars over the clamor of hooves. 

You peel your face from the horse’s mane to meet his eyes. The parallel of a memory from long ago. It flashes before your eyes and you remember yourself. Numb hands fisted in the horse’s mane unclench. 

“Pull up!” he shouts again, and this time you comprehend. It’s the same as the time before. 

Summoning every ounce of courage in your bones, you tighten your thighs and belly to lift yourself up, gathering and bridging the reins in your manacled hands. Half halt, release, and half halt again. 

“Good—now circle!” John’s voice booms in your ear and through your blood. 

You flinch when you try to steer your horse into a wide, sweeping turn and he resists at first, but on your second try, he follows your pull, his strides gradually slowing, easing up. When your horse finally comes to a standstill, walking its last few strides before coming to a stop, you sit with that bubble of tension until it bursts. Under your thighs, you can feel your horse’s ribs expand and contract with its labored breath. 

The world blurs for a moment. The adrenaline flooding your body dissipates more with every breath you take, but the crash is just as intense as the rise. You can feel the shakes that wrack your body in a way that your mind can’t quite yet take in, still outside of itself. The first thing you truly register is your husband suddenly at your side, coaxing you down from the horse, your handcuffed hands braced on his chest as he helps you down and then holding on to him when your knees nearly buckle under you.

“Thank Christ,” he growls, pulling you into his chest. 

The smell of tobacco and cloves is woven into the fabric of his shirt and you breathe it in zealously because it’s his. The reassurance that your husband has you, that he’s with you now, and the bad is over, nearly bowls you over. Makes you shake all the harder.

When you finally pull your face away from John’s chest, he cups your cheek with a gunpowder dusted hand, tilting your head up so he can press his lips to your forehead. Your gaze flits up and you stare at him with bleary eyes, wondering what he sees when he looks at you. Messy hair and a fleeting breath that quivers out, breaks to pieces, illuminates the sky when you glance over his head and it’s so blue that you could swim in it. 

John frowns when you accidentally roll your shoulder back and wince. “You’re hurt.” 

There’s no use in lying when he'll find out the truth soon enough, so you just nod. 

“His doing, was it?” he assumes more than asks, inspecting you closely now and noting all the fresh abrasions immediately visible to his eyes.  

Most of your injuries are surface level, more than apparent to him after a quick perusal. A split lip and plenty of scrapes just beginning to scab. You’re too tired to recount the events of the day before though, so you just shrug. Then hiss, the pain so intense that your bones go cold for a split second. 

His forehead pinches with his frown, ghosting his hand over your shoulder as if to hold it in place. “I’ll look at it later, okay, darlin’?”

Every inch of you aches. You wish it could just be over now and you could be back in your bed by sundown, but you know the way home will be just as long. No rest unless you want the journey to be twice as long. The exhaustion alone might have you keel over before night falls. 

Then someone coughs and drags you back into the real world. 

You follow the sound with your eyes until they land on its cause. The crumpled form of the bounty hunter that dragged you out of town lies a quarter mile back. It’s difficult to make out the state of him from so far away, but you can tell it isn’t pretty, mangled and bloody from the fall he took off the horse. 

“Oh God…” you murmur, eyes widening when the man twitches against the grass. 

John’s hand falls away from your cheek. His anger is so palpable that you can feel it fill him back up, blue eyes going steely and jaw tightening as he stares at the man that tried to take you from him. 

“Stay here,” your husband growls, hand reaching down to draw his pistol again.

John leaves you by the horses some distance away as he makes his way over to Graves’ prone form. Blood seeps from a gunshot wound in his shoulder, saturating his shirt and wetting the dirt beneath him, and even from where you stand, you can see the odd angle of his ankle from where he hit the ground. 

With no small amount of effort, Graves props himself up on his good arm, the other hanging limp against the ground. Even the sight makes you wince, bile churning in your stomach. He has to be in tremendous pain. Even John limps a little as he approaches the other man, hip likely sore from his own fall. 

Against your better judgment, and your husband’s command, you take a step towards them. And then another.

You have no reason other than the sinking feeling in your belly. If it were you with the gun, things would be different, you think. You’d do it again, without a second thought. Anything to keep Graves from opening his mouth. 

The gun in John’s hand makes clear his intentions in no uncertain terms. Out on the plains in the middle of nowhere, even taking pity on the man and bringing Graves to the nearest town might not be enough. It’s a rough world out there. Tougher still with a wounded shoulder and sprained ankle. 

More to the matter, John’s face says it all, jaw clenched and lips drawn into a tight line. 

“It doesn’t have to go this way, sheriff,” Graves wheezes when the other man draws close enough to hear. 

“You know I haven’t got a choice now,” John says, gazing up at the sky for a moment before looking back down at the man on the ground. “Not after you laid a hand on my wife.”

Despite the distance, Graves’ voice carries when he speaks. “You think you know that bitch? You don’t know this woman from Eve. What makes you think she won’t butcher you like she did that man back east?”

So casually he says it that you almost miss it. And then you don’t. The words pour over you like a sudden rain and you are back in that room, dread so potent that it chars the flesh, leaving cratered, necrotic holes wherever it touches. The worst moment of your life. 

And Graves says it like a sin of your own making, like it was something you wanted, not a moment in your life haunting you from beyond the grave. 

Your heart stops when your husband looks over at you assessingly. The truth lours over the two of you now, out in the open at last. All those months of hiding it, squandered in a moment by an injured man’s words. All you can do is stare helplessly at the man outlined by the blue sky, the horizon forever etching him into your memory. It’s the first time since you stumbled into the sheriff’s office all those months ago that you haven’t wanted him to think that you weren’t the woman that was supposed to be his wife.

“Shoulda listened to me, sheriff,” Graves laughs, his voice pained and raspy. “That Jezebel needs to answer for what she did.”

You can see it in his eyes that he believes Graves. And why wouldn’t he? The man has committed no crime; spoken not a lie to this point. 

John looks at you in such a strange way though. There’s no surprise there; just a glint in his eye meant only for you. A glint that says darlin’, this ain’t nothin’ new; you never could’ve fooled me. 

He knew your name after all. And you wonder how long he’s known. If he found out sometime in those first days or somewhere down the line or if the arrest warrant fell across his desk in recent days and he knew it would come to this, someone hunting you down across state lines to bring you back. If he knew he’d always have to come after you and rescue you from the jaws of death. 

Everything comes all at once, each moment flashing across your mind barely long enough to leave an impression. Everything is proven immaterial in seconds. 

There’s so much between the two of you. History, obligation, duty. Tenderness shouldn’t even be the half of it, and yet it bears down twice as hard. It’s the only thing that matters when you look at him—not the thought of being dragged back east and forced to stand trial, not the injustice of being made to atone for protecting yourself against a worse fate, but the thought of being taken away from him, of never seeing him again.

You can feel that worry evaporate the longer you hold his gaze. There’s something intentional there, something he is saying without words. 

These days, you do not think to tremble when his hands are on your lips. You tilt your head instead, wait for him to make his next move. Your trust, implicit, underlying everything. Knowing he’ll break the bread and feed you from his hands if need be.

Though you can’t unhinge your jaw enough to ask him to promise that he’ll keep you, his eyes say that it’s a foregone conclusion. How could he ever let you go? You’re everything he’s ever wanted, the only thing even duty could never take from him. 

John looks back down at the man lying at his feet. “Couldn’t help runnin’ your mouth, now could you?”

Graves opens his mouth, but John doesn’t wait for a response. He pulls the trigger.

[calypsocolada]

how your first kiss went with them... ft. shigaraki, aizawa, & hawks

authors note: hi hi! just finished watching season 6 of mha and got inspired. first time writing for mha characters and started with my favorite ones :) hope you all enjoy!!

cw: angst, fem! one for all weilder, slight spoilers for season 6

wc: 2.6k

click here for my masterlist

Tomura could only watch as his mind was stolen, watch his body being overtaken by a force he wasn’t strong enough to stop. All for One’s control taking over. He knew he had seconds left before he’d no longer cease to be himself. You burned with hatred beneath him, your left arm broken and useless, your right hand holding some sharp shrapnel that you’d plunged desperately into his side, your powers flickering weakly within you. He didn’t feel the pain. Your eyes flashed, his hands around your neck, squeezing. Someone was going to win here but… it wasn’t going to be him. 

He pulled you hard, the fire in your eyes licking and burning his own but he couldn’t care less. If he was going to die he was going to make one last grave mistake that might send him to the grave earlier than expected. He leaned down where you were pinned beneath him and with impressive force, smashed his lips against your own. 

The kiss was like a fight. Like all your other fights. But lips instead of fists. With breaths instead of words. With groans instead of screams and growls. His hands gripped your face hard to keep you where he wanted you. You, in a fit of confusion and pure survival instinct twisted the shrapnel in his side. He gasped in pain but that only spurred him on, his mouth cracking yours open in a feverish attempt to be as close as humanly possible. He had no indication whether or not you wanted this until the pain ceased and he felt your tongue brush against his. His breathing hitched, muddled with pain and sorrow and complete obsession. He pulled you off the ground roughly and kissed you until you both were gasping for air. When he pulled back the state he left you in was enough to satisfy him for years. Your lips were kissed pink and wet, your cheeks had a wicked blush across them as you stared at him with utter bewilderment and something else that had his stomach tangling in knots within him.

He resigned himself to death then. He was guilty as sin.

Your hand was still on the hilt of your shrapnel that was embedded in his side as you stared at each other. Breaths heavy. Tomura didn’t know how to be kind. He didn’t know how to be soft. He’d never kissed anyone before and it should’ve been pretty damn suspicious when the first person he’d ever felt the need to devour with his lips was the one standing opposite of him in this endless war. The one he needed to destroy. And to say he wanted to devour you was almost an understatement. He wanted to climb into your body and live in your ribcage, safe and tucked away. He wanted to be inside you, wanted that mind of yours to only know him, wanted those pink lips to only speak his name, those pretty eyes to only meet his. The obsession was endless. He wanted it more than ever right now. Death knocking down his rotted door. So bad that he hadn’t even noticed his own tears before they fell and hit your cheeks. You blinked a few times, slowly coming back down from the clouds. Tomura reached for you a last time, the pad of his thumb swiping his tears off your cheek. 

“Save me, hero.” He breathed out before everything went black.

~

“Again!” He called as you huffed. Aizawa was a relentless teacher. You felt your powers flicker inside your veins as you tried to control them, to harness them and use them the way they were meant to be used. But dammit, you were tired. You two had been at this for hours. You weren’t some kid he could push around and it was then, with exhaustion mingling with annoyance you shook your head defiantly. Throwing your hands down.

“I’m done!” You growled at him, tossing aside your practice weapon. Aizawa straightened.

“We’re just getting started, hero.” He mocked as you stared at him with venom. He knew all about your inherited quirk, knew there wasn’t much time for you to harness it and so he’d been pushing you to the edge for months to train you. 

“Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you then? Fraud?” He asked and that fire that you wanted to extinguish flickered in seconds, catching your inside on fire. 

“I’ll kill you!” You growled. You didn’t need that useless weapon. You outstretched your arm and black whip shot out like an extension of your grip, it wrapped around Aizawa in milliseconds as you yanked him towards you. You knew he’d use erasure and you were looking forward to it. The moment he used it it didn’t stop his moment as black whip dissolved around him, your powers canceled out only for his face to meet your fist. You hit him hard enough to rattle the brain in his skull. He hit the ground even harder and for a moment your heart leaped. He’d always said you were quick to fly off the handle and you’d just proved him right. Your hand ached, your knuckles busted. Aizawa groaned from the ground, pushing up on his forearms. You breathed out a relieved breath, thinking you had maybe killed him with that fuckery of a move. 

“That was smart.” He sighed, his upper cheek already had a bruise forming. “Why don’t you give me this energy during practice instead of making me get you angry?” He asks as you look at him hard.

“We’ve been at it for hours.” You growled angrily. “I’m tired.”

“And you don’t think I am too?” He pushed to his feet, giving you a hard look, his dark hair falling in his face. “You are a brat. You are stronger than any quirk user yet you don’t care enough to really harness those powers. You asked for this.”

“I know!” You burst out, turning pointedly away from him, dreaming of your bed, dreaming of a night without nightmares of all for one stealing your power and killing the world. You weren’t a kid but you were still young, young enough that this burden on your shoulders was crushing you. 

“You can’t run from this.” Aizawa said but he didn’t sound angry. You still didn’t turn to face him. “You think you’re all alone?”

“Of course I’m alone! It’s just like you said, I’m the strongest.”

“Everyone needs a hand. Even All-Might.” Aizawa said. You turned on him, eyes sharp. 

“All-Might defeated All for one on his own. There’s not a soul that could stand beside me and not be killed.”

“I’ve stood beside you this whole time. I’ve trained you. You think I’ll just let you go at it alone after everything we’ve been through?” Aizawa asked as the look in your eyes hardened.

“I won’t let you.” You said in a low, intimidating voice. Aizawa’s lips parted slightly. “All for one will not get a shot at you. I’ll die before that happens.”

“You’re stubborn but not as stubborn as me.” Aizawa returns, taking a step towards you. “I’m with you till the end.”

“Did you not hear a word I-” Aizawa leaned into your space, hand sliding over your cheek as his lips cut off your sentence. You almost pulled back but he stepped closer to you, one hand on your face the other sliding around you and resting on the dip of your back. You pushed him back forcefully, your breath shaky as you stared at him. 

“Forgive me… I-” You grabbed him roughly by his shirt, slamming your lips against his. He grunted against your lips in surprise, hands barely ghosting over your hips. You kissed him unforgivingly hard. This was a sort of ultimate payback in a small way, of all the hours he overworked you. You pushed him back on the training mat and slid atop him. This was a form of practice, right? A workout that wouldn’t exhaust you… or would it? If he thought for a moment you’d let him help you now he was sorely mistaken. But on the other side of the coin, if you thought for a moment he wouldn’t die for you, you were sorely mistaken as well. Rock meets hard place.

~

“Idiot.” You growled beside his hospital bed. Hawks looked peaceful and you wanted nothing more than to shake him awake and smack some sense into him. But he was still healing so your assault of slaps and punches would have to wait. You huffed. Leaning back in your chair, flipping through the channels on the tv. It wasn’t long before your mind wandered to the same thing you’d been thinking about for days.

Hawks almost dying for you. Hawks pushing you aside before you were impaled with Shigaraki’s power. Having to watch Hawks get impaled, having his eyes meet yours and a stupid soft and beautiful smile on his face as he mumbled something you didn’t even get to hear. You tried remembering again, tried focusing on his lips in your memories but it was of no use. You huffed, unable to relax as you turned back to look at him. The number two hero. You stare at him, your eyes drifting to those lips. You willed him to say those words again and when his eyes opened you didn’t even notice.

“Watching me sleep? How romantic.” He said, his voice gruff from being unused for days. You jumped at not only the sound of his voice but being caught staring at his lips.

“I wasn’t. I was trying to kill you with my mind.” You grumbled protectively, eyes snapping up to meet him. The way he looked at you was the most dangerous thing you’d see in a while. The pure adoration in his eyes, the smile that formed on his lips at your joke. It twisted at your insides.

“Are you alright?” He asked because the last thing he remembered in the fight was you hurt and in trouble. You tensed.

“You're the one in a hospital bed.” You growled. Hawks seemed to just notice this fact, he was utterly distracted by the fact that you’d been sitting at his bedside. He reached for your hand but you pulled away and stood to your feet.

“Y/n-”

“I told you not to get involved.” You growled. “I had it under control but you had to go and try to play the hero.”

“I am a hero.” Hawks said, something in his eyes that angered you more.

“Not to me. I don’t need your sacrifice. If you wanna get yourself killed, do it for someone else.” You hissed. He looked at you. You hoped your venomous words would have some effect on him. You wanted him to be angry. Wanted him to hate you. To look at you with harsh eyes but his expression didn’t change.

“Such venom.” He said with a smirk. If you didn’t have some modicum of control over your powers and anger this whole hospital would’ve been brought down. “Are you trying to push me away again?”

“What?” You huffed.

“You heard me, number one. I know what you’re doing but it’s not gonna work.”

“And what am I doing?”

“What you do to everybody you start to care about. You lash out at them so they’re not tempted to stay by your side when things go sideways.” 

“I-- I don’t do that.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Hawks admonished with a shake of his head. You take in a deep breath, tensing your jaw. “Growl all you want, I’m not getting scared away.”

“You’re crazy. You almost died, this isn’t some fucking joke.”

“I knew I’d be fine. Knew you’d carry me off the battlefield.” He croons, you stare at him hard.

“How could you have known?”

“I’m an optimistic guy.” He smiles. You roll your eyes, turning to leave. He catches your wrist just as you reach for the handle.

“What-? You need to stay in bed, idiot.” You growl as Hawks holds your wrist gently in one hand, the other on his bandaged torso.

“I’ll get back in bed if you stay.”

“Are you serious?” You growl as he nods his head.

“Deadly serious.”

“You’re a child.” You sigh. 

“Stay. Don’t run away from me.” He says and the seriousness in his voice has your stomach flipping. You pull out of his touch.

“Get in bed.” You direct and his eyes look down into yours, a challenge.

“Make me.” He says. Your eye twitches as you waste zero time pushing this idiot back towards his bed. Once the backs of his knees hit the mattress he pulls a move on you and you’re pulled on top of him. You two tumble onto the hospital bed. Your heart lurches dangerously into your throat, feeling the warmth of his hands ghosting your hips. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Hush.” He says, hands sliding up to either side of your face as he pulls you down so that your lips meet. The shock of his cold lips against yours was like a rush to your system. An overloading and overheating shock. You gasped at the ache of want that tore through you. That had always been lurking beneath every tense moment with Hawks. Him training you. You two on missions. Reluctant breakfast, lunch, and dinners with him. He wormed his way into your heart and you hated it. Anyone close to you was surely going to be killed and that dangerous hope in your chest that built when he was around should’ve raised flags for you. But you let him in. You selfish creature. You pushed him back, and moved shakily to your feet. Hawks reached for you again and you caught his wrist, twisting it. He flinched in pain, staring at you with confusion and hurt.

“Don’t touch me again.” You growled. You needed space from him, your head swimming, your eyes traitorously drifting to the lips that had just been against yours.

“What's wrong?” Hawks asked. You stepped back, narrowing your eyes.

“You never listen. You-- you’re always trying to confuse me and sneak your way into my-- you need to leave me alone.”

“No.”

“N-No?” You asked as Hawks barely raised his brows, nodding his head. His blond hair falling against his forehead. He looked so annoyingly beautiful you wanted to hit him. 

“I don’t just sacrifice my life for anybody.” He says as he stands, wincing in pain.

“Just stay in the damn bed-” He pulled you to him, inches taller than you, eyes unwaveringly serious as he spoke his next sentence.

“I love you.” He said and the words had your eyes widening, a soft gasp escaping your lips. He clearly loved that he caught you off guard. “You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know what I said.” 

“What you said?” You echo, unable to properly digest this moment. 

“When I saved you. I said I loved you.” The words his lips spoke that you’d been driven up a wall trying to remember. If he died you would’ve never known.

“I hate you.”

“Close enough.” He grins, leaning and pressing his lips gently to yours. You didn’t push him off, you didn’t have the strength, something selfish was taking over and you didn’t have the will power to fight it. You’d played it safe for years. Not letting anyone get close. But… you failed. You kissed Hawks back with twice the passion, pushing him back on the bed, caging him beneath you. If he was going to love you you were going to let him. Damned selfishness…

[deadghosy]

THANKS TO @lazyemmy FOR THIS LOVELY IDEA OF THE PENGUIN! READER💗🦆

HAZBIN HOTEL X PENGUIN! READER

prompt: during one extermination an angel had kidnapped you and took you to heaven based off a common mistake

“Quack?” You were literally trying to water the hotel’s flowers when you forgot about extermination….the leader of the exterminators had grabbed you by your sailor outfit Velvette made you.

“Shut your mouth short stuff.” You heard a man’s voice to see a person wearing a horned mask and a golden robe. You panicked as Charlie had told you about a man like this as Adam scoffs seeing your panicked state.

“JEEZ CHILL OUT YOU FUCKIN' BIRD BRAIN!” Adam yells as he enters in the portal of heaven with the exterminators behind him. He plops you down on the clouded floors to see the heavenly gates Charlie tells you in stories

As you waddled you seen a male who seemed to be waiting for you. “Ah! Reader..so glad to have you. It seems as if heaven had made a mistake and sent you to hell.” St. Peter said as he picks you up having the gates open. Your eyes widen at the bright light of heaven as angels walk and smile. “Welcome to your true home [reader]”

The air smelt so clean and not bloody as it seemed so peaceful and holy. After St. Peter getting your room and home ready to stay in heaven. You start to feel a little “home” sick as you hope the hotel crew was doing well and aren’t going crazy.

Which they totally are as Charlie is panicking calling her father.

After a few days , Adam will visit you a lot saying how he got forced to look after you…(he wasn’t forced he just liked how cute and pure you are but he’ll never admit it) Adam makes dumb ass jokes about how all those sinners down there should die and perish as he pats you on your little head. You quacked trying to show some worry for your friends down there.

“Oh them? Hah! They’re probably running like headless chickens looking for your ass.” Adam says with his usual grin as he pops some popcorn in his mouth. “Want some?” He says as he waves a piece of popcorn in your face. you sniffed it and ate it from his hand as adam's eyes widen at your cuteness…

you're like a little baby..💗😭😭😭

Adam grabs your chubby cold cheeks as he faces you towards him. “Never leave here. Okay?” He says seriously low with a protective tone as you quack nodding nervously at how quick this dude got attached to you.

Adam pushes your face away from him smirking. “Good now let’s watch this video I saw off of this human app called ‘TikTok’”

Lute didn’t know how to approach you, but she sends you small gifts that reminds her of you as you just open them like “quack?” And a head tilt confused but take it in anyways.

I imagine lute literally being your bodyguard when you don’t have any work to do as she just pushes anyone who gets to close to you away. LIKE IT COULD BE AN OLD LADY AND SHE WOULD BE LIKE “BITCH MOVE!”😭

After the 3rd day of the 1 week of being in heaven, lute definitely got overprotective of you. Always keeping tabs on where you go and which house you deliver mail to. I mean who knows what would happen to a cute soul like you? (A/n: Omg this sounds like a yandere…)

The angels love how adorable you are as they pet you. Immediately you are popular just like how you are popular in hell. Sera has given you a job as a mail boy again as you smile.

I can see St.Peter visit you when he isn’t on duty or just when someone takes his spot so he can say hi and hang out with you.

You wear a cute little yellow and white mail delivery fit thanks to sera who got a designer to get you to fit it perfectly.

You love how you still got your delivery job as you leave a cookie on the front porches of the angels. It’s like your significant signature to others to have a good day.

Adam and lute were arguing one time in front of you and you sniffled not liking the loud noises and immediately, and surprisingly. Adam and Lute pretended everything was okay to make you happy as Adam picked you up and took you away to get your favorite snack for you.

Sera checks on you as well with Emily by her side as Emily just finds you so cute and is excited to get to hang out with you more.

Emily immediately hugs and kisses your head amused by your small and kind soul she sees in you.

Sera would like to take you on stroll on week 2. She’d like to show you around heaven with Emily as she hold you in her arms gushing chow cute you are.

NOW I CAN IMAGINE YOU AND EMILY GOING ON A SHOPPING SPREE TO EXPLORE NEW CLOTHING AESTHETIC ✨💗

You showed yourself to be an angel by spirit as you helped a kid get a new lollipop, which makes sera smile at you being helpful as he is glad to hav with here in heaven and not they “ratchet” place.

You do miss hell as it had your friends who you got use to….you hoped they were still doing okay down there.

MEANWHILE IN HELL: “OMG OMG I CANT BELIEVE THEY GOT KIDNAPPED…IM A BAD FRIENDDD” “HON DONT WORRY, YOUR DAD CAN FIND A WAY TO GET THEM..” “it’s okay fat nuggets, they’ll come back…” *sad oink* and everyone else is having their own panic moment in their own way.

MEANWHILE BACK IN HEAVEN: “quack.” You said looking up at adam who holds your hand. “Huh? Jeeezzz bird brain..stop worrying about those loser down there…they’re fine without you.” Adam says smirking knowing damn well they aren’t .

Emily holds your hand as you waddle quacking at the ice creams around here. They taste so much better as your eyes sparkle at this sweet flavored treat. Emily squeals as her eyes got big and took a pic of your happy face. Sera most definitely got the picture on her heaven phone as her face soften seeing the new angel in heaven enjoying their self.

I imagine Adam is the one to be the one who claims to be the closest to you. But really he just brags about himself to you about how much sinners he kills.

I headcannon for your wings to be little cute fairy looking wings or pure white ones as you just fly.

You definitely have cherubim in heaven which makes the angels find you more adorable as the delivery boy.

You had made an account literally one day, and instantly you got 2 million followers which made you shock as Adam just munches on snacks while you quack panicked at how quick you became famous here.

I headcannon St. Peter to send you cookies with those cute little penguin designs on it. It looks like Christmas cookies but they are so cute and tasty

Say for example you fell and you couldn’t get up as you’re so rounded 😭 LITERALLY ALL YOU CAN DO IS ROLL AND SQEUAK AND QUACK💗 Adam is laughing as he takes a picture and video for himself before helping you up.

I can imagine Adam and Sera having a schedule out to plan who gets it hang out with you on weeks and days 😭

You liked the herbal tea they had as you waddle around with Adam having a kid leash on you as he just looked bored.

At the end of the week, you were sleeping wearing a whole ass cute gown Adam bought you as he literally dropped it on you with a flustered face seeing your cute smile.

As you slept…Lucifer snuck into heaven and snatched you up leaving a “fuck you” letter to Adam. Don’t even question how he got into heaven. Just be glad he took you.

[thealtoduck]

Dally

Jason Todd x Male Reader

Warnings: Smut, anal sex, bottom!Reader, top!Jason, rough sex, unprotected sex, blowjob, fingering, doggy style, porn with plot, size kink, you and Jason are both kinda tipsy, Jason is aftercare king, you and Jason are unkowingly filmed, angst ending…

N/n = Nickname

The Socialite and The Vigilante | Masterlist

Summary: You and Jason get tipsy at an event and go back to your place…

(A/n: No. 1 Hoe Anthem)

——

One of the mayoral candidates, Mr Stone, had invited the Gotham Elite for what he called ”a celebration of Gotham’s greatest”. But from what you’d heard his campaign was running low on funds and he wanted to sweet talk all the people with deep pockets.

Whatever the reason may be you were now stuck there amongst the crowd of ”Gotham’s greatest”. You’d preferred to not go but according to your mother it’d be improper to ditch such an event and in her own words ”You have to go cause I don’t want to, I can’t stand that man”.

So you sacrificed yourself to spend the evening at the party… plus Jason had been forced to go along with his family and you promised you’d keep him company.

You watched as Jason entered in the company of his family, he was dressed in a black suit, giving him a dark and luxurious look. He and his family were greeted by Mr Stone.

While Bruce spoke to Mr Stone, Jason looked around the crowd of black suits and evening dresses until his eyes met yours and a soft smile appeared on his face. Once Mr Stone left them to enjoy the party Jason made his way to you.

You were stood in a corner looking at nice sculpture when Jason approached you. ”No tie?” he asked noticing you substituted a tie with a thin sliver chain necklace. ”Never been the biggest fan of ties, Jay, you know that” you stated in a your more upper class tone that tended to come out at these types of events.

”Well, you look great” Jason said grazing his hand against yours slightly. ”You too” you said adjusting his hair slightly. ”I’ll go get us some drinks” Jason said, soon coming back with two glasses of champagne, handing you one.

He then lowered his hand in his pocket bringing out a hip flask, pouring some of the contents in his own glass before offering ”Whiskey?”. Making you let out a small laugh before holding your glass out to him, saying ”If you insist”.

You and Jason mostly kept to yourselves through the party. You listened to Mr Stone’s speech talking about how good his campaign was going but made sure to add that it does take it’s toll on him, his workers and his family. But most of all to his wallet, he had joked making light polite laughs sound out in the room.

You and Jason found a table to relax at, sipping your drinks. The event was quite the bore, the music was dull, the decorations were plain, even the champagne on it’s own felt tasteless. You were lucky Jason had brought the flask.

Soon you and Jason were joined by Mr Stone himself. ”Mr Todd, Mr St. Cloud, enjoying yourselves?” he asked, you put on a polite smile and said ”Of course, it’s quite the event you’ve put together, Mr Stone”.

”Thank you, what a shame your mother couldn’t come” Mr Stone said. ”Yeah, she really wanted to but she wasn’t feeling well, but she wishes you luck with the mayoral campaign” you lied, your mother had said nothing of the sort, you were just being polite.

”You boys are old enough to vote now, right?” Mr Stone mentioned, you and Jason shared a look, you’d both been waiting for the topic to come up. ”Yes, we are” Jason answered and you nodded. ”Well, I hope this party has helped convince you who to vote for” he suggested followed by a lighthearted chuckle.

You did your best to not roll your eyes and said with a smile ”Of course, Mr Stone, you have our support”. ”You bet, Mr Stone” Jason said in a fake cheery tone. Mr Stone then said goodbye leaving you and Jason, your expression immediately turned to disgust as Mr Stone was out of sight.

”I hate him” Jason stated, followed by you saying ”Me too”. ”Let’s get some more champagne and then get out of here” you told him, he nodded in agreement and the two of you went to the drink table. Jason emptied the last of his whiskey in to your glasses and you drank.

Once you’d both finished 2 more glasses each you made your way towards the exit, you called your chauffeur to pick the two of you up. As soon as the two of you came out on sidewalk Jason loosened his tie and you took off your suit jacket.

Soon a familiar car pulled up in front of you and you and Jason climbed in the backseat. ”You wanna come back to my place or do you need a ride elsewhere?” you offered him, Jason smiled. ”Think I’ll join you” he said placing a hand on your thigh.

You leaned in against Jason’s shoulder, as the chauffeur started driving towards your apartment building.

Luckily for you the traffic was good enough for you to be home in a short while, you and Jason stepped out of the car and you thanked your chauffeur before making your way up to your apartment on the top floor.

As you stood in the elevator, Jason’s hand once more grazed against yours, this time your fingers intertwined. When you reached the top floor, you stepped out of the elavator to your door and you unlocked it.

You and Jason entered the penthouse, taking of your shoes. You threw your suit jacket aside and led the way towards the stairs, closely followed by Jason.

You started unbuttoning your shirt as you entered your bedroom, turning to Jason who looked curious where this was going. You threw your button up aside and stepped closer to him, you unbuttoned his suit jacket and pushed it off his shoulders letting it drop to the floor.

You then pushed your lips to Jason’s, while he snaked his arms around your waist as you started to hungrily make out. You then started unbuttoning Jason’s shirt revealing his athletic chest. You started lowering yourself to your knees as you placed kisses down his abs.

Until you were on your knees in front of him, you undid Jason’s belt and pulled down his pants letting them fall to his ankles. Jason had grown hard, his bulge noticable in his tight white briefs. You pulled down his underwear setting his big legth free.

His hard dick pointed to your face. When Jason looked down the sight gave him a sense of satisfaction, you half naked ready to suck his cock. You started taking Jason’s member in to your mouth, teasing the tip with your tongue.

Jason let out a small breath as you started taking more of him in to your warm mouth. You soon started moving your head back and forth on his cock. Jason’s mouth hung open as you went down on him.

”Fuck, you’re perfect” he said holding the sides of your head, using every bit of restraint to not start thrusting in to you. You worked your tougue on his dick, licking up and down his shaft.

When Jason looked down the sight alone could make him spill his load. You with his thick cock stuffed in your mouth, shining with your saliva on it. Before you could make him cum he pulled out of your mouth.

”Your turn, rich boy” Jason said teasingly, you raised an amused eye brow at him.

He then helped you up from the floor. He let his unbuttoned shirt fall to the floor and stepped out of his pants and underwear that were pooled around his ankles. He then undid your belt before pushing you backwards on to your bed.

You spread your arm out on the silk white sheets feeling as if you were laying down on a cloud. Jason then started pulling your pants down your legs. You seductively pulled off your own white briefs before throwing them at Jason, hitting him in the chest.

Now you were left wearing nothing but your silver necklace and a pair of white socks. Jason took a moment to take in the pornographic sight in front of him and then climbed on to the bed and your naked bodies tangled together as you made out lustfully.

Jason’s hand trailed all the way down your back to your butt. He didn’t waste any time bringing his finger between your cheeks and pushing it inside you making you moan while your mouth was pressed to his.

He used his fingers to work you loose and open so you’d be ready to take all off him. Once he was done he pulled out a bottle of lube from you nightstand pouring a generous amount on his huge shaft.

You positioned yourself face down - ass up wanting Jason to take you like a bitch. Jason stood on his knees in front of your awaiting hole as he rubbed the lube along his length. He teased your hole with the thick tip of his cock as you whined in to the sheets impatiently.

And who was Jason to say no to a slut in need of filling.

He started working his in to your tightness as you gasped at the intrusion. He pushed himself deeper and deeper into your warmth feeling you clench around his cock. ”That’s nice” he whispered at the feeling of you tightly around his manhood.

Jason wasn’t a small man, he was hung like a horse. You let out heavy breaths as Jason slowly sunk himself in to you, streching you out even further than he’d done with his fingers. He said praises to you, watching you beneath him as his cock entered you inch by inch.

Once he had sheathed himself inside you he waited for you to adjust to the size of him. You gripped the soft sheets of the bed as you were streched out to accept Jason’s hung cock. ”Fuck” you swore.

Soon you were ready to take all of him. Jason started moving slowly as pushed himself in and out of your tightness. His hands were placed on the globes of your ass squeezing them softly in his strong hands.

You were starting to get the feeling of bliss everytime Jason was fully stuffed inside you, making you moan as he worked your ass perfectly. ”Harder Jay” you said wanting him to take you to ecstasy.

”That’s all I needed to hear, baby” Jason said with an audible smirk as he willfully obliged and sped up his thrusts, rolling his hips like a machine. He put a hand on your back pressing you in to the matress as he took you. The sound of his thrusts starting to sound out through out the room.

You gripped the sheets as Jason thrust deeper in to you, his dick jabbing at your prostate making you let out a delighted scream of pleasure. ”That’s right, N/n, scream for everybody to hear me fucking you” he said cockily.

Jason hadn’t realised until now how much he had been longing to fuck you again after your first one night stand during the party at Wayne Manor.

Jason moved his hand to your hips pulling you to meet his harsh thruts into you. Beads of sweat started forming on his forehead. He wanted you to feel all the pleasures sex could bring.

Jason made you feel as if you were seeing all the stars in the heaven, as his hung cock was shoved deep in your heat. ”So- ugh! Big!” you said through your loud moans. A cocky smile spread on Jason’s lips. He was fucking you so good you could barely talk.

As Jason roughly pounded himself deeply in to you felt yourself getting close to orgasm. ”Jay, I’m gonna cum” you whined as Jason showed no sign of slowing down his rolling thrusts.

Your shot your load and it splashed on to the silk sheets below as Jason continued plowing his cock in to you. ”You’re so fucking good around my cock” Jason said through his rapid breaths as he fully lost control and fucked you like there was no tommorow.

”I’m gonna cum” he soon told you.

”Fill me, Jay” you begged and that was all it took for Jason to plant himself deep in you ass and let his cock explode inside you, filling you with his warm sticky seed. He breathed heavily as he let all of his orgasm spill inside you.

Once he was done he slowly pulled out of you leaving your hole gaping from his cock. His seed soon started pouring out of you, running from your used warmth down your legs. Jason looked proudly at the mess he had made of you before he walked to the bathroom.

Coming back with a wet towel and started cleaning his seed off of your body. Once he was done he threw the towel aside on the floor. You turned around and laid down on your back. Jason sat down by your side and stroked your thigh, asking sweetly ”Can I get you anything? N/n”.

”Could you get my night shirt from the closet?” you asked and Jason immediately stood up looking through your closet until he brought out a glossy white silk night shirt. ”Why is everything you own white silk?” he questioned amused as he helped you put it on.

”Why not?” you simply asked back. You took off your necklace putting it on your bedside table. You and Jason both laid down side by side on your bed. Jason was on his back and you laid your head resting against his pec.

”You were amazing” Jason said placing a kiss on your head. ”You too” you said stroking his abs lovingly.

You both soon drifted off too sleep…

——

2 days later…

You sat with your laptop on your couch checking your emails. Some adds, some social stuff, nothing too intresting. You took a sip of your coffee and as you swallowed a new mail appeared on the screen.

The sender was not listed.

You opened the mail and read ”We have something you might not want to reach the media, Mr St. Cloud” which was all it said. Then you noticed there was a video attached to the mail. You pressed the file and it loaded until a video started playing.

Your eyes widend the video showed a boy getting plowed roughly by his by another guy, but you soon realised this was your bedroom. ”Harder, Jay” your voice came from the video making you gasp in shock. Then came Jason’s voice ”That’s all I needed to hear, baby”.

Someone had hidden a camera in your room filming you and Jason that night. You slammed your laptop shut and rushed upstairs in to your room. Judging by the angle of the video the video had been taken from your bedside table.

You were confused you only had your alarm clock and a bottle of water on the table… Then you noticed it, on the side of the alarm clock was a black spot - no, not a spot a small round camera lens.

You picked up the alarm clock taking a closer look at it to it to make sure. Definetely a lens. Enraged you threw the alarm clock in to the ground making it smash on impact. You stormed out of the room bringing out your phone knowing who you needed to call.

”Hey St. Cloud” Jason answered a flirty tone in his voice.

You could only find one phrase to tell him ”Jay… we’re completely fucked”.

[queenendless]

🍑 TIME

A/n: The twerk GIFS got to me! All credit for the GIFS involved goes to @screampied for the Gojo and Sukuna ones, @heian-era-housewife for the Shiu Kong one, @mahgyu for the Geto one, and @blkkizzat for the Toji one. THNX U ALL for the glory that is JJK TWERKING~!

🔞 MDNI CONTENT. JJK men twerking for their lives, sub!JJK men x dom!GN!reader, ass cheeks clapping, ass slapping, ass marking, ass eating, ass abuse, cum time, impromptu ass piece. Also first time writing Sukuna and Shiu so go easy on me.

©️ PLEASE DONT PLAGIRIZE, COPY, TRANSLATE, EDIT, REPOST, AND ETC TO MY FAN WORK. Rather like comment reblog share and follow cause I personally want to reach close to 1k follows on this blog by the end of the year pls n thnx.

SYPNOSIS: OH, TWERKING IN YOUR FACE, BIG ASS MISTAKE~

GOJO with his cheeky ass grin growing every passing moment you demanded he strip those skinny pants down. Boxers included. Shameless heathen. Hanging over the bed's edge as you straddle his skinny thighs. You drum those bare melons like your own personal bongos. Granted, your cheeky bastard asked for it. And those loud passionate mewls of his earned him your red hand prints on his rippling hills. Literally chewing on them peaches came right after, your nose poking out of his ass crack while your mouth sucked his asshole, having him come one too many times against the strewn sheets to both your likings. Stroking his veiny coated dong between his lower valleys made it that much more tasty to suck him off, with his cock cumming again in your very grasp.

"Ohhh, honey loves my buns~! Yes you do – AAAAAH~!"

GETO bashfully blushes, his veiny knuckles pressed hard to his mouth to muffle his grunts and moans of painful pleasure as you spanked, clawed and teethed on those supple succulent peaches quite insistently. This cult head laid on his side along the mat covered platform, clawed the sheets with his free hand as his legs spasmed with those poofy ass pants hung off his calves like pooled up velvet. The ministrations your tongue gives drives him mad. Slobbering and slithering into his hole quite deeply with skillful strokes before suckling downwards. Like his pecs, his peaches smothered your face cheeks. Teasingly nipping at his leaky balls had his dong spasm and spurt in your face. You licking his cum off your face right into his had him squirt longer and harder.

"D – Darling~! Don't ever st — stop – AAH~!"

TOJI the physically gifted super human slash sorcerer killer that he lazily splays along the couch on his ripped tum tum, his ass practically jutting out right in your burning face, browsing his phone casually. Only to literally crush it in two with his giant beefy hand. Straddling his hips, you press his form into the cushions, as you knead and massage his chiseled cheeks, digging your nails in, before sucking aggressively to the point where your lip imprints are scattered along his now reddening bruised skin. His hips buckle sporadically right into yours but with such steel restraint not to literally shoot you up into the ceiling. The couch cushions however were torn to shreds as his stream of feral profanity fills the air as does his guttural carnal shouts of fervor.

"FUCK baby~! Starving for me already huh — NGH SHIT~!"

SUKUNA the literal King of Curses would be as amused as he would be resting his head atop two folded arms along his Malevolent Shrine, letting you lay atop him while you smack his cheeks together just to hear his skin clapping. On top of biting, tugging on his skin between your teeth, and nuzzling them fine giant melons had you on Cloud 9. His other two arms would possessively gripped on your hair to tug on now and then as well as fondle and smack your own bare tussy, his mouths popping out of his palms to layer bloody bite marks on you to get even. Raunchily making out with his a-hole had his giant cheeks suffocate your face, nearly passing out in the process from the light headed state you were left in his clapping cheeks freed you just to smack his double dripping dongs in your face to shower you in cum to lick off yourself. Guess he did get excited.

"Oh human~ To think you would react to that so sinfully~ Interesting~"

SHIU the mediator of dealings between the shady and the shadiest should have known you'd be down for a show and what it would entail at the end. The burnt out cig between his lips would fall out. Strewn across his marble work desk, you lounged in his rolling desk chair as you massaged and groped his peaches to loosen up his fatigued state. Leaving deep imprints engrained into mounds blushing in thanks. Too much workload means easily becoming mush in your titilating touch. Rutting within his fist now coated in creamy thickness as it dripped down his work pants pooled around his ankles. Wiping up some cum from his fist to your fingers, wiping it along his crack, to suck it up sloppily, including right up his hole. That got him moaning out passionately.

"Mmm~! Love, please don't let up now~! So GOOD~!"

[the-houserat]

St. James Infirmary (pt. 1)

Summary: Y/N is in an accident

Notes: This fic is based loosely on a song cover by Hugh Laurie with the same title

Word count: 2.9k

You wake up so early in the morning that not even the sun is there to greet you. As a doctor this is your duty; While everyone else is asleep, you're awake giving others a chance at a new tomorrow.

You are a longtime employee at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, however for the past 6 months you've been recruited by Dr. Gregory House to join his Department of Diagnostics Medicine.

These mornings before the hospital have become so routine that you unconsciously start your day and are only brought back by the closing of your car door. You instantly flip through the radio stations after turning on the ignition before settling on blues to accompany your morning commute. You follow your regular route, stopping and turning at all the usual places. Right after you stop at a red light ,10 minutes away from your destination, you hear a song you enjoy come on. You lean down to turn the volume knob to the right and then lean back slightly in your chair as the melody relaxes you and drowns out the worries clouding your busy mind.

Your attention is directed back up to the changing colors of the red light to green. You press your foot onto the accelerator and ease into a comfortable speed. Before you're able to fully leave the intersection, however, a semi truck rams into the back of your car.

You feel nothing.

Time slows, but hours pass like minutes.

—

Dr. Lisa Cuddy sits at her desk filing paperwork. Her telephone rings. She swiftly answers, rubbing her temples at the sudden intrusion to her work. Her face falls when she hears the doctor on the other end of the line's words.

She tentatively grabs her pager to request Dr. House's presence in her office. Quite a while later, he hobbles in while speaking with his head positioned downward and his usual frown, “What is it now, Cuddy? You've already interrupted my nap twice.”

“Greg…” She says softly before being cut off by him.

He rests his weight on his cane as he places his opposite hand on his waist, falsely showing interest. “Come on now I've got patients to attend to,” he says pointing towards a nonexistent watch on his wrist.

She raises an eyebrow at him before stating, “Thought you were napping.”

He moves closer to her desk while explaining, “I said you interrupted me doing so twice. It's quite presumptuous of you to assume this was a third time.”

As much as Cuddy would love to shoot a witty remark back, more pressing matters are at hand. She shifts slightly in her seat and places her hands together, bracing herself to deliver the news as calmly as possible, “Y/N has been in a wreck and has been sent to St. James Infirmary. Police found their employee I.D. and called to let us know.”

House unexpectedly laughs before rubbing his chin and shaking his head.

“I'm not joking, House.” She says.

He pauses, shocked, before silently pulling himself together, “What's the damage?”

Cuddy looks at him with concern in her eyes, “They didn't say.”

He furrows his brows in annoyance at her vague statement, “What do you mean ‘they didn't say’? You called me to your office to tell me my employee is in the hospital and you aren't able to tell me what's wrong with them?”

“I can't tell you something I don't know, House. If you care so much, why don't you go visit them?” She retorts.

A flicker of annoyance with a hint of worry quickly flashes across his face. “And do what? There's no patient over there, just an idiot who probably thought it was okay to cross a red light and get themselves run over,” he says, attempting to feign indifference.

Cuddy leans back in her chair as she crosses her arms, “If you really think they're capable of such a mistake, why are they on your team?”

“Not many people are as smart as them, but everybody is an idiot.” All Cuddy does is nod her head with narrowing eyes, but House takes it as a threat. “They're my employee, an asset to the team, and they're not more important than any of the other people on it. Which reminds me, which one of them gets to deal with their patients?”

Cuddy lightly presses her lips into a smirk as she says, “That would be you.”

“Of course it is,” he sighs. He doesn't protest his departure any longer, though. He just needed a way to make it seem like he didn't want to see you, like it wasn't his first instinct, like he cares… because he doesn't.

House doesn't give a fuck about anyone else but himself.

At least, that's what you originally thought…

He turns around to exit Cuddy's office before she asks, “Leaving for the day?” He simply nods and continues to leave.

—

Memories of the accident flood your unconscious mind and seep into your dreams. Shards of glass surround you in scenes you won't remember when you wake. Your eyes jolt open as you feel a sudden stab in your arm.

As the world around you comes into focus, the image of your boss standing above you twirling a pen comes into view. “Rise and shine.” He says louder than you wish he had.

You groggily sit up, rubbing your head and putting the puzzle in front of you together. “I'm not in a coma, House, no need to poke me awake.”

House stills his twirling of the pen to point it at you, “Can never be too sure, Y/N.”

“Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to keep it in mind for my future coma.” You look around trying to place where you are as House vigorously shakes the pen.

He goes to write something down, but no ink leaves the pen. “You're at St. James Infirmary- stupid pen.” He shakes the pen again and attempts to write once more before throwing it away. “You don't remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” You ask, “The hospital or the pen?”

“You can answer for both if it makes you happy.” He answers sarcastically as he goes to sit down in the chair to the left of your bed.

You rub your head as you're about to answer, just to realize the butterfly needle stuck into the vein of your hand is connected to an IV drip. As you attempt to run that hand through your hair, it catches on the wings of the needle. “Ow-” you yelp at the pain, “It's not like the first thing I do after a wreck is ask where I am. I assumed you of all people would know pain meds come first.”

He raises an eyebrow, amused by both your jab at him, as well as your struggle with your hair. “Now that you have your pain meds, would you care to recount the events that led to this? Unless, of course, you forgot that too.”

As House's icy blue eyes stare at you, you begin to feel small and self conscious. You have tiny scrapes on your face, likely due to shattered glass, and your hair is just a mess. The more you try to detangle it, the worse it gets, and the dark circles under your eyes from your late night shifts at the hospital further accentuate your disastrous state.

Why do you care what he thinks of you right now? Why is your mind swarming with anxiety about what you look like in front of him? You are in a hospital, and you still care about physical appearances?

He stands up which draws your attention back to his tall frame and away from your racing thoughts. You watch as he limps over to the side of your bed and sits down. You wonder what he's doing as you stare at the back of his head as he looks away from you. That is, until you feel another poke to your skin.

“What the hell House?!” You question

“You were quiet,” he answers “It was only appropriate to make sure you were still alive.”

“Are you sure I'm alive? Because this is pretty close to what I imagine hell is like.”

“Weird. I imagined more hookers,” he quips. He reaches the back of his hand to your forehead, the contact unexpectedly making your cheeks flush. “You're warm enough for life as far as I can tell.” His hand lingers there for a moment longer than what's usual for taking someone's temperature and he looks at you with an unreadable expression. He removes his hand, but not his gaze. He scans your body as you continue to struggle with your hair.

A man wearing hospital scrubs walks in after lightly knocking. He seems to be in his mid 20's with a muscular physique. Blonde, mid length hair frames his face. He enters holding a clipboard. After looking at it for a moment, he looks at you, “Y/N L/N?”

“That’s me,” you say smiling politely.

House raises himself off your bed after the intrusion and stands to face the both of you. The blonde man checks the monitor with your vitals.

“Do you perhaps have a working pen?” House abruptly asks. The man nods and hands him one from his pocket. He notices the tangled mess you've created in your hair and offers his help. You happily accept, glad to have someone assist you. He untangles your hair, his touch a gentle balance between delicate and focused. “I need to get a little closer, is that okay?” He asks. You nod your head.

While he meticulously works, House carries an even more sour expression than usual. He stomps his cane on the ground to bring attention back to him before clearing his throat, “Well, doc, I'm waiting to hear what's wrong with your patient.” He continues, “Unless you'd prefer it if I left so you can have sex with them instead.”

The man pulls away from you at his snarky comment, “Excuse me?”

“Just asking a question.” House responds before sitting back down in his chair.

You look at House before turning back to the man, “Could you give us a moment?”

The man gets up, but before leaving he turns around and says, “I'm the nurse by the way.”

He leaves and you immediately turn to the older man next to you angrily, “What the hell?”

“I know right, “ he says with both hands resting on his cane, “A male nurse? Feminism's come a long way.”

You pinch your nose bridge. “House, why are you here?”

“To brighten your day,” He replies snarkily.

Silence awkwardly fills the room after that last remark.Your gaze drifts away from him, guided by both your anger for him and shame for yourself.

Your anger prompted by House's behavior, and the shame brought on by your reaction to it. You know how he is. You have been working with this man for six months and his deportment has yet to change; This is how he always is. However, something in you had slight hope that it would somehow shift- that these circumstances would solidify every word unspoken in your stolen glances.

While lost in your own thoughts, you don't even notice him come to sit next to you. He lightly shakes your shoulder, “Stop dozing off before you make me accidentally call a code blue.”

You look back at him with your eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, “Are you my doctor now, house?”

“No. I'm not here as your doctor,” your gaze softens at his reply. He's concerned about you, that must mean- “I'm here as someone annoyed at you for getting run over by a truck.”

Oh.

Your wishful thinking was quickly shoved away by the continuation of his sentence. You know you should've expected as much from him, but the way he so quickly threw away any notion of genuine care for you left a sour expression on your face. Here you sit having practically tasted death and yet he still refuses to crack away this miserable wall between you.

He notices the look on your face and actively disregards it. “You should stand up,” he says.

“House, I'm tired,” you reply in a harsh tone as you turn your head away from him.

“I didn’t ask you if you were tired, I asked you to stand up. I'd like to check if you have a back injury. It's important to see if it's just a regular ol’ aspirin fixer upper or a spinal cord injury that could lead you paralyzed,” He lightly guides your face back to look at him.“I don't think these idiots could tell the difference between a headache and a gunshot wound.”

You swat away his hands, annoyed at his tiny hint of warmth after his previously cold comment . “You didn't ask me anything, you demanded. I'm serious, House, I'm fucking tired.”

He raises his hands in defeat. “Well, let's not get into semantics. And you can't go to sleep until I've made sure you didn't mess up your spine in the crash.” He stands up with one hand resting on his cane and the other urging you to follow him in rising off the hospital bed, “Now stop being difficult and just stand up, because I've got better things to do than worry about you.”

“Then leave.” The words leave your mouth as soon as he says that last sentence. You didn't even have time to register your own words before understanding his. He's only here to make sure you can still work after all of this is said and done; He only cares about how well his diagnostics team is working on patients, not about the members themselves. Everything people said about him that you had refused to accept is true: He's a narcissistic asshole who can't bother to care about anyone else but himself.

“Don't be an idiot,” he says with a laugh of disbelief.

You glare at him, “I'm serious. You have better things to do, so leave. I didn't ask you to come here and I sure as hell didn't ask you to worry about me.”

“If I didn't care, I wouldn't have come here.” he sighs and for a moment it feels like you see that wall come down, “You're a part of my team.”

Your voice is quiet, but stable, “I almost died…and you can't even find the decency to be nice to me. You still feel the need to add a belittling quip at the end of every somewhat kind comment.” You turn your head away from him and face forward in your bed as you lay back onto the cheap hospital pillow, “You have better things to do, House, so go do them.”

He stares at you for a moment, taken aback by your words. His gaze softens before swiftly transitioning into a stormy rebuttal. He snaps, irritation coating his voice, “What the hell did you want from me? A warm hug and comforting words? This is me you're talking to! The nicest I've been to you since you started working for me was 3 months ago when I let you have the rest of the coffee- And that was because I'd had 2 espressos from the cafeteria!”

Your composed stature remained, as each of his words brought back the feeling of glass in your skin. They pierced through you like a needle through cloth. “I don't know what I was expecting, House.”

He continues to berate you almost as if attempting to prove his own point, “You can pray that someday I'll wake up and be a nicer person, but that's not what you're getting today. All you're getting is the usual cold, miserable bastard who's only here to ensure that you're only dealing with minor back pain and not a spinal cord injury that could leave you paralyzed.” He scoffs, clinging to his distant demeanor as he pulls the pen he received from the nurse earlier and a piece of paper from his pocket. He writes down what seems to be a sentence, but at his reveal it turns out to be a singular word: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

All you could give him was a near scowl.

“Do you recognize this disease? This is actually a fictitious disease made to mock medical names, however it's now deemed as the longest word in the English dictionary.” He says while holding the card to face him, “Funny how people just make things up. Much like you are now,”

You relax your shoulders and breathe, shaking off your emotions, “I don't want to do this right now, House. I'm mourning the fact that for a second I truly believed death was knocking on my door; I appreciate you feigning interest in my well-being, but I assure you that I am fine and I don't need your care right now for a case that you have no interest in. Go save some poor patient who's dying of some rare condition that no one can figure out and leave the simple car crash to idiots.”

House's eyes narrow slightly, his jaw clenching as he thinks of how to respond. For a brief moment, it looks like he's about to reach out to you, but his cold facade returns almost as quickly as it left. He steps back away from you and takes a deep breath, followed by his exit.

[sanakimohara]

[ BOUND BY BLOOD ] - H. H.

master lists <> + CHRISTMAS EVENT: day two (n/a yet)

pairing: Hyunjin x fem! reader

summary: A seductive vampire who has been watching you for centuries finally reveals himself. As Hyunjin pulls you deeper into his world of immortality, the line between love and obsession begins to blur.

date: December 21st 2024

playlist:

warnings: MDNI + NSFW + BLOOD KINK + ORAL + LOTS OF EXPOSITION + MENTIONS OF WITCHCRAFT & PAGAN HOLIDAY + EXTENSIVE PINING

Yule is more than a concession of sacred days ending in immense celebration. You knew of this from a very tender age, of course.

Your mother impressed upon you how vastly more important it was than any other festivity held throughout the year in your small village. A place nestled in the rocky edges of the St. Romanov mountains, just below the everlasting castle at the very top of the harsh scenery. In a dreary land, everyone would be just the same—sulking like the grey, cold clouds that hung high above, even in mid-summer, and bitter like the bark of the evergreen trees and pines occupying the surrounding woods. Many who lived far and near the little ancient plot began to whisper of its strangely happy and content inhabitants centuries before books made of linen and leather were being traded for secrets on the land they lived on.

Some talked of how women resembled eerily beautiful statues on a winter's night. Others told tales of men who never seemed to age past their prime but nearly always perished under terrible circumstances, whether in secret or for all to behold. You were born to a family who pressed truth into these oh-so-beguiled wise tales made up by outsiders. Yet, that was natural within a family littered with witches and warlocks of every kind.

Young and blessed with slow aging and graceful wisdom, your mother and father took it upon themselves to grant you a moderately lavish life within the strangely quaint village. You went without very little, and whatever your kind heart desired was promptly given. Your demure features disarmed many, growing enchanting as you neared the age of two centuries, looking nothing past the age of two bright decades. One might call it luck -especially living in a jagged and whimsical place. But many who lived beyond called it witchcraft at its finest point -the undead's evil doing.

You paid the assumptions no mind. Content with living a life in your studies of the dark arts under the teachings of your nearly pestering and frazzled mother and her less distracted and elated partner -your father. To some extent, he was a patriarch of the town, never fully taking on the title of its Baron and never desiring to when asked. He helped people experiencing poverty, aided people in need, and advised those who did have a hand in village affairs. On the other hand, your mother saw to the population's superstitions and unusual ailments and guarded their shaken resolves with practiced and refined magik. You had undoubtedly become their most prized offering to the masses. A beauty many could behold but could never understand being kept so hidden away at your family estate.

In turn, you were plagued with loneliness that could only be ailed by knowledge of the arts for so long. Years shifted into another half a decade of unbound youth and restrained confidence for you. Thinking of another century in such a state made your heartache and your head spin with sound worry. The terror struck you at family dinner in the dining hall, and you nearly opened your mouth to suggest an alternative to your parents. However, you were halted in a speech by your ever-so-live mother, who'd been unable to stop smiling since you stepped foot into the candlelit room behind your father's usual late arrival.

"I have grand news for you, my dear!" she beamed, and you perked up in your seat in interest. "Mother?...' you cautiously egged her on, sipping from the blackened wine glass set before your plate of half-finished food. She waited to hear you swallow your blackberry wine before glancing at your oddly silent father. "I and your Papa have a gift for you...well, a surprise, to be more specific."

Please, Mother of Darkness, do not let it be another grimoire. I've already filled in four others.

You prayed to the powers that be in a single silent breath, glancing between them as they observed you. "Oh...please do tell me of it. You know how little patience I have for surprises." The sweetest smile crossed your face, pulled tight by subtle anxiety and held there by a need to seem mildly normal about the implications of receiving a new and unknown gift.

Yet, it fell into a quivering line as your mother excitedly spilled her heart out for you to hear.

"We have found you a match, and he is rather eager about it. More than we are if my senses ring true!"

The light wave of shock that gripped you dissipated into relief. A hot flush rushed through d your veins like a flame catching the edge of fresh linen. Any other woman being told of a secure match might feel her heart turned to icey malice, but all you could taste was wild freedom being attained without much fight.

And you couldn't be happier to have it.

Who this match was and why he was so eager to be one with you was another mystery for different times. Now, you wanted a moment to relish in a world to be discovered outside the village you'd known an entire lifetime and mask that joy from the two beings who gave you such power over life as if their announcement hadn't changed a thing in your reeling mind.

With a deep and steadying breath, you replied, "How fortunate. I look forward to beginning our union."

Your mother nodded, sipping wine while your father grumbled a phrase of contentment. She offered you an all-too-tender smile, her bright gaze sparking as you tilted your head in curiosity. "Is there something more you'd like to tell me, Mother?"

She sighed, humming melodically, then set her glass down to speak again, her tone genuinely matter-of-fact.

"You'll be traveling to meet him at his estate within a fortnight."

This wasn't unexpected, yet hearing it aloud stirred a peculiar thrill within you, an undeniable pull toward the unknown that lay waiting.

The fortnight came within a whirlwind of a day. Your belongings were packed and shipped off early at noon, and your father blessed and sealed your treasures an hour before your departure. Your mother sent you off with genuine gifts of goodwill and more excellent fortune, refusing to speak on the mysterious author more than she already had -which only gave you a semblance of a surname from which to paint a picture of him.

Hwang.

It was all you'd know of him until the moon reached its height and your horse-drawn carriage stopped in the gravel walkway in front of his glaringly cold estate. You imagined his features, charm, voice, and sway over those within his power. Sketching his imaginations in a tattered leather-bound grimoire and writing earnest anecdotes of goodwill under each one. You wrote and drew until your hand ached, glad to see the semblance of a large mansion coming into view far across a snow-touched meadow.

The book snapped shut as you refined your focus on the blatantly grand estate. Your mother had called it magnificent when describing where this Hwang hailed from, but she left out the fair detail of how larger-than-life it seemed, with its gardens packed with mere hundreds of people.

A party.

A celebration.

An honoring of Yule.

You had never, ever seen such a large and lavish gathering. Granted, your mother and father never threw one as grand as the one you witnessed now from afar, but the edge of awe was still present as you observed it. People -men, women, the moderately young, and the wise old roamed about.

Some wore masks of gleaming gold, amber, and cherry red. Others wore black veils and cashmere shawls. Everyone in attendance held prestigious looks from afar, dressed in sacred colors starkly contrasting with the pure white snow coating the grounds.

Candles and lanterns were lit to perfection, leaking light into the moonlit night and casting a golden white glow on those who swayed beneath and through them. Shadows danced as many grabbed for waltz partners. A quartet strummed at their instruments and rang their bells into the air. Laughter and speech leaked into the music, piercing the sky.

It was life.

It was passion.

It was beautiful to see.

You ached to join the fun. Think of it constantly, even as the carriage stops at the steps leading straight to the heavy dark oak wood doors carved with the face of Medusa and sealed shut with iron wrought doubles of the letter 'H' leading straight to your new home.

With the help of a kind footman and the relief of a soft gasp, you took tentative steps to the top of the staircase, undeterred by the ice under your heeled boots and the gentle crunch of snow under your every movement. With a step left, the doors creaked open for you, a sudden chill wrapping around you before a steady warmth replaced it. You stopped short, unaffordable of the sudden eeriness, but perplexed to see not a soul standing behind the door.

"Mother of the moon.." you whispered in timid amusement, gazing up at the white sphere gleaming down on your clocked form before allowing its energy to steady your shaken nerves. When your mind could focus again, you bit the inside of your left cheek, slipping into the estate's front doors with a quiet huff, passing by the eyes of Medusa with a solemn smile of thanks.

The doors slammed shut as your feet hit the marble floor inside, loudly clicking its locks with finality as you spared them a final glance before sauntering further into the massive household. The small palace was lit, and not a corner was left cold or void, but not a life in your sight. It seemed as if the tree outside was merely a dreamscape and a phantom of reality within the world you stood in now - a wonderous opener to the spectacle within your suitor's less-than-humble abode. You reached another set of winding staircases. The embroidered carpet gently glistened under an amber-lit chandelier, never seeming to stain your wet footprints and littered with mistletoe, pine, fresh herbs, and trimmed garland. It was neat chaos at its finest, but what took your breath away was the line of blackened roses lining the center. Their thrones were pricked clean off, and their stems meticulously swirled in on themselves and tied off in an alternation of crimson red and deep violet silk ribbons. "How strange..." you thought aloud, pricking one from the warm floor, examining it until its petals were paled compared to the folded letter hidden underneath it.

It simply read in practiced well, done calligraphy,

"My Dearest Love,

The hour is late, and the world outside lies shrouded in slumber, save for me and my kin—ever wakeful, ever longing. I have watched you from the shadows, not with the eyes of a stranger, but with the gaze of a soul tethered to yours by threads spun long before this life. You do not yet know me, but I have known you for an eternity, each passing moment a cruel reminder of my yearning to claim what fate has promised me.

I am writing to you now, my beloved, because our meeting is near. The winter moon will shine brightest on the eve of the year's final breath, casting its silvery veil upon the snow-laden earth. In that sacred hour, I shall come to you. Do not fear the chill in the air or the stillness accompanying my presence. Know that every step I take toward you is born of reverence and an unyielding desire to protect, cherish, and love.

You may wonder why I have chosen you among all others, why I dare to speak of binding our lives together in the sacred vow of marriage. The truth is as eternal as the stars: I did not choose you. Though it beats no longer, my heart has always belonged to you. In your laughter, I hear the echo of joy I have long since forgotten; in your gaze, I see a light that pierces the veil of my darkness. You are the warmth my cold existence craves, the embodiment of all that is pure and eternal.

For centuries, I have wandered through this world, untouched by its beauty and unmoved by its offerings. Yet, the barren void within me stirred from the moment I beheld you, even from afar. My soul cursed as it is, recognized in you its redemption—a love that transcends time, a light strong enough to shatter even the deepest shadows.

I write this letter not to frighten you but to offer you a choice. When we meet, you will see me as I truly am. My nature, my curse—it is not one I would impose upon you without consent. But if your heart, as I suspect, already beats in harmony with mine, I ask for your hand, trust, and love. Together, we will defy the passage of time, weaving a tapestry of eternity that no force can unravel.

Await me on the night of our destined meeting. Do not despair the hour, for it shall mark the beginning of a love that poets and dreamers could only hope to capture. I shall kneel before you, not as a creature of the night, but as a man who has waited lifetimes to call you his own.

Until then, my love, guard your heart, for it is already mine. And know that no force on this earth, nor in the heavens above, could keep me from you.

Yours eternally,

Hyunjin..."

A weight lingered over your shoulders as his name slipped past your lips like pure honey. As if it were planned to happen, and for one explicable reason or another, he had pined for it to be that way on this very night. You pieced things together in the moment it took you to realize them. Every night since your 118th risi, you'd felt a presence -not nearly a calling- but something tethered to your existence. Had that been him for all these years? Watching over you in the smallest of moments. Moving when you moved. Listening when you spoke. Caring when it seemed no one else could. Being there when you felt further trapped in an unintentional isolation.

Were the sharp and bloodborne eyes trailing every move in glimpses of mirrors.?Was he the lurking shadow hovering above your own in the light of a single candle? Was he the one leaving gifts of your desire at the foot of your bed? Each one left with no note or card of recognition but instead wrapped neatly and meant for you to find and enjoy. Wasthee soft chill of breath you felt through the coldest nights? Twinged with a peculiar warmth and steadily streaming against the crook of your neck and behind the shell of your ear.

You thought of the possibilities, fueled by a deep curiosity and security, as you followed the trail of roses left along the ststastaircathrough staircase-through rooTandyandy stopped at a particular door on the second floor, previously leading through the tre right-wing amenities before the abr.aWithhith one big push of both your hands, you revealed what lay within the last unlocked room.

A man, dressed in fine clothing with a more captivating charmed beauty to match, stood before you in a moment of tensed admiration.

He seemed to hold in a breath, lips pressed into a slow-growing smile of recognition as his eyes scanned you in familiarity. Your heart thumped twice its normal speed as he did, and your feet shifted closer to each other as his gaze halted on your flushing face. "He-Hello..." you muttered, unsure what else to say and completely startled to see another person standing in the emptied estate.

Hyunjin did not hold your lack of recognition and frazzled greeting against you; he accepted them. I expect much worse, and he was glad those assumptions did not come to fruition upon your timely arrival.

He found the words to speak and the will to be heard when you took a half-nervous step back, shuffling closer to the doorway in a plain attempt to close it shut if prompted to. "You're quite alright. I've been waiting for you for some time now, so I would like you to stay even if it's for a moment..."

The cadence of his words and the gentle tone of his voice sounded the same as the whisper within your most common dreams. It was healing, charming, sweet, and meant to cause delirium to anyone who heard it without warning. You unconsciously paired it with the letter you'd found. Gripping it in your right hands, your mind collected subtle connections.

This had to be him.

Your allusive and eager suitor?...

"Hwang...Hyunjin..."

"That is my full name, yes..." he jested a bit, treading carefully through your observation of him. However, when your stare found him again, you seemed neither displeased nor perplexed.

"Are you to be my match, then? " you asked, hoping his answer would satisfy your growing uncertainties.

He nodded, nibbling at his lush bottom lip for a split second of tension relief. Then, you noticed his edged canines glinting in the soft light filling the room. Your heart jumped, but your breath slowed at the minuscule sight.

You'd gotten yourself a walking undead of your own, it seems.

Hyunjin's quick eyes caught yours wondering towards his mouth, fixated on the slip-upphe'ddd ma unconsciously but nowhere near frightened or frazzled by the reveal. It eased his rare nerves and allowed him to speak more freely as you inched further into the room to get a closer look at him. "I know stepping into this new life may be very odd to you now, but as I explained in the letter-"

"I've read it twice since my arrival..." you confess in one uttered breath, unable to keep smiling softly at him, "You're a lovely admirer and a gifted writer by all means..." You paused, unsure what to call him and afraid you'd begun to ramble, seeing his head lower at your words. However, Hyunjin flashed a charmed grin your way after half a moment. His pale cheeks flushed a tinge of rouge you thought was a trick of the light. How could someone so confident in their presence be so easily flustered? The answer was beyond you, but it was a question you cherished watching him watch you from across the room.

His smile fell to a slight smirk, eyes cutting to the side for a moment before he spoke again, "You are one charming doll... do you know that?" He chuckled, and you shrugged, eyeing him as he wandered closer with steady strides. "I've been told otherwise..." you confess in a whisper, accepting bated breath as he flows above the top of your head.

A pull surged in your chest, urging you forward into his immobile warmth and drawing your head up at an angle so his face remained inches from your own. Hyunjin stared back, eyes downcast in jaded concern as you hid a coy smile. "Wel, my love, they don't know you as I do."

He spoke of your intentional grace and earned your trust. He is unafraid to let you witness the flicker of vulnerability behind his maroon irises.

It was then that you knew what he thought of you, how he felt, with only your eyes to capture him.

A life to live in the eternity he found himself in.

One year came and went in the Hwang estate; in that time, you'd grown to love hearing that surname replace your own. Hyunjin was far more than a dashing husband and far better than any other living man you had encounteredHisis obsession with you was infinite and dedicated. It showed in every little thing he did for you and was present in every intimate interaction you had with him - even if he took each one no further than a heated kiss and a passing touch of his cold hands over your warmer flesh.

There were times it drove you mad.

His withholding of passion in fear of harming you during such acts was maddening, to say the very least. Sleeping with him had begun to be the only thing you could think of. You are noo longer able to keep such thoughts within the confines of your still-separated rooms during the dead of night and are frazzled by the visceral need to feel him take you.

He knew of your struggles but never acknowledged them. Hell-bent on sticking to his version of affection for as long as possible and undeterred by your subtle begging far longer than you had expected him to be.

That is until the very night you met him came around again.

Sweat shined your skin from the heat of the broiling water you sank into only moments ago. Herbs, spices sprinkled, and citrus shreds floated to the top of the scented bath. It was a relief to feel each component working into your tired body and slowly bringing life back into it as moments of solace trickled into a calm, quiet passage.

Finally, you could rest and not answer another question about decorations, food to serve partygoers of the evening, or what musical set to be played throughout the night. Taking on the task of planning for the Hwang household Yule was tedious and meticulous. Every detail was meant to be perfect, just as you had seen upon your arrival a year prior, but against Hyunjin's well-meant wishes, you took on the assignment with vigor for perfection.

It was overwhelming in all aspects, but you'd done it to the best of your ability, and now you wanted nothing more than to relax before the celebration began. The guests slowly showed themselves.

Your eyelids lowered, fully closing as the hot water sank deeper into your skin—the smell of fresfragranceses swept under your nose in gentle wafts. For a while,nt the world went utterly sti, ll, and you could hear the wind and snow softly blowing outside; your lonely peace was dissolved as a tender kiss was placed at the of your head by familiar lips.

"My love..." Hyunjin greeted you humbly, and you returned the sentiment by peeking your eyes at him. "My prince..."

He smiled at the neverending nickname you'd decided long ago to give him. You held his lingering gaze, tracing the lift of his lips as he leaned in to place a meaningful kiss against your lips. Your hands floated from the water, gently cupping his face as his lips pressed into yours. They were tinted with red wine and the lingering taste of iron blood, but you paid the bitterness no mind, delving for something more profound as he trailed a hand through your damp hair and brushed back the strands sticking to your flushed cheeks.

A fire stirred in your stomach, spiraling as the swipe of his tongue over your own melted the taste of him into your senses. Hyunjin pressed to shift backward, understanding the intensity of your exchange, but had no room to do so as your freshly manicured nails gently dug into the skin of his unblemished face. He stayed still, falling into a pattern of returning slow and wet kisses with you in the quiet of the large washroom. You hummed at his intentional sweetness to please you, smiling as he tilted your head back to rest on his thigh, your right hand cupping your chin firmly as his left raked through your hair and massaged the roots at your scalp. A trickle of drool seeped past your lips, tainted with blood a moment later, as he bit down on your inner lower lip with the tip of a fang. You whined softly as the sudden and short infliction of pain pleasured that he took joy in marking you in such a discreet place and was not timid about savoring the reward of your blood on his tongue, but the mix of elation didn't last long. Hyunjin snapped away from your lips, pressing loving kisses to them as you frowned and whimpered from the loss of connection. "Please do not torture me..." you huffed, legs closing instinctively to put pressure on the throbbing heat between them.

“Don’t…do this to me, “ you repeat yourself, stirring into a fever as his touch on your jaw slid to cup and caress the side of your face as if to lull you back to sanity.

He failed, a rare thing to happen, but something he couldn’t help as you stared up at him with the most unforgiving and pleading stare. “Please…” you utter to him, bottom lip catching between your teeth as his eyes settle across your body in a languid dance. His gaze stops at your chest -barely hidden in the cream-filled water, and you’re tempted to slip out of the bath and let him have a full view if it’ll coax him to give what you so desperately want from him.

Hyunjin needs no further persuasion than a flicker of sadness and disappointment in your eyes. You’re prepared to handle your growing frustration of heat alone and hope it will be done by the time guests arrive, but a simple phrase from him shatters your ideas of doing so.

“You’ve waited long and well enough.”

The sound of praise in his tone has you turning in the water to face him like an excited mutt being given a treat. Your smile returns, and your hands fall to rest on his thigh. “You won’t back down from me?…” You ask out of fear he will, knowing his quick change of mind could be fickle and turned again if you weren’t careful with your intent. Hyunjin stifled a chuckle, unbothered by your eagerness and thrilled to see you smiling at him brightly again.

That generous lift of your lips always made his cock twitch to life no matter when, where, or why it happened.

It was such a curse to him that even now, he failed to think straight enough as you rose a bit more from Luke's warm water to press a slow kiss to his parted lips. The cherry stain on your lips seeped onto his tongue, your tongue slow and delicate against his, steadily licking into his mouth a sweet confidence. He swallowed your noises, smothering them with nips and licks before easing your mouth open for a singular line of his spit to slide down your tongue. You purred at the feeling, sinking into the water a bit as he stood up and spat straight into your throat as if he owned it.

Because he did…and you adored him for it.

“Come with me…” Hyunjin grunted against your ear, not caring about the mess made, as he wrapped a strengthened arm around your waist to pull you from the cold bathwater. You helped lousy in excitement as he did, completely fine with being tossed over his shoulder like a sack of packed sugar cane. “I wasn’t finished bathing-!” You start to scold him despite not having the heart or right mind to mean anything by it, but a tender prick of his fangs to the flesh of your thighs startles you into a fit of giggles.

“And I don’t care anymore, my love…”

“Ca…c…can’t…” you choked on your words, falling to pieces as Hyunjin laid his head between your legs, hair sheened with sweat as your fingers traveled through and gripped every strand it touched tight. “Third time a charm,” he muttered, all too focused on the task in front of him and unbothered by your shaking thighs and rolling hips. “N-no..” you protested in half-sought agony, unsure if he’d even heard you when he earned another shout of his name with a slow and deliberate swipe of his tongue pressed flat to your entrance. He let the wet muscle rest there for a second, nudging it into your creamy walls inch by inch until you tugged at his hair and groaned in pleasurable despair at the feeling.

He added to the pattern, tracing the inner folds of your cunt and circling your bundle of nerves in repetitive motions. You quivered every time, leaking cum onto the fresh linen, and overstimulated in every sense you had left.

Hyunjin groaned loudly, with a collared shirt falling from his broad shoulders and your legs lazily hanging over them. A tug in your hips brought your scented body an inch closer to his face before he buried himself in your cunt again. Licking, searching, and finding exactly what he wanted. You squirmed and tossed above him, gripping at anything soft and mailable to have a steadying grip, but you couldn’t sit still or stay calm. Hyunjin wouldn’t have it any other way, sinking his fangs into your plush thighs and the soft skin just above your left knee to keep you on edge.

“N-ngh ugh….ah! Ah! Hy-Hyunjin…” you called for his attention, on the of unraveling, feeling his lips wrap around and suckle on your clit generously before his tongue went right back to exploring your insides in a practiced dance. He refused to settle down, looking up at you through fallen strands of dark and damp hair and devouring you with intent as your moans climbed to new octave before a scream tore from your throat at a final flick of his skilled tongue.

It nearly hurt how fast and how intensely he’d thrown you over the edge. A third instance is not more straightforward than the first two; a fourth is meant to top it all off immediately. You panted, feeling wild and shaken but unable to care as a buzzing heat flooded through your veins and leaked onto the sheets in arousal. It stained the soft fabric, your inner thighs -painting the darkened marks he’d left and smearing the trickles of blood he’d caused with small bites, and coated the bottom half of his face as he raised to hover above you.

You caught him in a delirious kiss, too tired to sit up and lock him in your arms but glad he felt no desire for you to do it. Hyunjin caved into you, letting your hands wander over his skin, across his shoulders, down his back, around his waist, and stopping right where his heart should beat in his toned chest.

There wasn’t a throb of life left in him, and you trusted that he saw yours as valuable enough to change.

One day…but not yet…

He answered your lingering question without a word, peppering the corner of your upturned lips with gentle kisses and soft sighs you returned. Your legs remained parted, allowing his free hand to lazily touch and spread your slick along the expanse of your cunt. “Such a pretty little flower for me…so sweet…and so,” he trailed off, nudging your head to the side to sink his teeth into your heated neck, drawing blood and a pleased moan from you as he took slow sips of your blood.

“Soft…” he finished.

His fingers plunged deep into your core, stretching the gummy walls within in slender but tasteful thrusts. You shook from the contrasting actions he was committing. Awed at how full he made you feel despite draining you in the same breath.

Was this the true love of an undead man?

Does the obsession of another once alive come back to life?

You hadn’t the slightest clue to answer both inquires, fixated on watching his fingers pump into your soaked entrance as your head spinning from the lack of blood beginning to take effect. Hyunjin refrained from sucking you dry, driven mad by the taste of you no matter how he got it, but aware of your limits as part of the living. Still, he detached from your neck with a soft and crisp sound, focused on pulling another climax from you.

You were on the verge of another, lashes fluttering as the syllables of his name faded into breathy gasps as your high tiptoed closer, but the slow drag of his fingers from your cunt slowed it to a standstill. “No..!” You yelp in disbelief, ready to shed tears if this was his way of putting a stop to your feigning for him, but your disappointment was short-lived and replaced with pleasant surprise as he shifted to kneel on the soiled sheets between your spread legs.

You watched in particular excitement as he stared you down, rolling his neck once to release tension in it, and licked the remaining droplets of your blood from the corner of his lips while reaching to undo the confines of his trousers. He said nothing as you marveled at the sight of his cock. Your face flushed a bit as he brought it into your view with his large hand wrapped around its inches more considerable length. You refused to speak a word, having imagined the sight of his cock more than once before, but speechless at its true nature being revealed.

Thick, full of stock, and neatly groomed.

You couldn’t take your eyes off of it -merely glancing up at Hyunjin in awe when he leaned forward to press the length of it against your sensitive folds, but shifting your gaze right back to it as he passed over your folds.

“Oh!…mmm..” you shuddered into a gasp and fell into a moan at the sensation. Your insides flipped and twisted, eager to know if his cock could reach new places you’d never forget. Hyunjin clicked his tongue, sparing a glance downward between your bodies before lowering his head to rest against yours, hips set back slightly to prod the tip of his length to your aching entrance. You whined, prepared for the stretch but intolerant of his ever-waning patience. “We’ll miss our first guests if we continue like this…” He hummed, sensing approaching carriages and steeds from afar in the low blizzard rousing the night air. You cup his face, eyes set on his as your lips curl into a coy smile. “Let them wait…Let them wonder where we are the whole night if that’s what must be done..”

He raised a brow, licking his lips while his cock inched into your untouched entrance, watching the fall of your smile into a small ‘o’ shape as he did so. “Your wish is my command, Lady Hwang..”

A/N: I’m sick so this is late but it’s a double feature (Changbin is next)

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[ BONUS CONTENT + ]

🗣️ Credits to Creator 💜

[aineryeo]

The Legend of the Blue Sea Episode 2: Once Upon a Dream

Chapter Synopsis:

Kenji still doesn't know that you've bonded with him, considering him as your mate from there on out. What he does, however, is take a bath with you as he inches on the edge of being the father of a cute giant pink baby lizard; where he makes the decision of keeping you around too. Just enough to investigate about your possible human personality, of course.

Themes & Warnings (Chapter):

Warnings from the General Masterlist | Flashbacks | Canon Movie Scenes | The Ice Bath scene | Nudity | Kenji whimpers :p | Suggestive themes

Author Notes:

Okay I think this is going a little slow HAHAHA, I changed my mind regarding a few plot points but I literally wrote the ice bath scene at 4-5 am in the morning because I couldn't sleep. i keep DREAMING about it. like it wasn't supposed to be part of the chapter tbh but i think st. michael was giving me a sign !!

The Legend of the Blue Sea: Masterlist

Episode 2: Once Upon a Dream ⇾ Episode 3.1: Maybe This Time

“Mom? Mom…” Kenji sobs, there are small sounds of pit-a-pats from where he stood. Which was a community playground filled with colourful slides, swing sets, tubes, and sandboxes.

The playground however, was not as lively as you’d think. The weather was gloomy that day, the sun hiding behind rumbling clouds threatening to spill the water they’ve soaked up from the sea. Kenji kept looking around, yet he remained lost, the same as he was five minutes ago. To the seven-year-old boy, it was like five months.

“Hi,” a girlish voice cuts through the sobs of the only other kid around. “Why are you crying? The other kids here say that boys aren’t supposed to cry.”

Kenji frowns, lips still wobbling as he makes his reply. “I lost my mom…”

“Oh.” You hum, looking down at your mismatched socks, noticing how the boy visibly had brand-new sneakers. “Hmm… Don’t worry, I lost mine too.”

“Really?” The boy replies, nose still stuffy as he tries to wipe it with his sleeve. “Will they find us?”

You shrug. “My real one won’t find me.”

“Your real one? You have a fake mom?” Kenji asks, curious.

“I don’t know. I never met my real one.” You reply, walking to the swings and taking a seat. Kenji does the same, sitting next to you. “But I know my mom right now isn’t my real mom, so, I ran away.” You say all this with such a tone that didn’t contain much sadness; as if it was just a normal thing to do so.

“What? Why?” Your feet kick yourself off the ground, allowing you to move back and forth. Kenji follows suit, trying to match your force. Once he got the hang of it, he continues. “Are you not scared?”

“I am. But they don’t want me, I think.”

There are a few seconds of silence as Kenji could no longer spark up a reply. All you both could do was swing on the set together. Feeling like he has to say something, Kenji blurts out the first thing that came to mind.

“My dad said I should love kaiju even if he fights them.”

“Woah! Your dad fights the giants?!” You exclaim, digging the heels of your red shoes on the dirt below. Kenji only nods at this. His swing keeps going. “I think the kaiju are super cool. And Mr. Ultraman too. Is your dad Ultraman?”

“Dad says it’s a secret.” Kenji replies with a pout.

“Then, would you love a kaiju?”

The question makes Kenji stop, the swing set back in its still state as you stare at each other’s eyes. 

“Baka! Why would I love—” Kenji stops, your eyes remain wide and curious. And despite the stormy weather, they still chose to shine. A heat creeps up from his neck up to the tips of his ears for reasons beyond him. 

“...I’m, maybe?” He trails off, breaking your intense eye contact. He then mutters, unsure and low:“If they’re cute enough, why not?”

Before you could respond, however, you two started feeling the rain slowly drop down, seconds before it turned into a downpour. 

“Ah! It’s raining!” Kenji exclaims. Without saying anything, you grab the boy’s hand, leading him into the plastic tube to hide from the rain.

“We can hide here while you wait for your mom.” You assure, you and Kenji sitting with your knees bent to hug yourself better. Every other second, you scoot closer to each other, trying to get warm from the cold breeze picking up.

It’s a few minutes more of silence, maybe ten or so, that Kenji felt like crying again. You heard sniffles from beside you, making you tilt your head to see his glassy eyes, tears brimming the edges.

“Dummy, are you going to cry again?”

“I miss my mom and dad…” Kenji says quietly, digging his face into the caps of his knees.

You breathe out through your nose, feeling bad for the boy.

“Here, face me.” 

Kenji hums, still upset as he does what he’s told.

“You can’t be sad after this, okay?” You say as you lean in and Kenji felt your lips meet his. “There. That means I’ll be around when your mom and dad aren’t. So, stop crying okay, dummy?”

“You’ll… be around when mom and dad aren’t?” Kenji says after the brief kiss, not really processing what just happened. Both your cheeks and nose were a mix of warmth from each other, and cold from the rain.

“Yes.” Kenji continues to look at you curiously, waiting for more context.

“My mom and dad right now say that’s how married people are. They stay together even if no one else is around.”

You point your small finger to his face, he looks at it then back at your unyielding gaze.

“Especially if no one else is around.” You share the valuable piece of knowledge with Kenji who soaked it all in like you were a prophet. He nods slowly.

“Then, we’re married?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

The conversation ends as you two bask in silence again. This time, Kenji is the one to look over at you, staring at your sombre look towards the passersby covering their children with their umbrella; carrying them on their arms to avoid them getting wet. Your expression barely changes, but the way your eyes lidded lower.. it compelled Kenji enough to hold your hand, shocking you.

“Hey! What’s wrong with you?” You ask, mostly out of shock. But you don’t let go.

“I’ll be here too.” 

You realise he’d been staring at you when he said that, making you turn away, resuming your waiting game as you squeezed his hand lightly. He squeezes back. The rain somehow felt more mellow.

Half an hour later, Kenji’s mom arrives at the playground with his dad, ushering him to their car. As Kenji was about to point towards you, he sees you running through the rain, cutting a corner, before disappearing out of his sight.

“What is it, Ken?” Emi Sato asks, carrying the boy in her arms as she checks for injuries, now in the backseat of their car. She glances towards where her son’s eyes were fixated, seeing nothing but the empty playground.

Kenji only shook his head, choosing to say nothing. All he could think about now was when he’ll meet the person he married again.

“Were you lonely, Ken?” His mother asks. He perks up to look back towards his mother’s worried gaze.

There’s only one answer dripping from the tip of his tongue, his hand tingling in warmth, remembering the soft embrace it had just minutes prior. 

“No…”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Your lips were soft against Kenji’s slightly chapped ones, both your bodies stuck in the motion of the accidental kiss. There was a small spark of electricity that climbed up from the bottom of your spines, a tingle that's much too noticeable.

It was merely six seconds. 

Kenji would know. 

He counted. 

Six seconds for you to pull away, five of you just staring into the other’s similarly wide orbs; four for Kenji to catch a whiff of that addicting scent he never noticed until now, and three before your eyes finally drooped, your head nuzzling his chest. Kenji's plain white shirt getting wet alongside with it before he feels your whole frame lose its tension, breathing resuming its slow and quiet rhythm.

Kenji remains quiet, his brain absolutely fried, staring straight ahead as he sits to support your weight, comparatively light for the athlete and occasional superhero, especially now that you weren’t a giant. His hands hover over the smooth expanse of your bare back, his legs spread, lightly encaging your snoozing figure. His mouth still ajar, not a word slipping from him.

Eventually, his hands meet the damp skin of your shoulder and the middle of your back, pushing your figure against him even more. He supports your head that was now resting on his shoulder, even as your hair lightly tickles his ear.

“Ken.”

The sudden call of his name from Mina finally releases him from whatever trance he was in. Almost forgetting the giant baby kaiju a few metres away from him who, surprisingly, had settled down; sitting on its hind, watching you and him with a curious gaze.

“I… Uh, yes. Sorry. Uhm,” He clears his throat. “Could you fetch us a towel, Mina?”

It takes only a minute before the ground next to him opened up, a mechanical hand holding the extra white towel was handed to the boy, who takes it wordlessly, working to wrap it around you as delicately as he possibly could. Taking note of your legs and arms littered in bruises and quite nasty wounds.

“I’ll take her to my room, watch over the baby for a minute.” Kenji says. “I’ll prepare the guest room tomorrow.”

“Sure, Ken.”

Once you were wrapped in the soft cotton, Kenji moved to carry you in his arms effortlessly, though he winces every now and then when he rotates his left shoulder a little too much, though it wasn’t that big a deal compared to your injuries. While walking, he would glance at your face, peacefully asleep as if you weren’t even hurt at all. He notes that your eyelashes were the same colour as your hair and eyes, that is, they’re all prismatic in nature; and with the absence of light, there is the absence of colour, where he understands your features much better.

Kenji arrives at his bedroom, setting you down gently on his king-sized bed, turning the duvet so that it covers you, he doesn’t think much of his sheets getting damp from your hair. 

You remain unmoving, both hands rested on your stomach. Kenji finally takes a deep breath in as he drops his weight to the apex of his feet, crouching as he really takes in what happened. 

His hands covers his face; lightly messing his hair in the process as an unexplainable heat pushes its way up from his chest.

Apparently, what happened smelled like Hinoki Wood and Yuzu.

“Ken, your father is waiting outside the door. It seems he has driven here in a haste.”

“Min— Shhh,” He chastises, stopping mid-call to lower his voice. 

“I’ll get to it.” He whispers in reply.

Easily enough, he’s getting off his feet and shutting his door closed as he made his way to the front door. On the way, he starts hearing distant music and giggles from downstairs, along with flashing lights.

“Mina!” Ken calls out from the living room. “What’s going on?”

“The baby had begun fussing two minutes after you two went upstairs, I have discovered that she is currently happy with Doraemon”

Kenji sighs, “Okay, but keep it down a little. Dad might suspect something.”

“But there is something.” Mina replies.

“Shut it, Mina.” He interjects, Mina doesn’t reply, knowing that Kenji particularly has a difficult situation with his father.

Kenji opens the door, looking back to regard if the lights are still on, just as he looks to see that his dad was about to knock.

“Kenji,” his dad almost whispers, a relieved undertone transfixed in the simple call of his name.

In haste, he runs his hand through his hair, ears still catching the tunes playing in the basement.

“Dad, hey. Hey, what’s up?” Kenji leans in, slyly closing the door a little bit more, giving worried glances towards the glass elevator before giving his minute focus back towards his father. “How about that game tonight?” He plays dumb.

“Oh, thank God. You’re okay?” His father fusses.

“Yeah, you know. I’m good.” He allows a little bit more of his body to show that he really was good. “It was a tough battle. I’m a little sore, still recovering, but—”

Suddenly, a screech that Kenji knew was from the baby kaiju pierced through the air, making him reel back in defence behind the front door. His dad, the invader, moving a pace forward like a rook on a chess board made it easy for Kenji to spot the suspicion on his face.

“What was that?”

“Uh…” He needs to come up with something— “Uh, you know. It’s… Uh…” Suddenly, the lights behind him visibly changes. Green, blue, pink— 

“That’s the.. The party downstairs.” He jives along.

Kenji fails to notice the swift change, the quirk of his father’s eyebrows. “The most magnificent creature on Earth has died. The last of its kind.” With each word, his father’s words become more punctuated with anger, hands flailing along with it.

“And you throw a party!?” 

Red. For a brief second or two, Kenji’s mind, his thoughts, were clouded in red; an emotion quickly visible in his face and body. 

“That magnificent creature nearly took my head off, Dad.” 

This time, each word was not only punctuated in anger, but stomps that slowly but surely made his father back away from the shelter of Kenji’s patio, the rain dripping on the old man who could only recede and listen to his enraged son.

“I’ve barely seen you in twenty years. You chose this city and literal monsters over us.”

“No…”

“Then, you get hurt, can’t hack it anymore, and I get to come back and clean up the mess you made as…” Kenji raises his hands in mockery as he sings the branded tune the masses had placed upon his famous counterpart. “Da, da, da, da! Ultraman.”

“—Which I only did because Mom begged me.” Kenji pauses. “And you’re more worried about the monster. Classic.” 

With eyes that sheened in a way that scratches at Kenji’s nerves, his father chalks up a reply. “No… I only wanted to.. protect you.”

It claws in his chest, a familiar wall that’s repeatedly been torn again and again, by the same person; enough so that Kenji could still feel the recurring pain, but no longer does he break down from it.

“But you didn’t.” He says, eyes glassy. “You didn’t even pay attention.”

The furrow in his father’s eyes disappear, a notable change; cognizant of his actions.

Kenji continues.

“Be honest. When Mom disappeared, did you even look for her?”

~

“I stopped hearing it.”

“Stopped hearing what?”

“Do you think kaiju have a special way of communication?” Tadashi asks mindlessly, spinning on his desk chair.

“All animals do, now let me sleep.” Hiro replies, covering his head with a pillow to possibly drown out whatever his big brother could mutter.

But telepathically? 

Is there a possibility? Tadashi thinks, leaning on his elbows that rested on his knees, fingertips of his hands on each other.

And if he can hear it, why can’t Hiro?

Tadashi leans back on his desk chair with an audible sigh. If he were being honest, he didn’t know why he was suddenly so invested in the recent kaiju sighting. His eyes fixated on the smaller version of his whiteboard dedicated to his looking for you in the past three years hidden behind the shelves in his lab at Tokyo Tech. He often hides this side of him from Hiro. This side of him that’s… too dedicated in his search that definitely has been fruitless for years.

It’s simple. 

The scene of the incident, a huge gap in the wall of the building where your personal laboratory was; a trail of disaster followed right after. Like many other kaiju incidents, everyone suspected that it had walked from the sea. Considering that the building was situated on the seaside.

It was late at night when it happened, you went back to your office because you left something and… that’s it? 

You’re just.. gone? Now he has to grief over his sister who he had just spoken to an hour prior to your leaving asking if you wanted some ramen he was cooking because he was too busy studying for his exams and— Tadashi had to catch his breath even though he wasn’t speaking, feeling his heart beat a mile a minute.

They weren’t given much information past that. 

The authorities say that they were just unfortunate that a kaiju had attacked the facility; no security footage, considering that the building was crushed in half. But out of everyone, the guards, other leftover researchers, they were able to leave unscathed while your brothers had to deal with the loss of their pillar; their big sister. Unable to even confirm if you’re dead or not, hoping that you’ll come back, even injured, to them.

Tadashi ran his hand through his hair for the umpteenth time that night.

Truthfully, he was about to give up. He was about to take off all the newspaper clippings, all the letters, all your bank records, any and all leads from his rolling whiteboard; erase all the theories, and maybe, just like his little brother always told him… to just.. move on.

But then, on the way home after Tadashi introduced Hiro to his friends at Tokyo Tech after getting arrested for that night when Hiro won one of many of his recurring bot fights, the invasive sounds of the oceans permeated through his mind; wrapping around it gently like a blanket of warmth, telling him, making him understand— that he had to go there. To you.

“Bioacoustics.” Tadashi snaps, getting his favourite cap off his desk as he runs down the door. A course set to Tokyo Tech.

He leaves, not knowing his little brother whose eyes blink open, a frown on his face.

~

We share the pain of her loss, Kenji. 

“Yeah, right.” Kenji mutters beneath his breath.

A few hours have passed since his dad visited and left, a few hours into the morning. He hadn’t gone down yet, choosing to just have the time to himself for at least once today. A box of donuts beside him as he slumped down lazily on his couch. The distant sound of thunder and the whining of the baby fills Kenji’s ears.

He sighs heavily. Kenji knew that he stepped a line earlier when he mentioned his mother to which his father solemnly left right after he said the same words that were stuck in his head amongst other things. It seems like there’s too many things getting stuck in his head recently, and just for this day alone. How did he even get into this mess?

He was so tired, yet he couldn’t sleep a wink.

Kenji would walk around aimlessly, every other time going to his room just to look at you from the doorframe; still and unmoving, your eyelashes resting easily on your now dry cheeks. From here, where your fins and scales were hidden by the combined efforts of your towel, hair, and his duvet; you absolutely looked human. Maybe part of the 0.1% because of your inhumanely beautiful hair. A princess would fit. You look like a resting princess to Kenji. And he, with his dishevelled hair, stained shirt, and day-old pants, would probably be the fucking peasant on your feet.

Kenji disregards the thought, the shrill whine of the baby reaching his ears. He groans, head drooping down as his hand slides from the frame. Walking towards the elevator after getting his donuts, he heads down to the basement.

Mina, in a slightly panicked tone, explains the baby’s neverending screeches that added on to Kenji’s inability to sleep.

“She settled down for a minute, then started right back up.”

“Yeah! I can hear it!” Kenji replies, exasperated.

“She’s still scared of you, Ken.” Mina explains as Kenji puts down his box of donuts on the floor.

“Ya think?” He gets sassier by the minute, Mina thinks.

Looking back at the shrieking baby, Kenji groans; before clapping his hand with faux energy, walking a little further back to try a little trick up his sleeve.

“Hey! Hey, hey.” He calls out, catching the baby’s attention. “Hiii!”

“Let’s try this.” Kenji mutters, the baby still frowned, faux cries coming from its little— big beak. Kenji motions to himself, “Beforeee.”

Then, he bumps his head as he transforms into his alter ego. “After!”

When the baby caught sight of her other sole parent, a smile was quickly seen on her face.

“Before,” She whines.

“After!” She smiles, chitters crooning from her throat, visibly pleased.

And it goes on like that for a minute, enough so that the baby, seeing her dad transform in and out of Ultraman form, give off a confused expression, still trying to put two and two together. Eventually, her chitters come when Kenji is in Kenji form.

Kenji sighs as he approaches the now happy baby. “You see? It’s me.” He explains, turning around and sitting next to his box of donuts once more.

And it wasn’t even two minutes in that the baby started whining again.

[...]

After tending to the baby that Kenji creatively decided to temporarily name ‘Baby,’ giving her a litter of fish for an early morning breakfast— considering it was probably 3 AM by then, Kenji fell asleep on the floor in front of Baby’s containment unit. 

And woke up to strange drops of liquid on his face.

“Eugh, what the…” His eyes, still squinted and opting for sleep, meets the hazy vision of the baby looking down at him, dripping drool. Drool on him, smelling strongly of fish and guts, and… and.. and drool!

Kenji rolls over quickly just before a fat drop falls directly on his face while his mouth was open.

“Oh, God.” He spits out, trying to wipe the substance off his face. “Ew! Ew!” 

He scowls in a second, transforming into his Ultra. Baby tries to reach for him, but Kenji was already on the verge of throwing up from the stench, his fingers pinch the nape of the baby’s neck like she was a kitten. A disgusting trail of spit follows the baby around and Kenji keeps trying not to gag at every moment when he pulls the baby off the edge of the containment unit.

“Ugh, that’s disgusting.” He shakes his head, hand reaching for the lid of the unit. “Oh, that smell.” He looks at the baby who was so happy in return; tummy full from the meal he haphazardly gave earlier. But then suddenly she burped and let out a glob of drool, enough to cover nearly half of his Ultra’s face, luckily turning a little so as not to swallow anything. He coughs, really about to throw up. Quickly putting the baby back to the bottom of the containment unit, he rasps out a few more gasps and Oh Gods before putting the lid back on where it belonged, not seeing the baby try to reach for him.

“It’s so bad.” Kenji coughs out.

Kenji stumbled back releasing his Ultra-form. Crouching a little as he groans out. “I shouldn’t have eaten all those donuts.” He gasps, brain actively fighting to ignore the horrid smell surrounding him when Mina suddenly approaches him.

“Ken, I know you’re exhausted. But you have a game today.” He has a what?

“After last night? There’s no way we’re gonna play.” He shakes his head.

Mina moves back to flash the holographic news of his coach declaring that despite the battle, the stadium is safe, and we will be playing the game. Oh, bullshit. He is not excited to even see that Yakult Swallows fucker.

“Of cooourse. Of course, we’re still gonna play.” Kenji says, frustration evident in his tone.

“What are we going to do about the baby and the woman, Ken?”

“We aren’t gonna do anything.” Ken replies, shrugging, a mechanical hand giving him his Giants jacket.

“You are gonna have to figure something out.” He continues, putting on his jacket backwards without thinking, walking towards the glass elevator. “Get creative, Mina. You are a state-of-the-art supercomputer.”

The hovering orb listens as she understands the orders given to her; turning back to flash a different kids show towards the baby.

“Studies suggest this isn’t healthy for children.” She states, upbeat music overtaking the basement as the baby immediately fell in fascination of the bright colours.

“Ah, TV, the ultimate babysitter. Just not all this crap all day, okay? I don’t want her getting hooked on that stupid song.”

When finally arriving upstairs, the sun has already risen, he opted to take a quick shower to get rid of all the nasty fish spit left on him by the baby. When entering his room right after to get some clothes, he finds you still fast asleep. Not a twitch, not a hair out of place.

A towel still wrapped around his waist, Kenji decides to approach you in quiet footsteps. If only to check if you were still breathing, and you were, he confirms, after placing his ear close to your face.

“I wonder what your name is,” He says lowly, sighing and sparing you one last look before going to change and leaving for today’s game.

~

⌈ And there’s another strike. Sato just looks exhausted. ⌋

⌈ And now it looks like there are words being exchanged between Sato and the Swallows catcher. Oh! Oh no. We haven’t seen a brawl like this in a long time. Both benches have cleared. They’re throwing punches… ⌋

Now, Kenji was watching this morning’s replay of his ruffle with that stupid Swallows catcher in the middle of his living room. Watching as he sees a pathetic version of himself, missing strike after strike. A litter of bruises and small cuts on his face, his knuckles a nasty mix of blue and purple from delivering similarly menacing blows because of his undiluted anger.

He doesn't sense the silent footsteps approaching him in the dark room, head too deep in the failures within his past two days and the injuries he’s incurred so far. A whine falls from his lips as he tries to appease the patched bruise on his temple with the premium canned drink that mockingly had his once flawless face plastered on.

It was only when you were standing right beside him, dipping your finger in the ice did Kenji fully comprehend that someone was in the room with him. He yelped, almost sitting up.

��H-hey.” Kenji exclaims. “You're awake. What are you—”

His words die down from his throat, words turning to a gulp, when the loose towel around you drops to the ground, exposing you to the man who had his mouth agape, taking it all in before he realises he should be darting his eyes away. 

You don't spare him a glance when you try to step in the tub, Kenji moving his feet to give you room, and really, to begin getting out of there.

I mean, he can't just bathe with you, can he? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take the indulgent step of bathing in the middle of the living room.

His efforts to go and step out are stopped when you gently place your soft hand on his rigid arm. You're quiet, voice unheard, but it seems like your sounds that blanket over Kenji's cortexes are working just fine. And it— you said: 

Stay.

Like a puppy, he felt compelled to stay. 

So he did. 

You stared at him, and he observed your movements, the cooled can from his hand had long been forgotten as you kneel between his legs, your ice-cold hands dragging along his. From his palm, to the space between his fingers, to his knuckles and… Up, up, up, following the veins that decorated his overworked arms, the ticklish sensation made him drop the can from his lightened grip.

All the while you looked at him so earnestly, and in this light, it's like there was a brief flash of the more natural hue of your features; the usual iridescence dialling down a notch, making Kenji, among the other things you were doing to him, hitch his breath for the subtle flicker in changes.

The moment was quiet, none of you talking as the volume of the video he watched on repeat had been dialled down in his head. All it was in this moment was your touch on his, every gentle, slow drag of the freezing tips of your fingers on his bruises and scratches left such a sensation. Like electric fire on water, but also ice on skin on the hottest summer days.

Whether it was a spark or from the cold, or from something else entirely, Kenji at this moment, didn't care to know. Because your hands finally reached his collarbones, thumb rubbing circles on his Adam’s apple, and if you weren't so… so delicate with your touch, he would have blamed you for making him feel so choked. Like he couldn't breathe, like he didn't want to breathe anything else but the addicting scent you were giving off. You’d have to have been in the ocean for so long. How come you smell like this? Not of salt or fish, or—

He cuts his own thoughts off as he hears a small hum from your throat, his eyes that he hadn't noticed to be so lowly lidded already, on the brink of closing from your light caresses, widens at the slightest hint of your voice.

Your hand traces up from his collarbone, up to his neck, until you're perusing your way to his bruised cheek and damp hair. When you decide to leave your hand on his injured cheek, pressing a little, Kenji involuntarily lets out a whimper, the pain from the punch of that stupid catcher unironically catching up to him.

But even with this, Kenji finds himself leaning to your touch, eyes instinctively closing when the pressure returns to a light careen, allowing himself to delve deeper into the abyss you were taking him into. His cheek where your hand lay felt cool, a separate feeling from the ice, like it's carefully taking his pain away. 

You move the slightest bit, hand pulling away; and Kenji's first instinct when his eyes shot open was to hold your wrist.

“Don't,” He whispers quietly, his cool breath fanning you who looked at him with your currently doe eyes in surprise. It seems that Kenji has a habit of not noticing things involving you. He didn't flinch from the closeness, a surprisingly welcome gesture for him. “Don't stop.”

For a brief moment, he forgets that you're half-kaiju, and that you haven't spoken a word at all since you two met. But when you rise from the water, bare chest seen for his eyes only, his other arm wraps itself on your waist subconsciously. Your legs and his tangle as he sits lower on the bathtub, allowing you to sit taller than him so he can bury his face on the curve of your neck and shoulder, dipping down to the valley of your soft breasts as he sighs in contentment, eyes closed all the while his arms wrap around your torso.

You were sitting on Kenji's navel, arms wrapped around his neck as your hands combed through his hair while you rested your cheek on his temple. It was quiet, not even the sound of the looping clip on the wall-to-wall TV was getting any of yours and Kenji's attention.

It's soothing, this feeling.

Kenji feels like you’re unravelling the knots on his physique, the pure sensation makes his fingers run along your slightly arched back in appreciation. 

With his eyes closed, trapped in your soft embrace, Kenji allows the time to pass by. Not seeing the slowly pulsing, bioluminescent glow of the once normal water of his ice bath. The cooling sensation wasn’t from the ice any longer, but from the conduction of your healing enzymes, your kaiju features coming out strong, the brief reprise of your earlier change in features disappearing, replaced back into its original state of prismatic disposition.

“Ken,” Mina’s slightly excited voice calls out and Ken snaps his eyes open, the once peaceful environment long gone. “We have something to show you.” He groans when the chirps from below reach his ears.

When he pulls away, he’s careful not to let you graze.. him. You only stared in curiosity, wondering why he was plucking himself away from you. Kenji makes a point to only stare at your eyes, and only your eyes despite quite literally using your chest as his pillow not only a few minutes earlier.

“Let’s get changed, okay? Close your eyes so I can get out.”

Kenji shouldn’t be surprised that you didn’t understand what he meant, so he lightly grabbed both your wrists, still pointedly ignoring the curve of your waist, disappearing into the icy bath, and how you were so soft cushioned on his comparatively hard stomach. Honestly… how did he look past all of this earlier?

“Here, cover.” He says, holding your hands over your eyes, the fingers leaving an undeniable gap, which he would close. “Cover tightly.”

When he made sure you weren’t leaving your arms loose, Kenji moved to get up from the tub, his only guiding light is the TV, he scampers for his towel, wrapping it quickly around his waist before turning around to fetch you yours. Only to see that your eyes were already set on him.

“Hey! I said cover!” Kenji exclaims, already feeling his skin growing red from the embarrassment.

“You’re actually a perv, aren’t you?” He asks, but you remain quiet, simply observant of his actions. When he leans down to grab your towel beside the tub, his eyes dart over to his knuckles that were once purple. Now, it was back to his original shade of skin. His brows furrow at this and he immediately moves to touch his once painful temple, cheek, and then arm— until he rotates his dominant shoulder.

The realisation dawns on him as he looks at you, still a little worse for wear, only tilting your head at his gaze.

“No way.” He mutters. Kenji turns on the lights to the room, making you squint and hiss. 

“Sorry.” Kenji offers you your towel, wrapping it around your shoulder. “Come on. Up, up.” He pats his arm for you to take.

[...]

 When he got downstairs, you in tow, Kenji had a little pep in his step. Briefly forgetting the other reason he came down. You were currently dressed in Kenji’s old Dodgers shirt and one of his old boxers; the only few that would fit you. He thought it would be a nightmare to dress you at first, but you were a quick learner. Kenji only had to show you how he got his own shirt first before you followed suit and things went from there; of course when he had to show you how to put on his old boxers, it was decidedly… too much to show you how he does it firsthand.

So, he opted to put on the rest of his clothes in his walk-in closet away from your tailing figure. Kenji decided that he was lucky that his Dodgers shirt was big on you, enough to cover a good portion of your lower half so that when he instructs you to put your feet on the holes of the only other clothes he had that fit you, he wouldn’t be staring it at the face.

“We’re definitely going to need a trip to the mall.”

When the baby caught sight of you and Kenji together, she chittered, the massive fins on either side of her head lightly twitching as she smiled. Kenji gives you a brief look as you grinned so brightly at the baby, your hand that once held on to Kenji’s arm was now set on the glass container as you met the baby face-to-face.

Kenji smiles. “Mina, I have some good news.”

“Wait, Ken. Baby has a surprise to show you, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Yes. What was it?”

When the music started playing, the baby started jumping, dancing along. But the foul odour took away the charm of the cute dance. So much so that even you reeled back, a scrunch on your nose.

“Oh, dear God, what is that smell?” Kenji exclaims, covering his nose with his arm.

“Ken, you cannot feed a 20-foot baby a half ton of fish and expect nothing but a giant pile of—” Shit.

Kenji’s gaze flitters to the green goo that the baby repeatedly stomped on in its little happy dance.

“Which brings me to something we need to discuss.” Mina continues. “Until I am able to find Kaiju Island, we’re going to need to raise her.”

The mention of Kaiju Island perked Kenji’s ears, he’d briefly forgotten how much he needed to send the baby back.

“And as for the woman…”

“No, no. We can’t send her back to Kaiju Island, she’s obviously not a monster.” Kenji stops. “But she does know Kaiju Island. She should, shouldn’t she?”

“It is a possibility.”

“Look, so far, she’s not acting wildly. She’s just a little…” Kenji watches as you peruse the shirt you’re wearing, seeing the peeks of scale glistering from your wounded legs. “New to all this. And she learns fast too.”

Your eyes catch on to Kenji’s and he waves at you lightly. You smile, all pearly white, at him.

“Ken, your heart rate seems to spike when you are around her.”

The statement makes Kenji reel back. “What?!”

The floating robot does not respond from her out-of-pocket statement however, opting to float towards you.

When Mina approaches you, you lean back, afraid of the foreign levitating ball. When the supercomputer emits the same cyan light, you run, all the way towards Kenji who huffs when you bump into him in your haste to avoid getting scanned. Your being scared was obvious as you hid behind Kenji’s back; you three were a little far from the baby now, mostly Kenji’s attempt to smell the stench less.

“What if she was a person before all of this, Mina?”

“There are no records or any news at all of cross-contaminating human DNA with kaiju DNA.”

“It would feel wrong to send someone that looks, acts,” not talks yet, but— “You get what I mean.”

“Then, we’ll just have to arrive at a compromise, Ken. Earlier I said that we must raise the baby,”

“Mina, I’ve got a whole season of baseball ahead of me.” Kenji digresses. “I.. I just can’t do it.” He turns around, about to leave and head upstairs.

For Ken, raising a baby was an entirely different responsibility than… teaching someone, he would reason in his brain. He wasn't going to raise you, he just needed to.. investigate.

You turn your head from the baby to Kenji.

“Ken, you brought her home and now she is your responsibility. I have observed that our other guest doesn’t mind helping you with her. In any case, she’s more experienced towards kaiju behaviour. So if you want to keep one of them, you’re keeping both of them.” Mina keeps going, and Ken can only stay quiet as he steps back with every self-effacing statement the robot made.

“They will both die if you don’t take care of them until they are ready to leave. Now, it won’t be easy, but I’ll do everything I can to help.” The bot asserts.

“We’ll have to continue feeding her, washing her, develop a strategy for taking her to potty.” This makes Kenji flinch, looking at the giant pink lizard who was giggling in the similarly giant glass container she was in.

“You’ll have to learn the five S’s.” Kenji trips back a little as he keeps walking backwards, back slowly to the containment unit. 

“Swaddle, side, shush, swing, suck.”

The sudden rumble of the surroundings makes Kenji and Mina look back, your tail swashing as you transform into your kaiju form; Kenji’s old shirt and boxers on the ground beside you.

~

The night ended rather quietly after Kenji finished cleaning up and with you humming a familiar tune to put the baby to sleep. Along with coming into terms that he basically had a kid starting then. Now, Kenji was walking to his room, ready for bed. The guest room was ready for you to sleep in, and even after Kenji pointed the bed there, you kept following him. He grunts.

“No. You sleep there,” He points again, and you dumbly look towards his finger pointing. However, he reels back when he realises you flinched in surprise at his sudden action.

A weird feeling of guilt overtakes him, and he sighs. “Why are you so clingy with me?” He whispers, mostly to himself, really.

As he went on though, he no longer stopped you from following him. Eventually, he was lying on his bed. You stand there, waiting.

“Come on. Lie down.” Kenji pats the space beside him. The change in disposition is so obvious, your glee spreading across the room and wrapping Kenji in unreposed warmth.

You jump on the extremely soft and fluffy mattress, diving beneath the covers like a bean. A bean that eventually found its place on his chest, grinning widely. Your whole body hid beneath the thick duvet, your face the only thing peeking out. The sight made Kenji breathe out a chuckle as his hand lands on your head, lightly patting it.

“Thank you…” Kenji starts, your chin resting on the middle of his chest, eyes fixated on him. “You know, for whatever you did. I feel better.”

You may not have understood him word for word, but the message seemed to have gone through, ending up with you simply humming and smiling up at him, before your cheek replaced your chin as you begin to get comfortable. 

For now, Kenji can allow this.

He closes his eyes, unknowingly basking in your warmth and the way your body seemed to melt into his.

Taglist: @moonjellyfishie @mochminnie @lovingyeet @vrxouei @secretyna

[koshkamartell]

No One But Me

chapter warnings: reader is held captive, rope bindings, gagging, descriptions of anxiety and depressive thoughts, mention of sexual assault and murder.

The baleful ferocity in Joel's eyes is so frightening that for a split second you are afraid that he was going to kill you right then and there. You are scared stiff, frozen in place with the fear that he was about to hurt you more than ever before.

But he doesn't.

Joel manhandles you onto the bed to tie you up, but his actions are not heedlessly cruel. He doesn't slap you to subdue your anguished cries or berate you with vicious insults. He simply carries out the task with his jaw firmly squared and his laboured breaths huffing through his nose.

His lips are pressed shut and his eyes stay glued on what he's doing, his hands moving with deft efficiency. He doesn't speak at all. You sob and plead for him to stop, to take you both back to Jackson, to give it one more chance, but he does not meet your eyes or respond to you. He does not acknowledge you as you promise to be good, to be better for him if he only just turns around now to go back home. It is like he can't hear you at all.

Joel wraps the rope tightly around your arms to secure them against the sides of your torso, then uses the remaining length to tie your wrists securely together behind your back. He then kneels down at your feet and ties a shorter piece of rope around your ankles, making it impossible for you to walk. You attempt to move your arms and rotate your wrists but the restraints keep your limbs in place, rendering your whole body almost completely immobile. It is disconcerting how defenceless it leaves you.

You open your mouth to make another plea when Joel reaches for a strip of cloth beside his boot on the ground. He pulls the material taut between his hands and raises it to your face. A surge of steely terror pulses through your veins when you realise his intentions.

"Oh, Joel," you sob pitifully. "Please don't. I w-won't speak anymore, I promise."

Joel continues to ignore you, his lips pressed in a grim line and his brows furrowed as he places the cloth firmly over your mouth and reaches behind your head to tie the gag. Although your nose is unobstructed and you can still breathe, the gag is the final crushing blow to your sense of autonomy. You bow your head in defeat and let the tears splash down to your lap in big fat drops.

This can't be happening. You must be dreaming - this has to be a bad dream, a nightmare.

Joel finishes and pulls back to rest on his haunches. You spy the way his large hands hover over your knees uncertainly, as if he is restraining himself from touching you. When you lift your chin to look at him, you're unsure how to interpret the sight before you.

It is immediately evident that Joel's anger has simmered down considerably. The tightness in his jaw has eased and the hunch of his shoulders is more relaxed. The coarse aggression in his facial features has been replaced by more benign emotion; his eyebrows knit into an almost sorrowful frown and the corners of his mouth are downturned. You think you may see something akin to conflicted woe glistening in his rich brown eyes.

But perhaps it is just your eyes playing tricks on you in your distressed state. Maybe your vision is too clouded to see properly. The Joel you know wouldn't feel remorse for doing this. Would he?

Joel's gaze trails over your bound body before drifting up to your face, but he avoids meeting your eyes. He stares at the makeshift gag instead, then sniffs and shakes his head gently. What is he thinking?

You watch him rise from the floor and lumber over to the fireplace, his boots scraping across the floor planks. Despite the circumstances you want to reach out and cling to him, to try appeal to whatever shred of rationality that could be hiding within his tormented heart.

But it's impossible. You can hardly move an inch with how proficiently he has bound you with the rope and the gag strains taut against your lips. All you can do is weep in adject silence while you watch him prepare your departure from the cabin.

The fire in the fireplace has died down considerably but the remaining flames crackle and the emanating heat continues to warm the inside of the cabin. Joel upturns the logs and ash with the shovel and extinguishes the little fire, the embers sizzling and glowing in its wake. All your hope dies along with the fire.

From the very moment he found out that you were kidnapped, Oscar feels like he is in a race against time. He imagines a giant hourglass hanging above his head, the seeping grains of time taunting him as they distill through the narrow glass neck, urging him to move faster and faster. He knows that is crucial he act on his impulses right now, that not even a minute can be squandered. Every second that passes could be another potential step toward a catastrophic fate.

He was able to convince the gate guards to let him leave town without them interrogating him too much. He lied smoothly enough, telling them that he was scheduled for patrol with Tommy but Tommy had to stay back and sort things out about Joel. Oscar was confident explaining that Tommy told him to go ahead alone and that he would catch up soon enough. It was a far fetched lie but it worked - word had already spread about Joel among the patrolmen and the guards at the gate were too nonplussed to argue with him.

Oscar sits rigid and staunch upon his horse now, directing it to canter away from Jackson as the gates shut behind him. Oscar knows that Tommy would be pissed with him but right now he doesn't care. His patience and inclination to adher to authority and their protocols have been completely overriden by the primal part of his brain, the part that commands him to hunt and kill and defend all that is his.

His.

That's what you are. He's known it for so long now. Whether you want him as a friend or a lover, you're his. His to cherish and love and honour.

He growls and shakes his head, furious with himself for being such a coward and waiting so long to tell you how he felt. Maybe if he hadn't, you wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe he could've protected you from Joel.

He hopes to God that despite being taken against your will, you're uninjured. He hopes that you are warm and sheltered, that you aren't weathering the freezing cold, that Joel has atleast some consideration for your physical well-being. He knows you have never been outside the town, he knows you probably wouldn't cope well with the unforgiving conditions of the land. You must be so scared, so broken hearted and lost.

Once again he imagines Joel hauling you through snow in the open wilderness, you shivering and weeping like a tortured prisoner behind him. The sorching rage burns brighter in his sternum, flickering frenziedly with reaffirmed indignation. He'll find you, goddamnit. He'll find you if it's the last fucking thing he ever does.

Oscar struggles to constrain the garbled whirlwind of pessimistic thoughts and endless questions cycling through his mind. Why had Joel taken you away? What was he planning to do? Where the hell has he taken you? Are you dressed warmly enough? Are you wearing your good boots, the sturdy brown ones you liked wearing when the ground was hardy with icy snow? Did Joel give you time to pack anything, or did he rob you of the opportunity to take any kind of comfort with you?  

Although Oscar does not know the answer to any of these things, he is hell bent on finding you and rescuing you from whatever demented plan Joel has.

His intuition tells him to follow the worn path of the patrol route he is most familiar with. Too much time has elapsed since now and whenever you left town, leaving little to no hope of tracking you using hoof prints; he can only depend on his instinct to guide him. He steers the horse along the path while vigilantly searching for any sign that you had passed along this very course earlier - a piece of clothing, a ribbon, anything that could give him a clue.

He continues riding to the closest check point, the one positioned at the top of a clearing that overlooks a small valley. Despite the morning sun hiding behind the dull grey clouds, the blanket of snow covering the ground sparkles. Oscar's eyes squint and scan over the vast Wyoming landscape before him. The clusters of trees and shrubs dotting the land offer some kind of shield but are sparse enough that he could spot any movement from a distance. He sees no speck of colour or motion in the valley, though. He looks toward the peaks and mountains further beyond the basin and considers how barren it appears.

Did Joel take you eastward? Oscar himself has never been on the south-eastern patrol before, but he has a hunch that there's nothing worthwhile out there.

No, his internal voice decides. His intuition pulls him around to face north-west instead. The surface of the ground is more flat that way, easier to travel along than the more rocky terrain in the valley. Oscar nods pensively to to himself as he surveys the environment. He notes the thick forest covering an extensive area of land. Perfect for clandestine travel. He vaguely recalls that there's even a cabin checkpoint in that direction. Yes, the tugging in his navel seems to beckon him in that way he cannot ignore. Yes. This is the way.

Oscar grips the reins tighter in his hands. He has to follow whatever higher power is guiding him. He digs his heels lightly against the horse and clicks his tongue. The horse whinnies and accepts his command to keep going, starting with a trot before accelerating into a steadfast canter. The glacial wind sails through Oscar's curls and prickles his cheeks and lips but it doesn't bother him; in fact he finds it strangely uplifting and rejuvenating, urging him to soldier on with his rescue mission.

He wishes he could send some kind of telepathic message to you right now to assure you that he's on his way to save you.

I'll find you, honey. I promise.

You feel like a coveted trophy animal that has been hunted down and captured - one that now awaits its inevitable demise, its own slaughter. You might as well be such an animal, considering the way Joel dragged you out of the cabin and heaved you onto the cart with nothing more than an irritated growl.

It hadn't taken long for him to gather whatever belongings he had and to get Tex saddled up again. He moved quickly, a renewed vigour for fulfilling his grand plan coursing through his whole body. It seemed like a matter of seconds before you heard him climb up onto Tex's back and click his tongue to signal the horse to get going. Then you felt the cart lurch and begin to move, and the pieces of your broken heart sank into the sour pit of your stomach.

You lay in the wagon now, your back pressed uncomfortably against the rope and wooden planks. You have been weeping for what feels like hours and your head aches. Your brain still feels foggy. Your body is exhausted and small waves of nausea roil in your stomach every so often, most likely from the lack of food in your belly.

The cart vibrates and rocks gently as it moves over the forrest terrain, the wheels bumping over the rocky snow covered earth in a way that is almost pacifying. You stare despondently up at the dull, grey clouded sky and the passing tree tops above you. The monotonous view has barely changed throughout the last few hours of travelling, each scene blurring into one never ending kaleidoscope. It has a disorientating effect; you have no idea where you are or where you're headed, or how far you've traversed from the cabin, and Joel has not spoken a word this whole time.

Your ears keenly attune to every sound surrounding you; the creak of the wagon wheels turning, the soft clop of Tex's hooves plodding through the snow, the faint wooshing of breezy wind passing through the trees. In any other scenario the harmony of these vibrations could be soothing, but in the current circumstances the noise sounds melancholic and only serves to accentuate how alone you are.

Tears of despair leak incessantly from your eyes and slide down the sides of your face. Despite Joel keeping you swaddled in his coat and a thick blanket the chill still nips at your flesh and bones, and the graze on your chin stings from the cold air. It is a harsh contrast to the comforting warmth of the cabin you woke up in earlier that morning.

You scold yourself for trying to flee, for even believing you could escape from Joel's irrational incarceration; not only is his strength far more superior than yours, his resolve has proven to be unbreakable. It would have been impossible to loose him. Even if you did succeed in running away, it would have only been a matter of minutes before he tracked and ensnared you once again. He's all the things you are not. Cunning, mighty, tenacious. You are total opposites, your personalities in stark contrast to one another in almost all respects.

A multitude of memories circle through your mind while you lay powerless in your bindings. You find yourself reminiscing about the first few months of knowing Joel, how everything had been so innocent and radiant and so exciting and thrilling. You had never been in love before. You had never felt such an electric attraction to anyone they way you did with Joel. You remember the fluttering in your stomach every time his rich brown eyes watched you, the pleasant shivers that would crawl up your spine whenever the baritone of his voice caressed your ear, the impatient throbbing inside your core when his fingers grazed your skin.

In the beginning, when the mystery of Joel's character was so alluring, everything about Joel seemed attractive to you. His demeanour had always been gruff and stern, but you had also witnessed the softer edges of his nature at times, particularly when he interacted with Ellie. You found his protective dedication to his daughter so endearing. He personified the role of a reserved gentleman - a perfect match for your own shy personality. He was able to demand respect from those around him without even uttering a single word. He radiated a fastidious masculinity that appealed to the lost, lonely little girl you kept tightly concealed within the depths of your heart.

Everything had been so exhilirating...until it began to hurt. You cannot pinpoint just when the relationship (or whatever Joel had refused to call your bond at that stage) had begun its slow descent into depraved obsession. There had been no specific event or moment that signified the change from muted courtship to fixated perversion. In hindsight it had been almost imperceivable.

You sift through the snapshot memories projecting in your imagination like a kind of dim montage. All the milestone instances of passion and love flashed like a shooting star exploding in the night sky.

The explosive first time you kissed. The first time you felt the delicious, intoxicating stretch of Joel's cock entering you. The first time he held his massive hand against the column of your neck and squeezed just enough for you to feel that bliss filled floaty sensation. The first time he smiled - genuinely smiled - at you, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement at some silly joke you had told he and Ellie.

The first time he had shown you just how petulant and sullen he could be when you had gone out with your friends to the Tipsy Bison. The first night he had made you kneel before him and let him fuck your mouth. The first time you suspected that he may have loved you, too, when you surprised him with a birthday cake and caught a sheen of adoration gloss over his irises.

The first slap Joel's calloused hand had delivered to your face when he had been plunged balls deep inside you. The subsequent ones he had delivered both in and outside the bedroom. The first time he had called you his perfect girl after you swallowed all his cum without choking, how it had made your cheeks blush and your tummy somersault. And then the following night, when Joel insisted he start training your throat properly, and how he held you down on his cock those few extra seconds despite your panicked smacks to his thigh, his gravelly voice praising you for being a good little slut.

You feel disgusted with yourself. You should have been strong enough to stay away from Joel. You should have devoted more of your time and energy to your friends, to your teaching, to servicing the community. If you had, you would be in Jackson right now, dancing with Kate and Rhi and helping organise Cassie's wedding and helping the kids at the library find their favourite comic books. You remember the smiles and laughter you shared with your students and your friends, and you hate yourself for not appreciating those precious, joyful times until this moment.

But none of that matters now. The chapter of your life in Jackson has been firmly shut. Those moments of happiness will never be replicated. The people you've come to know and love there will become ghosts of your past, just like your mother and father, and one day you'll be unable to recall their faces. Maybe they will forget you, too.

You must surrender to whatever fate Joel has chosen to bestow upon you. Whatever had transpired between Joel and Ellie was clearly catastrophic, given that he was willing to leave her behind in search of a new life. He would never leave his daughter, the most important person in his life, the one he is so fiercely protective of. This fact alone cements your belief that you will not returning. You wonder how Ellie feels now, what she might be thinking when she hears the news that he's left. You try to picture her face. Would she be sad? Angry? Relieved?

And your friends, how would they react when the gossip spreads throughout the community and reaches their ears? And Oscar?

Oh, Oscar. His face enters your minds eye and you can see him as clear as day; his dark brown eyes and the earnest sensitivity they always seem to convey, the distinct square shape of his jaw and his soft lips, his prominent nose, the lush black and grey curls of his hair. To think you will never lay your eyes on him ever again causes your heart to clench with profound sadness.

You ruminate for what seems like forever. Your thoughts progressively snowball into a turbulent storm of repetitive fantasy scenarios, scenes and faces gradually blurring into one another until you begin to feel faint and light headed. The nausea inside your belly and the pounding in your head intensifies until you're forced to squeeze your eyes closed in an effort to quell the sickness.

You are finally granted mercy when you pass out and descend into a black void of dreamless slumber.

As the day goes on the sun remains subdued by the dark grey clouds painting the sky. It creates a sombre backdrop to the rugged landscape that seems to stretch on forever. Oscar can sense that evening is creeping closer, and so he needs to maintain the steadfast pace he's been riding with in order to achieve some headway.

The ever present hourglass hangs precariously over Oscar, its proverbial weight crushing his optimistic spirit with every gallop of his horse's hooves. He rides for several miles over stretches of flat earth and forest before he finally finds something that could possibly offer clues to your whereabouts.

A short distance ahead a small building comes into his peripheral vision. As he approaches closer to it he realises its a cabin - one that he is sure is used as a checkpoint for one of the patrol routes. That intuitive force flares once again within his lower belly and it guides him straight to the door of the cabin.

Oscar tugs the reins to command his horse to halt, then hastily dismounts from the saddle. His actions are clumsy, his brain too distracted by the urgency of the situation, and he lands heavily on his foot. He stumbles and a shooting pain reverberates from his heel to his ankle, reigniting his old injury. His face contorts with agony and he hisses through his teeth.

Fucking hell, of all the times this shit could happen, why does it happen now?

"Fuck," he seethes aloud, gritting through the throbbing hurt to stagger up to the front door. He twists and heaves the wooden door open and rushes inside the cabin as quickly as his smarting ankle will allow.

Oscar's eyes search wildly through the interior of the small cabin, his orbs bouncing from each piece of furniture to every space and every visible nook. He calls out your name once, then twice, but all that responds is the deathly quiet within the house. His heart sinks when he realises you are no where to be found. He exhales a heavy sigh, disheartened and defeated.

Oscar stands in the middle of the cabin and roughly cards his fingers through his hair. Where are you? What if he's too late to get to you? Oh God, please don't let it be too late. The crawling sensation of hysteria begins to bubble inside his chest, but Oscar quickly quashes the feeling.

"Keep it together," Oscar scolds himself aloud.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose. Be calm. He exhales through his mouth. Stay calm. He repeats the sequence twice more, patient and unhurried, until he feels the panic completely evaporate from his body. Now, focus. We need clues.

His head swivels around to scour the place once more. The bed is unmade, a blanket sitting in a crumpled heap on the mattress. The sole table and chair perch close by, unoccupied by any clutter. Across from the bed is the fireplace.

Oscar is suddenly struck by the realisation that the inside of the cabin is relatively warm. When was the last time a patrol team came here?

He saunters over to the fireplace and crouches down to inspect the logs in the hearth. Oscar reaches out to trace his fingertips along the stonework bordering the hearth, not expecting to feel the faint warmth that greets his skin. Shit, it's still warm. He peers into the nook and surveils the small bundle of partially burnt logs sitting amongst clumps of grey ash. His eyes widen when he spies the orange glow of a burning ember admist the heap of ash.

Someone was here. In just the past few hours, someone had been here. It had to be you and Joel.

Oscar scrambles to stand up and run back outside the cabin. If you were here, there would be foot prints or hoof prints or something close by. There's been no snowfall this afternoon - any prints would be fresh enough to still be distinct enough to be visible. He scours the panorama before him with great concentration.

Please please please.

Then it hits him - a trail of half circle imprints in the snow leading away from the cabin.

He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and blinks a few times, hoping his eyes aren't decieving him. He's in luck, though - they are indeed hoof prints, albeit shallow, but they really are there. He studies the trajectory of the tracks and observes that they head diagonally toward a narrow opening amongst trees and shrubbery. There's where he's got to go.

A fierce surge of victorious convinction floods Oscar's guts. This is the path that'll take him to you, he's sure of it. He wastes no time hoisting himself back up on the saddle of his horse, paying no heed to the throb in his ankle.

"Come on," he instructs the horse with a firm tug of the reins and a tap of his heels. "We gotta go get my girl."

It is close to nightfall when you and Joel finally arrive at the raiders cabin. He had wanted to arrive well before sunset but things hadn't gone according to the vague plan in his mind. He hadn't planned spending much time at the cabin, let alone half a day, but he had also not anticipated the possibility of being so thoroughly exhausted.

Those hours of rest proved to be crucial, though, as he had woken up feeling energised enough to complete the last and longest leg of the journey. He  couldn't feel too irked about arriving late when his senses were sharper and the strength in his body was reinvigorated. As much as it pains him to admit, he isn't a young man anymore.

Besides, there was still enough light to check out the area and do a sweep of the cabin before the dark of the night sets in. It was imperative that Joel carry this out as soon as possible. Although they had wiped out the raiders during their last mission, it was still vital for Joel to check that no one was lurking inside the cabin, infected or not. Anyone or anything could have taken up residence in the area since then and the last thing he needed right now was a surprise hiding in the shadows.

Joel tugs on the reins and mutters woah boy to signal for Tex to come to a halt. The horse stops just outside the cabin and obediently waits for Joel to dismount. Joel lets out a weary grunt as he descends from the saddle, the dull ache of his joints  flaring as he finally stretches his legs and walks. He ties the reins to the railing of the cabin porch and then pauses to stroke the horse's muzzle. As he whispers praise to Tex Joel glances past the horse's head to make sure the cart is still intact and secure.

He hasn't heard a sound from you since he laid you in the cart - not that you could speak or anything. You hadn't let out so much as a whimper the whole time.

Joel faces back to the cabin and begins to make his way up the porch steps. From the outside, the raider's cabin is a one storey log home of impressive structure and aesthetic. He can easily tell that the foundation of the dwelling is solid and its construction durable, the thick logged walls providing more than adequate insulation from the elements. He can imagine how it would look after you've settled in and made it home - smoke puffing out from the chimney atop the roof, piles of chopped firewood stacked on the porch, a couple of hunted rabbits strung up by the door awaiting dressing.

Joel withdraws his pistol from his pocket and enters through the front door with careful, calculated steps. He feels no fear or anxiety as he wanders through the cabin, for the many years of constantly being on guard have trained him to remain calm while cautious. He's primed to confront and fight any source possible danger with confidence. It doesn't take long for him to investigate the place and determine that it is clear of any life.

Joel returns outside, the porch wood creaking under the heavy tread of his boots. He tucks his gun back into his pocket and ambles to the cart behind Tex. He peers into the tray and sees your form covered by the thick blanket, your head lolled to the side and your eyes closed, the skin around them red and puffy. Even like this, you are still the most beautiful thing in this world, he thinks, and his withered heart aches at the sight of you.

He swipes the hair from your face and smooths it back. You must have fallen asleep, exhausted from crying or from the tranquilising effects of the pills, or perhaps from a combination of both. You will wake up eventually and see your new home. You will come to accept that this is where you'll live, with no more arguments or trying to run away. You will come to understand why he's done what he has and you will be grateful for it.

Joel slides his hands underneath you body and hoists you into his arms. You remain limp and asleep, your head tilting backwards like a ragdoll. He carries you up the porch steps and to the cabin like a groom carrying his bride.

"Here we go," he whispers to himself as he passes through the threshold. "Home sweet home."

The man had been lurking alone throughout the Wyoming wilderness for months now. He had managed to survive the harsh conditions of the land with little more than a set of knives, a rifle, and the gritty set of skills he had acquired throughout his many years as a raider. He had always been ruthless and resourceful, wily and fearless, a man determined to survive in this world through any means necessary - including the slaughter and defilement of anyone who got in his way.

And although he was a hardened survivor, Lyle was also a man grieving the loss of the group of men who had been his companions for many years. He was the last one left of his band after those godforsaken Jackson cowboys had discovered them going about their business and decided to fuck with them.

Lyle and his gang of raiders had crossed the state line into Wyoming to see what they could plunder. They had heard talk of a well established settlement somewhere but decided to steer clear of it, atleast for a while. They didn't want to give up their lifestyle in favour of living in a commune and sharing and all that utopian bullshit. They also knew it would be suicide to try stage a coup when they were significantly outnumbered.

Giving the community a wide berth, they had eluded the Jackson patrols for quite some time, but their good luck eventually ran out when they got complacent. A clan of townsmen came for them, chasing Lyle and the gang for weeks, nipping at their heels like a pack of wild dogs with the scent of blood in their snouts. They managed to evade the bastards for a couple weeks, until one night they ambushed and attacked. One of the raiders, Rick, took a shoot at one of the cowboys and struck him in the shoulder before he got gunned down himself. They put up a hell of a battle, all of 'em, but the cowboys had the added advantage of better weapons and stronger bodies.

In the end the Jackson cunts massacred them, but Lyle had managed to survive and escape by the skin of his teeth. Amidst the chaotic flurry of gunfire and screaming he had gone unnoticed when he scrambled for cover behind a massive log. Lyle had intended to stick around but when the gang started dropping like flies he made a run for it. He might have been considered a coward for fleeing like he did, but what else could he do?

It's not like he took the easy way out either. Lyle ran for hours through the fucking forest and into the mountains to dodge those cowboys. He endured countless days and nights hiding in treetops and starving and enduring the freezing cold. He lived like an animal all the while mourning his brethren and their glory days.

Lyle had abandoned the group's old headquarters after the battle. He had been afraid that Jackson would return at some point to ransack the group's belongings, or even to track him down and kill him. It was better to stay away, atleast for a while. But the search for other houses and communities to raid proved to be fruitless ventures - every place had been picked to the bone.

Lyle had been  on his own for several months now, but the chances of long term survival were growing more dire each day. His ammunition was dwindling and he hadn't caught anything more than a few rabbits this past week. He had no other choice but to return to headquarters and try his luck.

He grits his teeth against the harsh wind as he trudges through the snow in the direction of the cabin, the soles of battered his boots close to falling apart. He still has roughly three miles of ground to cover, but with nightfall already settled over the land and his feet swelling with each step he decides to stop and set up camp for the night. 

Lyle succeeds in finding a suitable shelter to tide him through the night. A rocky alcove partially hidden by shrubs offers a safe and dry place for him to get some sleep. He clambers inside and sits up against the wall, grumbling at the painful throbbing of his feet. He paws at the splitting tip of his right boot and sighs.

Once upon a time he never had to worry about his feet getting frost bitten. He had  pillaged an array of clothes, shoes and weapons over the years. Most of his possessions came from the rag tag groups of survivors that would come wandering into the state, all of them weak and pathetic and no match for a raider like him. If he saw something he liked he just took it, whether he needed it or not. But not without having a little fun as well.

He remembers the time he slit a man's throat and stole the boots from his bleeding corpse. They had been a fine pair of shoes. He even took the time to try them on right before he raped the man's distraught wife.

God, what he wouldn't give for a decent pair of boots right now. Who would have thought he'd end up like this? His life had been completely fucking decimated. And it was all because of those communist pricks. Lyle's stomach had long adjusted to the perpetual torment of hunger but his thirst for revenge remained bitterly unsated. It became a malignant obsession that haunted his imagination.

One of these days I'll get 'em, he thinks. Burn their whole town to the fuckin' ground.

When Tommy contemplated death, he hoped that his time on this earth would come to an end when he was a very old man. He pictured being in the company of his grown sons and Maria in his own home in Jackson. But unfortunately for Tommy, the stress of this day was making him feel on the verge of a heart attack.

It was just before noon by the time the council had convened to discuss the appropriate course of action to take regarding yours and Joel's departure. The council members bombarded Tommy with a battery of questions before they deliberated and debated what should happen.

"How do you know she didn't go on her own free will?" One of them asked him.

"Look, I can't give you any solid evidence that she was kidnapped," Tommy answered honestly. "But she never expressed any desire to leave before. It just ain't who she is. Her friends would attest to that, too."

"Why would Joel want to leave Jackson?" Another piped up.

"As I said before, he had an argument with his daughter and it really upset him." Tommy explained solemnly. "And when my brother gets upset he tends to lose his ability to stay calm."

"Maybe he's just blowing off some steam. Maybe he needed some time away and she agreed to go with him." One of the council members suggested. Tommy couldn't stop the derivise scoff that fell from his mouth.

"No," he retorted sharply. "That Henley boy said he saw my brother leave with a wagon full of God knows what. I got a feelin' she was bein' hidden. If Joel's left Jackson, he's left for good, and he's taken her with him."

Maria reached out and grasped Tommy's hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He squeezed her hand in return and shot her a small smile of appreciation.

"My husband knows his brother better than anyone else," Maria stated firmly. "If he believes Joel is a danger to himself or anyone else, then his concerns should be taken seriously or else someone could get hurt."

The council members then conferred with one another while Tommy impatiently paced the room awaiting their verdict. After what seemed like an unnecessarily long time to Tommy, they announced their decision with sage poise.

Tommy's appeal for a rescue patrol was granted permission to find you and Joel.

However, the patrol was not to commence until the following morning, just in case you and Joel were to return within the next 18 hours.

Tommy stormed out of council headquarters filled with impotent rage. When Maria eventually caught up to him she saw tears pooling her husband's eyes.

"What if he kills them both?" Tommy whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Maria, what kind of man would I be to not stop that?"

She wrapped her arms around him and held him as he weeped.

Joel was curled behind you, his arms wrapped securely around your frame, his face nuzzled into the back of your hair. You had been asleep for hours now with no sign of waking. You hadn't even stirred when Joel unwound the rope from your body and removed the material gagging you. Fuck, did he give you too many sleeping pills?

He had left some rope binding your wrists, though, and had tied the end to the bedframe. It was just long enough to allow you some wiggle room but still restricted any wide range of movement. It could be distressing for you to wake up like this, but Joel couldn't chance you trying to run away again.

He cuddled you tighter to his chest and sighed contentedly. He didn't even think to roll over and lay on his right side. He was too tired to remember, his body and mind overcome with fatigue from the events of the past few days. All he wanted to do now was hold you against his body and let himself succumb to the peaceful sleep he so desperately needed. His eyes drifted shut and soon a light snoring began to rumble through his chest.

He didn't even hear Lyle creak open the door to sneak into the cabin.

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[auroraliiga]

Finnish Lion on the backplate of 🇫🇮 Sanni Ahola's goalie mask

📸 Michael F. Lopez

[emelinstriker]

{Eternal Servants AU} Wukong & Macaque ♡ Obedience

Art drawn by me + the OC is mine... Also the mentioned OCs and the AU itself.

My LMK AU's first ever fic, lezgooo- :D

This one's mainly just showing off the relationship between the monkeys as well as the Reader. The AU actually does feature some input from that one OC group of mine, even if they mostly operate in the background. Some of them do occasionally show up. It wouldn't be one of my universes if they had no input since they're all connected by this group of individuals... A good example would be CM from Castle's Pet, if any of my ancient old Quotev/Wattpad Undertale X Reader fans are reading this.

[TL;DR] Just your monkeys being wholesome while murdering another demon.

♡ ~ Fluff ~ ♡

Seated on your throne, you sighed as you waited for your purple champion's return. You sent out Macaque to retrieve an ancient artifact a demon stole from your palace's storage. Usually it wouldn't take him long to hunt someone down. After all, he was used to tracking down any that would oppose you and would bring them to justice. However, something must've happened since he obviously wasn't back yet. This was highly unusual for either one of your champions.

'Did he get into an accident?', you thought to yourself, now getting worried.

Your blue champion seemed to notice your sudden change in mood. He didn't even need to feel it through your eternal bond, he could just tell by looking at your concerned expression. He leaned down a bit as he obediently stood next to your throne, looking at you with his void black eyes. "Master, is something bothering you?"

You turned your head a bit to look at him. "It's just... Where's Macaque?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether or not he's still occupied with the thief." He responded flatly with little to no emotion. You hummed in thought for a moment before you turned to face him again.

"Wukong, I want you to check up on your brother... Help him if he needs help, but at least just make sure he's not hurt or anything." You said firmly. The monkey in blue moved in front of you and bowed.

"As you wish, Master."

And with that, he summoned his somersault cloud and hopped onto it before swiftly flying off into the direction of where his sworn brother left to hunt down the thief.

Across the land, a giant smoke monster could be seen fighting a giant demon in green and black. It seemed like a tough battle as the demon the monster was fighting was very aggressive and wild in its attacks. When suddenly, a blunt hit to the back of the green and black demon slammed the demon in green and black face-first into the ground of the clearing they were fighting in. Its body created a giant crater. It was still alive, but just barely as it laid there motionless. It seemed like the battle already weakened it and the blow to the back was too much for it to handle.

The simian piloting the giant smoke monster panted a bit from exhaustion as he smiled darkly at the fallen demon. But then he turned towards the direction of his ginger-furred brother, who was standing on his cloud with crossed arms, and huffed. "Thanks, but I could've taken him down on my own. It just would've taken a bit."

"Master told me to make sure you weren't hurt." Wukong stated as-a-matter-of-factly.

Macaque's smile turned from maniac to apologetic as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, with his giant smoke avatar mirroring his motion. "Oh man, did I take too long again? I didn't mean to make them worry... I just kinda got caught up with stopping the thief. He used the artifact he stole and it turned him into a feral titan." He added as the giant smoke monster gestured towards the other demon on the ground. That's when the monkey on the cloud quickly zoomed down towards the unconscious demon's body. It took him a few seconds, but he quickly spotted the artifact hanging from the titan's satchel. After he took it away from the giant demon, the demon's body seemingly shrunk back to its original size, still unconscious in the ginormous crater. The simian carefully held onto the artifact, as to not accidentally trigger its power, before his cloud flew back to his sworn brother. After Macaque saw the other demon's now normal-sized body, his smoke monster avatar disappeared around him as he stretched with his feet now touching the ground again.

He grinned at the ginger-furred monkey, seeing him hold the artifact the thief stole. "Guess now we also know what thing does... Did Master say anything about wanting us to kill the guy, or to place him in the punishment wing?"

Wukong shook his head in response, his face still not holding any emotion. Macaque sighed. "Well, damn... But I guess we might as well end him now than risk having him try to steal again, right?" He chuckled as he slowly walked towards the unconscious demon's body. The dark-furred monkey gave the demon a wicked grin, not expecting a response as he summoned his shadow staff. "Nothing personal, dude. Just making sure our beloved Master is forever safe and comfortable! Any who are at risk of opposing them in any way must be eliminated..."

And with that, he smashed his staff's thorny end down onto the demon's head, ending his life with one last strike. Wukong just gave the corpse a bored look before he uncrossed his arms. "Do you need a ride back?" The Monkey King asked, referring to Macaque's exhaustion after battle. He could just help the other monkey relax and calm down with his somersault cloud, after all.

However, Macaque just waved his hand dismissively as he took a deep breath. "Nah, but thanks. I'm a bit tired, but not enough to stop me from using my powers. Do you want a ride back though?" He grinned before he summoned a shadow portal on the ground next to himself. Wukong's mouth just faintly twitches upwards for a split second, but it was enough to make his the dark-furred simian chuckle in repsonse. "C'mooon, bud~ We both know my method's faster! Just hop in already!" If Wukong's eyes weren't like a fully black void, his playful eyeroll would've been very much noticeable. He hopped off his cloud, letting it disappear as he approached the portal, straight up jumping into it. Macaque soon followed after, closing the portal once he went through.

On the other side, you anxiously waited on your throne. While you didn't think any of your regular servants would harm you, you still felt a bit uncomfortable without at least one of your champions around. After all, a human ruling over an army of demons wasn't exactly a common thing demons respected. Only those who were already your servants in other lives would respect you fully... probably. And you had no recollection of any of your previous lives.

Your anxiety faded however once your two blue and purple champions emerged from a shadow portal in front of your throne. The sworn brothers didn't hesitate and kneeled upon seeing you.

"Apologies for the wait and for worrying you, Master. The thief ended up using the artifact and I ended up having to fight him to stop him." Macaque says, somewhat sounding ashamed of himself. He didn't like it whenever he didn't meet his Master's expectations. Even if something was out of his control.

You smiled softly as you leaned back. "It's fine, Mac-Mac. It was inevitable if that guy refused to face justice... I'm just glad you're alright and came back to me alive and well." The simian's frown turned into a bright smile as his tail swayed happily behind him. If you used that nickname for him, then he must've done everything right!

Afterwards, you smiled at your blue champion. "Thanks for finding him and taking him home again, Wu-Wu. Great job." You praised him. Now his tail was also swaying more happily. He nodded his head and grunted quietly in acknowledgement. Despite him not talking quite as much as his brother, and usually not showing emotions, you knew he was just as happy and content as your purple champion. His gentle tail sways were enough to understand.

The ginger-furred monkey then pulled out the artifact from underneath his cloaked side, still kneeling as he stared at you expectantly. "Shall I return this to the storage? The Archivist wanted to check on the items later today."

You scratched your head in thought for a moment as you hummed. "Guess that would be the best idea... If the Archivist shows up, then it's best if we have all the items that we borrowed... I don't wanna deal with his colleagues again, to be honest." You admitted, physically cringing a bit at the memory of your last encounter with the group the Archivist was involved in. They weren't happy when an eternal branding iron you used on your servants was stolen. Especially the Judge...

Wukong, knowing what you meant, nodded again as he stood up and bowed his head. "Of course, Master." Then he turned and walked away towards the palace's storage. Meanwhile, Macaque continued to smile brightly at you.

"Do you have another task for me to complete as well, Master?" He asked, eager to follow your every command like an obedient puppy. You hummed in thought again, but before you could respond, you heard the familiar voice of a certain mysterious figure in a black cloak and a fox-like mask...

"They do not. I have a task for you instead, Six-Eared Macaque."

The cloaked entity with the fox mask revealed himself as he walked out from behind your throne... When did he get here? Then again, he was one of the Archivist's colleagues, so you didn't question much anymore due to all they were able to do... You raised a suspicious eyebrow at the masked entity as you spoke. "...What task?" Those cloaked beings weren't to be trusted with how they operated. And while the Oracle usually spoke of the truth and was one of the more gentle-sounding members, you could never be sure whether or not there was malice behind anything their group did.

He responded in a blank tone, as if it were obvious. "The task involves going to the Underworld and retrieving the Scroll of Memory." Macaque visibly flinched slightly as one of his ears twitched at the mention of the Underworld, yet he avoided eye contact and remained quiet. The masked entity continued. "It's not the scroll itself that you might be interested in, but rather the curse that is bound to the scroll. That curse would be an extremely great addition to your palace's security." The entity added.

You grimaced a bit in thought, looking at him with uncertainty as you propped up your head on your hand. "Mhm... Are you sure this is worth it? Macaque isn't exactly fond of the Underworld, and I don't wanna make any of my servants, especially my champions, uncomfortable... Maybe Wukong could-" "NO!" Your purple champion suddenly cut you off as he looked at you, his void black eyes were wide open in panic, practically begging you to hear him out. He coughed awkwardly before bowing his head in a bit of shame and embarrassment for cutting you off.

"M-My apologies for interrupting you, Master... But I'd like to take on this mission myself, if I may." He said firmly, determination clear on his face as he tried to avoid this uncomfortable feeling of having to return to the Underworld. But he really wanted to prove himself worthy as one of your champions. He outwardly expressed his love and devotion towards you so much more than his sworn brother, and yet Wukong usually ended up getting more missions than him despite that.

You gave him a concerned look. "Are you sure? I know you don't like the Underworld after... Well, you know..."

He nodded his head without hesitation. "Yes, Master. Please let me retrieve that scroll for you."

After another short moment of uncertainty, you sighed in defeat. You stood up and moved towards your purple champion, petting his fluffy head. "Alright, fine... But if anything makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, I want you to just come back... Okay? I don't want you to get hurt, Mac-Mac. I'd rather have you here with me without that scroll than have the scroll without you." You said softly as you kissed his forehead. The dark-furred monkey blushed as his breath hitched at your touch and words.

That was all the motivation he needed.

His bright smile returned as he joyfully saluted. "Yes, Master! I'll make you proud!" You chuckled at his sudden eagerness. Almost immediately, a shadow portal opened up beneath the simian as he dropped into it, vanishing. Upon the closing of the portal, you raised an eyebrow at the Oracle.

"...Is this scroll really necessary?" You asked quietly, to which the entity silently nodded. You sighed as you pinched the bridge of your nose.

"It's not just for your safety, Your Majesty. It's also required to garner enough attention for the future paths to be connected to the present path." He responded flatly, which confused you. But again, you didn't question his words due to his occupation. And soon enough, Wukong returned from the storage. The monkey in blue walked up to you and bowed, as if to say he had finished his task.

You petted him as well, also kissing his forehead with a little smile. "Good job, Wu-Wu." And just like his sworn brother, his tail started to sway in a happy daze as he blushed despite his still expressionless face. He clearly also loved it when you called him by that nickname. The Oracle, upon seeing the Monkey King return and being showered in affection, quickly bid you farewell for now as he still seemed to be busy with other matters. Meanwhile, you continued to pet the ginger-furred monkey, waiting for his brother again. You even decided to continue petting him while your were seated on your throne.

However, at some point while petting your blue champion, a thought crossed your mind...

"Wu-Wu... If your brother isn't back within the next three hours, I want you to go look for him in the Underworld... And help him out if need be." Wukong's eyes were closed as he leaned into your gentle, addictive touch, while his tail swayed slowly behind him. He simply nodded without opening his eyes.

"Understood, Master."

[ Masterlist ]

[f3mme-f4tale]

which witch

part one

word count: 4k potential warnings: potential depictions of violence, sexual content, fingering (r! receiving) adult themes (explicit language), tension, angst, world building, more to come... pairing: rebel!ellie x princess!reader (categorized within the knight!ellie aesthetic)

authors note: there are some influences from game of thrones! :))

A cloud of gray smoke lingered above the vine-infested concrete walls of the booming city, machinery roaring to life and wildering conversations floating in the thick air. A war was looming over the Sovereign City, an invading force from the south eagerly plowing through the skin-biting tundra. The hundreds of guilds within the city's walls fed the economy, although some whisper that underground trading of magic folk is what really fuels the financial state. A spy for the rebellion circled the local market, running her hands over the bruised fruit and eyeing the common folk cautiously, trying her best to go undetected. The city center was preparing for the Sun Festival, ironic given the smog that shielded nearly all sunlight.  

A local fruit stand was at the center of the market, an older gentleman staffing the exotic fruit from outside the city walls. Bright, intricate starfruit and jelly-filled strawberry papayas littered the concrete mosaic ground. A small goat with a blue bell was tied haphazardly to a post, the yarn fraying with every slight tug from the animal. A group of children dressed in muted shades of brown and green played a game of dice on the other side of the courtyard, daring each other to steal blackberries. The butcher’s son was pushing a small wagon of discarded meat and small fish bones towards an alley, likely to discard the leftovers.  

The spy was adorned in local fabrics, muted mismatched stitching holding together a quilt-like material that resembled a shawl. Her deep maple hair cascaded down her neck with a simple silver pin holding some pieces out of her face. Her fingertips were stained with nightshade, her left-hand concealing a small dagger. The weapon was known for immediately striking down any foe, its metal laced with poison. Magic folk and creatures were no exception, despite their enchantments. An abstract fox decorated the handle, a symbol of the rebellion against the empire. On her hip was a small satchel containing various assortments of herbs, sliced plum mushrooms, and powdered oleander seeds. Being a spy, a magic one at that, had its benefits.  

The spy detected a woman pocketing something from a guard across the courtyard. She watched her scurry away down an alley, not before stealing a fig from one of the stands. With the day being as slow as it had been, she reasoned that any mischief became her mischief. As she made her way towards where the other woman went, her grip tightened on the weapon. Upon turning down the alley, she seemingly vanished. It was not often that the spy’s prey escaped her sight, not since she was a child at least. At the last possible moment, a speck of red disappeared through a doorway fifty feet in front of her. Swallowing a sigh, she followed. 

Inside was a desolate old factory, broken machinery sprawled across the floor and spray paint covering the walls. Sigils were marked on the concrete ground – emblems and allegories from The Blackmoor Book. She questioned how someone within the walls could have such knowledge, risking the high court finding such symbolism.  

What was this place?  

  She did not dwindle on this apprehension long, sinking into the shadows and scanning the place for that woman. A crackly, high-pitched laugh erupted from the other side of the room. Before thinking twice, the spy was across the room in mere seconds, her knife pressed firmly against the mystery woman’s throat, as if in reflex.  

“Ya know for as skilled as you are, I figured you’d recognize me,” the woman pestered, her dialect thick. The spy could place the voice, but the face was distant from her mind. The blade stayed against her throat, the pressure never wavering.  

“Ellie,” she cooed, “it’s me.”  

There was nothing I could do. My feet were lodged between the large stones that decorated the bottom of the fast river, the murky sand blinding my vision and setting my lungs on fire. I was becoming weak, fighting a losing battle with the force of the water. I wanted to give up, to let the depths swallow me whole and my mind run blank. My fingers just barely reached the surface, scratching at the sliver of life that was never fully mine. The anxiety was bubbling up from my stomach and began to make me tremble with complete fear; I wasn’t getting out of this.  

Once, when I was young, I would swim in streams and small rivers just like this one. Uncle would be back at the village, father out with the council. My older foster brother would often join me, teaching me how to catch the fish and which plants could be used for medicine. When it was a quiet day, we would read books to the frogs and small insects. Now, at the precipice of death, I can only focus on the day he showed me how to fashion an arrowhead. On how his fingers made sharp movements and the glimmer in his eyes was its purest. He was the mouth of God; I took his words as religion. But he wasn’t there.  

My arms grew numb, my body losing sensation. This was it. This was how I was finally going. I screamed against the current and inhaled the river. As my vision darkened and I began to accept defeat, I remembered the reason I was trying to traverse across in the first place; the heaviness of the guilt weighing me down. I made a promise, I swore to him. They were going to die, and it was all my fault. It was a mistake to think I could perform this journey alone, inexperienced.  

And then I could breathe again. My fingers dug at my chest, eagerly gasping for air. My eyes burned from the sunlight, my right ankle adorning a jagged cut from the rock that once imprisoned me. My savior hovered above me, breathing just as heavily as I was. Where did they come from?  

“T-thank you,” I managed to get out once the anxiety subsided, my throat still burning.  

Hesitantly, I glanced up in their direction. They were drenched in luminance, a godliness highlighting their physique, black paint dancing across their nose. Meeting their enticing eyes, I realized I recognized them. A local girl a year older than me from the village, her hair tied tight against her head and half of her body soaking wet. She offered me a curt nod, adjusting the straps on her satchel and securing a few stray pieces of hair. The outfit she wore was jarring, nothing like the large tunics the women wore at home. The breeches and sleek overcoat were skin-tight, a throwing knife strapped securely to her thigh. She did not say anything back, leaving me as fast as she appeared.  

“Dina,” Ellie mumbled, her voice rough against the soothing nature of Dina’s. Her eyes scanned the other's face, the memories of her childhood friend rushing back to her like a tidal wave. The same black paint was decorated across her nose, symbolizing her coven. Ellie let her guard down, the blade dropping to her side. The sigils made sense then – she grew up in the same village beyond this city within the Withering Woods, learned from the same potions master, and drank the same Mistmoor river water. Their village Jackson’s Crossing, surrounded by the White Mountains and often disregarded on official cartographer maps, was a cloister of small families from varied ethnicities. 

Dina’s fingers were also stained a dark purple – evidence of witchcraft. The last time they had seen each other was years prior, back when Ellie was recruited to fight against the tyranny of the High Ruler, who came into power with varying degrees of support from the public. The last she heard of Dina was that she had joined a coven, practicing magic in secret.  

She had grown a lot since their last encounter, her scarlet hair now many inches longer and herself several inches taller. They spared each other the formalities in catching up, Ellie reaching for the item Dina snatched from the unsuspecting general just beyond the door. She let her, Ellie’s mind working through possibilities as she brought the ring of keys closer. She should have known; such an item was predictable. Although, what did Dina need them for?  

“Trying to sneak someone out of the dungeons, hmm?” she finally spoke, placing her dagger back into the depths of her clothing. Dina smiled at Ellie again, raising her eyebrows and letting her face do the talking. “Ah, well, sneaking into prison seems more your speed anyways.” 

“The council has been very unyielding in my request for an audience,” she began, walking a few steps away from Ellie. “So, I’ve had to find my own ways.” 

“Why do you wish to speak to them?” Ellie questioned, puzzled as to what her companion could want with them. Dina’s gaze meant nothing but trickery, her smile growing wider and wider. Whatever her intentions, Ellie considered leeching on, her own assignment from the Rebellion creating a need to be inside those palace walls – although for a quite different reason.

“Remember Jesse?” she smirks, running a hand through her locks. Ellie snorts at this – because of course she remembers Jesse, how could she not? They were practically joined at the hip before Ellie left Jackson. 

“He’s gotta learn to keep his mouth shut in front of the guards. He’s so pretty, but he can be pretty thick headed sometimes,” Dina scolds, shaking her head. “So, naturally, they’ve finally decided to sentence him after years of causing mayhem.”  

“Well, I want in,” Ellie says coldly, adjusting with the fabric that covers her shoulder. Dina squints at her friend, questioning her motivations. “I’ve got orders to relocate a member of the royal family, per the Rebellion's bequest.” 

-

Deep viridian ivy covers the cobblestones and beige pillars of the courtyard, dark shadows stretching up the walls. Rain litters the ground, the damp air an inviting aroma. Billowing clouds darken the sky, the thunder a welcoming presence. 

You’re sitting at a desk, candlelight framing your face as you attempt to read the book in your hands. It’s no use however, as your mind is swirling with a million different thoughts. The betrayal of your father cuts deep; all that remains is the stark reality of your pain. You trace the outline of the candle's flame with trembling fingers, its flickering dance mirroring your thundering heartbeat. 

A knock at the door interrupts your spiral, haphazardly setting down your book and the weight of the chair creaking as you stand. A woman is on the other side, her curly black hair cascading down her back. The servant's uniform does her no justice, her figure cloaked in a tunic two sizes too big. You raise an eyebrow, questioning the intruder at such a late hour. 

“Yes?” you ask, voice wavering slightly. You know she can see the dismay in your face, your eyes all too forgiving. You instinctively hunch your shoulders, nails pushing into the meat of your palm, knuckles turning white.

“Lord David sent me to draw you a bath, my lady. He wants you to be clean and fresh for your engagement tomorrow,” she responds, bowing her head. She holds clean linens and a sponge in her hand, a slight look of sorrow crossing her face that you almost miss. You step aside begrudgingly, letting her through. 

Large buckets of water make their rounds over the fire as the servant works to untie the laces of your bodice, making quick work of the material. The cool air filtering through the partially opened window makes your skin grow cold, the woman helping you out your chemise, body bare to her wandering gaze. Her hands were warm, a stir emerging within your gut. You always disliked having other people bath you, yet you found yourself straightening your back, showing off. She made eye contact with you, half slitted pupils devouring your form. You welcomed this, using your left hand to remove a pin that was keeping your braids in place. She steps behind you to begin dumping the contents of the bucket into a metal tub. 

And then suddenly the servant is several inches away, hands agonizingly tracing your shoulders, her breath hot on your neck. She places a small kiss just underneath your ear, a shudder escaping your lips as you tentatively close your eyes. You’d never had someone approach you this way, not unless you count the several forty-something year old male suitors that you had declined since you turned sixteen years ago.

The servant uses one hand to pull your hair over to one shoulder as the other palms your bare stomach. You suck in a breath, not pushing her away. You knew this was wrong, save for the fact that she was another woman. What would your father say? What would the maids whisper to each other when they thought no one was looking?

Despite protests shouting against your very core, you remained still, leaning into her frame. You could feel her breasts pressing into your back, her right hand dancing dangerously close to the space between your legs. Her left hand dragged across your chest, fingers grazing and pulling. When her right hand plunged into your slick, you leaned your head back against her shoulder. 

“Lay down, my lady,” she murmured, gently moving your already wrecked body towards the bed in the corner. You obliged, sitting on the edge. She pushed you down, immediately dropping down to her knees. You were new to this, not even daring to touch yourself. Her mouth felt foreign on your pelvis, but you bucked up into her face regardless. 

Her tongue slid across you, pink bud becoming raw from the friction. When she pushed two fingers inside of you, a borderline scream escaped your delicate lips. The swell of your breasts bounced as she began to pick up her pace, rocking your body against the frame of the bed and adding another slender digit. Her tongue continues its assault on your clit, forcing you to take it, to take all of it. 

It’s over before you realize, her face covered in you. You pull her up by the collar of her uniform, forcing her lips against yours. She’s taken aback at first, but then melts into the embrace. She’s sticking her tongue into your mouth, the taste of you invading and arousing. 

“As much as I’d love to continue Princess,” the woman says suddenly, breaking the kiss. “I did come here to bathe you.” You nod, suddenly extremely aware of your surroundings and how easily you folded under her touch – a woman’s touch. 

As she dumped another bucket of hot water into the metal tub, you gazed off absentmindedly. Her coarse fingers work through your locks, detangling the pieces that frame your face.

“You’re so beautiful, but you have to keep him happy. He gets bored easily.”

You glance over at her, noticing the way the fireplace behind her makes her skin glow. 

“I don’t want you to end up, well, like the others,” she sighs, moving to grab a rag to clean your skin with. You were so used to the mindless handling of your body that sometimes you forgot how vulnerable you could be. 

“W-what others?” you croaked, tension once again creeping up your spine and through your fingers. You felt her movements stiffen, realizing she spoke out of turn. 

“Oh, I shouldn’t, it’s all hearsay. I apologize, my lady,” she replies, her actions becoming more disorderly. You watch her closely, her sudden discomfort adding another layer of unease to the already heavy atmosphere. Despite her attempt to backtrack, your curiosity is piqued, and you press further.

"No, please, tell me," you insist, your voice barely above a whisper. She hesitates, torn between loyalty to her lord and a desire to warn you. Finally, she speaks, her voice barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

"There have been others before you," she begins, her words careful and measured. "Women who were... chosen, like you." Your heart pounds in your chest, the implications of her words sinking in. You swallow hard, pushing down the rising sense of dread threatening to overwhelm you.

"What happened to them?" you ask, your voice trembling despite your efforts to remain composed. She hesitates again, her gaze dropping to the floor as if unable to meet your eyes.

"They... disappeared," she murmurs, her voice barely audible. "Some say that he grows tired of his playthings, discarding them when they no longer amuse him, banished to distant lands never to return. Others whisper darker tales of rituals and… well," she clarifies, her hands shaking as she runs her nimble fingers through your hair once more. 

You struggle to process the implications of her revelation, the realization dawning on you with sickening clarity. "You mean... they're dead?" you whisper, the words feeling foreign and surreal on your tongue. You turn to her fully, putting on a show of false confidence. “This is my home. He can’t frighten me.”

“Of course, my lady. Forgive me.”

You nod, still reeling from her earlier words. As she finishes bathing you, you're left alone with your thoughts once more. The warmth of the water does little to soothe the chill in your bones, the weight of impending responsibilities pressing down on you like a suffocating blanket.

“Will I see you again?” You mumble, eyes pleading with the woman as she’s half way out of your chamber, a robe now draped around your figure. A frown catches her lips, a sigh is all the answer you need.

“I’m afraid not,” she finally answers, yet doesn’t move from her place at the door. You feel your stomach drop, reaching out to catch her lips in a kiss once more. This one is less aggressive, a plea for more. She cups your cheek softly, kissing you back. “It’s not safe. We live in a world where desires are often sacrificed for duty.”

As she finally steps away, you watch her silhouette fade into the dimly lit corridor beyond your chamber. A sense of loss washes over you, as you're left in the silence of your chambers. The flames of the candles flicker ominously, casting dancing shadows on the walls. You try to shake off the unease settling in your chest, but the seed of doubt planted by the woman’s words grows with each passing moment.

You know you should rest, to prepare yourself for the challenges that lie ahead, but sleep eludes you. Instead, you find yourself pacing the room, the echoes of your footsteps mingling with the whispers of your own fears.

This union is a death sentence, a promise made to satisfy your fathers requests. Your older sister was the next in line to rule, your brother already married off to a Duchess in the East. You would never sit on the throne; the pressure of said title always out of reach but forever a taunt. You could taste the longing for power – a snake wrapping around your heart, squeezing. 

By marrying Lord David, you help ease the emerging tensions between the East and South kingdoms within the empire. It had long been kept secret that you were a bastard, a lie living a life of luxury. Guilt ate away at you from every inch of your skin, your real mother a ghost of your past. Of course, maids and servants talked. That said, the effort to uphold the ruler's dignity and honor reigned supreme; Those who were caught gossiping would meet a punishment worse than castration. 

You understand the importance of maintaining stability within the empire, of ensuring peace between rival factions. But on the other hand, there's the gnawing fear that grips you, the fear of being trapped in a loveless marriage, of becoming just another casualty in the game of power and ambition.

You remember the stories you heard as a child, tales of kings and queens whose lives were dictated by duty rather than desire. You used to dream of a different fate for yourself, of finding love and happiness on your own terms. But now, as the reality of your situation sinks in, those dreams seem like distant echoes of a naive past.

Tomorrow, you will be betrothed to a man you hardly know; a union forged by politics and alliances. When morning comes, you will rise with a sense of resignation, steeling yourself for the path laid out before you.

-

Dawn breaks upon a canvas of melancholy, the sky adorned in swathes of slate-hued clouds. You dress in a gown of regal elegance, each layer of silk and lace feeling like a shroud closing in around you. Your reflection in the mirror is a stranger's face, masked behind a facade of composure that belies the turmoil within. As you fasten the intricate clasps of your necklace – a delicate chain of platinum interwoven with strands of glistening rhodonite and sunstone – you can't help but wonder if you're adorning yourself for a wedding or a funeral.

Downstairs, guests mingle in clusters of polished nobility. Their smiles are as artificial as the flowers adorning the tables, masking the alliances and rivalries that simmer beneath the surface. You navigate the crowd with practiced grace, exchanging pleasantries and feigned enthusiasm.

In the grand hall, where sunlight filters through stained glass, illuminating the opulence of the surroundings, you stand amidst a sea of faces, each one a mask concealing clandestine desires. At the center of it all stands Lord David, a towering figure of authority and ambition. His gaze finds yours across the room, a flicker of something unreadable passing between you before he turns to greet another guest. 

His eyes, like shards of obsidian, pierce through the veneer of social niceties. As he acknowledges your presence with a nod of his head, you offer a polite smile, concealing the turmoil churning within your breast. His lips curve in response, but there is a hardness in his gaze. With unspoken haste, the sea of guests transitioned into the next room, organizing into rows. 

Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, casting kaleidoscopic patterns of color upon the assembled guests. The delicate lace of your veil cascaded like a waterfall around you, framing your face in a halo of soft radiance. Lord David, regal and imposing, awaited you at the altar. 

As you drew near, the murmurs of the crowd fell silent, and all that remained was the steady rhythm of your heartbeat echoing in your ears. With each step, you felt the weight of expectation pressing down upon you, the gravity of the moment settling like a cloak upon your shoulders.

At last, you stood face to face with Lord David, your hands trembling slightly as you clasped his in yours. The officiant's voice filled the air, the solemn words of the vows binding you together. His grip tightened at your wrists, thumb pressing into your pressure point. You fought against the sinking feeling in your chest, the fear washing over your features. 

Concealed behind a pillar, at the room's farthest edge, stood a guest with a blade, its hilt adorned with an abstract fox; A silent sentinel amidst the opulent chaos. Their gaze, like a river's current, flows over your form, lingering on each curve and contour with a cautious reverence. The bodice of the gown hugs your frame, accentuating the gentle curve of your waist before giving way to a voluminous skirt that pools around your feet in a sea of soft fabric. Layers upon layers of tulle and organza lend an air of weightless beauty to the ensemble, each fold and pleat catching the light in a mesmerizing dance.

The spy stole a final glance at the princess, and for a brief moment, she could've sworn she saw a glimmer of fear entrenched in your gaze. Rancorously, Ellie envisioned taking a blade to Lord David's throat and smiling as the congealed mess of his arteries betrayed him. She shoved the wrinkled piece of parchment into the confines of her satchel. Her mission began.

Secure the youngest daughter of the sovereign. 

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