#the coffin is quiet cramp

[alucardsathomewife]

Birthday gift

Tom and Alucard, of course

[hongism]

mists of celeste ➻ 51

➻ pairing: ??? x fem reader

➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst, smut

➻ word count: 21.1k

➻ rating: M

➻ warnings: language (additional warnings under the cut, pls heed them!)

➻ summary: Months into your stay aboard The Horizon, it becomes apparent that things are not as cut and dry as you thought, and that you might have bitten off more than you could chew with this crew.

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act seven ➻ part three

additional chapter warnings: cannibalism (dream), discussion of suicidal ideation, hallucinations

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When you come to, you almost don’t realize that you have woken up at all because you open your eyes to complete darkness. The first thing you notice is the weight at your back, something digging into your shoulder blades and making you wildly uncomfortable, but that sensation is pushed to the back of your mind as your brain starts catching up with the reality you’re in. Your right arm does not feel wholly attached to your body in any way, and even when you attempt to use it to help move around in the cramped space you’re in, it refuses to budge at all.

Above you, there is a firm plank of wood that slots into your faux coffin so perfectly you imagine it’s aiming to act as your grave.

In your left ear, you hear a quiet yet unsettling whispering coming from outside the box.

“I know you’re there,” comes the distorted yet familiar tone, “I’ll pull every splinter of wood off this box to reach you. You can’t hide forever.”

You swing your left arm up as hard as you can manage given the limited space you have to deal with, ramming your elbow into the block of wood over your body. The huffs of your breathing make the enclosure feel that much smaller, and in turn, it causes your moves to lean more frantic than an organized attempt to escape.

“Keep struggling just like that. I like a fight~”

The voice belongs to San — there’s no doubt about that — and yet it sounds nothing like your San.

Twisting onto your side, you slam your left shoulder sideways into the wooden box, and that finally loosens whatever seal is keeping it shut. You tumble out onto the cold, metal ground followed by spools of what looks to be fabric and threads. Your right arm aches suddenly with a sharp pang in your upper bicep that makes you hiss and clutch at it desperately.

It’s dark all around save for one singular light in the distance, but it flickers into nothingness every so often.

“I’ll give you a head start if you’d like,” comes San’s cruel whispers from just beside you. A chill of terror passes down your spine, but when you turn to look over your shoulder, there’s nothing — and no one — there.

You hoist yourself up while still gripping your aching right arm. A bit of feeling has returned to it, just enough to let you twitch your fingers and make a weak fist with them. The light in the distance illuminates enough of the room you’re in to show you a somewhat clear path to the only exit, though the shadows around you have an almost sinister feel to them. You open your mouth to speak into the darkness, a witless hope that you can reason with the San that’s out there, but your voice bubbles up and dies on your tongue. With those hopes dashed, you resolve to simply make a run for it.

Breaking into a sprint, you launch yourself towards the archway leading to the exit as the shadows rise up to meet your every step like they’re chasing you. The boxes scattered throughout the room are like a maze keeping you from a safe and easy exit. When the light flickers out, you stall and count the seconds until it flickers back into its wobbly pattern again — thirteen plus a half. Each time the darkness swallows you, the exit seems to get further and further away no matter how much you run towards it while the light is on. A cry of frustration rests on your lips but the sound refuses to come out.

“Won’t you look at me, star?” San’s voice rises behind you once again. Darkness envelops the room.

Thirteen and a half.

“Do you fear me?”

Yes, you think. Your fingers squeeze around your bicep until your palm is wet and hot with some sort of liquid that makes your skin slippery.

Five and a half.

You tense. The shadows at your back feel so close that it’s almost like there’s a breath of cold air running down the back of your neck.

“Does my presence frighten you?” he whispers.

One.

You reel around just as the light comes back to life, intent to catch San where he’s lurking once the shadows are dispersed under the fluorescent haze. The world spins terribly even though you hardly moved much, and you topple over like a wobbly top onto your knees. The light has morphed into a solitary spotlight coming down from above onto you, blinding you so much that you try to block your vision to an extent. You look forward to the floor only to be met with a horrifying sight.

“…San?” you say under your breath in a slight panic.

There’s a body on the floor before you, and with the excess light that’s suddenly spilled into the room, you can clearly see that you’re inside the cargo bay aboard The Horizon. The place where you started your journey with this crew. And now the place where San’s slumped and crumpled body lies before you like a corpse. You reach out towards the back that’s facing you with a tremor in your hands that won’t go away. Your fingers close around a cold arm and twist the body so that you can see the face even though the build looks so starkly like San that you’re dreading it.

The moment you do, however, the face morphs and twists before your eyes until it resembles Minho. Gasping, you scramble backwards on your hands, tweaking your injured arm as you do. His lips are blue, as though he’s been dead for some time, skin pale and eyes wide open — bloodshot. Saliva runs down from both corners of his mouth, dried and flaking against his ghostly white face.

A strange whistling echoes throughout the cargo bay.

Minho’s corpse speaks to you.

“Why did you bring me here to die?”

You twist over onto your hands and knees, ignoring the flare of pain that shoots down your arm as you launch yourself forward in a vain attempt to escape. The whistling continues to ring in your ears, like a macabre song fueling your sprint out of the cargo bay and into the attached corridor. You move through the hallways frantically, passing room after room with open doors and faceless bodies inside each one. By the time you reach the mess hall, you’re out of breath, and your sanity is fraying at the edges because of the damn whistling that refuses to stop following you.

The lights here are flickering too, and the usual hum of machinery that radiates throughout the ship is absent completely. The tables in the hall are shoved to the side haphazardly and coated in a thick layer of dust. Beside one of the toppled tables sits Jongho’s guitar, broken on the ground with its strings snapped.

“There you are.”

You don’t have time to process who the owner of the voice is — you barely have time to brace yourself for the impact that strikes you from behind. It does nothing to save you from the impending fall, though the floor dissipates as you approach it face-first, and you swing into darkness instead. Next thing you know, you’re sitting in a chair with no way of seeing what’s around you and warmth blossoming across your face.

The hands that cover your eyes are not your own yet they are just as calloused and rough on your skin, but the voice against your ears is so soft by comparison.

“Are you ready, mon amour?” It’s Seonghwa who speaks with a foreign warmth to his tone you haven’t heard in some time. You bring a hand up to cover his, eager to pull him away and restore your vision. “Not yet, you haven’t answered the question.”

“I’m ready,” you breathe out in nothing more than a whisper.

“Good.”

Light creeps into your vision, pulling back the curtains of darkness, and what you see before you is both astonishingly beautiful and horrifying at once. You’re at a dinner table small enough to seat two, and across from you sits none other than your captain. Except unlike you, who possesses the freedom to move from the chair as you please, Hongjoong has ropes bound around his torso and keeping his arms stuck to his sides. He stares ahead at you, face oddly blank and expressionless. Seonghwa creeps into your peripherals draped in white robes that make him look like a saint sent from the heavens.

“Seonghwa.”

“Shh, mon amour. Let us prepare this feast for you to enjoy.”

A deep haze settles over your mind, whether from the odd sweet aroma in the air or from Seonghwa’s lilting voice. You do not feel fully present as you watch what unfolds next. As Seonghwa takes his captain by the hair and drags his head so far back that it seems as though his neck is the feast in question. Something glints in Seonghwa’s hand, but you realize it far too late, as the next second leads this dinner into something far more horrifying.

He splits Hongjoong’s neck open on the blade. Little crimson rivulets spill over the silver. Your brain is calling for you to take action, to stop this gruesome scene before it becomes worse, but still your body does not move. Seonghwa continues to wrench the knife along skin without relent, as though it is nothing to him, like Hongjoong is merely a slain animal for him to butcher as he sees fit, and you are terrified.

“Is this not what we are owed, Y/n?” Seonghwa says, angling his head down to the blade. He pulls his tongue along the flat where a minute amount of blood has pooled. “Our devotion deserves just rewards.” The edges of his sleeves are staining more and more by the second, though it is nothing but an afterthought in the moments that follow. Seonghwa turns his head further in to lay his lips along the seam he has created in his captain’s flesh. He sinks teeth in deep, and when he draws back, there is blood up to his nose and dripping down his chin.

“We’ve earned this, Y/n.” If your body could function according to your mind, you would certainly jump in your seat from the sudden intrusion of a new voice joining the fray. Yunho comes in from the left, out of a strange pit of darkness that seemingly has no beginning or end. He balances a knife of his own in one hand, fingers barely clutched around the hilt, but his grip shifts once he steps over to the table. It’s with a firm hand that he drives it directly into Hongjoong’s sternum. Or, what you believe to still be Hongjoong. His face is more obscured than anything, and his form does not seem recognizable in the slightest to you, but it was him before Seonghwa slit his throat. It must still be him now, no?

Then this man beside Seonghwa cannot be Yunho. You have never known him to be violent.

“We have all given him parts of ourselves, my star.” Warmth surrounds you. Before you realize it, you are standing, and San is there behind you like a mere extension of yourself. His arms wrap around your body, hand resting steady on the base of your throat. Hot breath pours from his lips and down the side of your neck. It causes a tingle to rush up and down your spine; though despite that, your body still does not feel like it is your own. “Does it not make sense for us to take in return?” San’s hands retract to rest on your lower back. He pushes you down like he wants to bend you over the table, but rather than letting your chest collide with the empty plates laid out there, he nudges your leg up with his knee. Like a puppet, you crawl across the table, sending utensils and glassware both to the ground. San caresses your head and squeezes the back of your neck in silent reassurance. That this is okay, this is fair, this is what you are owed.

When you reach the other side, Hongjoong is upright once more. It is still him, though you aren’t sure if there is relief in you upon seeing his face. Knife still in his chest, throat still slit and bleeding — now even with a chunk of flesh ripped out to add to the carnage — he stares right at you with strangely lively eyes. All this and yet the monster is still not defeated. What a fool you would be to believe that it would be an easy feat.

“If there is something you desire—” blood coats his teeth, making his crazed grin all the more insane “—you must tear it from my flesh.”

His fingers are cold on your wrist. You did not notice how close you came to the edge of the table, now teetering between the wood and falling into his lap, nor did you realize that you had brought a hand to his chest in the process. That’s where he holds you now, keeping your hand flat over his heart with an ice cold grip.

A phantom heartbeat makes itself known on your fingertips. A steady and calm ba-dum, ba-dum that gets stronger and stronger the more your fingers sink into flesh and bone.

Something shifts.

You don’t understand how, but you are no longer on the table. Hongjoong does not sit across from you any longer, nor are there even the slightest traces that he ever was there to begin with. The table is clean once again and set for one — you and you alone. You are already holding a fork and knife in your hands.

Seonghwa comes forward from the spot where your captain just was, dressed again in white but this time he is clean and free of blood. He sets a plate down before you, one you do not immediately look at because you are too busy examining his face for any trace of Hongjoong’s flesh and blood. He smiles without showing his teeth and nods towards the dish.

“Please eat, mon amour. You’ve worked so terribly hard for your meal.” He finishes his words with a full-blown smile. His teeth are stained red.

Before you, on a pristine plate, lies a still-beating heart.

It’s not the morning hour or your lover shifting in the sheets that finally pulls you out of your sleep, but rather a muted horror lingering in your body from a rather violent and gruesome nightmare that came upon you once you fell asleep last night. Despite your wishes to forget such a thing, it persists in your memory, even as you climb out of bed and make your way to the bathroom where San is already up and prepping for the day ahead.

“Good morning,” you mumble while rubbing the sleep from your eyes. He returns the greeting just as incoherently, lips wrapped around a toothbrush, but he still makes way for you to press a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Water’s still warm,” he pulls his toothbrush out a bit to get the words out, eyes on you through the mirror as you strip down to nothing. “I didn’t wanna wake you up.” He doesn’t need to explain a thing, though you’re certain he already knows as much so you don’t voice those sentiments out loud. You stand up straight to look at him through the reflection too. A small smile plays at your lips, one that’s meant to be reassuring. You hope the smile doesn’t drop too soon when you turn, but if it does then San plays the part of being clueless exceptionally well. He was correct about the water though, as it feels blissfully warm on your skin.

Your hopes to forget the dream that plagued you last night are dashed almost immediately, however, when you close your eyes to keep the barrage of water from spilling into them. It returns to you in a flash, like you are reliving it just the same, and the dream floods your senses fully. The metallic taste on your tongue horrifies you to the point of eliciting a small gasp from you that leads to water rushing into your throat and making you choke. You only realize that you’ve bit your cheek once you’re recovering from the sudden choking fit.

“Are you alright?” San sounds two seconds away from a serious panic.

“I-I’m fine, fine, just had an awful dream.” That isn’t what he was asking, but the realization dawns on you only after you’ve spoken.

The curtain pulls back a bit to show San’s concern in full. The soft pout on his lips makes you want to kiss him.

“I bit my cheek and choked on water because of it. And I was thinking about my dream. Wasn’t… I don’t know, it was just surreal and horrible.” You don’t imagine there to be any normal way to explain what you dreamt about in the slightest. Leaning forward out of the shower a bit, you plant a quick kiss against his frown to reassure him. “I’m fine, I just need to fully wake up and shake it off.”

“If you wanna talk about it…” he trails off, eyes still full of concern and trailing over your face even as he tastes your touch on his lips with his tongue. “I’m gonna head down and get some breakfast. Take your time.” He seems to note that you’d like space to mull over your nightmares, even if your reassurance hasn’t diminished his worry much at all. The curtain falls back into place, leaving you enclosed in the shower in peace, and you let out a small breath when you hear San leave the room.

You douse yourself with water and hang your head under the showerhead to let it pelt you from above in a vain attempt to clear your mind. The metallic scent of blood was so real and prevalent that you can almost taste it on the back of your tongue now, as the memory of the dream sinks back over you like a dark shadow.

Your limbs seem to move on their own as your right hand brings the fork forward to sink into the beating flesh of the heart. Blood spills out of the tiny pinprick holes your fork leaves in its wake. The scarlet pools at the base of the plate. The knife slips through the organ after some struggle, as though the thumping flesh is wrought with steel.

Seonghwa still stands across from you on the other side of the table with his hands folded in front of him like a steeple. He smiles, lips closed and tightly wound into a grin that’s almost painful to look upon because of how strained his expression is. He watches you cut away at the heart and take a small cube neatly onto your fork.

“To think he would let you of all people feast upon his heart,” he says, eyes wide and unblinking. You pause with the bite halfway to your mouth. The knife in your left hand clatters against the plate when you drop it unceremoniously. Seonghwa unfurls his hands and lays them against the pristine white tablecloth. “Tell me, mon amour, would you…” he swallows hard around nothing. You remain frozen in place, and it’s your turn to watch him now as he slides around the edge of the table and comes over onto your side. Seconds tick by at an agonizingly slow pace, and Seonghwa lowers himself to his knees. A trembling hand clasps around your thigh tightly. It takes you a moment to recognize the expression painting his features to be excitement. “Would you grant me a bite?”

Your hand moves the fork over to him without conscious thought. You coax his chin up with your free hand, fingers lingering on the underside of his jaw as his pretty lips part in an almost feral want.

“Ask nicely and perhaps I might.” Your voice comes out in a sultry tone that does not feel like your own despite it sounding like you. Seonghwa exhales a shaky sigh, his pupils blown out and sweat beading his brow.

“Please…” Seonghwa shudders and shifts his chin down, catching your thumb between his lips and nipping at the pad gently. “Just a bite.”

You split the seam of Seonghwa’s lips further open upon your thumb and wedge it between his teeth, finally bringing the fork down to his waiting mouth. His breath lies hot against your thumb. The soft pants he exhales are frantic, and his gaze upon your face is so unsettlingly steady that you cannot force yourself to be the first to look away. As the fork descends upon his mouth and pushes the small bite onto his tongue, you retreat and pull your thumb out of his mouth. Seonghwa moans around the morsel, a little rivulet of blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth as he shudders around the taste of Hongjoong’s heart.

Seonghwa’s chest is heaving when he pushes up on his knees and reaches for your face with both hands. You let him cup your cheeks, neatly manicured nails digging into your flesh as he tugs you down to meet his lips with your own. What follows is a mess — a kiss full of blood, saliva, teeth, and the lingering heartbeat resting atop Seonghwa’s tongue as he thrusts the wet muscle into you to coat the whole interior of your mouth with the taste of iron. The fork in your right hand hits the ground with a sharp clang that rings too loudly in your ears. You search the table blindly with your other hand until you find the plate with the rest of the heart on it, and when you close your hand around what’s remaining, the heartbeat thumps like it’s part of you.

Saliva connects your mouths when you push Seonghwa back and separate your lips. He’s dazed, still looking up at you like you’re some benevolent god offering him saintly blessings, and you do. As you swipe your thumb over your bloodied lip, you push the heart firmly against Seonghwa’s parted lips. He groans, eyelashes fluttering around the taste, and there’s a sick squelch resounding in the air once he works his teeth into the flesh.

“This,” he says through soft pants, twisting his chin down into his shoulder to catch his breath even as you force the organ further against him. It stains his pretty tanned skin with red streaks that drip down the front of his white garb. “This shall be our final feast.”

You come to again on the floor of the shower, hunched over with your head leaned into the corner of the tiles. The water beating down on you is icy now; any lingering warmth you had upon entering has dissipated while you were unconscious. Beneath your head where the water can’t quite reach is a streak of crimson. You lift a hand to your head first in search of the source of the blood but stop immediately when a fresh drop falls. Tapping your nostril with your middle finger first to confirm, you rub roughly at your nose with the back of your hand to sweep away any other droplets that threaten to come out.

The shower handle doesn’t budge right away when you reach for it blindly above your head, fingers slipping off the knob upon the first few tries. By the time you finally do get it to shut off as intended, you’re huffing your frustrations out in small bouts of profanities.

Your head hurts by the time you are able to finally pull yourself out of the shower and get dried off, but the nosebleed has stopped so you take it as a small victory. San set out a fresh set of clothes for you on his way out it seems, something you had forgotten to do entirely, and you smile as you see them laid out on the bed through the bathroom doorway. Even though you’ve thoroughly dried off, it’s still somewhat a struggle to tug your pants on, and your turtleneck is even more a pain in the ass. You slip into your boots by the door as you’re lacing up the corseted vest San set out for you overtop your shirt. You tie it tighter than is necessary, mostly on account of your thoughts drifting off to other things as you go about your routine.

Of all things to dream about, the cannibalism of your captain is a new — and quite startling — one. No part of you wants to revisit the visceral images that haunted you, and you aren’t sure you want to understand the subliminal messaging your brain is trying to communicate with you either. It’s best, you imagine, to push everything about it far to the back of your mind to be forgotten in the waking hours and only recalled when night falls again.

The corridor outside your shared room with San is void of life, though you can hear voices rising from the first floor of the hostel. Upon descending the stairs halfway, you catch sight of San standing near the foyer, one arm folded over his broad chest as he uses the other to accentuate whatever he’s talking about with minute gestures. Nightingale stands across from him, with the bright glow of his eyes tracking your every move as you descend the staircase.

“Pardon me then,” he utters through a nod in San’s direction.

“Oh.” San glances back over his shoulder, gaze softening upon landing on you. “There you are.”

“Sorry it took me so long.” You aren’t wholly certain how long you spent passed out on the shower floor, though given that San seems to have already eaten, you imagine it was enough time to cause a bit of worry.

“No worries, star, I spoke with Nightingale to pass the time. He’s found a charter for Soojin and Luca to take, one that’ll get them to one of the larger ports a few cities over. Setheno here is more of a trading hub than one meant for more widespread travel. Apparently, Nightingale intends to leave with them, though it doesn’t depart until the beginning of next week so you… you still have time with Soojin. Not sure if or when we’ll cross paths again.” San shrugs, extending his hand out to you as you step up to him. “He also mentioned that the two of you had spoken recently.”

“Ah that… I, uh, I’m sorry for not bringing it up sooner. We were preoccupied with other things and it slipped my mind. Since we had already discussed similar things so much, I didn’t want to bring it up again and again or seem vengeful by any means.”

San shakes his head quickly even before you’re finished speaking. His hand shifts around your hip to rest against your lower back. “I’m not upset, don’t misunderstand. Simply wanted to be transparent and let you know that we had spoken about it as well — just the time you went to speak with him in the training room, that is. I had already given him a heads-up after I told you that story making sure he knew you were wholly aware of it. Even though I told you the circumstances of our relationship and what Captain had me do to him, I am very glad that you heard it directly from Nightingale too. Not just my side of the story.”

“Did you by chance tell him I knew of your history before I did that?”

“It’s possible.” San purses his lips and looks off at the wall as he seems to rack his brain trying to complete the timeline of matters in his head. “I stopped by the training room first thing in the morning after I told you, to speak with Yeon — Nightingale — and let him know the extent of your knowledge about our history. To be frank, I also told him that he need not be the one to share that history with you as I had already done so because I didn’t wish for him to feel it was his responsibility in any way. It seems he wished to disclose it regardless though.” He shifts his chin down and looks back at you with a small smile decorating his lips. “It’s a miracle we even have a working relationship, given said history.”

“He… didn’t mention any of that when I spoke with him.” Though you sigh, it comes out more as a breath of relief than anything else.

“You were still in bed when I got up, so I imagine I was the first to accost him. I’m sure he thought it was an organized attack on his psyche when we both came to corner him separate times to dig up ghosts of the past.”

“Which would explain why he acted like a raging asshole who purposefully tried to drive a wedge between the two of us?”

San’s hand withdraws from your back, and he lowers his head. “Please do not — just.” A breath before he deigns to lift his head again. “If you say anything further, I will not be able to resist hurting Nightingale. Should he hurt you, then I will hurt him tenfold in return. So please, if you do not wish to see that then bite your tongue.” You take his face into your hands.

“Quiet those thoughts, San,” you murmur. His gaze chases your lips then flutters shut.

“You’re right, it’s not helping anything to think like that.” When he brings up a hand to cover one of yours, your chest tightens. You wonder, albeit briefly, if you’re of any help or solace to him as he is to you. “I’m supposed to go help Yunho stock some supplies for the ship in a few minutes. You wanna come along?”

“It’s not as though I have any other plans,” you shrug, letting your hands fall down by your sides in unison.

The morning air is far more welcoming than the ambience you experienced last night on your walk with Mingi. With bright beams of sunlight cascading down across the gorge and the dense fog lifted from the streets, it’s almost as though that place you walked the night prior was nothing more than a figment of your imagination. Just as your cruel nightmare had been. Minho is going to have the time of his life when he hears about it, you know that much for certain.

“Ah, there you are!” Yunho comes into your line of sight in a flurry of white as he balances a stack of boxes on the ground before you and San. “San, these small crates are ready to go on over to the docks, I’ll take care of the medications!”

“This is more than expected, no?” San says, brows knitting together as he releases your hand to take up the crates. Yunho stares for a moment with his mouth open and his jaw wholly slack before he winces and shakes his head.

“Yeah, I guess I messed up inventory because I had to shift some numbers around and alter some entries.”

“It’s not like you to do that,” you add, and the earring dangling from your right ear chimes with the movements of your head.

“Hongjoong said the same thing but…” he hesitates. His tongue darts out to wet his slightly chapped lips. “Something must’ve slipped through. It happens! I’m sure it’s not the first time I’ve done so.”

You take two of the crates atop San’s stack without a word, and it earns you a sharp pinch in the side from the man himself.

“Can’t let me show off my big manly muscles for you, huh?”

“What? You don’t wanna see mine?” you tease in return, nudging him with your hip.

“Oh I’ve seen you show them off quite well,” he hums as his gaze seems to trace your body beneath your clothes.

“Ew! Ew, stop being gross in front of me, I’m still here!” Yunho covers his eyes with his free hand, balancing the crate he’s holding on his hip and cradling it under his arm. “Let’s run these over quickly; Mingi and Jongho are already at the dock running a post to help load and transport supplies. Say, do you know if we’re offloading today too?”

“Mhm, Seonghwa and I are meeting with a number of buyers this evening,” San replies, sidestepping you slightly when Yunho nearly knocks into him. “As are Captain and Yeosang, I believe.”

“Ah… sweet freedom,” Yunho hums, but his tone isn’t as light and airy as it usually is. You dare to glance over at him, to try to catch his expression or the gleam in his eyes, but he masks his emotions masterfully.

“He’s been a bit incessant since we landed, yeah?” San talks as though he understands what Yunho means nonetheless, and although it excludes you to an extent, you are certainly good at making your own assumptions. And frankly — it wouldn’t take a genius to guess.

“You know him as well as I do. Can’t stand change even a little bit.” Yunho clenches his jaw. “Speak of the devil.”

Ahead, Hongjoong stands with Seonghwa’s tall and lithe form at his back like a menacing shadow. If possible the circles under his eyes are even darker than last you saw him, though you aren’t graced with the sight of face for long before he’s turning away in a clear attempt to avoid eye contact.

“Here’s the rest!” Yunho says as you approach the dock, and any remnants of his emotions are tossed behind the metaphorical mask he slips on when Hongjoong acknowledges your presence. “Also, Mingi, those pain meds are at the top of this crate. I kept a bottle with me back at the hostel in case you need more while we’re here.” He passes off the box under his arm to the Berserker, patting the side of it as Mingi nods.

“Is something the matter?” you inquire when Mingi turns to you next. He motions for you to add your crates to his growing pile, waiting to respond until you’ve securely set them atop the one he’s carrying.

“I’ve been having a killer headache since last night. Have you?”

You lock eyes with him just before he straightens and the crates block his face completely.

“No, I’ve been just fine—” it’s unwise at best to lie to Mingi, but to do so with Jongho just mere steps away as well is simply asking for trouble “—no headaches. Has anyone else been having them?”

“Lieutenant,” Mingi says under his breath. He shifts his body to the side just enough to block Hongjoong and Seonghwa from seeing his lips as he continues to whisper to you, “though that may be due to another reason altogether.” The Berserker turns away, and you straighten up, clearing your throat in the process as the weight of your captain’s stare bears down hard on you.

“That’s the last of things, Captain.” Yunho passes his load onto Jongho as San departs from your side to help organize the cargo in the transport.

“Seonghwa will follow along to help finalize the deal on that side of the gorge.” Hongjoong beams like a proud cat, but the man at his shoulder does not share the same sentiments on his solemn expression. “Do be good and behave. I am quite eager to be rid of all the excess goods we’ve been lugging around for so long.” You avert your eyes so that you do not have to see the way his sharp gaze tries to sear holes into your skin. His index finger drums against the band of one of his rings on his opposite hand like a metronome. Steady and unwavering, tick tock, a slow and deliberate rhythm.

Seonghwa’s chin dips to his chest as he nods, and the man turns on his heel to follow after the Berserkers without waiting for further instruction. You almost wish to go with him when you see what unfolds before your eyes next — your proud captain sidling up to Yunho and looping his arm around the healer’s lithe waist. The look in his eyes reminds you much of an apex predator. As Seonghwa had once mentioned sending Yunho into the lion’s den, that analogy is not lost on you nor is it an inaccurate one to say the least.

“What are we doing today, dearest?” he purrs against Yunho’s shoulder despite the rigidity he’s met with. Yunho only has the gumption to stop the man when Hongjoong reaches down and tries to lace his fingers through Yunho’s, only to grasp at air as Yunho instead clears his throat and dodges the wandering touches.

Hongjoong’s soft gaze shifts in an instant, and his lips draw into a firm little line as he once again attempts to grab Yunho's hand.

“What exactly is it you’re trying to do, Captain?” Yunho hisses through his teeth with so much venom that he spits a little.

In that moment, your oh-so-proud captain has the audacity to look like a kicked puppy, lips folding out into a minute pout, and the tension in Yunho’s shoulders melts into nothing half a second after. Tick tock. Like clockwork.

Yunho lets out a sigh, one akin to defeat. He waves Hongjoong off and pries himself out of the man’s grasp, leaving him to glower and stare at the side of Yunho’s head with barely concealed fury. “I’m going back to the hostel. It’s too humid today to walk around. Come with, Y/n? San will probably go along with the Berserkers.”

You glance back at the transport, seeing San still inside next to Jongho, and give a slow nod. When you fall into step with the healer, it takes everything in you to not pass a lot over your shoulder at Hongjoong, just to see his expression one last time before you go.

“Sorry, I thought he would follow if I didn’t ask you to come with me. The last thing I want right now is to be cornered again.” Yunho’s lips quirk into a crude smile as he speaks.

“I can’t blame you,” comes your quick response. “It’s hard to say what’s worse: being alone with him in silence or when he decides to open his mouth.”

“Both are…” Yunho laughs out of the blue. “Truly stressful.”

At the door to the hostel, Yunho pauses his stride and turns to look at you. The image of him driving a knife into Hongjoong’s chest flashes before your eyes. If he were an angrier man, one not afraid of violence, perhaps that would be a potential reality on the horizon. Either Hongjoong’s hold is truly so deeply rooted that those under his thumb cannot move, or he is merely lucky that those closest to him are incapable of harming him.

But this Jeong Yunho before you is more akin to a white lamb left on an altar, much like Seonghwa and all others Hongjoong delights in toying with.

He grins a tad awkwardly.

“How do you feel about going to a bar with me tonight?”

────────────

Your excess of free time leads you into the courtyard, though you cannot claim to be outside for the scenery and nothing else. Rather, it’s the man seated at the small table he was at last time you spoke with him.

“I didn’t even have to hound you to meet me this time,” he chirps as you sit in the chair adjacent to his in lieu of announcing your presence. “What a delightful change.”

Minho turns the book in his lap over so that the pages splay over his thigh, and when he folds his fingers over the back, the spine gives a slight crunch.

“May I ask you an odd question?”

This makes him perk up a hair, eyes flashing interest as he angles his torso more towards you. “That is what my job is for, in a sense.”

“Does your job also include the interpretation of dreams?”

Minho offers a shrug, eyes flitting up to glance at the sky before coming back down to reconnect that unsettlingly firm eye contact he seems so obsessed with.

“I’m no fortune teller or witch, but there is some science to it.”

“What does it mean to dream about eating someone?”

A laugh rips from Minho’s lips, and it quickly devolves into a cackle that has him doubling over on himself. He slides his book off his thigh, snapping it shut without bothering to mark the place he left off on. He gives it the same amount of care when he tosses it onto the table like it’s nothing.

“There are simpler ways to occupy my attention, Ghosty, I must say,” he says, still chuckling as he jerks his chair across the cobbles to face you head on. “But you always pick the most exciting options. Eating someone?”

“My dreams since coming here have been odd and surreal, much like intrusive thoughts but dialed up to eleven.”

“Well, you aren’t alone in that. I’ve been having strange dreams too though… I fear none quite like cannibalism.” He draws a hand up to his face, thumbing over his chin before continuing. “In any case, dreaming of consuming someone can mean a myriad of things. It can be sexual in nature, it can mean you feel so close with someone that your subconsciousness interprets that connection as a need to take that person into yourself. Or there could be a level of intimacy to such actions, the act of one giving themselves unto you so wholly that they give you their flesh. Dreaming of such things is not always cannibalistic in terms of literally wanting to eat someone in the waking world. I would not be concerned that you will suddenly have the desire to change your diet anytime soon. Sometimes those dreams steam from desiring someone heavily — either sexually or otherwise. If those you’re consuming in your dreams are faceless beings, then it could be as simple as your mind begging for a deeper connection or a level of intimacy that is neither sexual nor romantic necessarily.” Minho pauses to smile at you, eyes falling shut and creasing briefly before he snaps them back open. “But I could sit here and psychoanalyze you for days if not weeks and still not be able to give you a definitive answer as to what it means for you specifically to be having cannibalistic dreams.”

His tone leaves more to be desired, as though there’s another thought hanging at the end of his tongue waiting for its cue.

“And yet…?” you prompt, almost immediately regretting your curiosity. The chime dangling from your right ear lets out its melody when you tilt your chin and further seek his gaze. Minho leans forward at the waist and into your personal space.

“And yet I can piece together who it is you are consuming in those dreams of yours, hm?”

Though you smile, your eye is twitching.

“You fear the conclusions you come to on your own might be true, so you go to others seeking other answers but when they tell you that you’re correct, you become incensed.” Minho hums and folds his arms loosely over his chest. “Hardly a unique dichotomy. It is in our nature to become so defensive, after all.” The doctor moves one hand and flicks an invisible fleck of dust off the pad of his thumb. When he speaks again, it’s with a flourish of his wrist. “There is nothing to be ashamed of really. Desires are natural. Lust is powerful. A denouement is on the horizon. And frankly, it’s hardly your fault given how every piece has been moved with such care to bring you to such a mental state. You cannot be expected to have done anything else with the odds so stacked against you—”

Minho catches himself a beat too late, eyes flicking open and darting over to your face in an instant as his typically manicured expression slips into one of slight panic. He exhales a breathy laugh.

“Ah… I see now,” he mutters. You hold his gaze. “How easy it is for one to let their guard down…”

Your tongue feels like cotton, and the thoughts in your head have slowed to as near a halt as is possible. Though your lips move around unformed words and phantom questions, you can’t seem to bring yourself to ask. As the doctor said, you dread vocalizing your thoughts only to have them confirmed to be true. Even if you already know.

If he were to ask right now: what is it you are feeling?, then you aren’t wholly sure how you would be able to answer that. Neither dread nor disappointment stirs in your chest, though there is a deep ache. In truth, it’s nothing you did not already know even if you had hoped Seonghwa spoke the words purely out of contempt in the heat of the moment.

When your hatred turns to infatuation, I’ll be sure to tell you all the ways in which Hongjoong has orchestrated the destruction of your psyche since your arrival here.

Minho makes no effort to correct himself or cover his words; in fact, he deigns to say nothing at all.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” you say, unsure of your volume thanks to how loudly your heart is seeming to beat in your ears. The man opens his mouth, closes it, then squeezes his eyes shut.

“What is it you’re expecting me to say?”

“That you misspoke,” you answer almost before he finishes his question. “That you spoke out of line, based on assumptions, that — that…”

“What point is there in appeasing you with half-hearted words that you know to be lies?”

“You tell me, you’re the psychologist!” When you jut your hand out to him, Minho’s face returns to its usual candor. He folds his fingers around your outstretched ones, clutching the back of your hand tightly as he moves quickly and efficiently to kneel in front of you with his knees on either side of your feet.

“Ghost — Y/n, breathe.” His other hand moves to your knee. “You have to breathe. Deep breath in, hold it, hold it, now let it go. Again, again. Come on, again for me.” Your hand is trembling against his despite how tightly he’s gripping it. “It is not your fault. You did not know. You cannot blame yourself for this.”

You sink into yourself. “I should have followed Jisung off that fucking cliff.”

“No, no, Y/n, that’s what we’re not gonna do or say. You’re spiraling.”

“I’ve lost my fucking mind.”

“You’re having a perfectly reasonable reaction to uncomfortable truths.”

“I must be fucking crazy,” you say through a shaky laugh as you lean back in your chair and let your head dangle off the back of it. “I must still be sleeping, that’s it. I’m not awake yet.” Minho grips you hard enough to make certain that his nails bite at your skin, as though to prove you wrong. “I need to—” Fuck, you need to feel anything other than this crippling anxiety pulsing in your veins. You bend in half again in a blur of movement, rushing forward and into Minho’s space in search of something that is surely a detrimental mistake, but he’s quicker than you are even in this panicked state because he flicks his hand up from your knee to place it firmly over your mouth before you get too close to planting your lips on his. Something akin to disappointment burns in his stare, though it’s replaced so swiftly that you want to believe you imagined it. Cheeks flame with an inherent shame as a wash of realization rushes over you.

“Enough of that,” he states firmly, as though chastising a small child. “You are not sleeping. You are not dying. You are not insane or crazy or whatever other colorful word you can think of that is synonymous with those two things. You are having a panic attack, Y/n, and you will be okay.”

Your body stops fighting him so heavily then. The logic in his words, combined with how certain his tone is, blocks out every spiraling thought for just a moment. The tension in your shoulders slacks as you slump in the chair.

“Thank you,” he says under his breath, slowly bringing his palm off your mouth. “Now, I need you to breathe with me. Steady and slow, just following my movements. Breathe in as I clench my fist, exhale as I release it, okay?”

You wet your lips as you nod in the hopes that it will dispel some of your trembling.

“Do not look at my face,” he murmurs, hand raised by his head. And when, slow and steady like a pulse, he draws his fingers in until they’re a tightly wound fist, you let his motions guide your breathing. Though your chest burns, the tightness in your throat is far more pressing and weighty. While not impossible, it is difficult to a degree to gulp down breaths until the searing panic dilutes. The black coating the edges of your vision diminishes. It comes with regret though because looking upon Minho’s face in your peripherals shows you an expression of such deep pity that you glance away in an instant.

Is this the oh so glorious fall from grace that Seonghwa had been waiting for?

“Ghost of Eros, who have you become?” It’s Jisung’s voice that echoes in your ears. You haven’t allowed yourself much time to fall into these thoughts since his death, mostly to keep yourself sane and away from more hellish thoughts. You crave the allowance to cradle your head in your hands and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until all thoughts pop out of you, but Minho keeps your right one firmly occupied still.

“You used to be the most renowned sniper in certain parts of the galaxy.” Ah, not Jisung’s voice. Minho is the one speaking to you. Yet his tone is tinged with that same venomous pity as before. “Say, do you even remember how to fire a sniper rifle, Ghosty?”

“Of course I do,” you say as you come back to yourself bit by bit. “You just… it’s not something that can be described so easily without demonstration.” You glance down at where Minho kneels before you. From this angle you can see down past the high collar of his white coat, and a blossom of redness sits across his smooth skin near his collarbone and across the line of his shoulder. He shifts under your stare, and the shrug makes his collar cover the welts across his skin.

“Are you blind to how reckless you are?” he asks suddenly. “In all departments, to be fair, but very much so in terms of situations that would put you in danger.” His chin drops to his chest as the doctor lets out a sigh. At last, he releases your hand, pushing up on his knees to help him stand upright for only a second before he’s dropping back into his own chair. “You live like a person who does not wish to. Thus, I am going to ask you this outright, and you will answer me outright in return. Fair, no? Do you wish to die?”

“No,” comes your answer, as though it is the most obvious thing in the universe. Minho levels you with a stare once more, and it prods at your already soft and sensitive outer shell. “No, it’s not that I wish to die. If I were to die then… perhaps I would not mind as much as others might in such a position.”

The man across from you leans forward enough to set his elbows atop his knees.

“Do you think of Jisung often?”

You wonder if this man is truly so good at his work that he can see through to your brain at any given second, or if you wear your thoughts and emotions on your face to be read like a book. On the other hand, the question feels more of one being asked by Minho-the-human-being as opposed to Minho-the-snarky-psychologist.

“I try not to.” Then — “I do not want to.”

“Does that come from a place of guilt?” Silence is often the most telling response. “Allow me to frame things in a more digestible way for you. Let’s say I die trying to protect a person I love. Then that person blames themselves for my death… in that instance, I would see a need to claw my way out of hell to tell her that I am fine. The choice made was not one made lightly. That she has nothing to feel guilty about. Because it was not her fault. That she deserves to be happy more than anyone else, and more than anything, she deserves to live on. If nothing else then for the mere reason of honoring the life given to save hers. The cost of sacrifice is not her guilt.

“I understand that Jisung did much to harm and betray you in the days leading up to his death. Even before then, too. But know that on that cliffside, what your captain witnessed and informed me of in the aftermath of that hell was a desperate man throwing himself at the remaining threat to your life after Hyunwoo fell. He had a goal to push Hyunjin off that cliff as well, and though he failed, he did so in an effort to save your life. Were he a man intent to die from the start, then he would have let himself be killed before even leaving that barn. His final gift to you was his sacrifice, and in that, his remorse.”

“Ha… oddly, that makes me feel more guilty than before,” you mutter through a crude laugh. Minho shakes his head.

“I would not tell you this unless I was certain you were ready to hear it. We are not the amalgamation of others’ hopes and dreams, nor are we destined to carry the memories of those we’ve lost as burdens. Do not carry his death as a burden of guilt upon your shoulders.”

“And what of you, doctor? Do you think of him often?” you inquire in return, finding his gaze drifting upwards to the sky. He chuckles as a hand seems to move to the back of his neck with a mind of its own.

“I did not join him willingly, yet I did not leave him willingly either. I am coping with far worse things than the aftereffects of Stockholm syndrome.” You wish to hear the words he won’t say. I try not to. I do not want to. “What I told you of caged birds carving their way out of their prisons with their beaks… such things come from lived experiences. I fear I cannot share in your mourning or your guilt, and I can never be a person who will sit alongside you to exchange fond memories of a man who left me with no such memories. Unlike you, I have no choice but to carry his memory on the back of my neck for the rest of my life. What he did for you in his last moments was freedom to me. I am free because of his decision to save your life. That shall always be my fondest memory of him.” Morbid, yet you share an understanding in that.

“Perhaps it shall be for me as well,” you mutter, a little wistful, a little longing. “May I request something of you, Minho?”

“Again, I am no witch so I cannot promise to grant any wishes, but I shall certainly do my best,” he jokes, one leg crossing over the other. You think of the man always standing at Hongjoong’s shoulder, tired eyes bearing down on the ground more and more often these days as his cheeks grow gaunt.

“Please help Seonghwa,” you implore. The expression that crosses the doctor’s face is vaguely close to the one of pity he spared you not long ago, though you find it to be less demeaning and more sympathetic now.

“I cannot.” His lips barely move, like he’s sorry to share the words with you. “I cannot help him unless he is willing to come to me. Forcing my care on anyone always has an adverse effect, and it limits what I can do if I am lucky enough to not be shunned immediately. As much as I desire to help him… there is nothing I can do. Not unless Seonghwa finds me first.”

You glance down at your lap in an attempt to hide your disappointment as you nod. The crumbling remains of your relationship with the lieutenant are ground too fine for you to handle on your own. Even if you did have the ability to do so, you wouldn’t know where the hell to begin trying to mend things. Regret bites at your skin like a rabid dog latching onto your ankle and slowing your path forward.

“I suppose that’s all I wished to discuss,” you say, clearing your throat. Granted, you got far more than you bargained for when coming here to ask one simple question. Minho’s gaze maintains its emotion as you stand up. Something rattles beyond the gate, and you cast a sweeping look over the streets on the other side in search of the source.

“I’ve poked and prodded you enough—” Minho twists his head to look towards the fence along the front of the courtyard. Though slightly delayed, he picks up on that same rattling noise you heard moments earlier. “I’ve bothered you plenty for one day,” he continues. The rattling continues behind him, and if you did not afford him your attention then you would have missed the way his blinks come in rapid succession, how he inches himself towards the edge of his chair like he’s eager to bolt out of it. “I do not wish to overstimulate you by speaking further about these matters, but do please be gentle with yourself. Not only tonight, but in the coming days as well.”

“I’ll try.”

“I am always available,” he continues, swallowing roughly after speaking those four words. “Be well.”

“Same to you,” you murmur. You take one last glance over the edge of the spiked fence before you depart the courtyard the way you came and head back into the sanctity of the hostel.

Minho stands abruptly the moment you disappear behind the door, and when he does, a hand holding a none-too-inconspicuous orange bottle juts out from behind the wall the fence connects to.

“Enough of that,” he hisses. His eyes flit across the streets on the other side of the fence; his concerns, however, are baseless as the citizens milling about continue on their paths without sparing the scene a glance. A head of mussed black hair and dingy highlights pokes out from the same place as the bottle, then sharp red eyes come into view next. Minho is graced with the full extent of the Brute of Kebos’ face a second later. His steps carry him to the edge of the fence, close to the wall where he’s met with Mingi fully revealing himself.

“She was on her way out,” he argues. Minho wonders if the Berserker poked and prodded at your emotions the way he had.

“There was no need to draw attention to yourself in such a manner.”

Mingi huffs out a breath of air that sounds oddly akin to a laugh. He dangles the pill bottle over the spikes of the fence. It’s barely kept from tumbling down between his index finger and thumb.

“Captain’s orders.”

Minho feels a twitch beginning to make itself known in his right nostril. Foolishly, he stretches a hand out in a feeble attempt to snatch the bottle from the man’s grip, but Mingi yanks it back. He doesn’t even get to lay a single finger on it.

“And what does your captain desire from me this time?” The Scourge of the Black Sea and his crude bargaining chips, and even cruder methods of exercising them. Mingi glances past the man to the door you just passed through.

“He asks for the same thing she does.” Ah, so Mingi was listening to an extent.

Minho can’t contain the laugh that tears from his lips. “Then I’m afraid my answer remains the same: I cannot help someone unwilling to see me.”

“You’re incapable of knocking on a door of all things?”

One less knowledgeable might mistake Mingi’s words to be an attempt at humor. Minho leans forward and rests his forearms between the spikes lining the barrier between him and the pills.

“Have you ever heard of those old folklore stories and fantasy fictions about vampires? How they cannot enter a home without being allowed in first? My line of work is very much similar to that — I cannot force myself upon anyone, nor can I convince anyone to let me in.” He fixes his eyes on Mingi’s despite how much terror the sight of those red irises brings him. “Simple. As. That. I might as well not exist at all in your lieutenant’s eyes, and until he is willing to see me, then your captain’s orders are an impossible feat.”

Silence stretches between the pair. Mingi stares back at him, but there are no cues or indicators of emotion for Minho to glean from at all.

Then — Mingi twists the cap of the pill bottle off, and before the doctor can even suck in a panicked breath, half of the pills are dumped onto the ground on that side of the fence. At his feet. Some drum against his shoes and scatter across the cobbles. The twitch moves up to Minho’s eye, but he’s blinking so furiously that it’s hard to tell the difference between the annoyance and panic.

“I know you’re feeling antsy, doctor. Did someone take the stash you smuggled into that little pack of yours?” Mingi quirks a brow at him. The faint upturn of his lips tells Minho that the Berserker is enjoying this quite a lot, paying that sadistic voice in his head its dues in things other than blood. “Or did the real doctor finally figure out where his meds have been disappearing off to?”

“Tell…” Minho has to let his mouth form around the words on his tongue in silence for several seconds. He cannot tear his attention away from the bottle in Mingi’s palm. “Tell San to approach him and implore him to meet with me. Or you can do it. Either one of you should be perfectly capable of such a thing.”

“Good on you, doctor.” Mingi caps the bottle, and it’s like all the oxygen in Minho’s lungs comes alive as he starts breathing steadily again. The Berserker cups the back of one of his hands and sets the closed bottle in his palm, delicate and gentle, then with his other hand, he curls Minho’s fingers around the cylinder. Warm. “I apologize for my crude tactics. I was not the one who stole the medicine.” Mingi’s touch is like hot coals against his skin.

“I am aware,” Minho sighs through his teeth as he straightens up. His grip on the pill bottle is iron tight.

“I shall leave you to it then, doctor.” Mingi turns and disappears behind the wall once more, leaving Minho where he is. Once he’s certain that the Berserker’s steps have withdrawn, he shifts his jaw until it pops. A sear of pain ripples through his cheek.

Minho glances at the half-full bottle in his hand, then drops to his knees to pick up the fallen pills off the dirty cobbles through the wrought iron bars.

────────────

When you find Yunho again, it’s already late enough into the evening that you need to have your mask up even though the majority of the people milling about have neglected to do so. Yunho is not one participating in that majority, leaned up against the wall close to the hostel door with his arms crossed over his chest. Though you cannot see his face in its entirety, you imagine he gives you some sort of faint little smile when you pivot and make eye contact with him.

“Didn’t change your mind?” he asks with a tilt of his head.

“Dare I say I need a drink as badly as you do?” you jest in return, though the level of truth in that statement is far greater than you’d like to admit aloud. “Come on, there’s a bar just down the street.” He keeps pace with you despite his long legged advantage. Quiet lingers in the air between you, but it’s far from a peaceful one in your opinion; you both seem to have plenty occupying your minds, and those things are the exact reason why you’re seeking alcohol in the first place.

The bar, quaint as it may be, emanates a nice warmth that’s a welcome relief from the humidity of the evening. The purple-tinted glow of the streetlamps filters through the windows and casts colorful shadows across the tables and floors. People line the booths and the tables, leaving small pockets of unoccupied space near the corners of the bar, but it’s the actual bar itself that Yunho drifts toward with you following in tow.

“Whiskey on the rocks for me—” you’re barely seated when a bartender flits over to the two of you and Yunho puts in his order, leaving you to stutter out a quick “gin and tonic please” as he tries to make a speedy departure. To his credit, Yunho wastes no time in getting into the thick of things right off the bat. “I’m being made a proper fool of, aren’t I?”

Your thoughts drift back to the morning, to the ostentatious show Hongjoong put on, to the day prior when the captain did something similar with more success. Your heart aches for Yunho again, as it has so often these days.

“It’s hard to watch, isn’t it?” comes his second question, and this one is far easier to answer honestly.

“It is, a bit,” you mutter as the bartender returns with two drinks and slides them across the counter. You stare at the budding condensation on the outside of the glass. “But we’re all fools when it comes to love, aren’t we? I’ve ignored things that are very deeply… not right with San, choosing to ignore it time and time again because I want the love I have for him to be easy and simple.”

Yunho huffs out a rather exasperated sigh against the rim of his glass.

“I don’t even deserve this. I don’t deserve to be treated like this. What went wrong wasn’t my fault — it was fucking Hongjoong and fucking Seonghwa playing a dumb game of jealousy with me as one of the pieces. Seonghwa manipulated Hongjoong into getting what he wanted — just like he always fucking does — and then Hongjoong manipulated me into going along with it because he knows I would follow him blindly into anything.” Yunho tangles his fingers through his hair so roughly that your scalp aches just watching him tug at the strands. “Seonghwa just wanted to fuck Hongjoong, so why’d he have to drag me into it?”

“Yunho…”

Conversation slows to a halt between the two of you. The rumbling beats of music hanging about the bar seem so much louder in the absence of Yunho’s voice. Your fingers trace over the dangling chime attached to your right ear as your other hand flexes around the base of your drink. The conversation lulls to a halt long enough for both of you to finish your drinks and receive replenished ones.

“I know my place compared to him,” he says like the words are pure venom on his tongue, “and no one can take that place. I’ve long since come to terms with that.” When he laughs, the sound comes out wet and choked but his eyes only glisten with some form of loathing. “I thought I could get around it since the two of us are so damn different but that doesn’t change the facts. I’ll never be a killer or Siren or anything else of use to Hongjoong so what’s the fucking point? I failed at the one job I had — couldn’t do shit to help Mingi and got replaced by a shiny new doctor because I’m too involved in the personal lives of the crew but we fucking live together so how can I not be involved? Does he expect me to not make friends or have feelings or wants? God forbid I have wants!”

“Yunho,” you say again, louder and with a hand firmly pressed to his shoulder when his voice turns strained. He jerks his chin in your direction as though realizing for the first time since he sat down that you’re beside him. “Just let everything go.”

“I don’t want to be stuck in one place forever, chasing my tail and running in circles because I keep caving to a man who won’t ever…” Either his mind goes elsewhere, or he cannot bring himself to finish the thought. “I’ve been good at pretending I don’t know Hongjoong’s game all this time. Good enough to where he doesn’t seem to realize that I’m fully aware. But despite that, I let myself give in over and over again. I’ll never be able to get out if I keep doing that.”

“What is it you want then?”

“To make a decision for myself and not be judged for it, not have him looking down on me for it. I want… to have someone who isn’t Hongjoong.” Yunho dips his chin to his chest then looks up at you. His tongue runs along his lower lip before he catches it between his teeth and blinks several times in quick succession. The look would be undoubtedly flirtation if not for the deep nervous furrow of Yunho’s brows. “We’ve teased and toyed with the idea, haven’t we? Would it be so bad if we had each other just because we wanted to and not for any other reason?”

For once, you’re assuredly quick to reject the proposal.

“Even if I was fool enough to believe that’s what you truly wanted, I’ve never done that and had it be truly no strings attached.” Unless you were to count that time with Yeosang, though that feels like a different beast in retrospect. “To be strangers would be one matter, but with how messy and interwoven the threads are — that would be an unavoidable mess.”

“You’re right,” the healer mutters through a sad grin. His fourth drink arrives at the same time your third one does, but his pace hasn’t slowed one bit. “Part of me knows that I’m never going to love someone the way I loved Cassie, and there’s so much of me that would rather not try to fall for someone the way I did for her. In the beginning, things with Hongjoong were okay because my feelings for her were lingering and fresh, yet even after it stopped being about coping with the losses we shared, we kept going back to each other. I used to be tied to this idea of making things work because I fell for some part of Hongjoong that I don’t even know exists anymore. I want to be careless and free again without having to worry about how much collateral damage it may cause.”

“Look around: there are plenty of fish in the sea here.” You shrug your shoulders up close to your ears. “Plenty of people would love to have a nice tall man in their beds for a night, I’m sure.” In an attempt to bring some sort of levity to the conversation, you crack a smile and nudge Yunho with your elbow. He ducks his head once again, though this time, the tips of his ears are flushed bright red and he hides the rest of his blush from you by taking a drink. You laugh into your own glass.

“You’re quite intimidating, you know that right?”

“Hm?”

“Like, Cassie had a sort of soft beauty to her, even when she’d come to me with cuts and scrapes I needed to patch up, she still held an almost ethereal aura about her. You’re attractive in a really intimidating way. And that’s not me coming onto you, just to be honest, I don’t have any explicit reason in saying that. I find you objectively attractive, always have. Maybe it was actually really fucking hot to see you stand up to Hongjoong day one the way you did!” He’s laughing as your expression twists into one of shock. “You and San look really good together, yeah?”

Despite biting back a smile, you roll your eyes and push his hand, and subsequently his drink, down to the counter. “Had too much to drink already?”

“Well my eyes still work! What a mean sandwich the two of you would make.” Yunho’s sigh is half joking and half wistful. The corner of your lips quirks up even as you hold your index fingers up in the sign of an ‘x’ over your face.

“You aren’t the only one who suffered a bad experience sharing the dear lieutenant as a third,” you say from behind your fingers.

“Ah, what a good homewrecker the man makes.” You agree with the sentiment internally, because it feels too cruel to voice it. “I hope it doesn’t come between you and San, truly. San has… he’s finally found something to protect and hold onto desperately, and you’ve given him a stronger voice to stand on his own. Without heeding Hongjoong’s every whim, that is. So I hope that the two of you last for a long time.” Yunho shakes his head ever so slightly, lips curling around the rim of his drink. “Such serious talk for a night out! Have you found the freckles on his ass cheek yet?”

“Yunho! I’m not telling you whether I have or not?!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! But really, you gotta give me more credit — that little pleasure piece down there was my doing.” The wink he sends you, coupled with the insufferable, shit-eating grin painting his lips as he speaks drives you to slap the back of your hand to his bicep.

“Where exactly did you learn to do all of that anyway? I doubt it’s something you picked up from your mother in the clinic.”

“I taught myself, for the most part. With lots and lots of videos. And of course, practice, back when the crew was larger and I had many more people readily eager and willing to be test subjects. We made frequent pit stops, sure, but I had to make do myself at a certain point.”

“Yet you don’t have any yourself?”

Yunho laughs. “I wouldn’t dare try to. I’m quite the pussy when it comes to pain. Stub my toe too hard and I’ll scream like a banshee.”

“It’s that bad?” you say through a laugh of your own.

“Jongho and San used to play this evil prank on me where they’d leave little things on the ground for me to trip over or step on, just to see who could make me cuss the loudest. They finally had to quit because the last time, I face planted into a wall so hard when I tripped that I broke my nose and busted my cheekbone. My poor, pretty cheekbone.” He cradles his cheek, eyes squeezed shut to add to the theatrics of it all. “Cruel bastards, the both of them!”

“My team in the military wasn’t big on pranks, from what I recall.” It’s not the liquor that makes you take a trepid walk down memory lane, but Yunho’s reminiscence has you thinking back as well. “One time I fell off the top bunk in our dorms, but that was because I yanked on the bed sheet too hard, all pissed over something stupid, then my hand slipped, I punched myself in the face, and fell off the bed in the process. I tried catching myself on the way down but landed so hard on my arm that I snapped my clavicle.”

“Holy shit? Holy shit, I bet that hurt like a bitch!”

“To say the least, but I think actually my pride was what was the most damaged at the end of the day. I mean what a loser way to break a bone.” You nurse your drink as Yunho laughs again, and a sharp pang of clarity hits you after the fourth sip. Laying your hand on his forearm, you naturally pull his focus to you, a curious and equally puzzled gleam to his eyes. “You deserve to feel happy, Yunho.”

His lips part like he wants to counter immediately — perhaps to tell you that he is happy — then a smile covers the momentary crack in his facade. It’s strained and pulls at the corners of his lips too hard.

“Having someone to fuck isn’t always the solution to that,” you continue before he gets the chance to make excuses or play the fool. “And I know I’m the last person who ought to be saying that, but it’s something I’m trying to teach myself too. If I can do it though, I know you can.”

Yunho’s expression does not give away much, though his brows are pinched together just enough to indicate that some thought in that head of his is causing some level of distress. Rather than offering up a response, he downs the rest of his drink like a pro and fetches enough credits from his pocket to cover both of you and then some.

“At least I don’t feel inadequate doing that,” he mutters, just barely audible, before pulling his gas mask up over his face. A sigh leaves your lips, but you follow him nonetheless, mimicking the same motion as you get up from your stool and follow him to the door. He doesn’t speak again until the two of you are out in the night air outside the bar. “Do you think there’s any happiness to be had where we are? Doing what we do?”

“If you wanted to wash your hands of it all, you could,” you say after a breath of hesitation. Yunho looks forward, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

“Because I’ve not killed anyone?” he scoffs. The scrape of his heel over the cobbled streets echoes along with the sound. “How many wounds have I stitched up for criminals? To either keep them alive or make sure they can keep on doing as they please? My finger may not be on the trigger, but I am just as guilty of putting the gun in killers’ hands.”

You shrug your shoulders up, walking ahead of the man a few steps and turning to look at him face to face as he steps forward with you.

“The guilt is yours to bear as you see fit, but you are no more guilty than the mothers who birthed those criminals. You told me once that your job is to save lives. Do you measure the lives of those you save by their deeds, good or otherwise?” You spin on the ball of your foot to walk alongside Yunho again. “Then—” your index finger points to the sky, then angles down to the man beside you “—who are you to be the judge, jury, and executioner?” Yunho’s breath hitches. Perhaps your stare is a bit too harsh, a tad too uncaring. “San has killed innumerable amounts of people. He did unspeakable things in his past. Does he then not deserve to be saved by you, doctor?”

“That’s different, the circumstances were—”

“Ah, so there are circumstances to your judgment?”

Yunho hisses through his teeth, a sharp spike to his frustration that hurts your arm when he grips you hard enough to bruise. Though you could easily detach yourself from his grip and plant Yunho on his ass right here in the streets, you refrain from doing so sheerly out of curiosity. A longing for an explanation to his madness. The straps of your mask dig into the back of your head. Yunho has shoved you into a cramped alleyway that’s hardly big enough for two people, but he manages it well enough by pinning you to the wall of one of the buildings. You shift your jaw in an attempt to alleviate the strain caused by the mask biting at your skin.

“You do not understand. There are things I cannot wash my hands of,” Yunho spits out. His mask clanks against yours so hard that you worry it might break.

“Yunho,” comes your breath of warning.

His hand trembles where his fingers are latched around your wrist. When he speaks next, it’s without the same vehemence.

“I have a confession. I can’t blindly continue onwards while holding onto it. I… wanted you when you first joined the crew. I wanted you so badly.” His eyes flicker back to something more recognizable: familiar, warm, an inviting chocolate brown, searching for answers in your gaze. He finds nothing in the firmly set flat expression you’ve schooled yourself into mastering. “I wanted to do to you what Hongjoong does to me,” he continues. The bait bobs along the surface of his eyes, and you can see yourself taking a bite if you’re not careful. “Just to see… if it would be as easy as he makes it seem…”

“But you couldn’t.” A pesky strand of hair has gotten caught in the strap cradling your skull, and its nagging pain distracts you. “Because you’re not that kind of person.”

Yunho lifts a hand to your throat. It’s large and encompasses your skin with ease.

“Hongjoong has a way off killing you without letting you die. Like he’s reaching into your chest and ripping your heart out.”

Yunho’s fingers pulse around your neck, and they surely feel the way your pulse jumps and scatters into a frantic rate that betrays your panic before your expression cracks and the panic seeps through to the surface there. His grip loosens a hair, and his hand trails down a little too far for comfort. You recover from the lapse and snatch him by the wrist to stop his movements. When you dare to look up at his face, you find him staring upwards at the slivers of night sky between the tall buildings on either side of you.

“I know. I pretend to be dumb around Hongjoong but I know. I know Hongjoong is taking the damn painkillers, know he’s trying to make me believe that I’m taking stock wrong even though I’ve been doing it for years without issue — for fuck’s sake — just like I know that when I’m selected for missions it’s not because Hongjoong thinks I have any value being there. All he wants to do is spite Seonghwa. I know I’m only allowed to fuck Hongjoong because he won’t put his dick in anyone that isn’t Seonghwa. It’s always Seonghwa, Seonghwa, Seonghwa.”

“I know, Yunho, you told me already. It’s okay.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, I must be — I’m feeling the liquor a bit, that’s all. Don’t take anything I say to heart.” Yunho’s smile looks more like a sneer though. “Is it… could it be because I refuse to kill? I can’t — reason out why it is that I’m not enough?” His head collides with the wall above your head, and you have to jerk your head to the side to avoid bruising his throat with the hard edges of your mask. “If I should kill someone then—” you hear his inhale even through the filter of the gas mask, then his hand is up around your throat once more. Tighter this time, squeezing at the base of your neck in a way that is wholly ineffective if he were truly trying to murder you here and now. With his ramblings, however, you aren’t sure you can take those chances.

“Yunho,” you offer a final warning in the hopes of reaching the part of his brain that controls his reason. The fingers at your throat dig in like he’s aiming to take chunks of your skin out with his nails.

“If I am tainted, perhaps he will desire me more.”

“Please forgive me for this in the morning,” you mutter under your breath. His head tilts much like a dog’s would when faced with confusion. Unbeknownst to him, it only allows you better access to the pressure point you’re after, and your fingers jam up against it faster than he has time to react. His muscles are rendered all but useless, and you twist his body in your grip hard enough to make his knees give out. The second his knees thud against the ground, you slide your arm around his neck, bending your elbow just hard enough to restrict his air flow without doing too much harm. “This is for both our sakes,” you add just before his gaze goes a bit hazy and unfocused. He passes out in your grip seconds later.

There’s a moment of guilt that takes over you, one born of the panic in his eyes when you grabbed him, but given the circumstances, you’d much rather live with that than have him live to make a decision you know he would regret terribly. You loop your arms under Yunho’s and do your best to hoist him up enough for you to support a majority of his weight.

“You shouldn’t have to kill someone just for another to love you back,” you mutter to Yunho though he cannot hear you. “…I hope that you never have to break that rule you made for yourself.”

You can only be thankful that Yunho didn’t pick a bar at the other end of the city, and your struggle in walking back to the hostel with the much larger man draped around your shoulders like a sack of flour. When you flatten your hand to the door leading inside, Yunho’s head lolls to the side. You nearly slam his temple into the doorframe as you thrust the door open with your foot.

The lobby and attached lounge are both void of life; a far cry from the night prior where you came into such a warm and lively atmosphere. Now, you cross the threshold silently, passing empty chairs and empty couches in a sort of greyish lighting adding to the already dismal ambience. The staircase looms before you, dim and shadowy at the top like it's trying to mock you. The air rushes out of your lungs then back in quickly in an attempt to brace yourself for the upcoming struggle.

“Allow me.”

“I’m beginning to think you lurk around every corner just waiting for me to pop up,” you joke, half-serious as you look up at the man who has just stepped into view at the top of the staircase. He shoves his hands into his pockets, and with each step down the stairs, his sandals slap against the wood.

Five steps from where you stand at the bottom, Mingi tilts his head to the side, gaze drifting over Yunho’s limp form quick enough for you to almost miss it.

“You would be incorrect.”

He descends the rest of the way.

“I know, I know — it’s just a—”

“Every corner would be improbable as there are places where corners do not exist.” Mingi smiles first with his lips, then with his eyes when he squeezes them shut. You’re stunned into silence just long enough for him to relieve you of Yunho’s weight without argument. “But if I give away my hiding spots then you’ll know where to look for me.”

“…places where corners do not exist?” you murmur.

“You’re overthinking it, Ghost. It’s just a joke.”

“I didn’t kill him,” you say, nodding towards Yunho’s limp form that’s now supported by Mingi. The damn Berserker makes it look so easy that it hurts your pride, for no reason.

“Well, he’s still breathing, so if you had claimed to then I would be questioning both your sanity and how good you are at killing people.” Mingi’s words actually stir a laugh out of you — one of disbelief, but still a laugh nonetheless, and you shake your head. Loosening the mask around your face, you let it hang about your neck and suck in a breath of air unfiltered now that you’re in the safety of the indoors.

“He was rambling nonsense and on the verge of making… a terrible decision.” Your gaze lingers on the side of his face as Mingi hoists him up a bit higher. “It’s thanks to my intelligent decision to knock him out that I did not kill him.”

Mingi’s gaze sharpens on you.

“He made an attempt on your life?” What comes out as a simple statement at first morphs into a question by the end of it. Your subconsciousness drives you to rub at the base of your neck where the skin itches some still.

“No,” you say after several seconds of silence. “No, he was seeking guilt. I told him that there was still a way out of this for him, that of all of us, he could escape freely. He despised that answer quite a lot, and then—” a lazy wave of your hand finishes the thought for you.

“It is understandable. His greatest fear is inadequacy. Yet, he is a Normie. He is not capable of anything great. He has no place on this crew by comparison.” Mingi’s flat tone coupled with the brutally harsh words take you aback. Climbing the stairs slowly, you keep pace with the Berserker while eyeing the man draped over his back. Still unconscious, or a very good actor perhaps. “He is useless, and yet he remains. Because he is needed when others make mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” you hum. “Our captain seems to make a lot of those.” You ascend a few more steps only to realize that Mingi is not following you. Turning, you see him three steps below you, red eyes watching you with blank curiosity. You squeeze the railing tight in your left hand.

“Yunho should leave the crew, then.” Said as a statement, you almost don’t realize that Mingi is asking you if that is your true opinion until many seconds pass in silence.

“Yunho should… do what is best for him. What is best for his heart and mind both. If he is truly so miserable here, then why should any of us demand that he stay? If we — if we truly care for him then allowing him the freedom to choose is the best thing we can do for him. Even if we do not like the choice he makes. You know much about that, do you not?”

“I could have chosen to take the serum, yes,” Mingi says, shaking his head as he speaks. “You fought for my ability to choose back then, but that is different than now. Yunho has zero desire to leave. Given how you are speaking, you know that very well. He has made his choice. If you truly care for him, then is it not best to allow him to live with that choice no matter the consequences?”

Your tongue weighs heavier in your mouth, and an acrid taste is rising in the back of your throat. You try to clear your throat to dispel it.

“You have not yet given up on your hopeless ploy to save people who do not wish to be saved, Ghost.” Mingi’s gaze turns narrow, and he looks up at you through half-lidded eyes. “Or perhaps is that an excuse to cover up your subconscious intentions? Dispel those closest to the man you find so evil so that you may drive the knife into his chest without suffering deeper guilt.”

“Are you accusing me of something, Mingi?” It’s nothing short of a miracle that your voice remains steady and contained. He steps up one, two, three. Now he looms over you, bending at the waist just enough to be eye to eye with you, and there are mere centimeters between your faces.

“It is in your nature, Ghost, to kill those with authority over you,” he says, his breath huffing out over your cheeks. “I keep warning you time and time again. You will not succeed this time if you make an attempt. Do you truly wish to die at the hands of someone you cherish so deeply? Or have you deluded yourself into thinking that he will not be the one to execute you at his captain’s command?”

“And how do I know you are not doing your captain’s bidding right here and now?” You tilt your chin up and look Mingi in the eye without faltering. “How many instruments has he engaged to orchestrate my failure and destruction?”

“Oh, how interesting.” Mingi chuckles. “You finally caught on.”

“So again I ask if you are accusing me of something? Because if you were truly doing that, then I would not be alive and breathing right now, would I?”

“Between the two of us, you are not the only one guilty of regicide, Ghost. It is in our nature,” he repeats through a whisper that makes you shiver. “The question is… how willing are you to repel that part of your nature?”

“Are you?” Your gaze narrows on him as you hiss out your counterargument, but Mingi hardly reacts at all. You may as well have not said anything at all based on the way he blinks slowly back at you. “Let’s simply get Yunho upstairs,” you murmur, turning your chin away from the man and looking towards the top of the stairs. Mingi leans back enough to let you breathe easy again, and you steal a glance his way when he straightens up. “Where’s his room?”

“Hongjoong is in it.”

“What?”

“He had Seonghwa book one room for him and Yunho to share.”

“That’s—” utterly psychotic. You bite the words back though; you’ve frayed the ends of Mingi’s nerves enough for one day and it would be unwise to continue to do so further. And though your rage towards how Seonghwa has been treating you of late is not quelled one bit, you do feel some outstretch of sympathy solely on account of how downright cruel such a request from Hongjoong is.

“Yeosang and Wooyoung are sharing, as are Jongho and myself. You and San have a room, the doctor and Nightingale, then your friend and her small charge.”

You hesitate at the top of the stairs. The hand you have wrapped about the railing is so tightly wound that your knuckles are stained white.

“…Our captain had the lieutenant book a room just for himself?”

Mingi mumbles something, uncharacteristically quiet and under his breath. You do not press him to echo the words to you.

“Then let’s bring Yunho to San and I’s room. We’ve got a perfectly suitable couch he can sleep on.” The door to your room is blessedly right across from the stairs, and you give a series of light knocks to announce your arrival that’s met with no argument. San awaits inside, propped up in bed with a book set before him and the lamp casting light over the pages. His features mold into a smile that’s soft around the edges just before his gaze flits past you and finds Mingi lugging in an unconscious Yunho about his shoulders. The book snaps shut with a pop! and he slings his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Did something happen?”

“The two of us went for drinks, and he had a bit much,” you explain. “I, um, had to knock him out to get him back here.” As far as you’re concerned, San doesn’t need to know anything beyond that right at this moment. Mingi allows you such privacy and leads Yunho’s limp body to the couch across from the bed.

“Ah… Hongjoong and him are sharing a room too. We got back not long ago but — disturbing his beauty sleep is asking for death, pretty much,” San mumbles, bringing his hand up to his mouth. “We can leave him here no problem, right? Are you comfortable with that, star?” When he comes over to where you’re standing, his hand drifts to cup your hip, thumb tracing over the flesh through your clothes. You don’t think twice before leaning forward and pressing a kiss against the line of his jaw.

“Mhm, that’s fine. I actually suggested that too.”

“He’ll be fine on the couch for one night surely.” San cracks a smile that’s a little lopsided and very endearing. “Though, if he complains, I’ll just remind him of how much worse it could’ve been!”

Mingi clears his throat as he rights himself. His gaze slips from you to San then down to the man now sprawled over the couch cushions.

“And if he asks where his bedmate has gone?”

San’s lips fold into a more devious smile. “I’ll simply say I’ve borrowed him for a bit of fun!”

Mingi does not betray much with his expression, but you know that he does not find the excuse to be so believable that it will deceive Hongjoong.

“Then, if that is all…”

“Hm? Oh, yes, goodnight Mingi.” San offers a small wave but Mingi does not budge even as the Spectre turns to the bed.

“Thank you for your help. I appreciate it,” you say to the man.

“Of course.” He looks like he wishes to say more, but refrains on account of San, who’s begun to hum behind you as he crawls back into bed. “Goodnight.”

You exhale a breath that was lodged firmly in your lungs when the door snaps shut behind Mingi. It doesn’t take much work to rid yourself of your clothes and get into something far more comfortable, though glancing at Yunho on the couch leaves you with an inkling of guilt again. His attempt on your life was still very much that — you hardly regret stopping him the way you did (in fact, you left him practically unscathed) — but the place it was coming from was neither genuine or one born of reason.

“He came onto me,” you mutter over your shoulder. Once again, you hear the flutter of pages and a snap as San forgoes his book and redirects his attention to you.

“You are welcome to do whatever you please.” His tone holds no animosity; San can be perhaps a bit too forward with his emotions when he speaks. Tonight, you are grateful for it though. “Yunho is a very good partner, quite doting and accommodating to whatever needs and desires his partner might have.”

“Not…” you clear your throat. Abandoning the dresser, you move to the bed and slip underneath the covers. “Not in that manner. Though it was a topic of discussion briefly. As was the idea of a threesome, but I rejected both offers rather quickly.” You fold your hands over the sheets. It’s a struggle somewhat to look at San’s expression as he’s still sitting upright further up on the mattress than you, but his comfort comes in the form of fingertips tracing your hairline. An encouragement to continue, or a sign that he’s listening intently to what you have to say. “I suggested that he find others to sleep with instead. Can’t take him anywhere: people were ogling him from all sides while he was… lamenting his relationship struggles.”

“Far from surprising. He’s always garnered that sort of attention wherever we go.” San laughs as he runs his fingertips over your scalp. “It’s a shame…” He stops himself from finishing the thought, but you’re not given a chance to press him to continue. “You’ve not stopped trembling since you came in,” he murmurs. With his free hand, San moves his book off to the side table and sinks lower under the covers until he is eye level with your shoulder. “What…” San seems to weigh his words very carefully before daring to speak again. He settles on the most barebones question of all. “I’m always here if you need to talk, yeah?”

And you yourself cannot fathom why you’re trembling at all or when it began. Mingi failed to mention it to you, though you understand that it could have been mere courtesy. To confirm, you lift a hand from the sheets and watch your fingers shake like grass under unruly wind in the low light.

“Ah,” you let out a noise of realization. “I didn’t eat anything before or while we went drinking. Maybe that’s why my head’s bothering me too.”

“Do you need anything to help you sleep?”

“Mm, no, I just need to sleep it off.” You let your hand fall back to its place atop the sheets. “You said once that Yunho is the best drinker on the crew, right?”

“Best at handling alcohol by far, yeah.” San laughs a little as he angles his head down to rest against your bicep. “I’ve seen him down eight shots in a night and not even be tipsy afterwards.”

It stands to reason then that Yunho’s excuses of blaming the alcohol for his behavior are shoddy at best.

You do not fear Yunho, nor were you in any sort of genuine fear for your life back in that alleyway. Your brain barely perceived him as a threat — certainly not one to leave a lasting impression on you. And though it is odd, questionable even, and calls into question your sanity, you do not feel unsafe in San’s presence. There is a lingering unrest brought about by the severe lack of knowledge surrounding what Hongjoong may or may not have had him do to you since your first meeting, but the safety that comes with being beside San has not been called into question. When he tucks himself back under the sheets and rests his head in the juncture between your neck and shoulder, you are all too aware of the steady breaths coming from the couch.

Perhaps it is not that you are afraid, but rather that this unending discomfort comes from some deeper realization. Tonight, whether sober or not, Yunho seemed prepared to abandon that cardinal rule he set for himself: to never bring harm to someone. Solely because he believed it would grant him Hongjoong’s favor.

────────────

A familiar landscape greets you when sleep finally descends, though it doesn’t come with the mild comfort of white sands and black waters. Grey dust pools around your feet, bare and sinking into the flaky terrain as you take a few tentative steps into the ruins ahead. Even in its dilapidated state, you can see that you stand in the remains of a church. Something acrid reaches the inside of your nostrils, making your lip twist in disgust. The stench of something long dead.

One pew remains intact. Upon it sits a figure with contrasting black and white hair split horizontally across the back of his head. His form is so perfectly still that it makes you wonder if he’s even truly there. When you push further into the ruins, the ground gives way with each step, making the grey ash climb up to your ankles. Something sharp digs into the soles of your feet. From what you remember of being in a place similar to this before, you do not want to look down.

“Wooyoung?” you call out. You grip the end of the pew to step carefully around it and look at your friend. He deigns not to return your stare; instead, his gaze is trained firmly on the shattered remains of what once was a stained glass window behind the pulpit.

“Do you know what used to be there?”

His question catches you off-guard, and as you shift to look between the window and his face, you shake your head. Then, right before your eyes, the glass trembles and morphs, broken pieces climbing up from the heaps of ash around the church. As though drawn by some magnetic pull, they move to fill in the frame. The picture fills itself out piece by piece, stained red by the moonlight filtering in from behind, and it makes the imagery all the more horrible to look at.

Long, bony fingers that stretch into sharp points spiderweb over a small face with closed eyes with even smaller hands clasped as though in prayer. The arms attached to the hands descend from above but there is no body to be seen, nor is there a face to put to the monstrous figure. The figure below — the child — kneels on a stone that juts out over a deep black abyss. In the empty space between the arms of the unknown beast, a red moon gleams. Below the abyss, separated by a thin bronze strip, there is a raven with its wings spread wide, and the head is turned sideways, its maw open and pointed towards the sky. The one eye that’s visible is the same red as the moon above it and the one currently hanging above your heads. Its talons curl around a bleeding heart.

“Daichi says that the murders… the sacrifices were always for the greater good of our people. What justification can there be for killing your children and grandchildren under the guise of being blessed by some unseen gods? I don’t get it,” Wooyoung mutters. He leans forward and places his hands on either side of his knees, clenching his fingers around the wooden bench. “If they had known what would happen to them, would they have still done so? Or would they have murdered more in vain attempts to beg for protection from their gods? Repeated the ritual in smaller and smaller increments of time until there were more adults than children? Or even… sought younger candidates for their plight?”

You deign not to answer any of his questions outright; they do not seem to be directed at you in the hopes of response anyway, but you doubt he’ll receive a response from either the ones responsible for the atrocities or those beings such sacrifices were for.

“Our ritual failed. Why?” Vague memories filter their way through your head but they aren’t tangible enough for you to grab hold of.

“I won’t die because of their fate. I won’t let them choose how my life ends or when it ends.”

“Our fates have been sealed, Tsukio. Isn’t it simpler to accept that?”

“Don’t call me that. That’s not my name. And yours isn’t — it isn’t Umiko!”

“They did not have the opportunity to conduct it.”

“Why?” you press again, harder and with more force to your tone. Wooyoung is selecting little truths out of the bigger picture.

“They…” Wooyoung stands suddenly, pursing his lips as he looks down at the floor where ash resides. You wonder if he too feels the slight crunch beneath his toes, if he knows what remains there. “…did not have enough children to do so.”

“They did not have five children to sacrifice?” you retort the second he finishes speaking, and a flush rises up his neck to stain his cheeks. In one blink, Wooyoung looks utterly ashamed, but in the next, a flash of anger takes over his face. You wish to inquire further, wish to know what sowed those seeds of shame, crave to understand that which you cannot remember yet Wooyoung can. None of your questions leave your lips, however.

“They did not deserve to bear even a single child if they were going to just raise their young for slaughter.” Wooyoung turns his palm to the sky, narrowed gaze glaring down at the ash painting his skin. He thumbs over it with his other hand. “I don’t like it here. I don’t want to be here.”

Before you can react, the world around you swirls like it’s in the center of a vortex, and the church dissipates into a haze of nothingness. In its place, black water stretches out before you. Your toes sink into soft sand and smooth stones now instead of ash and bones. The violent and sudden shift makes your stomach lurch, sending you forward to propel your hands forward to brace on your knees in a barely successful attempt to catch yourself as a dry heave ripples through your body. Wooyoung looks none too bothered in stark comparison.

“How do you do that?” Wooyoung watches you carefully out of the corner of his eye as you approach the spot where he crouches by the water. “I can’t seem to control any bit of the Dreamscape while I’m here.”

“That’s not true,” he sighs before patting the sand beside him. You take the invitation to sit down there, folding your legs underneath you. “You can, we share the same abilities in that way. You simply can’t remember how to do so.”

“Would you show me, if I asked?”

Wooyoung’s lips quirk a little, and he shifts to kneel in front of you. Taking your left hand into both of his, he flips your palm up to the sky.

“Close your eyes.” Two fingers dig into your palm. “Imagine a butterfly sitting on your hand; the type doesn’t matter, just picture it in your mind. Think about how it would feel, the shape and size of it, what it would look like.” You do as told without complaint or question, letting his instructions flow over you as he continues to speak. “It gets easier over time, and takes less time and effort. Like me now, I can change a whole landscape with just a thought. Or revisit old memories in the same manner. It starts small, though. Thinking something into existence out of nothing. Keep focusing on that image of a butterfly in your hand… and eventually you open your eyes—”

Your eyes flit open when you feel the slightest phantom touch against your palm.

“—to something amazing,” Wooyoung whispers through a smile, looking down at the same spot on your palm.

There in place of his fingers sits a small butterfly with wings painted blue and black. The wonder that bubbles up in your chest is palpable, like the wings of that very butterfly are beating frantically against your ribcage. It folds its wings in and out on your palm, small spindly legs testing their strength against your flesh, then in the blink of an eye, it brings itself into the air and flutters up and away into the starry sky. You lift your hand closer to your face, and your fingers trace over the spot where the creature just was as though another might pop up in its place.

“So, yes, you are capable of altering the Dreamscape as you see fit. You likely have already done so here and there; perhaps, not consciously, as Seonghwa mentioned to me you only feel able to use your abilities if your life is under duress. That makes sense — to an extent, it’s true. Your Siren genetics act as a barrier of sorts to defend you in times of need, but you are equally capable of using them in other circumstances.” Wooyoung reaches both his hands out, motioning for you to let him take hold of yours. This time he cups both your hands together. His palms are warm against your knuckles, and his fingertips skate over your wrists. “Now try again, with something bigger. The same way as before.”

An image blooms behind your eyelids when you shut your eyes, and as you focus on bringing the creature to life with your mind, Wooyoung’s honey tone seeps into your ears.

“While you won’t be able to do this in real life, it helps to start trying to hone these abilities in the Dreamscape. Learning to focus your energy into something, to pull from an invisible pool within you — these are both key in being able to draw upon your Siren abilities in the real world. It’s easier when your body is asleep because there aren’t any external stressors happening at the same time — so long as you aren’t ripped out of sleep early.” Wooyoung’s hands withdraw from yours, but you can still feel the heat emanating from them so he must remain close. “As a Siren, you can do all sorts of things that others might find odd and unnatural. But that’s how the universe works, no? San has his endless stamina, can blend in with shadows to conceal himself, has that Spectre constitution that lets him run faster and jump higher. Yeosang has his intelligence, the elevated mental capacity that comes with being an Elitist. A natural tendency to lean towards logic over emotionality, and everything comes easier to him even if it’s something he’s never tried before. Mingi and Jongho have their unmatched strength, but also the unfortunate side effect of absorbing the emotional auras of those around them which makes Berserkers more prone to aggression and violence due to an overstimulation of the limbic system.

“And people like you and me, Seonghwa — what we have is a legacy. It differs from person to person. No two Sirens will have the same extent of ‘powers’, however, I despise calling our abilities that because it sounds childish. We’re all born with our intuition. You’ve felt it before with both Seonghwa and myself, and I know I’ve mentioned it to you. We can sense another Siren’s distress and push out energy to soothe or provide comfort. Similar to Berserkers, a bit, in that we can feel what other Sirens feel. Some history books even claim that the first settlers on Celeste were Berserkers and the gods of Celeste blessed them to create Sirens, though I find it hard to believe. The key difference is that rather than absorbing emotions from fellow Sirens, we possess something of a heightened empathy.”

Wooyoung withdraws his hands completely, quicker than you expect him to, and the haste in his movements bring you to open your eyes and look over at him. His gaze lingers on your hands. Whatever words he was going to share with you are lost as his lips part to let a sigh slip out. Something soft writhes between your palms, fluttering and beating a few times before quiet warbles emit from the space. You part your thumbs, gingerly and ever so carefully, to reveal a round budgerigar so young that its adult feathers have yet to fully come in. It twists its head around, surveying the surroundings with beady black eyes, before stretching its small wings and unveiling the black striped pattern across them.

“You… made a bird.” Wooyoung reaches out to it with his index finger crooked like a perch, and the bird climbs up without hesitation. It remains unphased when Wooyoung brings his face close to it, merely letting out a little warble and tilting its head at him. “Incredible.”

Without another word, Wooyoung lifts his hand up above your heads, and the bird immediately takes flight. You watch it disappear into the trees across the lake with a similar feeling of wonder as before when you created the butterfly. Wooyoung’s gaze lingers longer than yours, seemingly consumed by thoughts you aren’t privy to, and when he turns back to you at last, his expression is more troubled than anything.

“As I was saying — Sirens, we can shift the density of our bodies to go through objects like a wall or a door, though it is more difficult to master as you risk getting stuck inside whatever object you’re trying to phase through. But, well, it’s different for you. Most Sirens cannot go through living things, or rip a man’s heart clean out of his chest.” Wooyoung gives you a sympathetic smile.

“Nothing we don’t already know,” you reply with a shrug.

“Seonghwa mentioned a certain incident that occurred on Dorado.” Wooyoung winces a bit and looks down at the sand. “He was asking me questions, at least. I put two and two together based on what we had talked about that one time and asked the right questions to get the information out of him. Not maliciously! I just needed to be certain about why he was asking, in case — so that I could understand better. I ended up doing some research on a few of the databases Hongjoong has access to, and there are records of Sirens being able to do similar things. Most, unfortunately, were captured by the military or slavers to be used as weapons. Some were test subjects as well, and there are a few detailed studies about being able to phase through living beings. Other records showed that militaries use Sirens as batteries to power other soldiers with their blood, which is horrific. I couldn’t stomach to look into that for long, it was just too gruesome.”

“Then it’s possible that both you and Seonghwa could do so?”

Wooyoung hums, nodding a few times, “Yeah, in theory. I’ve never made any attempt to do so. And Seonghwa never mentioned it before he learned of you doing so. Had you ever done anything similar before then?”

“With a living creature, no. Early on when I first joined the crew, I recall being able to pass through bullets without taking harm on my first mission. Then when I was captured with San, I was able to free myself by phasing through ropes.”

“Both of those instances were likely your natural instincts jumping out as a form of self defense.”

“What of your ability? Daichi mentioned it some time ago, that we were found to be most apt for sacrifice because we were Sirens not meant to exist. He implied that I shouldn’t be able to rip a man’s heart out with my bare hands, just as you should not be able to kill Sirens within the confines of the Dreamscape.”

“If I am able to kill Sirens here in the Dreamscape, then it’s a tad terrifying to think of what forsaken ability you were given. And to be fair, ripping hearts out is a mighty horrifying ability to have, so it might very well be what sets you apart. Though Daichi is limited by the constraints of our knowledge here, as far as I know. Unless there is an unknown entity that resides in the Dreamscape alongside him, then he only shares information which we already know. Hence why he can be so damn dodgy when answering questions. I’d assume that at the time when you told you that, he was gleaning knowledge from the two of us, or potentially Seonghwa. Seonghwa believes that you should not be able to do what you did to that man; that was why he approached me asking for information, because he has some inkling that you and I are not the same as him.”

“He’s inconsistent at best,” you say, drawing a confused glance from Wooyoung before clarifying, “Daichi is. Sometimes it truly does seem like he only knows what we know, but other times, he speaks in riddles and circles as though he knows more than he lets on.”

“Something of an unreliable old man, hm?” Wooyoung jokes through a soft laugh. “I know he dislikes me because he fears me. I have tried and failed to kill him before. But because so much of his identity is an oddity to me, I’m not sure if I can hurt him at all. Regardless though, he loves to remind me that I was supposed to die alongside you and three other children a long time ago. I don’t believe him when he says that we were only meant to die because we were special. We were marked to die as babies. Our abilities did not come until later, until after the cult had conducted all sorts of experiments on us. That cult was the same one who made us a dyad, with the hope that in the future we would have been able to further a stronger bloodline. Why would they have gone through so much effort for children marked to die?”

You recall this somewhat from what Wooyoung has told you in the past.

“We were part of a group of children used by a defunct sect of the main church… an old, defective sector that had broken off a long time in the past and taken their teachings with them…There were thirty children to start, all chosen from birth and offered by their families for the tests, yet each year, more and more children died. By the time the Ritual Year came along, there were only seven children left, and among them, both of us remained…It wasn’t something given at birth, not a gift from the gods — it was a harsh result of cruel and repeated testing and experimentation that kills dozens of children. Except, despite us successfully making it through that ordeal, we were still meant to die in the ritual, as a sacrifice to the gods.”

“Perhaps they wanted to find a way to halt the sacrifices,” you mutter, toying with a bit of loose skin around your pinky nail. “Instead of sacrificing children to be blessed with Siren abilities, maybe their intent was to make it so that Sirens could be self-sufficient without gods. I imagine… any parent doubtful of the church’s teachings would have been eager to find a way out for their child.”

“I suppose that much could be true. I remember next to nothing of my parents, even less of my grandparents, so whatever beliefs they held true to are a mystery to me.” Wooyoung inhales so sharply that he winces a little. “Regardless of any of that, it’s a good sign that you're still able to tap into your abilities. It means more might come back to you as time continues to pass.”

“Sometimes it feels more like I’m regressing rather than moving forward,” you complain, dropping your hand and leaving your cuticle be for now. Wooyoung hums.

“It makes sense, given what you’ve been forced to go through lately,” with his words comes a tone so full of reassurance that it makes your chest ache. “An overload of new information on top of relearning yourself — learning that much of what you thought you knew to be real was a carefully constructed lie. No one would blame you for having those feelings. It could very well be that your own mind is getting in the way of you remembering what it means to be a Siren in an attempt to protect you from further harm. Since your mind may be uncertain what’s real and what isn’t, you could be unintentionally blocking yourself from honing your abilities and can only tap into them in life or death situations.” Wooyoung reaches out across the space between your bodies and sets his hand down on your knee. “I promise I’ll do my best to help you distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. I can only do so much if your mind subconsciously thinks that whatever memories are still locked behind the wall the serum put up are dangerous. But I do like a challenge. Hell, I made an Elitist fall in love with me, so what’s some pesky military medicine compared to that?”

You purse your lips, letting one of your hands cover Wooyoung’s and give it a small squeeze.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I rely on your optimism too much. It’s hard for me to be as confident as you.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be positive for both of us!” Wooyoung twists his hand in your grasp and pushes it upwards with his own. Your fingers splay out against each other, his extending past yours by several centimeters. “When we were little, my hands were smaller than yours. I thought I’d never hear the end of it with the way you so mercilessly teased me.” His eyes turn glassy as he looks at your palms pressed together. “Before I moved into Yeosang’s room at the castle, when we shared a cot in the broom closet next to the kitchen… we would compare hand sizes every night, and I always insisted that my hands would be bigger than yours one day. After we were separated and you were forced to leave, I would hold my hand up to the ceiling and ask you if it had finally outgrown yours.”

It sends a pang through you knowing that Wooyoung has to relive these memories alone, that you cannot share in the nostalgia the same way he does. You hardly know what to say now, so you intertwine your fingers and cling to him as tightly as you can without causing pain. His hand trembles in your grasp, the same way his smile wobbles.

“How lucky I am to finally see the day where I can say I was right to your face.”

────────────

You’re stirred awake by a gentle nudging against your shoulder, and it isn’t until your consciousness starts processing what’s going on that you hear San’s voice filtering through the haze of sleepiness.

“Hey, star, we gotta go downstairs.”

“Mmhmph?” you grumble, hand grabbing at air a few times before it finds purchase on San’s warm and solid bicep.

“Yunho wants to introduce us to the owner of this hostel. He claims — he says it’s his father.”

genuinely am seriously so thankful and grateful and touched by everyone who has been sending love and messages lately, even if just to say they've been thinking of me/moc or rereading in the long wait it truly truly motivated me to keep pushing onwards and keep going despite everything :')

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a/n: good god where do i even begin TT if not for an apology for the obscene and absurd and stupid amount of time it has taken for me to get this out 😭 genuinely was wanting this to be posted in january but holy heck look at the time it's.... may... kms...

nothing will make up for the long wait but i do hope you enjoyed this chapter nonetheless!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[hipstergecko]

Okay people! DP X DC idea time!

This hit me like a trainwreck and I must release it into the wild. Will I write this properly one day?

Anyway!

Let's think about sensory deprivation tanks. Danny phantom. What if the thermos acted like one? It was only meant for short term storage. What if the Fenton's built a coffin like one meant for long term? 

And they caught Danny first?

—---

The Fenton's newest invention "ghost in a box" had caught him. It was a dumber bigger heavier version of the thermos and somehow they managed to catch him right as he was falling to earth after a nasty hit to the jaw from the latest ghost of the week.

He propped himself up on his elbows and hissed through his teeth. Better to get out of this box quickly. His parents probably couldn't handle this guy. Using the bright glow of his eyes, he examined the inside of his new holding cell. It was fairly big. Big enough for him to roll about and prop himself up on his elbows. There was 10 inches or so of watery ectoplasm sloshing around him as he moved and shifted. Surprisingly comfy too. At least compared to the cramped space of the thermos.

Without the glow of his eyes it was dark. Completely dark. The kind of dark that makes you wonder if you really had that hand on front of your face. And it was quiet. The only sounds were the faint sloshing of the ectoplasm and his own breathing. 

He saw the faint line of the lid and tried with all his might to push it open. His ghostly strength didn't seem to do much. He was panting by the time he decided to try to phase through it instead. He ended up with a sore head for his efforts. Airtight, watertight and ghost proof. 

There was no way out. 

He tried his phone which had luckily enough survived the fight.

No service.

Danny sighed heavily and lay back in the water, staring at his phone with a tired frown. So much for luck. Hopefully, Tucker, Sam, or Jazz would break him out before school tomorrow.

The silence was so strange. He'd never been somewhere this quiet before. Even the ghost zone at its most peaceful had the sounds of flowing ectoplasmic winds. He felt his eyelids fall shut as he slipped into a doze. He was frankly exhausted from everything that had happened that day and needed a nap. So he took one as he waited for someone to open the box.

But Nobody did. Nobody could. Apart from his friends and sister, nobody cared to.

You see, immediately upon his capture, the elder Fentons rushed the box back to the lab for testing. After several hours they had declared the invention a success. As long as no one opened the box, the ghost couldn't escape. 

Meanwhile Tucker, Sam, and Jazz were consumed with worry. They hadn't seen Danny get captured, but after Jack and Maddie proclaimed Phantom was caught the next day on the news, they feared the worst.

Jazz confronted her parents about Phantom in the box, but she was kindly and lovingly dismissed. You see, they had given it some thought and finally agreed with their daughter that ghosts too dangerous to be studied should just be caught and dealt with humanely. A compromise. Sure they couldn't do all the tests they wanted, but they would rather have their town and family safe.

The "Ghost in a box" was equipped with noise canceling movement dampening ecto-sustaining technology. In essence a sensory deprivation tank. The ghost would be kept safe until they were docile enough to be released for study or simply turned back into base ectoplasm to be recycled for something else.

But they didn't know about cores.

And they didn't know about Danny.

Cores would not dissipate like regular formless ectoplasm. They would remain even as the physical form of the ghost melted away as their consciousness faded into everything and nothing within the box.

But Danny wouldn't. Jazz knew that Danny couldn't.

A core wasn't made to house a human. A ghost, who was the personification of a person's emotions the moment they died, a being made of obsession, could be condensed and made dormant inside the fragile safety of a core. But a human flesh and bone body? A heartbeat? He would always be there. Able to be sucked in a thermos, yes. Ghost in a box, yes. His ghostly abilities made him pliable enough. But into his core? Never going to happen.

His heart and core were very different, but worked together in harmony. Neither could exist without the other. Neither could be taken out without issue. (The ghost catcher notwithstanding. Freaky duplication personality splitting weirdness) Should his heart vanish into the core, it would die. Hearts do not take compression and dormancy well. Should his heart be removed, the core would have no filter and overtake the body, burning it into pure ectoplasmic fire.

Danny was the perfect balance. His heart strengthened his core and his core energized his heart. He could not be easily shattered or dissipated. But this meant he also could not retreat into his core when his mind or body failed him. 

He had to remain fully formed. Fully in ghost form. The ectoplasm that was being cycled through the box made sure he was stable, but he would suffocate and starve if he became human.

He was well and truly stuck.

Jazz begged and pleaded with them to let him go. The psychological damage would be so severe if he stayed in longer than a few hours. But their success had blinded them to the point of pride. Instead they praised her for her empathy and willingness to study the obsessions ghosts were known for.

They only really started listening to her after Danny had been missing for an entire week. And even then it was just a call to the police and a search to hunt "they ghost who took our baby boy".

(Did Jazz ever break down and tell her parents the truth? Who knows.)

Perhaps the worst part was that his loved ones couldn't even get to the box. It had been locked up in some government facility almost immediately after the Fenton's announced their success. The patent was sold to the government for a truly amazing amount of money.

Danny was out of reach.

It was only after months of petitioning and rallying and absolutely threatening Vlad with ruining his political reputation, Sam was able to gain access to the box to "see for herself if they were truly as humane as the Fenton's claimed". She had 20 minutes with the box and she and Tucker did everything they could to open it. 

Nothing worked. No hacking or code they tried could open it. They had no power tools or weapons to try attacking it with. For 20 minutes they tried.

For 20 minutes they failed.

There was nothing they could do. They were escorted from the premises kicking and screaming.

Meanwhile the product went viral. Some opposed it, some praised it. The Fentons became famous for the "ghost in a box". Soon they were available widespread. Ghosts were being caught left and right and safely contained. most of whom were peacefully living out their afterlives in their chosen haunt.

Many ghosts were caught actively seeking Phantom. Skulker, Ember, some invisible ghost kid, a great hairy looking wolf man, and more. Ghosts were being caught all over the country. None of them could escape once they were put in the box. And none of the other ghosts knew what was truly happening to their kind. They only knew that if you went into the human realm, you didn't come back. 

Surprisingly enough, Vlad was eventually the one to put a stop to it. By forcibly closing the portals. The Fentons were too busy with their manic search for their son to rebuild their own portal. (And even if they tried after jazz told them the truth, would it have even worked?) His own portal was hardly ever used anymore. Mostly because alongside the "ghost in a box", the Fenton finder and ectoplasmic tracker were also extremely popular tools for ghost catching. It was too risky to activate his personal portal. If he was caught, he was as good as dead. 

But he too was eventually caught.

Somebody had finally looked into his shady dealings. Suspicious of him, and not wanting to rule out anything ghostly, they opened a box on him during a packers game.

He never saw it coming.

Eventually almost every ghost people across the world knew of were caught. The U.S. government paid for the boxes and had them categorized and stored deep underground in a ghost proof facility that slowly faded from history.

But what about Danny?

Let's ask a different question. Do you know what happens when a human stays too long without sensory input?

The hallucinations started when his phone battery gave out.

—————

The justice league had been an entity for quite some time now. Long enough that they felt secure in digging down into the underbelly of various world governments to root out world ending threats at the source. Especially after what had been going on with CADMUS and their government sanctioned cloning operation.

Someone (the flash? Batman? TBD) finds old records of a bunker buried deep under the earth full of something called "ectoplasmic" radiation. For the safety of the nearby town of Amity Park, they felt the need to dig it up and clean it out.

Upon entering the bunker in full OSHA approved hazmat, they find strange looking boxes. Boxes upon boxes stretching for at least a mile, maybe more if there are sublevels. Each box is labeled with a number. The first one they find is marked 3278 (or some other arbitrary number). All the boxes are sealed tight with no known way to open/dispose of them.

Most of the heroes agree just to let the bunker be. It was sealed and doing no visible harm to anyone or the environment.

But Batman (or other super? Dealer's choice) decides to do a bit more looking.

He stalks through the boxes, noting the numbers, the lights saying 'occupied' and 'dissolved'. Many of the boxes are buried deep. He can really only observe the ones close to the walkways.

He walks all the way to the very bottom. The very end of the bunker. Where there is a solitary box set on a raised platform. It is labeled number 1. The lights flash 'occupied'.

'Corporeal'.

He takes it back to the watchtower for analysis.

——————

The justice league cannot safely open the box. Any attempt to break it open could compromise whatever is inside. Scans do not indicate what could be inside.

More research is done into these boxes. Nothing digital is found. Eventually someone looked through some old offices stationed outside the bunker and finds patents for the boxes. Dr.s Fenton describe in detail what the box does and how to use it. It was meant to never be opened by anyone without the proper DNA match.

Apparently Jack Fenton, understanding that ghosts can possess people (read overshadow) coded the box to reject anything that had human DNA in it. He had to manually override the security to open the boxes. Which included several (read 100) security questions and passwords pertaining to Jack directly.

So only someone completely non human and non ectoplasmic could open the box.

Good thing they had aliens on payroll.

—————

Superman pressed his thumb to the scanner. There was a light beep and a sudden rush of pressurized air. A cheery voice rattled out of a small speaker embedded in the box's control panel.

"Wow! I don't know how you found an alien, but well done! Please enjoy your docile ghost or ectoplasmic goo! Thank you for using the Fenton GHOST IN A BOX! Patent pending please don't sue."

Superman, startled by the sudden voice, took a step back. The lid of the box opened slowly the inside dark. Toxic looking green mist sluggishly broiled out of the box. It spread almost like fog across the floor.

A black hand with abnormally long and skeletal fingers stretched slowly rose out of the mist, rising to grip the side of the box.

All the superheroes were immediately on edge. Hands flying to weapons and dropping into fighting stances. Superman himself jumped back to guard against whatever was coming out of the box.

What emerged was frankly horrifying to look at. A black mass of bulbous limbs and... Tentacles? Were those tentacles? Claws and teeth scrabbled at the edges of the box until the entire bulk of the thing fell from the edge, squelching with whatever liquid had been inside. It hit the floor of the watchtower with a wet sounding thud.

There was an immediate reaction among the heroes.

"Oh gross!"

"That... What IS that?!"

"Eugh..."

"It's not human, that's for sure!"

"Someone find a member of JLD!!"

"Get Constantine up here!"

Amidst the noise the thing on the floor writhed about. All over it's amorphous body, eyes opened. Countless eyes appearing all over it's form. They were the same toxic green color as the mist, but brighter.

The eyes rolled about and winced. The thing shuddered as if in pain and the eyes squeezed shut back into the void. Instead, teeth appeared, countless mouths inside mouths and razor sharp teeth upon teeth. It scrabbled on the floor and opened it's countless mouths.

And screamed.

Heroes threw their hands over their ears in an attempt to stop the sound. Those with enhanced hearing took it the worst. Superman himself was forced to kneel, hands pressing to the sides of his head desperately. It sounded like the screams of the damned. Of someone dying. Of thousands suffering. He couldn't move, couldn't react. It was going to drive him mad if it didn't stop.

It came almost in waves, battering against the triple reinforced windows protecting the inhabitants from space. Lights above their heads popped and broke as sound crashed about the room. Coffee mugs shattered, fuses blew, and the watchtower was plunged into darkness.

With the darkness came a panic. The screaming was unending, debilitating. Some curled into fetal positions, uncaring of their peers. Others tried to run, but with the power gone, doors wouldn't open.

Not many paid attention to the thing on the floor.

It is important to note that in attendance that day alongside batman were a few of his brood. Namely Red Robin and Black Bat. It is also important to note that Black Bat is a hero who is hearing impaired.

So of the heroes in the watchtower that day, Black Bat was the only one to focus on the amorphous thing despite the noise.

She watched the Eldritch horror even as the watchtower fell to darkness. It had too many mouths. Too many eyes. It's form was barely recognizable in the darkness, but as she watched she could see the makings of something humanoid.

It had a discernable head.

She watched it try to open its eyes various times only to see it shriek louder and shut them swiftly. It was in pain? Even though the lights had gone out? She looked at batman and the other heroes. They were screaming and yelling and trying to figure out a course of action.

She looked back at the thing. The sound beat at her ears in waves. Growing ever louder as those around her screamed in pain.

In that moment, Cass had an epiphany.

She lunged across the room, reaching Red Robin almost instantly. She allowed the sound to reach her ears as her hands left them to dig around in Tim's utility belt. She knew he had them, she'd seen him wear them often enough.

Ahah! She triumphantly pulled the headphones from a side pouch. Dick and Jason teased Tim about the headphones when he first got them for working on casefiles. They were the big chunky kind. Designed to fit over the entire ear.

Designed to be noise cancelling

She turned and sprinted towards the thing on the floor with her prize. The closer she got the worse the sound was. It beat on her brain painfully, she could feel a nosebleed trickle down her lip. Still she darted forward. She leapt ito the air, flipping upsidedown as she did. She aimed to the beings... Head? What could've been it's head... And deftly slipped the headphones onto it.

There was a flailing of... Limbs?... In her direction as she sailed through the air. She landed a bit ungracefully as the sound crashed over her again. She covered her ears with her hands and retreated, turning to face the entity as she backed away.

There were hands... Or hand like things... Clutching the headphones. Slowly the screaming dwindled. Soon it was quiet save for the cursing and crying and relief voiced by the heroes.

"Oh thank god!"

"It's over!"

"Ugh my head..."

"Is everyone okay?"

"I understand why they had that thing locked away now."

"Black Bat." Cass turned to see Batman holding his head in one hand. "What did you do?"

Cass mimed putting the headphones on. "Overstimulation." She said simply.

"What do you mean?" Batman looked to the entity. His eyes narrowed at the way it clung to the headphones. His gaze swiveled to the inky darkness of the box. An idea swirled in his brain and he nodded. "Extreme sensory deprivation."

Cass nodded, pleased.

"Batman! What happened? Are you alright?" Superman approached the pair. His voice was raised slightly. Blood dripped from his ears.

"I'm fine Superman." Batman faced him fully, moving his mouth in exaggerated syllables. "But you're not."

Superman smiled sheepishly. "I see you noticed. I can't hear anything right now." He turned towards the entity. "What do we do now? It's clearly too dangerous to simply let free." He turned back to Batman. "With the watchtower out of power the best option we have is to put it back into the box."

"Hnn..." Batman frowned. "I don't think that would work well. Based on how it reacted to light and sound, we can assume that the box was some sort of sensory deprivation tank."

"Sensory deprivation tank?"

"It's a box that cuts off all stimuli from the outside." Red Robin pulled himself off the floor with a groan. "It's a form of extreme isolation. Do you think that's why it was screaming?"

"What?"

Batman ignored Superman. "I believe so. Black Bat was the first to notice."

Red Robin squinted. "Are those my headphones?"

Cass grinned at him. "Useful."

He huffed and passed her a handkerchief from his belt. "You owe me new ones." She giggled silently and took the handkerchief, wiping away the nosebleed.

Batman grunted, gaze shifting back to the writhing mass of black in the darkness. "We'll have to quarantine this room. I don't believe trying to handle the entity would be wise."

"No kidding." Superman winced, putting a hand to his head. "But we won't be able to do much until Cyborg restores power. He was in the control room when the screaming started, right?"

Not a moment after Superman had finished speaking the backup lights came on.

And the shrieking started anew.

Heroes were once again forced to their knees as the sound hit them. Cass wasted no time and ran towards the entity. It was no longer a roiling bulbous mass, but rather had a partial humanoid form. A clear and present head and shoulders, thin long arms with hands clasped around the headphones.

She didn't know where it's eyes were supposed to be, but she didn't bother taking the time to figure it out. She ripped her cape from her shoulders and flung it over top of the entity. There was an immediate flailing of limbs and tentacles as it tried to get the offending object off.

Cass worked quickly. Pulling a blindfold from her belt, she wrapped it swiftly around the "head" of the thing in front of her. The knot was tied equally as fast, but before she could pull away, her hands were caught.

Long, impossibly long fingers held her hands in a vice grip. They were icy. So cold that it felt like her skin was burning.

But the screaming stopped.

"Black Bat!"

Cass ignored Red Robin's cry and Batman's frantic run towards her.

The entity had stilled.

It's limbs shrunk instantly, leaving almost normally proportioned arms and legs. The tentacles shrank away to nothing. The claws and fangs receding with them. The grip on her hands turned gentle, the fingers shrinking to a normal, proportional size.

Cass's eyes darted to Batman, stopping him just before he reached her. She shook her head minutely. This thing was not hostile.

It was scared.

Cass turned her gaze back to the thing and watched, tense as the fingers slowly ran up and down her hand. It felt her wrist, palm and fingers.

Slowly, the blackness faded into color. Blinding white hair fluttered with an unseen breeze. Skin tan underneath the headphones and blindfold. A tattered jumpsuit in black and white stained green.

A nose peeked out from under the blindfold. A pair of lips, thin and chapped. Freckles dotted what she could see of the cheeks.

It looked young. A young humanoid. It probably wasn't human at all but, the similarities were there. It looked like a boy. Younger than Tim, but older than Damien.

He looked thin. She traced the line of his ribs with her eyes. She would see where his hip bones jutted out. He was emaciated. Or very nearly. He looked as of he'd been starving.

She head Batman shift as he knelt beside her. She knew he'd seen it too. This boy had been tortured in extreme isolation. What had happened to him?

He didn't speak. She didn't really expect him to. He searched her hands for a moment more, before his hands stilled. Then, slowly, carefully, his fingers intertwined with hers. He gave a gentle squeeze.

She squeezed back.

The blindfold covering his eyes grew wet. The wetness seeped down the blindfold and dripped to the floor.

The boy was crying.

"You're real." Came a raspy whisper.

There was a flash of bright white light and suddenly a very starved human boy was collapsing into Cass's arms.

—————

(Cass looked up at Bruce with wide eyes, cradling the boy to herself. He now had pale skin, tattered blue jeans and a worn T-shirt. His tousled black hair was grimy with filth. Dark circles shadowed long dark eyelashes and hollowed cheeks.

Cass was suddenly sure. Whatever he was, he was hers now.

"New baby brother."

Batman sighed heavily.)

————-—

Aaaaaand I have more? Maybe? Like the idea that he has gone crazy and lost his senses for a time really appealed to me. Cue rehabilitation and him trying to free the other ghosts/Vlad and get them back to the ghost zone. Maybe try to go back in time to stop it all from happening? Idk.

I felt the need to post this before I dedicated too much time to it and wrote a multi chapter fic but never actually post it anywhere. 🫠

Tell me what you thiiiiink.

[darth-mortem]

This masterpiece made me want to write a mini fanfic. Fluff and hurt/comfort, 760 words.

Ghost heard a soft moan through his sleep and opened his eyes. He and Soap slept together in the narrow standard bed on their base, and Johnny always clung tightly to Simon, but his grip was particularly strong now, almost convulsive. His whole body was tense, and Ghost could feel Soap shuddering and sobbing softly in his sleep, under the sway of the nightmare.

More often, it was the other way around. It was Simon who was tormented by the demons of his past, forcing his sleeping consciousness to plunge into the abyss of fear and pain over and over again. He saw his dead relatives again, found himself in a cramped coffin next to a half-decomposed corpse, experienced terrible torture, and recently the horrors of the possible future were added to the terrible images of the past. At the time, Ghost dreamed that he was losing Soap, that he was dying in his arms, or that he did not have time to save him. MacTavish always rescued him, woke him up, and reassured him, never once reproaching him for not getting enough sleep because of his lieutenant's nightmares. Tonight, however, the demons visited Johnny, and Simon slowly raised his hand and ran his fingers through his tousled hair.

“Hey, wake up.” He said softly, stroking Soap's head. “Wake up, Johnny.”

The sergeant jerked and opened his eyes sharply. In the first seconds, not realizing where he was, he tried to push Simon away and to get out of his arms, but Riley continued to hold him.

“Calm down, Johnny, calm down.” He spoke in a soft and gentle voice. “You had a bad dream. It was only a dream; do you hear me?”

“It was so real...” Finally, Soap answered in a weak voice, tears rolling down his cheeks, and he clung to Ghost, burying his face in his chest.

“I know, sunshine.” Simon smiled back bitterly and stroked his head again. “But it's over now. It's all right now.”

“No!” Soap cried out and sobbed again. “I dreamt I lost ye! Ye were KIA, and we were taking your body back to the base, and then there was a bloody funeral, and it was so scary and so fucking real!”

“I'm here.” Simon reminded him, kissed Johnny on the temple, and tenderly ran his fingers over his face, wiping away his tears. “I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. We have plans for retirement; how can I die and let you down?”

Soap sobbed for a few minutes, but then began to calm down and soon became quiet, only occasionally shuddering from the nightmare he had experienced in his sleep. Ghost hugged him, running his fingers through his funny mohawk and touching his lips to Soap's face, which was wet with sweat and tears. He didn't know how to comfort and soothe, but he spoke, reminding Johnny of the plans he had mentioned.

“You and I will have a beautiful house somewhere in the countryside. Maybe on the coast, or in the woods, away from people.” Ghost said in an uncharacteristically dreamy tone. “We'll make sure to remove our names from all documents and hide, so that enemies can't find us.”

“But we'll leave our contacts for Price and Kyle, right?” Johnny unwittingly joined the conversation, running his fingers over the scars on Simon's back.

“Of course.” Ghost smiled. “And they'll visit us for Christmas, our birthdays, and maybe even our wedding anniversaries.”

“Wedding anniversaries?” Soap asked again and finally smiled back. “I like the sound of that. Will we have a dog?”

“Yes, we will.” Simon nodded. “We'll get an old retired military dog and a big fluffy cat, or maybe two.”

“But ye'll have to clean up after them!” Johnny said quickly.

“Okay, but then you'll have to walk the dog.” Ghost replied, and they both laughed softly.

For a few minutes they were silent, immersed in these dreams, and then Johnny reached for Simon's lips and kissed him passionately. Ghost kept up, trying to convey all the love and tenderness he felt for Johnny that he couldn't put into words. Then Soap fumbled around and settled his head comfortably on his lieutenant's shoulder.

"Promise me that everything will be exactly as ye said." He demanded in a sleepy voice.

"I promise." Simon answered seriously. "And you promise too."

"I promise." Johnny spoke too, yawned, and added, quite sleepily. "I love you, mo ghaol*."

"I love you, too, my sunshine." Ghost replied and put his hand on Soap's chest, feeling his heart beat calmly and evenly.

_______

*Mo ghaol (Gaelic) – my love

[the-case-book-of-fanfiction]

On My Knees

Love Bites, Chapter 8 // Love Bites {Masterlist}

Ship: Astarion Ancunin x fem!vampire spawn!elf!Tav/reader

Summary: A betrayal so severe even centuries of love threaten to break beneath its weight. Yet you offer forgiveness, even if Astarion has not felt its kindness in two hundred years.

Word Count: 2,360 words

Warnings: return to chp. 1 timeline, in-game timeline, reader becomes a vampire spawn, brief flashback, captured by Mindflayers, Astarion is vulnerable but also honest, confessions, Sebastian's back

Note: My apologies, I'm a day late! I had some technical difficulties yesterday but now we're back and almost done with Love Bites.

☟ Continue below the fold ☟

“You screamed well into the morning. None of us slept. My siblings, they…offered me their blankets. It was the first time they had been kind to me in…a very long time.” Astarion fidgeted with his fingers, his voice thick with tears as he wrapped up his story. The spawn in the cage stayed quiet, listening intently, some wearing wicked, wicked smiles. “And we planned. They helped me sneak out when night fell so I could— So I could go to my grave.” He looked up at you for the first time in a very long time. “He buried you there. In my coffin.”

Bits and pieces of your memory came back to you. “Yes… Yes, he did, I remember— I remember so much. It was… Dark. Cold. Dirty. But I smelled…you.”

~❊~

The air was musty. It reeked of death, more strongly than the sickhouses during a plague. Your eyes burned when you opened them. You tried not to breathe, then realized after several moments of holding your breath, you didn’t need to. There was no pain in your lungs. You weren’t lightheaded from trying to hold your breath.

“What?” you whispered to yourself. Your lips tugged around two identical objects in your mouth, teeth that you knew had not been there all your life.��

Your eyes adjusted to the space slowly, but you knew from just a few experimental wiggles the place was cramped and tiny. It didn’t take long for you to recognize the smell of your lover or the appearance of your surroundings, lined in soft red velvet; you’d help pick the coffin yourself, all those years ago. It was Astarion’s.

You whimpered, the panic starting to set in. “Asty? Where are you?” You could smell him, all around you, even under the terrible scent of earth and bodily fluids and death and embalming fluids. 

You had no heartbeat, but you were sure you could hear it pounding in your ears, screaming, Out, out, out! You began scratching at the coffin lid and realized there were already claw marks there, ripping the velvet and gouging the wood beneath. You were not the first to have crawled out of here.

If Asty could do it, so can I, you told yourself and began kicking the lid. It didn’t take long for it to crack open, the latch already broken. You wedged it open slowly, clawing handfuls of dirt out of the way until you could make way for yourself. 

It was slow going, digging your way out of grave dirt. It was fresh and not packed down yet, which was your only advantage to get yourself out. It clung to you like summer heat, worming its way into your clothes, your ears, your mouth. You worked through the panic that built up inside you, getting worse the longer it took.

After what felt like hours—what probably was hours—your hand broke the surface. You nearly cried with relief and forced the hole to widen until you could pull yourself out, grappling with more loose dirt and very little for leverage. 

Your head came up through the hole and you took your first deep breath in ages, only to start coughing. You hacked up blood and dirt, your entire body heaving with the effort. You trembled more terribly than you had on the day you’d learned Astarion had died as you finally freed yourself from the grave. You turned to face the stone as you dry-heaved. Sure enough, Astarion’s name was carved into it. 

“You got out faster than he did,” a nasty voice said and you surged your feet, whirling and reaching for your knife. It wasn’t there. You stumbled forward, your body catching up to your exhaustion before your mind did. A black-haired elf stood before you and smiled sardonically. Cazador. “The only weapons you have now are in your mouth, dear child.”

Instinctively, you ran your tongue across your teeth and hissed as your new fangs sliced your tongue open. The tang of your own blood did nothing but make you aware of the pulsing, needy hunger curling in your gut. 

Memories came flooding back. Astarion, in your tavern, a vampire. Sleeping with him. Going back to Cazador with him. The pain of the bite that turned you. Attempting to run—being snatched up by Cazador and brought into the pit of the palace. Thousands upon thousands of spawn kept inside cages, jeering at you, watching you, giving you enough strength to try to fight back. Smiling defiantly at the vampire who promised you pain, even as you cried at the sound of Astarion’s sobs from so far above you. Darkness finally overtaking you as your body gave into the bite, the blood drained from your veins, your bones rearranging themselves, knitting together your new vampiric body.

“Get away from me,” you spat, stumbling away from him.

Cazador laughed. “Where will you go, little one? No one can save you now. Not now that you are this. You are mine.”

You heard a shout. Cazador stopped, turning to search for its origin. Another shout, this time your name, this time clearly Astarion’s voice.

“Do not meddle, boy,” Cazador warned, raising his voice in the direction of the shout.

A hand touched your shoulder. You looked, knowing you would see Astarion the moment you felt his touch. Cazador remained blissfully unaware that his spawn had already reached you. 

Astarion offered you his hand. You glanced back at your maker once, then slipped your hand into his. The two of you took off running. 

Cazador let out a shout, but neither of you heeded. You left the cemetery behind and began running through the streets of Baldur’s Gate.

“Where do we go?” you demanded, impressed by how much faster you were now, even without blood. 

“Anywhere,” Astarion said, glancing at you. “You wanted to run? Now we are. Just don’t stop until the city’s behind us.”

“How did you find me?” you asked.

He flashed you a fangy grin. “Dalyria. She helped me sneak past Godey.”

“She helped? Why?”

He shrugged. “She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

The sky above you opened up. You both stopped short, staring up at the massive ship that had come through the rip in the world. 

“Come back here!” Cazador’s shout rang through the street. He was still some distance away, but he was gaining on you.

You tugged on Astarion’s arm. “Honey, we have to go.”

Astarion was staring at something just ahead of you. “What in the gods’ names is that?”

You turned and something with tentacles for a face grabbed your head. You screamed as, once again, the world went dark.

~❊~

The rest was a blank, until you woke up on the beach with Astarion leaning over you, but the rest of your companions had filled you in. After you’d blacked out, you’d been put in a pod and a tadpole was forced into your head. Some part of you had always been glad you’d had no memory of that—but if you had remembered it, would you have also remembered everything else?

You looked up at Astarion, who was nervously chewing his lower lip, his fang peeking out. You felt your own fang with your tongue. He did this to me.

You took a step backward, putting distance between him and yourself. You saw his heart break in the way his eyes began to water. 

“It was you? You brought me to Cazador? You’re why I’m like this?” You felt short of breath, your chest tight, your head spinning: the beginnings of a panic attack your body remembered from its time alive—which was much more recent than Astarion had been telling you.

“Darling, I had to,” he whispered. “You told me to. You begged me to bring you to him so I wouldn’t get hurt!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you hissed. “You didn’t have to tell the others, you could have fed them the same story you told me about keeping me safe from Cazador for two hundred years. But why me? Why did you lie to me about how I was turned?”

Hurt flashed in his eyes. But there was more to it than that. He was afraid, afraid because he was vulnerable in front of too many people, afraid because you were slowly backing away from him. 

“I couldn’t tell you, darling, you wouldn’t have believed me—”

“No more lies, Astarion,” you snapped. “Tell me the truth! Why did you lie?”

His lower lip trembled. “Because I was scared, alright? I saw the fear on your face on the beach and it—it looked like the fear in your eyes when I brought you to Cazador. You were already afraid. Of me! I… I didn’t want to make it worse. I didn’t want you to hate me when you were all I had. I was—” His eyes dropped briefly to the floor. Then he looked back up at you, tears rolling down his cheeks. You knew they were real. “I was scared you’d stake me for what I did to you the first chance you got. Worse, I was scared you’d leave me.”

You studied his face. As you looked at him, your anger began to fade. Death scares him less than losing me. “Astarion…”

He dropped to his knees, clearly expecting more rage. He trembled as he kept explaining, “I had already been without you for long enough. I didn’t want to do it again, I was scared that you’d forget me the way I—the way I forgot you. I was selfish, darling, I was so selfish because I didn’t want to do what you had to do for two hundred years and remember and love and ache when it wasn’t returned. So I lied. And I lied well. I made up story after story and you believed them so much they were becoming your memories. Anything else was just a bad dream to you and I let you believe that! It was easier to dismiss your real memories as nightmares than confess what really happened. That’s why I did it. Because it was easy.” He sniffled and roughly wiped away his tears with his wrist. “You can hate me all you want, but I am going to be selfish even more and I am going to beg you to stay. Hate me for the next two hundred years but please, please don’t leave me.”

And Astarion remained kneeling on the ground, shaking, waiting for you to speak. No one—not the other spawn or your companions—dared speak or move.

Then you knelt in front of him and gently cupped his cheek in your hand, coaxing his head up. “Astarion… I don’t hate you, honey. I don’t. I…I understand. I’m not upset that you did what I asked you to do, I just…I wish you had told me the truth about it. I don’t like it, but I understand it. And I forgive you.”

The tension in the room shifted. Astarion stared at you with those wide, wet eyes of his, clearly caught off guard as much as, if not more than, your companions.

“Why?” he asked at last. “I let him turn you into a spawn! I let him make you the same abomination as me, as my siblings, as all these poor souls that had the misfortune of meeting me!”

You kissed the top of his head. “Meeting you was never misfortune,” you said to him. “Not in our lives. Not in your undeath. Not in mine.”

Astarion gripped your hand desperately. “Why?” he pleaded.

“Two hundred years are not easily shaken in six months,” you said softly, reminding him of a conversation you had already had about his instinctive need to seduce and manipulate you when he already had you. “I cannot blame you for any of your lies when I know why you have said them. You told me yourself, it’s instinctive. That you wanted protection. You couldn’t have known how I would have reacted if you told me the truth when I woke up, I’m not even sure of that. There was no promise that I would protect you then.” I squeezed his hand gently. “But I’m going to protect you now. I swear it.”

He shook his head, but he held your hand tightly as if he was still afraid of you leaving him, the bones in your fingers grinding from the pressure. “I’m… I’m not sure I’m worth protecting—”

“You are,” you said, cutting him off without a second thought. 

“Why protect me after what I did to you?”

Your heart broke. “Can’t you see? Oh, honey, it’s because I love you! I knew what I was getting myself into then, even if I didn’t remember it for so long. It’s not your fault I insisted, you even gave me several ways out.” You stood and pulled him up with you. “Come on, up you get. We’ve still got work to do, remember?”

Astarion dusted himself off as he got off the ground. He looked at you tenderly, his eyes soft. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

From the cage, Sebastian cleared his throat petulantly. The bubble that had kept your focus on Astarion popped. 

“Tender,” he drawled, “but foolish, trusting him again.”

“Speak for yourself,” you said, shrugging. “You’ll see, when we free you all.”

Astarion pulled a face. “Are you sure we can?”

You glanced back at Sebastian. “You said I fought back, right? And that was without a tadpole, when I was still a thrall.” You turned back to Astarion. “He can’t control either of us anymore. If anyone can kill him, it’s us.”

Slowly, Astarion nodded. “I… Yes. We can. Together.”

Sebastian drew closer to the cage’s bars. He held them as he murmured, “Maybe you will do it. Gods help us if you don’t, though.”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “Haven’t you learned the gods don’t listen to the likes of us?”

“Boys,” you chided, before Sebastian could snap back. You glanced at your other companions. “Is everybody ready?” They nodded and, at last, Astarion nodded, too.

You offered him your hand. “Now, let’s go kill our maker, shall we?”

☞ ❊ ☜

[Image Caption: I do not give permission to repost, translate, or publish my work on any other site or app by anyone except myself. I do not give permission for my work to be fed into AI (for audio, art, or writing).]

Baldur's Gate 3 // Astarion Ancunin

Taglist: {comment and let me know if you'd like to be added to the Astarion taglist!} @wayward-hel @cheeslyy @ofmyth-andmagicart @neetheslayer @whispering-depths @freesidexjunkie @lightsinmycity @the0ldmann @gobbodoggo @oooof-ifellforyou @beeblisss @fangboner @aquaarietes @fiercest-eigengrau-skies @niqhtfell @call-me-nyxx @lueji-m @ceres-xiv @tricksy-trinity @graynstairs @rosa-rubus @ynisthatyou @thegoodwitchs-blog @catching-fire-in-the-wind @kiyastrf94 @vincemachina @silverfangmarks @ravenswritingroom @hinata7346 @hellethil @caramel-hufflepuff @beemiilk @mypainischronicbutmyassisiconic @starwatch77 @julianmarie @sadexistentialism @supernaturallover15 @writinghound @frankie-mercury @kindadolly @infernalrusalka

[starryeyedjanai]

all we need is these four walls

kinktober prompt: threesome/moresome corroded coffin/steve | 3.6k | explicit tags: exhibition & voyeurism, transmasc gareth, vaginal and anal sex, oral sex, come eating

read on ao3

Steve loves show days.

He loves the adrenaline, loves standing in the wings watching his guys perform.

He loves the music and the atmosphere and the energy.

He wasn't sure he'd like it when Eddie first asked him if he wanted to try touring with them. He'd never been on the road like this before, never spent so long away from home, never slept in an awkwardly cramped space. He wasn't sure he'd get used to it.

But he did. He learned the ropes of helping with setup and take-down pretty quickly and got to watch his best friends, his favorite people, rise to much deserved fame.

Long gone are the days of taking turns driving the van or navigating from the passenger seat and sleeping on top of each other in the back when they couldn't afford hotel rooms.

And long gone are also the days of hurried, quiet hand jobs between him and Eddie, in gas station bathrooms late at night or fucking in the back of the van while the other guys went to get food - they'd always complain about needing to air out the van whenever they did fuck, so they didn't do it all that often.

He doesn't exactly know when things began to change.

Maybe it was always slotted to be this way from the first time Eddie mentioned him driving out to a show with them.

Maybe it started to change the first time he and Eddie fooled around in the back of the van.

Or when Corroded Coffin got signed and started doing actual tours and Eddie brought him along in their bus, and they were trying to be so quiet as Steve sucked Eddie off while the guys were still awake and talking up front.

When they had two hotel rooms and Steve and Eddie had to share with someone because it wasn't fair to put someone out and make the others share a bed just because they wanted to fuck, maybe.

But Steve definitely noticed the change the first time Jeff collapsed into the bed next to them while they were kissing and murmured that if they were going to fuck to at least try to be quiet about it.

They hadn't been planning on fucking that night - they tried not to step on the other band members' toes when it came to couple-y stuff. They didn't want Steve to wear out his welcome or for anyone to start resenting the fact that he was touring with them.

But with Jeff's kind-of-sort-of permission, Eddie slipped his hand into Steve's pants and brought him off right there with Jeff dozing in the bed next to them. Eddie was so worked up that he came in his pants without Steve ever needing to put a hand on him.

No one mentioned it in the morning when Eddie slipped his cock between Steve's thighs and Steve watched Jeff slowly jerk himself off in the other bed, locking eyes as they came just a breath apart.

They didn't really talk about it when Gareth - who must have talked to Jeff - roomed with them at the next hotel and scoffed like he was offended when it looked like they were just going to bed. He said something to the effect of, "What? Am I not good enough to fool around in front of?"

Steve doesn't remember the exact wording, but he remembers what came next. He remembers Eddie's eyes blown wide as Steve pressed inside him. He remembers the shattered moans. He remembers both him and Eddie not being able to take their eyes off Gareth once he got his pants off, fingers fucking roughly into his cunt as he watched them fuck.

But they still didn't talk about it, other than this understanding that when they had a hotel night, whoever was in the other bed was likely going to get a show if they weren't bone tired and fell asleep right away. (That happened more than Steve would have liked, the all-consuming exhaustion that prevented them from having fun.)

Freak was the one who actually asked for more, after two tours of them all staunchly not bringing it up.

He said that he wanted more, that they all wanted more, but they weren't sure if it was allowed. That the two who weren't in the hotel room with Eddie and Steve usually hooked up on hotel nights, which neither of them knew, and that they could probably all hook up in the same room even if Steve and Eddie didn't want to be touched by anyone else.

Eddie looked at Steve, looked deep into his eyes - probably saw the heat he knew had to be there, at hearing about the other hooking up, at thinking about them all in the same room, at the thought of more - and marched right over to Freak to pull him into a kiss.

Steve followed, getting behind Freak on the bed, kissing his neck and playing with his nipples as he watched Eddie take him apart with his mouth. He kissed him over his shoulder as he came in Eddie's mouth, tasting the sighs and moans that fell from his mouth.

Eddie kissed and licked at Freak's cock until he was hard again and then for the first time, someone other than Eddie fucked into Steve, pulling overwhelmed gasps from him - Freak's dick was short and wide, pressing right up against Steve's prostate on every single thrust in.

Eddie fucked him after Freak came a second time, burying his face in Steve's neck and whispering about how sloppy and wet he would be if Freak hadn't been wearing a condom, how full he'd be after two loads - or maybe even three - were fucked into him.

Steve had already come once, untouched on Freak's cock, so he was shivery and overstimulated, speared open on Eddie's cock, and he came again with Freak's fist wrapped tight around him, shuddering and crying out loud enough that Jeff and Gareth must have heard it in the next room over.

The next morning, the three of them slipped into Jeff and Gareth's hotel room with the extra key and when the door shut behind them, Steve and Eddie hopped into the bed they were sharing and pressed kisses all over both of their faces, Gareth only mildly resisting Steve's love.

Gareth was the first to speak, saying, "So you bit the bullet, huh?" to Freak.

Eddie asked, "How long have you all wanted to say something?" and the answer was a resounding too long, so they immediately began fixing their lack of communication (after nearly breaking the hotel bed, of course).

Now, though, it's been a few years since then. They've got this dance down, know each other and each other's bodies so well that most things run smoothly between the five of them.

Steve and Eddie aren't SteveandEddie anymore because it's all of them. It maybe started out as a 'SteveandEddie and whoever happened to be in the other hotel bed' thing, but it didn't stay that way once they all talked it out. Because there were feelings there on all sides.

Eddie had been harboring a crush on Jeff that Steve knew dated back to when they started this band together. Gareth had apparently, seethingly, been crushing on Steve since Eddie first introduced them. Grant had been into Eddie from nearly the beginning as well. So, once the floodgates were open, there wasn't really any going back from there.

They fooled around that first morning, with the sunlight shining in from the window, and they just never stopped.

It became more than that, more than just fooling around, and now here they are.

Steve's practically vibrating as they all say their thank yous and goodnights to the crowd and make their way backstage. He knows intimately what's coming next.

Eddie crowds him up against the wall and kisses him deep, Steve's hands coming up to his neck, where he's sweaty and hot from performing.

He pulls away with a wet sound and grins at Steve and grabs his hand to pull him towards the dressing room where the others have already started walking towards.

The door closes behind him and he twists the lock and then all bets are off.

Gareth is on him first, pulling him down into a harsh kiss, biting and nipping at his bottom lip. Steve drops Eddie's hand and pulls Gareth closer, steering the kiss somewhere less bitey, slower and lingering, tongues pressing together as Steve tilts his head.

He moves them further into the room so he isn't pressed up against the door - because as much as he likes getting fucked up against a wall or a door, his body is still sore from Freak taking him against their hotel room wall. He picked him right up and fucked inside him, his knees hooked over his elbows, bending him further than he's been bent in a while.

He feels Freak press up behind him. Freak kisses his neck and palms him through his pants as he gets Gareth's jeans open. He slips his hand inside his underwear and plunges his fingers in Gareth's cunt, feeling him sigh into the kiss.

He hears the slick sounds of someone getting their dick sucked and his own dick pulses in sympathy when he hears Eddie moaning because he knows how good Jeff is with his mouth.

He moans as Freak gets his hand inside his pants and starts to jerk him off.

"Off, clothes off," he says, pulling his hand out of Gareth's pants. He sucks his fingers into his mouth to taste the slick clinging to them and when he looks up, Gareth is staring at his mouth hungrily and he instantly knows how he's going to get him off first.

The three of them shed their clothes and when they're naked, Steve leads Gareth over to the couch.

He's about to suggest Freak bend him over the arm of the couch so he can bury his face in Gareth's cunt when Eddie says, "I want Freak to fuck me," and they all roll their eyes because Eddie always wants Freak to fuck him.

Freak's dick is the perfect size for hitting prostates and g-spots and Eddie hogs it because he's extremely into prostate orgasms.

Jeff walks over to them and kisses Gareth and Steve figures he'll be tapped in when Gareth wants his mouth, so he turns to watch as Freak and Eddie kiss near the vanity. He knows Eddie's going to be bent over it in minutes, always impatient to get Freak's dick in him when he knows it's coming.

He watches as Freak undresses Eddie, taking his time despite the way Eddie tries to urge him to go faster. He never gives in, though, just slowly pulling his sweaty shirt off his body, ducking his head to kiss and lick down his chest. Eddie would never admit it, but he loves being teased like that when he's desperate for it - he kind of loves being denied what he wants sometimes.

Steve watches as Eddie throws his head back and moans at the feeling of Freak's teeth on his nipple.

As much as he wants to watch Eddie get fucked - and he still might get to watch that depending on how they configure themselves - he wants to get his mouth on Gareth even more.

Jeff is fingering Gareth when Steve looks back at them and he groans. The pretty picture of Jeff's fingers fucking inside, his thumb rubbing Gareth's cock as they kiss makes Steve's cock throb.

He gets behind Jeff and unbuttons his pants, Eddie having already stripped him of his shirt earlier. He pushes them down his hips and helps him step out of them so that he never has to stop touching Gareth.

He presses himself up against his back and wraps a fist around Jeff's cock, rocking his own cock against his ass.

He kisses Jeff's shoulder, trying to peer over it so he can see him working his fingers into Gareth, but with how close their bodies are pressed together now, he can't really see anything.

Jeff pulls away from the kiss and Steve sees when he pulls his fingers out of his cunt and feeds them, slick and all, into Gareth's waiting mouth.

Gareth sucks the slick off of Jeff's fingers, gripping his wrist and not letting go until he's licked them fully clean. Steve's stomach swoops at the look in Gareth's eyes, at the heat in his gaze.

"You wanna fuck me?" Steve asks Jeff and Jeff nods, turning around to kiss him.

He lets himself get lost in it, Jeff's tongue pressing inside and stroking against his.

He shudders when Jeff reaches down and tugs at the plug inside him.

He lets Jeff bend him over the arm of the couch, Gareth eagerly climbing in front of him, laying on his back, bending one knee and letting the other leg fall off to the side.

Steve doesn't wait - he's been waiting long enough, wanting to get his mouth on Gareth, to have a real taste of him.

He pulls Gareth forward by the hips and buries his face in his cunt. He presses his tongue into him immediately, where he's stretched open from Jeff's fingers and dripping slick.

Behind him, Jeff pulls at the plug, teasing him, fucking it in and out slowly, stretching his hole around the widest part and then pressing it back inside again.

He moans at the feeling, at the taste of Gareth on his tongue. He pulls up to suck Gareth's dick into his mouth, slurping at it noisily, groaning when Jeff finally tugs the plug out of his hole completely.

He feels the come that Eddie fucked into him earlier trickle out of him and he shivers.

The feeling of Jeff notching his cock up against his hole, slick with lube he must have had stored in his pants pocket, makes him double his efforts on Gareth, fucking two fingers into his hole and curling them. He wants Gareth to come on his tongue so that he can slide into his wet cunt with Jeff still fucking him.

Gareth moans at that, his hands tangling in Steve's hair, holding him there - as if Steve would want to be anywhere but here, sucking his cock.

Jeff presses the head of his cock inside Steve's hole, the slide so slick from the lube and the come leaking out. Steve gasps at the stretch when Jeff presses in deep, clenching around him.

He sucks and licks at Gareth's cock and he feels the shuddering climax coming, feels Gareth tensing up. His thighs close around Steve's ears and he comes, cunt clenching rhythmically around Steve's fingers.

Steve sucks him through it, pulling back when Gareth tugs at his hair. He licks around his fingers, lapping up the slick that's flowing out around them. He presses his fingers up against Gareth's g-spot and Gareth's body jerks under him from the oversensitivity.

Steve pulls his fingers out and sucks them clean, moaning around them as Jeff nails his prostate.

He taps Jeff's thigh even though he really doesn't want to him to stop, but they need to rework their position if he wants to fuck Gareth.

Jeff slows to a stop and pulls out. "Where do you want us?" he asks, as if he doesn't already know Steve's going to choose the option where they all can see the reason why Eddie's making such punched out little moans as Freak fucks into him.

He stands up and he puts Gareth on his knees on the couch with his chest nearly hanging over the arm. He gets behind him and waits for Jeff to get behind him before proceeding.

Jeff puts one knee on the couch behind him and keeps one foot on the ground for leverage as he slips back inside. Steve sighs at the stretch, taking a second to turn his head, begging for a kiss.

Jeff obliges, pressing his mouth to Steve's as he grinds inside. Steve gasps and Jeff slips his tongue inside his mouth, sliding his tongue against Steve's as he gently fucks into him.

"Are you gonna fuck me or do I have to go and squeeze between Eddie and the goddamn vanity if I want some dick?" Gareth asks and Steve pulls away from Jeff's mouth.

Steve looks down and finds Gareth glaring at him. His hand comes down on Gareth's ass in a loud smack and Gareth groans.

"Poor puppy. So neglected," Steve says sarcastically, shuffling forward.

He lines up his cock and slides inside his wet cunt, Gareth sighing so pretty as he does. He waits for Jeff to slide forward behind him and then they start moving.

He fucks into Gareth as Jeff pulls back, sliding back into him hard enough that the sound of their hips colliding rivals the smack he delivered to Gareth's ass.

They find a good rhythm, Steve rolling his hips, fucking himself into Gareth and then back onto Jeff's dick, and Steve feels enshrouded in the pleasure, caught between the two of them.

Jeff grabs his hips and starts fucking into him with slow, even strokes, driving him forward into the heat of Gareth's cunt.

He can't help but moan, the dual feeling of fucking into Gareth and having Jeff fucking into him is a lot to handle. He feels warm all over even though the air is cool around them.

He looks over at where Freak and Eddie are caught in a kiss as Freak grinds into Eddie. They're so fucking pretty together, Eddie with his head turned over his shoulder, gasping into Freak's mouth as he no doubt hits his prostate on every thrust into him.

"You love watching them," Jeff says in his ear, snapping his hips forward, making Steve shudder as it sends him balls deep into Gareth's cunt.

"Yes," Steve whispers, leaning forward, draping himself over Gareth, still not taking his eyes off them. He lets Jeff take over, lets himself get lost in the feeling of him fucking into him, grinding his own cock into Gareth.

He gets his hand under Gareth, gets his fingers on his dick, stroking him in time with Jeff's thrusts, speeding up when he hears him groan, when he feels his cunt start fluttering around him.

He strokes Gareth through his orgasm and tries to hold on for a little bit longer, until he comes again.

He keeps his fingers on Gareth's cock and Gareth's moans get louder.

It suddenly feels like a race to the finish because Eddie's crying out from across the room, Freak's groaning loud and long, Jeff is speeding up, rabbiting his hips into Steve, and Steve is just trying to hold on for dear life.

He manages to hold out until Gareth comes again, his hole quivering around his cock.

Steve shudders at the feeling, burying himself deep inside Gareth and stilling, Jeff's thrusts into him unrelenting.

He shakes through his orgasm, buried in the Gareth's heat, coming deep inside him, feeling Jeff's hips start to stutter as he fucks into him.

He's so sensitive once he stops coming, but there's nowhere for him to go, still caught between them.

He feels Gareth's hand find his beneath them, starting up his fingers on his cock, stroking himself using Steve's fingers, grinding down on them as he chases another orgasm.

He's watching Eddie and Freak too, his head tilted up as he grinds on Steve's fingers, watching as Freak gets on his knees behind Eddie, lapping at the come dripping from his hole.

Gareth shudders and at the same time, Jeff groans behind him, grinding in deep and coming inside him.

All three of them are shaking with it - Jeff fucking his come into Steve, Gareth grinding against Steve's fingers, Steve in his oversensitivity, cock twitching hard inside Gareth as his cunt flutters around him again.

Steve's shivering when Jeff finally pulls out and presses the plug inside him again. His cock slips out of Gareth's cunt when he lifts himself up and sinks back into Jeff's lap where he's seated behind them.

"Someone should clean him up," Steve says, his cock giving a valiant twitch as he watches his come start to leak out of Gareth's cunt - he's still draped over the arm of the chair, his last orgasm taking the wind out of him for a moment.

Freak's already licked out most of his come from Eddie's hole and is just laving over his skin now, so he pulls away and taps him on the hip lightly as if to say you're on cleanup duty.

Eddie is still flushed and looks like the cat that got the cream (or is about to anyway) as they both make their way over to the couch.

Eddie stops to kiss both Jeff and Steve before scooping Gareth up and rearranging him on one of the other chairs, Gareth's ass hanging off the edge so Eddie can bury his face between his thighs and lick him clean.

Freak sits down beside where Steve and Jeff are cuddling and pulls Steve's legs into his lap, scooting close.

Steve leans in and presses his mouth to Freak's in a chaste kiss.

Gareth's gasp makes him pull away. Jeff's fingers idly starts stroking over Steve's cock, not to get him off, just because he likes touching him.

The three of them watch as Eddie sucks Gareth through another orgasm, fingering Steve's come back into him. They watch as Eddie ducks his head and licks around his fingers and they watch as Eddie curls his fingers and brings Gareth to a final orgasm - at least the last one here in the dressing room - watching him quake through it, crying out weakly as he slumps back in the chair.

As they clean up, trading kisses and laughs, Steve can't help but think again about how much he just really fucking loves show days.

[coff-in]

it’s dungeon anon! i loved how you took the prompt and went it with, im going to give you all my ideas now 🙏

speaking of which, [reader] graves and Ashley who get clingy(ier than usual) during their time of the month and Andrew pampers them more than often

like he does put on that front of “you two are such a pain”, but there’s nothing he would love more than just cuddle with his sisters and have some quiet time together

- Dungeon Anon (teehee my oficial nickname)

notes from coff-in: every time i see the word dungeon i think "man... i have to watch the new episode of delicious in dungeon"... also welcome to the coffin ^_^ you must hand over your ideas now

[fem] reader-insert

periods are different for everyone, but the fact that [reader] and ashley both get clingy during their periods is actually very adorable. they're just clinging onto each other in bed or on the couch... until andrew comes along and they cling onto him :3 he gets all huffy and annoyed, rolling his eyes at his little sisters but then he smiles and wraps his arms around them to hold them close

i can see ashley making andrew go get them some chocolate or get them a heated water pack for their cramps. andrew, being the diligent older brother that he is, would do it in a heartbeat for them (all while grumbling, ofc) my periods aren't that bad, so i can't really think about what else they would face. it'd be funny if andrew asked ashley and [reader] what pussy size they are when buying them pads. would ashley wear pads or tampons? i guess it's not too important...

would andrew cradle a moody [reader] on her period? just lay her on his lap and rock her back n fourth while they watch trashy tv... so cute

----

coff-in

[leighsartworks216]

I Come With Knives Pt17

Astarion x gn!Tav/Reader

Y'all know I had to do this scene. I didn't do the mirror one (just didn't fit this story imho) so I have to make up for it somehow

Shoutout to @shenanigans-and-imagines for inspiring the engraving

Warnings: mentions of Astarion's transformation, references to Tav's past abuse/trauma

Word Count: 1,584

Main Masterlist

First Baldur's Gate 3 Masterlist - Second Baldur's Gate 3 Masterlist

I Come With Knives Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

When Astarion calmed down and gathered himself together, he approached you later that night, saying he had something he wanted to show you. You’d have followed him blindly anywhere as he held your hand and led you through the darkened streets of the city. You should have been terrified, searching every alley and shadow for signs of your master or her minions - but you weren’t. You felt safe with Astarion, despite it all.

You didn’t expect him to bring you to a graveyard. It’s dead silent, empty. It’s not unused - there are recently placed flowers in front of some tombstones, and others appear freshly engraved with names and dates - but it is an odd place to go in this city that thrums with an exciting nightlife. He stops you before one of the stones, staring at it hard.

Then it clicks.

Your heart aches at the sight of his tombstone. Most of the others have been tended to as age takes its toll - vines trimmed away, names and dates re-carved before they get too worn down. But not his. Healthy vines curl around the stone, obscuring the writing. You squeeze his hand, offering your support.

With a readying breath, he steps forward, dropping your hand as he kneels down in the dirt. To think, a mere 6 feet below lies an empty coffin. It chills you.

He brushes away the stubborn plants. They strain and snap apart, falling limply to the ground.

“Nearly two hundred years and I never came back. Not since the night I woke up down there,” he says quietly. He frowns, eyes never leaving his own name. “I had to punch a hole in the coffin and claw my way through six feet of dirt. Then when I finally broke the surface, retching up dirt and congealed blood…” His stomach churns just remembering it. Even now, with the bastard dead, something within him is fractured. He doesn’t know if it’ll ever be fixed. “Cazador was waiting. From that day on I was his. Until today.”

You try to imagine it. Waking up in the dark, cramped quarters of a wooden box. Terrified. Clawing and screaming until you finally break through, only to be crushed under the weight of all that dirt on top of you. Nothing you could picture would ever compare to the real experience. You wish you could shove Cazador into a box, bury him, and watch him claw his way out just so you could kill him again.

But the thought feels sour. To enact that cruelty back on him, no matter how deserved, makes your stomach twist; reminds you of the spawn you’ve hurt. All you can do is take solace in the fact he’s dead.

You kneel down beside him and carefully take his hand again. He holds on tight. “Are you alright?”

He hums, contemplating the question. “There’s almost nothing left of the person I was. Just a name on a rock. Some part of me wishes I knew what I was like back then, but he’s never coming back.” He straightens up slightly, trying to shake off the weight of the past. “But now I need to figure out who I am. What I want.”

“And what do you want?”

He smiles as he turns his head to look at you. “You,” he admits, voice quiet but certain. Your heart leaps into your throat. “I want you. You were by my side through all this. Through bloodlust and pain and misery. You were patient. You understood. You cared.” He huffs a laugh. “You trusted me when that was an objectively stupid thing to do. I feel… safe with you. Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don’t want to lose that.”

“You won’t,” you assure him quickly. He grins at your eagerness, while you flush with light embarrassment. “Whatever comes next, we’ve got each other.”

“Thank you.”

He turns back to his grave. You trace the carved-out shapes with your eyes, before you reach forward and feel along them with your fingers, calluses catching on the limestone within the grooves of the Old Common letters and numbers.

Astarion Ancunin

229 - 268 NR

Beneath it, however, are a series of unfamiliar, elegant letterforms you can’t translate. You follow along the shapes with interest, recognizing a few that repeat. “What does this say?”

When you glance over to him, his face is pinched with emotion. A sadness swims in his eyes you’ve never seen before. “It’s in Elvish. Espruar.” He reaches out with his free hand, brushing his fingers against yours as he traces over the faced letters. They’re so thin; they were clearly carved out with care. “Our little star,” he translates, voice too quiet.

You run your thumb along his knuckles to offer your support. “Your… parents?” you venture hesitantly.

He chokes out a strained laugh. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Their faces, their voices - all lost to me now, I’m afraid.” He traces over the shapes once more, before clearing his throat. “No matter. Whoever it was hasn’t been here in a while.”

You stare at the message. It’s all too easy to picture two elegant figures with white hair like Astarion’s, hunched over the fresh mound of dirt, mourning their child. He was still so very young before the Gur, before Cazador. You wondered if your parents had been the same when you were stolen away. You couldn’t remember them well, either; vague shadows at the edges of your mind that disappear when you try to focus on anything more specific. You wonder if they searched for you, and for how long before they gave in to the horrible thought that you were dead. You wondered if you had a tombstone out there, somewhere, in an old corner of Berdusk.

“Well,” he cuts through the silence, dropping your hand to reach behind him and grab his dagger, “I should probably fix this.”

You sit back and watch as he supports himself against the limestone to carve into it. He scratches a series of Old Common numbers just above the Elvish inscription, below his birth year.

Astarion Ancunin

229 - 268 NR

460 NR -

He leans back, satisfied with his work, and tucks his dagger away once more. “I’ve been dead in the ground for long enough. It’s time to try living again.” He turns on his knees to fully face you with a self-assured smile tugging at his lips. You turn to face him as well, and he picks up both your hands in his. “With everything that life has to offer.”

You chuckle a little. “Meaning…?”

He tilts his head slightly, considering. He’d never prepositioned you for sex, and while he does wish to experience it again in better circumstances, for his own pleasure and present in his own body, he’s all too wary of your own experiences. His mind still jumps to the memories you showed him: fully nude before Kir Parthene, even before the spawn and loyal servants, unable to cover up even slightly without being punished for it. Your reaction to the order from the incubus, how quickly you had jumped to obey. Washing you with your clothes on to avoid being exposed. No, it would have to wait.

“For now, a kiss or two, and perhaps a cuddle,” he teases lightly, dancing around the truth of his desires. He lifts your hands to his cheeks, guiding you to cup his face. Your fingertips brush against his curls, your palms pressed into the angular planes of his cheeks. He leans into your warmth, kissing your hand with a contented sigh, eyelids fluttering shut. “I love you. I love this. And I want it all.”

He looks so at peace under the moon like this. The stars no longer laugh or cajole at your anxieties, for there are none to be found here with him. His hair is pure starlight as you loose a hand from his hold and run your fingers through his curls, blunt nails scraping against his scalp. He sighs and leans further into the affection, eyes half-lidded as he meets your gaze. He grins sweetly, at ease. You remember the hungry wreck that awoke you that night so long ago, twitching as he asked for blood; the way he helped you bandage your hand and the kiss he left behind with darkened eyes. He’d come so far. Your heart burst with emotion.

You gently tug him forward. He follows without hesitation, watching you attentively as you meet him halfway to press your forehead to his. You sigh, relieved, as you brush your nose against his and curl your fingers to hold the little hairs at the nape of his neck. He groans quietly in encouragement.

“I love you, too,” you whisper. Your hot breath hits his lips and he can’t keep himself at bay any longer.

He closes that last little gap and catches your mouth, tilting his head to better kiss you. It’s warm and sweet, the taste of freedom and adoration. He cups your own cheeks in a futile attempt to pull you closer.

You pull away with a breathless giggle, but you don’t stray far. “Just two kisses?”

He chuckles. “Perhaps a few more.” He pulls you in for another, and another, until you’ve lost count. He leans further into you, until you topple backward onto the dirt in a fit of giggles and idiotic smiles. The sound of your laughter floods the graveyard as you celebrate his new life.

---

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[an-idyllic-novelist]

Morning Glory [aki hayakawa x gn!reader]

Warnings: mentions of excessive alcoholic intake, some strong language, ooc, and fluffy goodness.

Special thanks to @d10nsaint for proofreading/editing this piece. Enjoy! :)

A pounding headache was the first thing that Aki felt when he blearily opened his eyes. Another night spent drinking with Himeno and the others in Special Division 4, and he was paying the price for being a fucking lightweight, again. Shit. He blinked, scrunching his brows in confusion. Wait a minute.

The ceiling in his bedroom was an off-white, and the curtains were always closed. The futon is big enough for an extra person. But the ceiling he’s looking at is a shade of sunflower-yellow, and there were streaks of sunlight emitting from a window. He feels cramped. His cobalt-blue orbs widened before he pushed himself up, only to feel a wave of vertigo wash over his body. Looking down, he saw that he’s still in his uniform minus his jacket, a baby blue blanket draped over his hips, plus a plastic green bucket on the floor.

A couch. He’s slept on a leather couch in someone else’s apartment but where the fuck is he? And why is there a bucket right next to him? Where the hell is he?!

Shrringh.

Aki whipped his head upwards, seeing someone come out from the window wearing jean overalls over a turquoise tank top. His mind begins to spin. Ah… so the window is a sliding glass door to someone’s veranda. But who…

“Mornin’ sunshine.” The stranger greeted cheerily, their bare feet smacking against the wooden floor and away from the veranda, the sunlight bouncing off of their back as the small shade of darkness revealed a face Aki was very familiar with. “Sleep well?” [First Name] asked, cradling a green watering can in their hands. “I didn’t wake ya up, did I? My bad. I was tryin’ to be quiet while I watered my morning glories but that darn door is gettin’ harder and harder to open and close. I’ll need to get a hold of the landlord on Monday to see what they can do about it.”

Fantastic. Aki thought bitterly. Not only do I get fucking hammered, but I’m in their apartment? That’s great. An absolutely wonderful first impression to a co-worker who’s known to be extremely professional at Public Safety who just happens to be the person I’m crushing on. And they actually smile. ShitFuckMe.

“Hayakawa-san?”

Cheeks burning, he ignored the rising heat and tried to cover it up with a cough. “What happened?” He asked. [First Name] shrugged their shoulders.

“The usual, I guess? Himeno-san challenged you to a drinking contest and you lost after four beers. I brought you back here since my place was the closest an’ so you could sleep it off.”

“And the bucket?”

“In case ya throw up. Himeno-san was here the last time she got drunk and…well, she tried finding the bathroom and ended up regurgitating all over the place. I don’t wanna have a repeat incident, if you catch my drift.”

He nodded. “That makes sense. Do you - Could I trouble you for some water?” The back of his throat was itching. He really wanted to have a morning cigarette and some coffee. But could he even smoke here? He was already being a nuisance already, maybe he could hold back on the coffin nail until he got his shit together and was on the street? He’d been lucky that his flat allowed smoking so long as it wasn’t inside.

[First Name] blinked. “Sure, I can do that. Ya want some coffee too?”

“That’d be great.” He said.

“Corgi, black cat, or purple kraken?”

“Excuse me?”

[First Name] repeated what they said. He stared at them in confusion before he said ‘black cat’, whatever that is supposed to mean. They nodded, a smile still on their face as they turned away from him and towards the back of the apartment. Aki’s eyes followed their form to a small kitchenette. They placed the watering can on top of the marble breakfast bar before shuffling towards the cupboard, revealing three shelves of coffee cups, each more unique than the last. Realization hit Aki when [First Name] pulled out a white cup stamped with a black cat sitting on the edge of a crescent moon, then another one in the shape of a pink octopus. Ah. So that’s what they were referring to.

When he saw them grounding coffee in a hand crank grinder that’s similar to the one he had at home, he turned his attention away to glance around what is most certainly the main living room. There wasn’t a television nor a kotatsu, but behind the couch was a bookshelf crammed haphazardly with texts. There were two, three more stacks on the floor, leading to the half-cracked door of the master bedroom. In front of him was a coffee table with octopus-shaped drink coasters and a folded up newspaper.

[First Name]’s reputation in Public Safety was not just being a competent devil hunter; Makima-san trusted very few individuals with handling the paperwork that circulated between her division and the higher-ups, let alone relay any last minute changes to certain documents. [First Name] was an asset to his supervisor, and the other divisions to ensure that there is a consistent flow of their endless paper trails. Should anything be missing or was not turned in on time, you would be getting a visit from an irate [First Name] to please hand everything over or a lecture on the importance of punctuality, whichever came first.

Their desk is rumored to be decorated with mermaid paperweights, feathered pens, miniature bonsai trees, and even a lava lamp. Anyone who has seen this mystical area was absolutely silent on the matter, even the newbies under Himeno’s care. The most common item seen around the office were octopus-shaped sticky notes; they were placed on either documents that needed to be corrected and returned promptly, or as little thank-you notes taped to ice/hot coffees. A little gift of gratitude to devil hunters who risked their lives on a particularly difficult mission.

He, Himeno, and the rest of the group received a ‘gift’ after their scuffle with the Eternity Devil a while back.

Throwing the blanket off of him, Aki stood up on wobbly feet and walked around the couch to look at the bookshelf. Now that he thought up, he’d occasionally see his coworker carrying a book around the office, but never see them read it. His eyes scanned the shelves. The spines were filled with various subjects; fairy tales, national history, geography, murder mysteries, Osamu Dazai, and a few titles in English.

“See anything ya like?”

Aki jumped a little, swiveling his head to the right to see [First Name] holding a mug and bottled water in either hand. They extended the hand that held the black cat mug to him, the steam and rich scent of dark roasted coffee beans tickling his nose. Murmuring a ‘thank you’ under his breath, Aki practically inhaled the first sip of caffeinated liquid. Sugar and a splash of milk. It’s not what he normally drinks, but he’s not going to complain.

“You’re quite the prolific reader.” He commented, glancing back at the bookshelf then at the stack by his feet. “Do you read a new book every day or something?” He meant it as a light-hearted joke to break the awkward silence, nothing offensive.

When he took another sip of his coffee, he almost spat it out upon hearing [First Name]’s response.

“Pretty much. I mean, I can read about 20,000 words per minute and can recall the contents thanks to my eidetic memory.”

Aki’s brain screeched to a halt. Huh? “You…You can remember what you read and…how many words per minute?”

“20,000. Kinda stinks ‘cause I gotta find more books to read during my down-time since I don’t really watch TV anymore like I used to.”

Aki eyed the bookshelf again, his gaze falling onto a random title. “Then….what happened in the…second act of Romeo and Juliet?” He challenged. “Everything, from start to finish.”

[First Name]’s eyes brightened, then suddenly they rambled on what happened after the star-crossed lovers exchanged vows at the altar, stating odd facts about William Shakespeare, the way he wrote the text, and how all of the parts were played by men, etc.

Aki stared at them, speechless at their comprehension of the text. Great. He thought glumly. Not only is his crush an incredibly gorgeous person but they are also highly intelligent? How in the world could he even impress them in the field besides being a competent devil hunter? Before his thoughts took a more depressing turn, [First Name]’s timid voice reached out to him.

“Uh, sorry.” They mumbled, handing him the bottled water. “Didn’t mean to go off on a tangent like that. It’s just…I really like books, but I keep forgetting some people don’t like to read. Which is fine, I mean, ya gotta have other hobbies to keep yourself sane, ‘specially in the line of work we have. Or an addiction, like Himeno-san said last night.”

“It’s all right, really,” Aki quickly said, taking the offered beverage in his other hand. “There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about something.”

“I guess. Do you have any hobbies?” They asked, tilting their head to the side in a way that was almost cute to the devil hunter. Aki smiled a little.

“No, but I do like to cook.”

[First Name]’s brow rose into their hairline. “Really?” They said, turning on the ball of their heel and walked around towards the couch but kept their eyes on him. “What recipes do you like to cook?”

For the next hour, the two of them talked on the couch. Aki rambled on about what dishes he enjoyed making the most, which ones were the most time-consuming and the best ones to prepare ahead of time so that you could enjoy it the following day if you had to work overtime. By the time he had freshened up and had a second cup of coffee, Aki was ready to leave.

“Thanks again for…everything.” He said, slipping his shoes on by the front door. [First Name] nodded, a small smile on their face as they held up their pink octopus mug.

“No problem. Gotta admit, it was nice talkin’ to ya outside of work hours. You’re very handsome when you’re talking, and confident.”

Aki felt his ears burning. “…Thank you.” He murmured. “If you want, I can teach you a few recipes….when there’s time after hours.” He cursed his burning face, and then the rapid beating of his heart when [First Name]’s smile widened at his words.

“That’d be nice. Get home safely, yeah?”

“Of course.”

Aki then left the apartment, praying to any deity that heard his pleas to calm his mind and body down before he got home. The last thing he needed right now is Power and Denji’s relentless teasing, the little shitheads.

[xzerosparrowx]

The Meeting of the Fellowship

Written for the @corrodedcoffinfest

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Day #2 - Prompt: In the Beginning | Word Count: 768 | Rating: T | CW: Fat shaming and bullying. | POV: Gareth | Tags: How the fellowship met, Corroded Coffin in middle school, Eddie's first day at Hawkins, Tommy Hagan is a bully.

Hawkins Middle School. A veritable zoo where the Jocks, Geeks, Stoners, Punks, Brains, and Goths all converge for some good ol’ American education, all of them sniping and gnashing at one another when they cross paths. Gareth, Jeff, Doug, and Zach walk through the school invisible, within these halls they are no one and belong to no clique; each of them too quiet and too average to have anyone notice their existence. 

“Hey fatty!” a voice yells over the chatter. Gareth watches Zach tense his shoulders, hunching his body in an attempt to make himself look small. Before realising that Tommy Hagan and the rest of the Hawkins basketball team have surrounded their little group, a pack of hyenas circling the wounded. 

“You get that history assignment done, like I asked?” Tommy says, holding out his hand expectantly towards Zach, the others in the group snicker when Zach opens up his binder and pulls out three crisp pages of a carefully written essay. 

Tommy snatches them, flipping through the pages as he casually reads it over, checking on Zach’s work as if he knows what he is even reading about. His brow furrows and angrily points at the page in front of him “what the hell! Despot isn’t a real word!”  There is loud bark of laughter somewhere off to the side, temporarily stunning Tommy and his pack of half-witted shitheads for a moment before all their heads turn to the source of the sound.

A boy is standing by the lockers, lanky and rough-looking, swimming in a blue sweater that is marked by tiny moth holes and a black beanie on top of his head. Gareth watches him in fascination and horror as Tommy stalks his way over, the boy shutting his locker with a loud clang, books clutched in his arms, seemingly unaware of the Goliath behind him. He finally turns around and to Gareth’s surprise the boy looks bored when he faces Tommy, as if the presence of the jock is not the worst thing he has ever encountered. 

“You wanna say something, freak?” Tommy dares, a finger pointedly jabbing the boy’s chest.

Gareth watches the boy narrow his eyes at the finger, hands curling by his sides, a tightly wound coil ready for a fight before the boy suddenly breaks into a wicked grin, body suddenly relaxing.

“If you want to know what a word means, maybe you shouldn’t have shit for brains,” the boy says sincerely as if he is giving genuine advice, a chorus of ‘ooooh’ and snickers fill the hallway and Gareth cannot help but smile as the mysterious boy gives a small wink towards him and his little group. 

The boy’s face catches Tommy’s mean right hook with a loud smack, the sudden burst of violence seems to slow down time as the boy straightens up, spits out a glob of blood and rubs the bright red mark already blooming on his face before pouncing on Tommy in a burst of speed that catches everyone by surprise. It is a blur of action at that point, David and Goliath exchanging fists. Gareth, Zach, Jeff and Doug fighting off the rest of the jocks in an attempt to stop them dogpiling the boy, and there is no way in hell they will win this fight but Gareth cannot help but feel like he’s finally part of something.

They are shoved in the cramped, dark confines of the Janitor’s closet for their trouble, Tommy and the jocks laughing loudly when they slam the door close on them. Gareth pulls the cord for the overhanging bulb, revealing them all tightly packed together with the mystery boy, lips swollen and bleeding, the black beanie sitting skewed on his head revealing an outgrowing buzzcut. 

“Thanks for that, really,” Gareth says, the rest of the group nodding eagerly in agreement, “I’m Gareth.” 

“Jeff.���

“Zach.”

“Doug.”

“Eddie,” the boy replies with a smile, holding out his hand awkwardly towards Gareth and Jeff, hands criss-crossed against his chest. They shake hands seriously like businessmen in an important meeting until they are bursting with laughter, Eddie cackling loudly that makes all of them laugh harder. 

A few moments later, as they start to calm down, Eddie looks at them with large excited brown eyes “you guys want to be in a band?” 

Zach, Jeff and Doug all exchange glances with Gareth, and he can see the same glimmer of excitement and joy on their faces that he knows he is reflecting back at them. He turns to Eddie, the boy grinning as if he already knows the answer. 

“Sure!”

[kultavalo]

So in the interest of exposure I've decided I'm also gonna start posting my fics right here on Tumblr. I'll still be posting them on AO3 as well under the same username as here!

Summary: The keys to the bus were missing, the crew was nowhere to be found, and Jake and Danny had slept through their alarm.

Tags: Jake x Danny, fluff, slight angst if you squint, established relationship.

The Suite Life of Jake and Danny

Word count: 3.8k

All of their luggage was standing in the lobby of the hotel.

Suitcases and backpacks, all neatly packed and labelled for their next stop, professionally stacked together on hotel trolleys.

Checkout would be soon. Technically they were ready to leave. Josh and Sammy had left earlier than necessary, using the extra time to briefly explore this new city they had found themselves in and no doubt making a mad dash to find and buy the most ridiculous souvenirs available for their mom and dad, a tradition they had started when they began touring outside of their home state.

Jake and Danny however, had slept in.

Most of the tour they would simply sleep on their bus, having grown accustomed to the coffin like bunks and the gentle swaying of the road a long time ago.

Hotel nights were rare, so when the opportunity finally presented itself, they intended to make good use of it.

It wasn't just the being able to sprawl out on a queen sized bed, or the luxury of turning around in the shower and not immediately smacking into a door or wall. It was also the privacy.

Jake and Danny had been together since the early days of the band, when they still travelled in a shitty sprinter van, curling up together between guitar cases and drum kits and two more brothers.

They were used to the close quarters and the lack of alone time. They were fine with it.

But that didn't mean they didn't revel in the little quiet moments of alone time.

A shared bed instead of two separate cramped bunks, a steady rise and fall of sleepy breaths shared in the same space, the little quiet sweet nothings whispered into the crook of a neck without the exaggerated exclamations of disgust from the other two band members. It was nice.

So nice in fact that they had both slept through their alarms.

Waking up half an hour before checkout, already having missed breakfast. Abandoning the sweet and serene morning they had hoped for and instead scrambling half awake through a far too dark hotel room because neither of them were quite awake enough to realise grabbing their clothes and shoving their stuff into bags would be much easier if one of them opened the curtains.

They had made it downstairs on time at least.

Bleary eyed and slightly dishevelled they handed their room key back to the hotel clerk and filled out the mandatory documents and satisfaction rating.

Placing their luggage next to Josh and Sam's already awaiting trunks they sat down in the little lounge area in the lobby, blinking against the sunlight streaming through the floor to ceiling windows and slowly trying to wake up.

Jake and Danny had formed the habit not to be too overly affectionate in public. They weren't exactly hiding anything but you never knew who was watching.

Today however, sitting together in a practically empty hotel lobby after not having been able to indulge in their usual comfortable quiet morning, Danny had decided he really couldn't care less who saw them and simply snuggled against Jake's side.

Even though he was almost a full head taller and the many years of pounding away at the drums had transformed his skinny arms and back into hard lean muscle, Danny always felt soft and small when Jake held him like this. His head resting on the shorter man's chest, legs tucked up on the couch, both of his arms encircling Jake's waist while Jake's arm was comfortably draped across his shoulder.

They sat like that in warm comfortable silence for a while, just enjoying being close to each other. Jake's hand had moved to the top of Danny's head, absentmindedly combing his fingers through the dark curls that were still slightly tangled with sleep, softly getting the knots out and combing some stray strands away from Danny's face.

Danny in return had found a gap between the edge of Jake's pants and the hem of his shirt and lazy drew invisible patterns with his fingers on the few inches of soft exposed skin, silently noting how Jake's hips had recently filled out a bit more and loving the feeling of the little extra give when he gently squeezed him there.

Time ticked by slowly, sunbeams played through the yellow autumn leaves outside and silently danced across the coffee table in front of them. After the rushed wake up and subsequent packing frenzy Danny was still happy they could have this cosy moment together. He felt like he could drift right back to sleep like this, his cheek pressed against Jake's warm skin, listening to his calm and steady heartbeat, feeling the soft rise and fall of his chest with every breath. This was bliss.

When Jake's soft voice rumbled low out of his chest it actually startled Danny a little bit. It seemed he had actually drifted back to sleep after all and therefore hadn't really registered what Jake had said, just that he had spoken.

"Sorry, what was that?" He mumbled as he rubbed at his eyes and lightly cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the sleep that still seemed to cling to his vocal cords.

"I said, do you wanna start loading our stuff onto the bus? It's getting kinda late and knowing Josh and Sammy they won't get back until the exact second we have to leave, so if we're already fully packed it should be easier to head out."

Danny nodded as he sat up a little straighter, still trying to fight off the tiredness that had gripped him so heavily.

"Yeah, that's probably smart." He replied, now sitting up fully and untangling his hands from Jake's waist. Before he could entirely retreat from the embrace, Jake gently held his right wrist in place for a moment.

Danny looked up at his warm brown eyes, eyes that even after all these years still looked at him with so much love and adoration it still sprouted butterflies in his stomach.

" And if we have the bus packed and ready before they come back we can call dibs on the master bedroom tonight." Jake said with a mischievous smile.

Danny smiled back at him with that same glint in his eye.

Their tour bus was a pretty standard two floor model. It came equipped with a downstairs living area, a small kitchen and dining booth, a toilet, an upstairs lounge, bathroom, six bunks and one fully outfitted master bedroom.

The master bedroom was usually just used for storage, none of them feeling quite comfortable claiming the extra space when the others were still confined to their small bunks.

They still used it sometimes, the king sized bed was a great place to all cuddle up together for movie nights or to give a little more privacy when Sammy's girlfriend or Josh's boyfriend happened to travel along for a few stops.

But Jake and Danny rarely claimed it for themselves.

They knew Josh and Sammy didn’t mind them being together, hell, when they had twirled around each other at the start of their relationship, endlessly playing the game of ‘will they won’t they’ Josh had eventually resorted to direct action.

Fed up with the endless frustration of seeing his twin giggle and blush whenever Danny gave him the slightest bit of attention, only then to sulk like a moody teen whenever he turned his attention to anyone else, Josh had roped Sammy into his conspiracy to finally put an end to this maddening cycle so they could actually focus on their band in earnest.

It hadn’t quite been kidnapping, technically.

Josh and Sammy had lured the two lovestruck idiots out to the shed in the garden under the guise of showing them the cool acoustic properties the tiny building held, and had unceremoniously shoved them inside as quickly as possible and bolted the door shut behind them.

Jake and Danny had immediately started protesting as soon as they realised what had happened, but all they got in return was Sammy laughing his head off as Josh yelled “You two are either gonna fuck or kill each other, I really don’t care at this point but just make it fucking stop!” through the gaps in the wood of the closed door.

It took them four hours.

They didn’t actually fuck, it was still far too early for that, but when Josh finally relented and opened the door (mainly after their mother had found out what he had done and had given him a stern talking to), Jake and Danny did walk out of the shed as a couple.

All that however didn’t mean that they were exactly comfortable with Josh and Sammy over hearing their more intimate moments. The master bedroom provided them with a bit more privacy, sure. But the aluminium door was hardly sound proof. Experience had taught them that at least.

They got up from the hotel lobby couch and started manoeuvring the trolley that held their luggage through the revolving front doors and down the parking lot to where their bus was parked in its designated spot. It seemed eerily quiet.

Usually around this time of day the drivers would already be here, roadhands would be milling about, securing the bigger cases into the bus’ cargo hold. Their manager and make-up artist, whom they'd grown increasingly close to over the many months of travelling together, would be making sure the boys hadn’t trashed the bus too much during the previous trip. Acting as stand in road parents and giving them an earful when the bus wasn’t up to code.

But no one was there.

Jake shot a quick glance at the watch on his wrist. They were supposed to leave in about two hours, where the fuck was everyone?

He looked over at Danny who’s face mirrored his own confused expression.

“Did we get the time wrong?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know, we didn’t change time zones yesterday did we?” Danny replied.

Jake thought back to the day before, usually their manager would tell them and make sure that they updated their watches when they travelled from one time zone to the next, but he didn’t remember having gotten that notification yesterday.

“I don’t think we did…” he muttered, wracking his brain for any memories he might have subconsciously declared unnecessary. He still came up blank.

Danny shrugged.

“ Whatever, let's just start loading on our shit. The sooner we can take a nap the better, I am exhausted.”

Jake nodded in agreement. The last few days had been an absolute whirlwind. Back to back shows for the last five days in five different countries, continuously packing and unpacking gear. Getting off the bus, preparing, playing, packing up, and getting back on the bus.

It was rewarding of course, seeing the thousands of people who appreciated what they did even though they spoke different languages and had different cultures. Living the life they’d always dreamt of, travelling the world and performing their hearts out. It was wonderful. Jake would never wanna do anything else, not in a million years.

It was also extremely exhausting. A nap definitely sounded nice right now.

Jake dug through the pockets of his pants for the keys to the bus as Danny started taking their luggage off of the trolley.

Coming up empty he checked the pockets of his jacket next. Phone, wallet, passport, all his usual important items were there. But not the keys.

“ Danny, babe, did you see my keys by any chance? I can’t seem to find them.” Jake asked, checking the pockets of his jeans again just to be sure he hadn’t accidentally put them in a different spot than usual.

Danny set down the suitcase he was holding and checked the carabiner on his belt where he usually kept his keys, but his hands came up empty too. He checked his pockets as well but still nothing.

“Can’t say I did love. And I can’t seem to find my own set either.” he replied.

Panic started to set in slightly at that. The bus was basically their home at the moment. They all had their own set of keys and they usually guarded them with their life. But the last few nights their manager had opened the bus and they had all filled in one after another. Jake couldn’t even remember when he had last unlocked the doors by himself, let alone which country he had been in at the time.

Losing your keys was one thing, not knowing in which country you had lost them was something else entirely.

“Did I wear these pants yesterday?” Jake asked Danny, mind too awash with the sudden rush of panic to clearly remember his own outfit from the day before.

Danny scrunched up his shoulders and lightly shook his head. “I’m not sure, I don’t think so?” he said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Jake started digging through his backpack first. Maybe he had shoved his keys into some random pocket there. He had never put his keys in his bag before but maybe, somehow, his exhausted brain had thought that that was the most logical place last night.

Still nothing.

Meanwhile Danny had thrown open his suitcase and was frantically rifling through the pockets of all the pants he owned. Also nothing.

The two men looked at each other, panic evident on their faces now.

“Should we call someone?” Danny asked, voice sounding like he’d just ran a marathon.

“I’ll call one of the drivers, they should have been here by now anyway.” Jake replied, not entirely successful in keeping the anxiety out of his own voice.

The phone rang for about thirty seconds before it eventually went to voicemail. Jake cursed under his breath.

His calls to their manager, their make-up artist, Josh, and Sammy ended in the same result. No reply or straight to voicemail.

“What in the actual fuck is going on right now.” he exclaimed, panic turning slowly into anger at the unresponsiveness of the crew. “Did we enter the twilight zone or something? We’re supposed to leave in an hour and a half, where the fuck is everyone?”

Danny, who had been anxiously pacing back and forth next to Jake and chewing on the nail of his thumb, stopped in his tracks as he heard the frustration in his boyfriend's voice.

He turned to face Jake and softly pulled him into a hug.

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine.” he muttered into the shorter man’s hair, all anxiety instantly having disappeared from his voice in favour of calming Jake down.

Jake sighed against his chest and hugged him back.

“We can’t miss tonight’s show Danny, I can’t believe I’ve been stupid enough to lose my keys somewhere in Europe.” he mumbled against Danny’s sweater.

“We won’t miss tonight’s show.” Danny replied, rubbing his hands up and down Jake’s back in what he hoped was a soothing way and didn’t betray the panic and uncertainty he was still very much feeling himself.

“And if you’re stupid for losing your keys then so am I. I'm sure we’ll find them eventually. And there’s no way the crew would ever allow us to be late. I’m sure there’s just been some kind of miscommunication. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Jake seemed to slightly relax at that. He hugged Danny a little bit tighter for a moment before loosening his grip around his back to stand up on his tiptoes and plant a soft kiss against Danny’s lips.

Danny smiled against his mouth, secretly enjoying the fact that Jake fully had to reach up to be able to kiss him, and always feeling extra loved when he saw Jake make the effort.

“ Let’s get back to the lobby.” Danny said once Jake had released his lips again. “It’s pretty cold out here and maybe we can ask the receptionist at the front desk if we can go back and search our room.”

Jake lowered himself to his normal height again and nodded. “Yeah that’s probably our best option right now.” he replied, moving to replace their luggage back onto the trolley.

The receptionist looked slightly surprised when they rolled the full cart of luggage back through the revolving doors, but managed to keep a professionally pleasant face when Jake and Danny approached her and explained their situation.

“I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve misplaced your keys.” she said.

“ I think our cleaning staff is in there now, I’ll call up to the room and ask them to keep an eye out. Meanwhile, please feel free to wait in the lounge, I’ll let you know as soon as I hear back from them.”

They thanked her and sat back on the same couch they had inhabited half an hour ago, this time filled with a lot more frustration and anxiety.

“I guess we can kiss the master bedroom goodbye after this.” Danny sighed.

Jake looked over at him, his elbows were resting on his knees and his shoulders were slumped slightly forward, curls hanging like a curtain around his face.

He smiled softly at Danny and pushed some strands of hair behind his ear so he could actually see him.

“Listen, we had every intention to load not only our stuff but also Josh and Sam’s shit onto the bus. Those chucklefucks should be grateful. When was the last time they even so much as offered to take our bags huh?” Jake said with a smile.

Danny smiled at that too.

“I don’t know man. Last time Sammy offered to take my bag I was pretty sure he was gonna try and chuck it into a canal. Little shit.” Danny chuckled.

“Exactly!” Jake replied. “I don’t think Josh has ever offered to help me carry anything. He’s much happier watching me struggle by myself. “ he laughed.

Their anxiety was slowly lessened as they tried to lighten each other’s mood. They sat for a while and reminisced about what assholes their other two band members could be until the receptionist gently interrupted their giggle fit.

She smiled warmly at them when she spoke.

“Sorry to interrupt gentlemen but our cleaning staff seems to have located two sets of keys in your room, along with a pair of trousers and a jacket. Someone will bring them down shortly.”

Jake and Danny sighed in relief, thoroughly thanking the woman who gave them another kind smile before returning to her station behind the front desk.

Danny pulled Jake close to him.

“See? Told you it would be all right?” he said, a smile audible in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah mister eternal optimist.” Jake laughed. “But don’t pretend you weren’t worried you’d left your keys in France or Germany or Switzerland either.”

Danny gave him a playful shove.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” he stated matter of factly. “I knew they were in the room the entire time.” he tried to keep his face as straight as possible but it only took a single look at Jake’s face for Danny to break into laughter.

“Yeah no, I was absolutely shitting myself man.” he finally admitted.

Jake laughed at him and Danny joined in his laughter. All anxiety melting away like snow in the sun.

A few minutes later Jake’s phone rang. It was Josh.

“Hey Jake, sorry I missed your call. What’s up?” his twin’s voice sounded cheerful through the phone’s speakers.

A little bit of the anger Jake had felt earlier bubbled back up into his stomach.

“What do you mean ‘what’s up?’” he replied. “Where the fuck are you? Where is everyone? We’re supposed to leave soon and the entire crew is missing!” he tried not to yell but Josh’s nonchalant tone of voice didn’t exactly help to calm him down.

“Jake what the fuck are you talking about? It’s Wednesday, remember? We have the next two days off. We’re not leaving until Friday evening.” Josh stated calmly, confusion evident in his voice.

Jake didn’t believe him.

“Nice try asshole. Why is your luggage in the hotel lobby if we’re staying here for two more days huh?” he snapped back.

“It’s not? My stuff is still in my room?” Josh was silent for a second, Jake could hear Sammy’s muffled voice in the background of the call. “Sam did point out that there were some suitcases that looked almost identical to ours when we walked through the lobby this morning. Please tell me you didn’t touch those, cause they’re definitely not ours, you can check the tags.”

Jake’s anger deflated at that. He stayed silent for a second as he walked back over to the luggage and checked the tags like Josh had suggested. He was right. He had no idea whose bags these were but they sure weren’t his brothers’.

“Jake? Are you still there?” Josh’s voice asked through the phone.

“ Haha, yeah totally, I was just joking man, you totally fell for it.” he said, but his voice sounded anything but convincing.

Before Josh could reply Jake spoke again. “I’ll call you back later, I gotta go sort out a thing.”

He could hear Josh snort out a laugh before he hung up and walked back over to Danny who looked at him quizzically.

“Babe, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but we may be the two biggest idiots currently alive.” Jake smiled awkwardly as he rubbed a hand across his forehead.

Danny’s confused look only intensified until Jake explained what Josh had just told him.

Danny stared at him for a long quiet moment.

“I think we should wait with checking back into our rooms until the receptionist changes shifts.” he mumbled. “I don’t think I could handle the embarrassment of checking out and back in with the same person within a two hour window.”

Jake nodded at that.

“At least we’ll have our keys back soon so we’ll be able to take a nap on the bus in the meantime.” he said.

Danny huffed out a laugh at that. “I’m gonna need more than a nap after this shit show of a morning.”

Jake silently agreed. A nap, a stiff drink, and a hot shower, and then maybe another nap for good measure. They were obviously more exhausted than they had realised.

Suddenly Danny let out a groan and Jake looked at him, confused.

“Josh and Sammy are never gonna let us live this down are they.” he said, eyes squeezed shut, an absolute look of discomfort on his face.

Jake let out a laugh at that.

“Oh absolutely never. Let’s maybe not mention that we also lost our keys. The fact that they know we apparently dragged some stranger’s luggage all over the parking lot for about an hour is already bad enough.”

Danny could definitely agree to that.

The end.

[joker-junior]

TW/CW for: dissociation, pregnancy, miscarriage, blood, viscera. (Please mind these tags, and only read if you're all right to do so. It's pretty heavy.)

Pain. Cramping. JJ bolted up in bed, pressing a hand to his stomach. That wasn't supposed to be happening.

He'd been resting. His back had been hurting for a few days now, and JJ was being good, he'd been so good, what was happening?? Wetness dripped down his pale thighs, followed by another ripping cramp. He lurched out of his bed, ignoring the red stain on the sheets, the trail he left in his wake, and staggered to the bathroom.

Bathwater ran behind him, thundering in his ears like a waterfall, as JJ retched uselessly into the sink. He hadn't eaten yet that morning, since he'd been sleeping off the pain. No painkillers. No painkillers for him. No painkillers for Azizi, his treasure who had him eating turkey-and-grape-jelly sandwiches and feeling tired. He wasn't supposed to be bleeding for at least six more months. Why was he bleeding???

JJ ripped his clothes off and sank into the tub with another quiet whimper of pain, hoping the warm water would help, would fix it, but red swirled dark and pigmented into the clear. Blood in the water. The sharks would come, and he was drowning, and he couldn't swim--

He gasped in a breath as his vision threatened to grey out, only to stifle a cry as more pain rippled through. Snatching up a bath towel nearby, JJ buried his face and his sounds in it, sobbing quietly through the spasms and hours.

Finally, finally things settled down. The skinny teenager hauled himself out of the water, legs shaking with exhaustion, and refused to look down. He couldn't- bear to yet. Instead, JJ pulled on a bathrobe, tying it tightly and wincing as he cinched it, then leaned heavily against the sink. Time flickered, and he found himself on his knees, skimming the tub with his hands because it refused to drain. There was a ripped bedsheet next to him that seemed familiar. The reddened water soaked into his robe's sleeves.

Stained.

He was stained.

Something cracked. It seemed audible, but perhaps it wasn't. Rage rushed through JJ's veins. What had he done wrong? He had been trying so hard to do things right, and Azizi had slipped through his fingers. His baby, their treasure, had fallen between his traitorous thighs into the water.

Another flicker, time curling by his ankles like the slither of snakes, hissing their proclamations of his ruination. The mess was somewhat cleaner, and JJ was dirtier. He could feel it beginning to dry on him, under his fingernails. The sheet was wadded up and in the trash, and his makeup was scattered on the floor. A small lidded box that had held his cosmetics was clenched in his bloodied hands.

A hitched breath escaped him then. He had to tell Altair of his failure.

His treasure's rudimentary coffin was placed with careful precision onto a shelf, a safe place for the moment while JJ took a shower in the now-clean tub. The water stung, searing his roiling emotions into numbness as he washed brown flakes down the drain.

Finally cleaned but never cleansed and fully wretched, he stepped out, using towels to dry off. There was an aching emptiness. Heart, body, soul.

A blink found JJ in his room, pulling on a soft gray tunic of Altair's and black sweatpants, tying the cord loosely, gently. His thumbs tapped on his phone. Each light tap a thunderclap. A dolorous bell. He had to send the message.

Thumb hovering over the 'send' button, JJ glanced up, gaze drawn to the small stack of colorful baby items he'd been making, he'd been saving. Those had been for- well. Maybe some other parent could use them instead. There were plenty of other babies around to shower in gifts, to hold and love, and if he cried a little when he held them… Surely that would be all right.

The message sent, and JJ left his room, phone in white-knuckled grip. He needed to not be alone right now, for he most certainly was.

[hongism]

hi caly, hope you're well! i know it kinda sucks to ask you this and believe me I'm not trying to pressure you or anything, its more of a question out of despair and eagerness to have some news on moc... but do you know when the next update will be? and if you do, could you bless us with a little snippet? 🥺😔

anyways, drink lots of water and stay healthy, luv u!

hi love don't worry hehe you asked v nicely and sweetly i don't mind at all 🫶 im really really hoping and aiming to have the next chapter up by the end of the month! it's a personal goal of mine this year to try to put at least one chapter out every month if i can but if i could do more than that i would be so super thrilled and happy,,,, we'll see tho!!! ofc i can give a itsy bitsy snippet too <33

When you come to, you almost don’t realize that you have woken up at all because you open your eyes to complete darkness. The first thing you notice is the weight at your back, something digging into your shoulder blades and making you wildly uncomfortable, but that sensation is pushed to the back of your mind as your brain starts catching up with the reality you’re in. Your right arm does not feel wholly attached to your body in any way, and even when you attempt to use it to help move around in the cramped space you’re in, it refuses to budge at all. Above you, there is a firm plank of wood that slots into your faux coffin so perfectly you imagine it’s aiming to act as your grave. In your left ear, you hear a quiet yet unsettling whispering coming from outside the box. “I know you’re there,” comes the distorted yet familiar tone, “I’ll pull every splinter of wood off this box to reach you. You can’t hide forever.” You swing your left arm up as hard as you can manage given the limited space you have to deal with, ramming your elbow into the block of wood over your body. The huffs of your breathing make the enclosure feel that much smaller, and in turn, it causes your moves to lean more frantic than an organized attempt to escape. “Keep struggling just like that. I like a fight~” The voice belongs to San — there’s no doubt about that — and yet it sounds nothing like your San.

[blorbologist]

briarwoods!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cadaver, cross, century

[I'm LATE but this idea hit me while crossing the road. like a car. and it's maybe MOSTLY Delilah but she's constantly thinking about Sylas it's ok]

--

Delilah can’t say she’s bored. She really can’t. But - oh. The cemetery is tempting.

If it’s bodies she wants - and of course she wants, from the head of this table, with an entire city at her disposal - she can want them and then have them. Brought to her: already dead, or alive, or in-between. Or down the secret stairs, in the crypts, neatly labeled samples. Or in the servant’s quarters, where she could choose a body herself and redistribute the staff. 

All the funding of the assembly means little compared to this wealth, this absolute wealth, of cadavers. Enough to test the limits of her control - to find those lines malleable. And fresh, so fresh, in whatever state she wants. 

But she wants the cemetery. 

So: here she is, soft shoes muddied, sweat at her back. And it’s underwhelming. The markers are in wobbling rows, skirting ground too rocky for graves. 

(Rexxentrum’s graveyards are neat. Efficient in their use of space; they only take urns. Tiny, cramped urns. Far too small.)

Whitestone is a well-trained city by now, brought to heel. It watched politely, quietly as she walked, and probably averts its eyes as she walks, feeling the dead underneath, around, everywhere. Or maybe little people try their very best to peer through the fog, to glimpse the Lady of the city seeks on such a night.

You see - no, do look. You see, it is very difficult to get away with grave robbery near Rexxentrum. Or several miles outside it. Even within reasonable distance of most major roads. Which is such a shame when decomposition is a fascinating process, one so heavily influenced by the size of the corpse and the content of its insides and how it is buried. 

Delilah almost floats over the loamy ground. At what point is a body beyond even her talents? Is it a matter of time, or preservation? To the best of her knowledge, a minimum amount of material from the same individual is needed - but how degraded could they be? She’s never really had the sample size to experiment before.

(Decomposition begins as the body begins to eat itself. Then the littlest creatures begin to eat it, too. Everyone so hungry for it, so hungry. Three days later and there is bloat, and fluid, and flies, and maggots. And he looks just like any of her bodies, and he looks wrong.)

She peruses the markers with a smile. Cute, in wood or stone, they are fashioned into sunbeams pouring over where the deceased’s head should be. One for date of birth, one for their name, and one describing when and how they died. Sometimes another with a short message, but she really only cares for the cause of death.

(A few are broken, crooked. Made into crosses; made into wooden daggers. Pretty, petty threats. Cause of death: nothing, never, he did not die, he will not.)

For centuries she walks. Down one row, up the next. Consumption. Lethargie. Accident, accident, accident. Erathis’ judgment. Tympany. Coffin birth - oh, interesting. Here there is not a marker but a shovel, at the head of an empty grave. Flanked by another, another, another. They’ve been busy. 

She peeks in. Shame - nobody. No body yet. 

(In a fit, she had bought a plot for him. For her. So he could have something, even if she failed him. And she did. Until she didn’t anymore. Now it probably sits empty.)

Her heart is too loud, baying in this quiet. Delilah inhales. Exhales. Petrichor and moss and a whiff of her own perfume. Heel, she wills it. Heel. It would do her no good to worry Sylas, if he listens for her.

(They would fit neatly in one of the graves, in any of them. Six feet and Sylas would help her down with a hand. The dirt would be cool; he would be colder. A burial just for them, only moving things in this cemetery.)

When she is confident her blood is as still as it can be, as close to death as she can be between breaths - when she is here and now and not then and there. Only then does she reach for the nameless dead and make them move.

[strangerhottotties]

Kinktober | 3. Breeding with Eddie Munson

Summary: Eddie finds inspiration for the first time that he wants kids. You mistake it at first and it leads to him breeding you.

Warnings: Rockstar!EddiexWife!Reader, soft, soft smut, mentions of pussy eating and anal, living the domestic dream on the tour bus over here, unprotected p in v sex,

A/N: Get ready for the softest breeding kink that you're ever gonna read. *Debbie Ryan hair tuck*. Eddie just makes me so soft.

Eddie was in the middle of his introduction when he spotted something in the crowd that silenced him. He completely stopped in his tracks on stage despite the roar of the crowd.

You were back stage already, grinning as you watched him. (It wasn't very hard for him to convince you to quit your job so you could tour with the bad after Corroded Coffin hit they're big break and got signed by a record label.

It had been a long way since Eddie trading you joints for cigarette in the freshman bathroom.

"Oh my god," he calls over the mic. "Is that a kid?"

A kid? Who the hell brings a kid to a metal concert? And with that, you peek around the curtain to see there was in fact a grinning toddler perched on his Dad's shoulders. His mom, in cute little pastels and long skirts stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd and you assume that's why Eddie notices the..

They call something up to Eddie as he trots across the stage. He goes as far as to kneel at the edge of the stage. The motion he gives them makes them grin. Come up on stage, it says. Mom looks even more nervous but her counter part drags her up with them up.

"Everybody give it up to future axe grinder, Dylan!" There's excited screaming from the crowd as Dylan bounces around. It's sickeningly cute to watch him bounce around. So you wave mom down when you see her. She hesitantly trots over and introduces herself as Linda when you hold out your hand.

"I figure you're not often at these?"

"No, um... I didn't want him to get lost."

"Shouldn't get lost on stage, no worries."

"The front man, he's very sweet."

"That's my husband," you tell her proudly. You both watch the set, proudly watching the toddler several times join in with Eddie and singing, jamming with his dad on stage. The crowd loves it even if the set manager is tearing his hair out back stage.

"Do you guys have kids?" She asks near the end, smiling proudly at her son having a blast.

"Oh, no, no, no," you quickly brush off. "Eddie's not the kid type," you smile back.

"Really, because he's so good with Dylan." You smile out at the stage. This is absolutely what you expect him to be like as a dad. Probably a push over. Probably spoil the kid like he's always done with you. It makes you smile warmly.

"He is." You murmur.

It's later that night, really early the next morning, after you turned in early that Eddie closes the door at the back of the bus and trudged inside. "Hey, baby," he greets, shuffling around the edge of the bed to lean down and kiss you. He tasted like cigarettes and cheap beer still.

"Brush your teeth before you come to bed, please," you whine. He chuckles as he sinks onto the edge of the bed. You're still heavy with sleep, but you'd heard the ruckus of the boys climbing onto the bus, despite them trying to be quiet.

The room was tiny, cramped, but the rest of the boys insisted when they offered you to join the tour. You loved you boys. Always sweet. They let you mother hen them affectionately. Cooking breakfast in the tiny kitchen saved them a lot of money on stopping at diners. That was half the fun of this.

"I will, I will," he promises you. "Gareth's in the bathroom." And the bathroom on the bus barely fit one person. Not that you and Eddie hadn't both managed it for shower sex. You had it down to a science about now.

Eddie's unlacing his boots beside you. "That kid tonight," he starts, grinning over at you as you adjust under the covers. To face your husband more firmly. "He was really something."

"It was really cool what you did."

"Roger's gonna have my head in the morning. He complained that you turned in early without me," he laughs quietly.

"You're going to give him a heart attack one of these days." Eddie gives you a grin and leans towards you on his elbow as he kicks his boots off. He straightens back up, hand gliding over your hip and side as he soaks up the quiet moment. Probably the first quiet moment he's had all night. You can see the exhaustion on his face.

"He'll get over it. Who knows. Maybe he'll sign that kid one day. He was pretty good with the guitar. His dad was really cool. His mom said nice things about you."

"Did she now?" He nods and you watch him look down at his feet quietly. Exhaustion you think at first, but you watch his brow furrow and know it's not just that. "What's on your mind, baby?"

He shakes his head and passing you a soft smile. "You," he hums and then drags his shirt over his head with a quiet groan and tosses it into the corner as he works at his belt next.

"I'm a little worried about that look."

"Don't be," he hums leaning over to kiss your forehead, "You know thinking isn't my strong suit. Just takes a lot of effort," he jests and you lift a hand to stroke his cheeks, putting up with the reek of booze and cigarettes for the tender moment. He stands, dropping his pants and kicking them into the corner with the rest of his clothes. He snags his pajama bottoms from the bottom of the bed where he left them yesterday.

"I'm going to go brush my teeth," he hums, leaning over to rub his hand across the blankets to find your calf. You loved that he never seemed to want to stop touching you. "When I come back, what are my chances of, uh, fucking you?" He flashes you a mischievous grin as he gives you heady once over despite not being able to see your body twisted in the heavy blankets.

Your own groggy smile is sent his way as you burrow into your blankets a little more. You should have seen this coming. Nights like this it takes him a while to settle down. It's a good way to work off all the wired energy he carries from the show.

"I'm sleepy," you whine softly, still not a 'no', he knows. Your thighs are being rubbed over the covers.

"I can lick your pussy until you fall asleep if you want." Ahh. He was feeling needy tonight for sure. It's cute.

"Okay," you hum affectionately. His smile melts like honey. It becomes sweet and warm as he untucks one of your feet to momentarily drag it up to his mouth and press a lingering kiss. When the blanket lowers again, he makes sure to tuck you in around your feet and you giggle quietly.

You both know that you're more than willing to groggily participate in his midnight shenanigans.

You must drift off again because it's the bed protesting and shifting as he climbs over the blankets and up to press a minty kiss to your cheek.

You melt when you catch the whiff of his fading deodorant and his natural scent. The one that you'll wake up to in the morning. The smell of sweat and grim and Eddie musk. He props his chin up on your shoulder and wraps you up in a one-armed hug. More so draping across you than actually snuggling you. "You're not getting under the covers?"

"I've got a question for you first," he urges, brushing your hair out of your face.

"What's that?" You reply twisting to lay on your back, to face him beneath the top sheet.

He's quiet for a moment and in the light of streetlights shining through the slotted blinds, you make out the expression that concerned you earlier. "Do..." He hesitates. "Do you want a baby?"

"A baby?" You reply with soft confusion.

"Yeah." He confirms, with his eyes all worried. You watch them dart across his face. The worry on his face scares you. The doubt he's conveying is prickling your chest with hurt.

"You don't want them," you whisper back.

"That's... that's not what I asked." You adjust closer, cupping his face in your hands.

"Eddie, I'm so incredibly happy with you baby. Nothing will ever make me change my mind about wanting to be with you." Eddie's expression morphs into confusion at first before amusement and he gives you an awkward and breathless laugh.

"No, you... you're going the wrong direction, sweetheart." He adjusts more eagerly, leaning down to press a delighted kiss to your mouth. It's a lingering one this time. When he draws back then, fixing you with an affectionate gaze. "I'm... trying to ask... do you want to make a baby?"

Oh. You feel butterflies fill your belly, and your suddenly aware of how his arm had shifted around you and he'd been dragging his hand over your belly. Your breath stutters suddenly.

"Eddie baby, we're on tour for another three months, is now the best timing?"

"Now is perfect timing. We'll probably tour again in the next few years. I'll quit drinking with you." He throws out. You give him a little chuckle, bumping your forehead against his.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" You hum.

"Say the word."

A smile stretches wide across your face. "Put a baby in me, Eddie." He lets out this stuttered little groan. He only allows you to kiss him once before he's climbing out of bed. "What? Where are you going?" You gasp. He flashes you a grin and pulls your purse out of the tiny, tiny closet.

Apparently, that's your only response as he rifles through it. You watch him, letting your legs stretch out below the sheets. "Ah, found it."

He holds up a familiar dial. Your birth control. He makes a show of dropping it into the tiny trash can. You can't help but laugh at the display. "How long does it take to leave your system?" he wonders aloud, far too much energy in him after the long night. But he wastes no further time pulling back the covers and climb into your waiting arms.

"I don't know," you giggle, dragging him close to kiss him. He gives a heady groan against your mouth, slotting against you with a gentleness you didn't expect. It feels nice as he drags the covers up over you both and sinks against your frame.

A familiar stiffness greets you between your legs and you gasp. "Eddie," you laugh around his mouth, "are you already hard?" He leans in to nibble below your ear gently.

"Mhmm," he hums, rocking against you playfully. "Been thinking all night about how you'd look with a kid on your hip and your belly already full again."

All playfulness dries up at that, like once the words were spoken, you were both hungry for it beyond measure. You're dragging his mouth back to yours and squirming to get your pants off as fast as you can. He's adjusting above you, letting you follow his mouth when he crouches and helps drag your pants and panties off you entirely. You wouldn't need them now that your personal space heater was in bed with you.

In moments, Eddie is hiking your thighs up over his suddenly. His fingers twisting into the flesh with only enough pleasure to showcase his desperate love for you, not to hurt you. There was a delicacy that he'd rarely used during sex.

You'd asked him about it once only to be knocked breathless by his explanation. Sprawled out on his chest the night he proposed, after some of the sweetest sex you'd ever had in your life, he was smoking a cigarette and playing with your hair. "Sometimes," he hums, "I just... love you so much my heart feels like it's about to explode. And so, I try to be careful not to hurt you because... I just want to be a part of you so bad."

You help him, breaking away momentarily, curling your legs up and apart to give him access to as much as he wanted despite the chill of the bus's air. Eddie is always a lovely sight; it still sends a thrill through you as he shoves his boxers and pajamas down his thighs and springs into the low light. "Eddie," you murmur, giving him your best come hither eyes.

He murmurs your name back as he angles his hips closer to you. You give a gasp when he parts your folds on the head of his cock, rocking through your parted labia to nudge your clit. "Shit, your so wet already," he mutters out, "Bet- uhn - Bet I could slide right in."

"Want it," you profess. His eyes snap to yours and he's lining up with you. Before he pushes himself inside, he hooks you knees over his shoulders, leaning down to rest his forehead back against your head. The position strains your hips, but you don't have to think about it very long.

"What is it you want?" He whispers and you see the blanat need in his eyes. You pant below him, eyes filling with desperate tears already.

"Your cock... and your baby."

He's a goner, his mouth devouring you as he thrusts forward and meets your end. You both gasp together. It makes him slow for just a moment.

"Holy shit," he breathes out before diving his tongue into yours. And then he's fucking you slowly. His cock sinks into you before he drags it back out.

"Oh, Eddie," you whimper, tears springing to your eyes at the delicious stretch he's giving you. "Hope the baby has your eyes," you manage to choke out.

It kind of hurts when his skull thumps into yours and he's back to looking in your eyes. "Don't..." he whispers, "I'm trying to hold back." He's concentrating so hard, strangely quiet for him. His normal babble faded into his soft grunts.

"Don't hold back then." He smacks a hand over your mouth and you know you'll regret this in the morning. That was always his tell that he was about to wreck your pussy, (sometimes your ass). In attempt to keep the noise at bay, on the nights where everyone was in the bus as well.

"Shit," he grunts when you tighten around him with anticipation, and then his hips start. The first few thrusts he stutters through but then his hips find their rhythm and your eyes roll. A violent moan rips its way up, only to be muffled by your husband. "No, baby, you gotta look at me. Gotta. Please, fuuuck." His moans are becoming whimpers.

It takes you a few attempts to look at him, especially when he so expertly found your g-spot and was wrecking it. Tears began to spill over your cheeks, smearing on his hand.

"Oh, god, you're gonna look so good. The hottest fucking mom at the fuckin' PTA." You hate when he makes you laugh during sex, especially when it feels so good. Only Eddie seems to be able to make you cry, laugh, and nearly cum all at once. All you can do is tunnel you fingers in his hair and hold on for dear life.

"Fuck, I'm gonna fill you up every chance I get. Get something to hold it in." You let out a muffled wail at that and he groans deeply. "-Just add more cum every time. Will you let me, baby?" His own brown eyes are glassy, desperate. You nod frantically in reply around his frantic thrusts.

Your hair is going to be a wreck.

You're getting close already, he can feel it in the quaking of your cunt. The bed shrieking in protest, the walls are thin. Your certain all of his bandmates are burying their head in their pillows to try to get some shut eye, ignoring the wicked creaking of the plywood bedframe.

He has you pinned to your mattress, and you have nowhere to go. It's overwhelming and suffocating all at once as he drives his hips into yours, nailing the head of his cock against the soft spongy spot within you. You're subjected to the involuntary squeeze of your cunt. There's no way to warn your husband about what's about to happen as he shudders out a groan.

"Stay with me, baby," he coos. "Make me a real daddy, let me breed your pretty fucking pussy."

The straw that breaks the camel's back has you wailing against his hand. He gasps as you soak him and it milks him for all he's worth. It nearly hurts how deep he jams himself, crushing his pelvis into yours and grinding himself inside you as he cums.

Finally, he drops his hand from your face, and you drag in a deep breath before letting out a sob. When his panic hits his face it only lasts a moment before he relaxes, eased by the sight of your giddy grin coated with tears. He drops his forehead against yours as you both pant. He's still plugging you with his twitching cock. You both tremble together in silence for a few minutes. Eddie just sinks against your over time.

"I really thought I was going to have to convince you about the baby thing," he mumbles against your cheek.

"Why?" You hum back, eyes settled closed.

"Cause you never like my sudden whims."

"I love your sudden whims," you argue, a pout forming on your face and a chuckle breezes you with minty breath. "Just not the ones that hurt you. You were very charismatic with your argument."

"Oh, how very bard of me," he murmurs and begins to brush your hair away from your face. "I never believed that I would score an elven princess but, damn, I rolled a nat-twenty." You snort in deblief at how dorky that sounded, warm giggles rising up your belly.

"I love you, you dork."

"Love you, too but what are we going to name it?"

"What do you want to name it? It sounds like you've already thought of a name." Eddie bursts into breathy giggles.

"Maybe a little, yeah." He's giddy glowing at you. Warming you with his smile. He lifts himself up, pawing across you as if he can't stop touching you. "If it's girl," he lifts your hand pressing sloppy kisses to the back and looking up at you through his eyelashes, "Axel."

You try to keep your giggles quiet. "Axel?"

"Or Arwen." You roll your eyes playfully.

"And... if its a boy?"

"If its a boy," he flashes you a grin, "I was thinking, Aragorn or Kas."

"We are not naming our son after your dungeons and dragons' character!"

"Ozzy?" He chirps hopefully.

"If I say 'yes' will you let me go back to sleep?"

"If you say 'yes' I'll marry you," he teases, "you know, like, a second time."

"Eddie," you kiss him, "the baby only grows if I'm sleeping." Your husband gives you a dramatic gasp.

"Then, my fair lady, you must rest."

"Good night, my charming husband."

"Sweet dreams, my darling wife."

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 101 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: I'm not sure (how poetic for this episode), I think I listened to it randomly on the couch because I wanted to know what happened to Jon

ORSINOV: "Is it… your Elias who listens?" Is this the first time a character has brought up the topic of what the tapes are and/or who is listening? I think so. Jon talks about this with Tim, but that doesn't happen for another few episodes.

ORSINOV: "Oh, don’t worry, it’s not for you. You won’t even need a coffin – we’re going to use every piece of you." JON: [MUFFLED EXCLAMATION] You can totally hear how he says "of me?". As far as I know this "effect" was achieved by Jonny just shoving his fist in his mouth, right? xD

I love the eerie song in the background. Is it the skinless choir? (Okay, because I'm constantly complaining about British locations and their pronounciation, it's only fair to bring this up as well: Who the hell did decide how to pronounce choir???)

ORSINOV: "Oh, of course! So, Elias, can I call you Elias?" It feels like everybody knows about Elias and it's some unspoken law not to openly talk about it because it's so much funnier that way.

ORSINOV: "You know, I must say Elias, can I call you Elias? You have not raised this one very well." This is also a clue. Because "this one" implies there were other Archivists he raised. But Jon's predecessor was Gertrude and she started out in the Archives around 1965 (MAG 4). We know from MAG 49 that Elias only joined the Institute in 1991 and was promoted to Head of the Institute in 1996. He did not "raise" Gertrude. Or should I say, "Elias" did not raise Gertrude.

ORSINOV: "He is rude. And he just will not stop asking questions. Ooh, but now, I can ask the questions! How are you feeling?" JON: [MUFFLED FEELINGS] First of all, muffled feelings is hilarious. Second, the PG-13 version would say "not good", but I think it's "fuck you" XD

ORSINOV: "So, I thought, out with the old, in with… well, in with the you!" JON: [PADDED PANICKY PROSTESTATIONS] You can totally hear he's calling out for Elias.

ORSINOV: "Oh, no, I’m afraid he can’t See you, can you Elias, can I call you Elias? What’s the point of having a secret place of power if you can’t hide it from a big, stupid eye?" Confirmation of what Elias said in MAG 92 to be true. The Stranger is antithetical to the Eye. I Do Not Know You. It's about not-knowing (unknowing, hehe) and hiding. I wonder if Elias was a bit concerned about the development of Jon being with the Circus. I mean he needed a Stranger mark, but maybe Not!Sasha did already count for that? There was nothing he could do to intervene here though.

I hear a last "fuck..." from Jon there after Orsinov leaves.

MICHAEL: "I’ve come to a decision, Archivist. I’m going to kill you." JON: [FRUSTRATED GROAN] I think at this point, after being a month with the Circus and they haven't killed him yet. After Daisy, Mike and Jude. After Not!Sasha, after Prentiss... Jon is actually a bit tired of death threats.

MICHAEL: "Before I do, however, I want you to understand… even if it does go against my nature. So." All of this is against its nature! Giving answers and most of all, putting itself in a clear position. The clear position of the antagonist. That is not how the Spiral works, it takes away what makes you question yourself.

MICHAEL: "Quiet, Archivist. The cramped casket sings loud, but not loud enough to drown out screaming." Ohhh, now I get the rain soundeffect from the beginning of the scene! That is actually sooo clever, I fucking love these little details that make everything work!

So many of these monsters and avatars are out to get revenge. Revenge against Gertrude, who did those things to them. But Gertrude isn't around anymore and they settle for revenge against the Archivist, even if Jon never had anything to do with it. But they don't care. They probably don't even see that. What's the difference between this Archivist and the last one? Archivist is Archivist and will act like an Archivist. Hereditary sin, as Christians call it. The believe that Adam and Eve passed down their sinful nature to all humankind. It's blaming individuals for wrongfulness committed by their ancestors. It's fucking stupid. But, it's something that is deeply embedded in European cultures with Christian backgrounds...

MICHAEL: "Michael Shelley, though, he is easier to keep track of. He was born. He was pointless." And he was 92 years old at every point in canon xD

Zemlya Sannikova, The Land of Sannikov... is a Soviet 1974 adventure film about the fictional Sannikov Land loosely based on the 1924 novel of the same name by Vladimir Obruchev. (yeah, I copied that from Wikipedia)... This is hilarious!

MICHAEL: "Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature? When it embodies its nature?" Oh yeah, gimme more of these philosophical shit, I love it!

MICHAEL: "The mind does not shatter, Archivist. It is soft and malleable. It bends and twists and returns to what it was, though what you see and feel may leave their mark upon it." YES, this is what I'm talking about.

MICHAEL: "And yet it was a map. A map to me. It made no sense, lines overlapping and inverting, but once within, Michael knew which turns to make, which doors to open, which mirrors to shatter." I think this map is less an item of direction as it is an item to stay on the path, to have a clear goal, something to focus on. It could be an artefact to cancel out a specific Fear, like the old syringe in MAG 45 or the camera with the broken lens.

The voice acting of the statement is phenomenal. 

JON: [Defeated] "Okay." T___T 

I love this scene so much. Jon chose to die here. He chose to die and that decision was denied to him. I will bring this up in MAG 121 again^^ 

Don't forget to turn down the volume right after "Oh. Oh no."

HELEN: "I don’t know. I never know, not really." NOT REALLY!

JON: "No, not, not really, but…" NOT REALLY!

@a-mag-a-day