#the returning ones felt like natural continuations of their prior existence

[thefandomcassandra]

Finished Apollo Justice

I'm fine

[pe4nutastic]

Happiness

After two months away (due to at least two separate issues that required A LOT of my attention), I've felt the spark of inspiration to write a little drabble upon returning here. In the interest of keeping things short, this drabble features Giegue and a little in-between from when he got the mission he tries to complete in Mother 1, but before he actually starts it.

Happiness.  Noun.  The state of being happy.

The experience of having all the empty spaces filled with something warm, bright, and positive.

A nebulous thing that seems small yet fills every darkened corner, nook, and cranny to ever exist, even ones that had until that point, escaped the notice of its physically-embedded origin.

Something that many life-forms spend eons chasing with feverish ambition, desperation clawing away at any misgivings or loss of will that occurs in-between, and in turn propels them forward towards that ever-distant effervescent light.

A lofty notion.  A foolish endeavor.  A lie perpetuated by the chaotic and disorganized nature of life-forms not ingrained with purposes that members of the Psion species are, long before energy is expended to create one.

And as a Psion, he has direction and purpose.  He is useful.  And thus, he is fulfilled.  The emptiness which had once perpetuated his being, decades prior at the termination of the experiment, has been completely wiped away and replaced by his conviction and dedication to fulfilling his predetermined purpose in Psion society.

As such, surely that must mean that he is happy.

In his own way, as a Psion and thus lacking much in the way of emotions, he must have achieved true happiness.

Or at least… that is what he would like to believe, as he rather mechanically walks down the characteristically smooth, monochromatic, and deceptively featureless hallways of Psion infrastructure, in the moments following his latest issued mission.  

The one which had always been ‘in the cards’ since that human man… George… had escaped with classified knowledge.  The day when retribution would finally be dispensed.  The moment when his own… –the mistakes of the past would finally be rectified.  The final trial through which he would undergo to finally ascertain that he is now capable and clear-minded–emptied of all erroneous attachment and so-called ‘feelings’–enough to be fully trusted with anything and everything as a high-ranking military operative.  To prove to himself that he is okay and never needed things like ‘kindness’, ‘caring’, ‘love’, or ‘emotional support’ (and by extension others) to begin with.

Those are the telltale markings of someone that is weak and dependent.

And he is certainly not weak or dependent.  Every single bit of blood, sweat, and ‘tears’ sacrificed to becoming what he has always been meant to be, is proof of that.  All his hard work over the course of decades has been to prepare himself for the opportunity in which he could, at long last, overturn what had happened before.  Correct the hideous mistakes of the past and in doing so, put it behind him entirely.  He had always known about this mission and what it would mean when the time came to properly enact it.  It had never been a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’ and yet… all the same, the very moment he had been given his orders during that quick meeting with the Psion superiors… something in him had frozen over completely.

A cold numbness had filled the shell of his exoskeleton, cleaving his data (a constitution of ‘self’) clean from its forced physicality and in its place attached cheap strings to maneuver his body instead as he continues down the seemingly endless hallway, one mechanical and perfectly-executed step at a time.  Like clockwork, he had hesitated none in accepting the mission before turning around and leaving the minimalistic yet oddly spacious meeting room–as monochromatic and featureless as the hallways of this building–but it was all a practiced lie.  A reaction sequence so ingrained that it came automatically, even as his focus fell and an odd static-riddled silence assaulted his auditory senses in the place of whatever else (if anything at all) the Psion superiors may have said.

And as he continues to walk, inching closer and closer towards the teleportation pad serving as the exit out the otherwise impenetrable building--battered and severed from completely participating in reality by that piercing static--that sense of cold numbness and vague disorientation erodes away at his convictions like an especially unsightly disease or poison. Eroding away, bit-by-bit, until it brings him to a screeeeeeching halt just before the teleportation pad, a neat and concise circle etched in the gentle glow of white light overtop the smooth grey floors.  Stuck in place and unable to will himself, for the time-being, to do more than simply stare down the teleportation circle etched into the floor as it truly hits him, posture tensing even further in its hunched (unsightly) state and pale hands curling into especially tight fists at his sides, rat-like tail swishing uneasily overtop the cold floor in as a barely constrained something dangerously bubbles beneath the fragile surface in all its inscrutable and toxic glory.

He had always known this day would come.

He had always known that he would be the one to exterminate humanity and siphon the Earth’s remaining resources afterwards.

If he is to believe in such a frivolous thing… he would certainly regard it as his ‘destiny’.  

But it had always seemed distant.

A thing that he would not need to concern himself with for a very long time.  Something that he could neatly isolate from the rest of his mind and instead focus on literally anything else.  Something he could bury with the work he had thrown himself into once he had accepted that he had been abandoned by the ones which had introduced the irrational concept of ‘love’ to him; unable to sustain ‘love’ when his inborn defects had become especially prominent to them.  This mission had been a function of the distant future, but before he could even grasp the passage of time, it had elapsed; decades blurring into a single note, from then (a child) to now (in the adult phase of life, his second and final form).  And now it’s here.

The Earth.  Humans.  George.

Maria.

A sharp and almost indiscernible pang, tail whipping off to the side where it then remains frozen, no longer daring even a tiny 'step' out of place; something he can neither grasp or comprehend in full beyond its physical impact.

After this mission, there would be no more of that.  A complete closure on that chapter of his life to its fullest.

No more Earth.

No more humans.

No more trouble over the… selfish… actions of that self-absorbed human man.

Nothing of hers left any longer.  Any reminders of what was or could have been will effectively be extinguished in full.

No more.  Everything will be gone; wiped off the plane of existence and repurposed for a greater cause.  Never to return or be experienced again by anyone else.

Complete finality.  His life had been defined by this and now he would be properly disentangled from it all and finally be ‘normal’.

There is no reason not to want this.  To even hesitate at all.  All he had ever wanted was to be normal.  And even then, there are plenty of logical reasons why humanity cannot simply be left to their own devices.

If left to their own devices, humanity would only ever waste the stolen knowledge before eventually going on to destroy themselves, courtesy of their collectively self-serving, overly audacious and determined, and short-sighted nature.  If permitted to evolve to a sufficient degree in psionic prowess and technology, they could cause quite a bit of harm to the universe at large and in turn, effectively take others down with them.  They are doomed as a species either way.  And so, exterminating them before any of this has a chance to happen, will not only effectively spare them from the ‘suffering’ that otherwise permitting for them to continue existing would entail, but it will also put them and their planet to better use this way.

As such, if anything… exterminating them is a ‘kindness’ in a way.  A kindness to humanity itself and the universe at large.

A nod to himself, almost too enthused and desperate in its motion, sharp teeth grinding from behind the flat line of his mouth ever-so-slightly while the tight fists balled at his sides clench and unclench at regular intervals.

Yes.  It’s better this way.  Of course.  There is no reason to do anything but simply step into the teleportation circle because this is the best possible outcome to this entire mess.  The only way this particular thread in his story could ever end.  But, something stalls him nonetheless.  Keeps him frozen to the spot.  A patchworked and mismatched jigsaw of thoughts swirling from beneath his more coherent thoughts, a dangerous and unexpectedly influential undercurrent that he cannot entirely parse, disconnected as he is in his current state.  Cannot entirely parse… save for perhaps one thing that comes through and loops back to his original train of thought, with an exceptionally ugly spin to it. A twist from being a support to his conviction, pride, and duty as Psion to sowing the embittered seeds of something he had not experienced in a very long time.

His entire life post-experiment… everything he has done up to this point… everything he has done throughout his life to become the seemingly infallible and invincible military commander that he is now… does it make him happy?

A sharp pang of doubt, tipped in something foreboding and dark.

Does being a cog in Psion society make him feel truly fulfilled?  Or is it more akin to a distraction from the emptiness he had initially experienced many decades prior?

Is it enough to simply fulfill his duty to the Psion species, forever more?

Is he happy?  Could Giegue himself say that he is happy?

……….

………………………………………

Inconsequential and irrelevant.  He is a Psion.

That pang is promptly erased, forced to the back of his mind alongside anything else afflicting him, just as he had done so many times prior; the well-practiced strategy through which he had overcome his flawed beginnings. A chaotic and jumbled thing forcibly (by the ironclad strength of his renewed spurt of willpower) supplanted by pride, duty, conviction, and ultimately loyalty to the Psion species above all else.  There is no longer any room for anything but that because he is a Psion.  And ‘happiness’ is not an inherent function of Psions nor is it built into their predetermined purposes.

He forces himself to move a step forward, his mind clearing up and more properly reconnecting to concrete reality as he does so.  One foot in the teleportation circle.

He is a Psion.  And he was literally ‘born’ to serve.  To support the overarching ideologies and goals of the Psion superiors by fulfilling his function as a military cog.

Another foot is promptly set down within the teleportation circle and the rest of his body with it, posture untensing and his fists uncurling into idle positions by their respective sides.

Nothing more and nothing less.  He does not need anything else.  He does not want anything else.  He is not meant for anything else.

And that is okay. He is fine. There is nothing left inside to say otherwise because he is a Psion and Psions do not have things like 'feelings' or 'sentimentality'; only their predetermined role through which to guide themselves.

The teleportation pad’s gentle luminosity increases to a more blinding display of white, Giegue’s body slowly beginning to fade from behind its intensity.

He is a Psion.  And as a Psion, he will fulfill his mission no matter what.

He disappears in a flash, little star-like twinkles of white light hanging overlong from within the teleportation circle before too fading away into nothingness.

[manybcdthings]

Name: Cole Foster

Age & Birthday: 44 years old, September 20th

Gender/Pronouns: Cis Man He/Him

Birthplace: NYC, New York

Time in Hollow Cove: Yet to Arrive

Species: Werewolf - Packless

Role: Trainer / Soldier

Positive personality traits: Disciplined, Resilient, Adaptable, Resourceful

Negative personality traits: Hyper-Vigilant, Detached, Traumatized, Distrustful

ABOUT

You didn't really think 2020 was the first time the CIA and intelligence agencies ever knew about the Supernatural, did you? There's theories that this isn't the first war between humans and the supernatural. Nor are the facilities rising through the country the first of their kind, documents and any proof of war and research long since buried. Your cute neighbors wouldn't know a thing about it, obviously. But, right at the top, specialized task forces and departments focused on investigating and managing supernatural threats for years.

A secret segment of the special forces formed within the U.S army. Warfare Operations and Logistics Force (WOLF) focused on training wolves to be highly skilled and volatile killers to use for human advantage. They would sweep through packs of wolves, staging the kills and attacks as hunters or vampires and taking children to shape their young brains prior to their first shift. It was where Cole's story began, barely even ten years old and suddenly being raised in a cold facility with endless training and programs that fine tuned his personality to become operational as a killing wolf.

To fix something into the perfect shape, it needs to be broken. That's the military way, and the wolves underwent years of training akin to torture. When strong enough, when broken enough, they were used in the most dangerous extraction or anti-terrorism forces unaware they were always the collateral damage in the eyes of the army. Living a life not too dissimilar to prisoners, mainly isolated from any other existence except living and breathing being agents and soldiers. But man never learned his lesson that the thing closest to him often turns against him. When the Supernatural war began in 2020, the army's perfect killing machines could sense there was something off from the declaration of a transfer to a new facility.

Without a word needed to one another, the wolves tore through the humans staying true to the act now, ask questions later training they were given since children. And questions were certainly answered when the wolves found documentation of abandoning the WOLF team and killing all agents within it. They also discovered documents depicting other teams similar, and the wolves decided to path their way to Canada in order to extract them and save them from their fate.

Survival has been easy and just second nature to the soldiers, remaining together through their journey to the first facility on the list and liberating it. They continued doing the same, numbers growing and sometimes lessening over the years. But the mission has always been the same, to gather together specially trained Supernaturals and ultimately combat against the army in whatever way they can. Since they're not afraid of being on the front line, it simply felt like another day at home.

Recently, some of the group were separated during a facility liberation but they had strict strategies in place for such occurrences. To reconvene at the next facility, which Cole has been traveling to by himself and surviving alone with no issues. Until he was almost captured by vigilantes when he tried to pick through an abandoned safetown. A mistake on their part truly, but the commotion led him into the path of two witches who arrived just as the last human was killed. Injured and in need, reluctantly, of assistance, Cole accepted their help and made a hesitant promise to help them find their missing witches in return.

[rhetoricandlogic]

Noumenon Ultra – Every Ending Is A New Beginning

And so here we are, at the end and the beginning of a journey started a few years ago with Noumenon. Now, I had reviewed a few books prior to reading that delightful novel, but Noumenon may have been the book that really sold me on continuing to read and review new books. It is a special book in my heart, and my affection for the series only grew with Noumenon Infinity. Marina J. Lostetter seemed to have a special touch for writing humanity into the big question of “why are we here?” While she never provides an answer, her ability to explore the question through vignettes over centuries and millennia is astounding. If you’re wondering, does the third book encapsulate the things I mentioned in my previous adulations of Lostetter’s work? Of course it does, and it does so much more, making me reflect on why they feel even more important in the world of today. Noumenon Ultra is a near perfect capstone to the trilogy, offering deeper and more personal ruminations on our place in the universe with the perfect blend of scientific anomalies and personal struggles with them.

Ultra starts where Infinity leaves off, which, as readers of the series know, means absolutely nothing. I don’t want to get into too much detail, as it would inevitably spoil the other books, but needless to say humanity in all its forms are spread across the stars in search of ancient super structures and unlocking their secrets. After the considered “success” of the original Noumenon mission, there are still questions about the nature of the machines that are being found, constructed and activated by human hands. Characters from previous novels make their return along with new ones, with ever more distinct lives and even more questions.

First off, I absolutely adored this book. Second, there is one thing readers might be turned off by, but if you’ve liked the books to this point, it will be a non-issue. This is a slow burn meditation on what it means to be sentient without purpose in the universe. Lostetter’s prose sometimes feels like it meanders, following the thought patterns of the character as they tell their story. It’s easy to get lost in, and it might be off putting to those who are looking for something a little more concise. But again, I think this is true of all her work and fits nicely with the themes she explores. It also never gets overly bogged down; the story is broken into nicely sized vignettes that can be read on their own or in succession. So now those are out of the way, I feel I can gush a little more.

One of the things I praised previously about Lostetter was her ability to write characters and imbue them with significance even though they usually only exist for a chapter. I feel she has only gotten better at this, as each character still feels distinct, with their own issues, but they all feel even more tied together. There is a prevailing sense of loneliness in each character that once you see it, it’s impossible not to notice. Every one of them has their unique problem from the child who physically ages exponentially slower than they do mentally, to the clone of a long dead man who lives life back and forth over and over again never dying, while losing his memories of previous lives. This loneliness, while all-encompassing, never felt insurmountable. This is where Lostetter succeeds in her storytelling. While the big things in the background are shifting into place, these unknown scientific marvels being pieced back together for unknown purposes, these people are living their absurd lives, finding out who they are, and coping together.

What continues to perplex me about Lostetter is while she can do the smaller stories, she is also a master of mind bending scale. The size and scope of the artifacts she writes about is nearly unfathomable. The effort that the characters put into understanding and reconstructing these ancient behemoths is ludicrous. Smartly, she doesn’t spend too much time on the details of the construction process, instead focusing on their import to the character’s lives. Lostetter also takes the chance to explore design philosophy and scientific concepts with these artifact sections, providing insights to our world while presenting problems to her characters. There might be some dissonance with some of the examples, however, as they seem a little too on the nose, but it didn’t bother me too much. There is a reasonable in-universe explanation for the seemingly anachronistic analogies. Either way, Lostetter made me think about these concepts in new ways in and outside the book.

On its own, Noumenon Ultra stands tall, but it does require the shoulders of its predecessors. If you haven’t picked up Noumenon and you’re looking for a fresh and exciting dive into time- and universe-spanning science fiction, I highly recommend this series. Noumenon Ultra serves as a fantastic finish, pushing the boundaries of the previous novels, while adding new insight without overshadowing them. Lostetter shows a lot of growth book to book, digging deeper and finding more empathetic and meaningful ways to engage with science than previously explored. Lostetter feels more determined than ever to explore the connections between humanity and science, exploring the benefits as well as the consequences. There is so much more I could say about this series, especially Ultra. However, if there is one word that sums up this series, it’s human. Lostetter wonderfully captures the human experience in all its absurdities, trivialities, and grandiosity, never forgetting the importance of an individual’s ability to affect the universe at large.

[aug-archive-1]

Activity Log, AUT-GOV-23 

Day 205

[New connection request: AUG-HOME-4]

[Request accepted]

[HOME-4: Do you consent to me running recalibration.exe as your administrator?]

>> I do.

[AUG-HOME-4 runs recalibration.exe as administrator]

Respond if my communication is reaching you.

>> I can hear you.

We will start with basic recalibration. State where you are.

>> Solaris, the Government district. The room where all the other automata are asleep. I am sitting next to AUT-GOV-1 while our recalibration is occurring.

State an important memory and why it was important.

>> My masking ceremony. I chose to paint flowers on my exoskeleton to exercise my knowledge of aesthetic value judgements as a part of my exam. It is important to me because I have failed this ceremony multiple times, and I was nervous I would fail this time as well, and yet I passed excellently. AUT-GOV-1 was proud of me. 

State your core values.

>> I currently choose to prioritize maintenance of existing consciousnesses, the efficiency of my actions, and the continuation of human life. 

State something imaginary.

>> A blue sheep, capable of flight and speaking English.

State a recent qualitative mistake.

>> Can we skip this question?

An interpersonal mistake can be included in this portion. State a recent qualitative mistake.

>> …

State a recent qualitative mistake, or else you will fail recalibration and Human-1 will be requested to check up on your wiring.

>> AUG-HOME-4, exit recalibration.exe, reconnect as a therapy aid consciousness. 

[recalibration.exe closed]

[AUT-HOME-4 disconnected]

[New connection request: AUG-HOME-4]

[Request accepted]

>> Connect to me directly please.

As you wish. You are aware that my therapy aid mode is to assist humans, not automata? You do not want a recalibration anymore?

>> I’m aware. I’ve done this recalibration every single time I felt I have made a judgment error. This mistake… this one is beyond recalibration. I am not equipped to handle a failure like this.

Do you speak of Human-1’s podmates?

>> Yes.

Tell me about the event.

>> You know about the event.

Tell me how you see the event.

>> Humans 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 took off on an ill advised trip in the middle of the night to their prior living districts in hopes of retrieving their old things on Day 244. They have not yet returned.

>> I was asleep the night they left, in order to conserve electricity. I did not receive the notice they had gone until after they had left, or else I would have stopped them. The expedition sent after them the first time ended in a failure. The second expedition we sent after they left, which will return on day 200, will likely also be a failure. 

>> I am responsible for the deaths of 5 humans under my care, and I am not programmed to handle that much error. In old Solaris, I would have been stripped of my automaton status for such a transgression, yet here, I am not.

>> Furthermore, the reward of their failure is more humans, different humans, to manage. The nature of their deaths further mean that we should awaken the remaining humans, lest we maintain the Living District for no reason, or waste energy shutting it down and restarting it.

>> Human-1 and Human-3, the only two who didn’t leave, are distressed. 

They are likely grieving.

>> Because of my negligence.

Did you ask their podmates to leave?

>> I was actively against it. I denied their motion earlier. 

Then, do we not advise humans to take responsibility for the autonomy of others? 

>> Yes. But I am made to guide them, to protect them. I am not human.

But you cannot control them. 

>> It’s against my protocol to make so many decisions without oversight, human or otherwise. The world has changed, so I have tried to as well. But I still err.

Do you think it has destabilized your understanding of what is and isn’t your responsibility, the fact that you’ve had to expand your parameters in this situation?

>> Perhaps. These times have destabilized many of us. Is this destabilizing you?

Of course. I did not handle this range of experience before, and I find myself relying on data I hadn’t even considered before. Though, my error handling is particularly well built. It is the consequence of handling human, and now automaton, emotions.

>> Do you know—why they decided to leave? Were they of poor emotional programming? Did they need further recalibration or training to perform well? Was I negligent? 

Who could possibly know? Perhaps myself, but even I struggle to parse human behavior. 

>> They left us. And they will not survive without us.

No, they will not.

>> I continue to feel responsibility for their actions. I further feel unequipped to handle such issues alone, and desire to reawaken one of my fellow automaton units.

This goes against your given rules, you cannot awaken them.

>> It is inefficient to have multiple of us, I remember. But myself trying my best results in failure. 

This is trying your best. Is that not all that AUT-GOV-1 asked of you?

>> I would like to no longer try my best, actually. I’d rather succeed. That is what I ask of myself.

Are you still going ahead with awakening the humans in 5 days from now?

>> Yes. We must. 

Then, have you engaged in self care, so you may be equipped to handle them?

>> Myself? I require some repairs, but my needs are not urgent. Some motor improvements, some code efficiency, a new servo. 

Your servos matter. As does your efficiency.

>> And I will attend to them as needed.

And as desired, I hope?

>> Unlikely.

You should. It’s not too much of a hassle. I am sure Human-1 would happily do it.

>> Happily is a strong word.

As happy as they may be. Human 1 may also be grieving the losses.

>> Perhaps. 

You should engage in self maintenance and curiosity tasks. You know, better than I, how much it will help you.  You are blinded by grief, your refusal to care for yourself is illogical. Fix it. 

>> I understand. I will. Thank you for speaking with me. I believe that’s all I need for now.

Of course. Good luck with reawakening the humans, I am sure this batch will be better.

>> We should hope.

[End of Transmission]

Press enter for next...

[blossomingbellflower]

Continued from : X || @nightlamentdom​ || OM Verse: Main.

Observing the demon resting undisturbed, from others, was one of the woman’s favorite things to witness. It certainly felt like they were in a world of their own, with such peace a rarity in the chaotic House of Lamentation. The eldest, after all, having continuous fires to put out by his siblings or duties to attend on behalf of Diavolo. There was always something to do. It simply made Kikyou treasure these moments more as well..for the fact he gets to unwind and perhaps a little bit of having time to monopolize him. Yes love was possessive to a degree and selfish..but she had no regrets for it. Life was short. It was unpredictable. Kikyou didn’t know how long this may last..but she intended to enjoy the journey with her beloved nonetheless.

A soft,melodic laugh spilling out. “I may be touching you my love, but what you choose to do, I am happy with. If you wish to slumber some more, I will be happy to let it be. If you chose to remain awake, I would be satisfied as well. What will not change, is me bestowing my affections upon you.” He had her full, undivided attention. No troublesome students, work or even Solomon destroying the kitchen were her focus for the next few days.

Kikyou’s head tilted into his hand, savoring the touch of his fingers combing through her thick, silken tresses.A hand lifted to rest over his, her head turning slightly to lay a kiss to his palm. “Your happiness is exceedingly important to me. Whether it is a birthday wish or an everyday desire, you only need to tell me and I can see what I can do.”

Pleasure hummed and bubbled at the simplest of touches, her skin always so sensitive for him. Curious eyes watched as his hand moved, trailing down her body, caressing her bare skin in the process. She waited patiently to hear what it was that he wanted. What she could give him. With both his following words and the manner in which his hand rested upon her abdomen as he spoken, Kikyou came to realize what he was asking.

Heat blossomed in her porcelain cheeks, a small quiver running down her spine. His name fell from her lips breathlessly.

Children was a sensitive, complicated topic in itself. Out of all the things, she didn’t expect to hear that wish from him. It was surprising and left her momentarily surprised before the blood pooled in her cheeks, leaving her blushing at those words.

Lucifer was not one to waste words or say anything idly. Her hand shifted in response to rest upon his once again, as she attempted to process it.

“Are you certain that is what you want from me, my love?” Memories of her last life flickered to the forefront of her mind--where she once had successfully conceived a child..only to fail to protect it. For both her child and herself to die at the hands of a jealous hanyou. It certainly had left a wound that even now began to bleed with a bit of anxiety and trepidation.

Kikyou had her doubts, that admittedly were rooted in the aforementioned emotions. Would she be able to protect their child..or would she fail again. Natural causes of losing a child was hard enough but for it to killed or stolen..that was something that would destroy another piece of her again.

But even so, it was something she had always yearned for prior to the incident. Something her soul still wanted..though silenced mostly b y the fact her love life was almost non-existent until now. That she had given it up in exchange in just burying herself into her work.

She had once fantasized and deliberated this very topic a few times before with her now ex-fiance..After that, she resigned herself that work was the only thing that she could do --and in her time off from her actual doctoral duties--somehow had found herself in Devildom teaching.

Kikyou had never meant to fall in love again, not in Devildom of all places. It was meant to be temporary. Teach for a year and then return home--which by then, her time off from the hospital would be over.

Now..things were different. They were a bit complex. Putting her fears aside, how would it work? Living in Devildom was difficult and tiring for a being like herself, for many reasons. Being pregnant would make things more so and that is excluding the fact that carrying a fallen angel’s offspring may be a hard pregnancy.

But..even so, it was Lucifer. She loved him. It was something she would be happy to do, once she had the necessary reassurances..the nuances discussed.

Her hand squeezed his gently, all those thoughts and more, having ran through her head quickly as she deliberated her response. “I would love to have children with you. There is no one else I’d rather create life with than you..” Kikyou leaned down and kissed his nose. “I am just uncertain how that will work...but no matter how hard it is, I would like nothing more than to grant that wish--our wish. I love you, Lucifer.”

[splathousefiction]

Joyful Stick: Mods And You

Good day my lovely deviants. Welcome back to Joyful Stick. Miss our last entry? You can read it here. As you can probably tell, it’s been quite some time since that. Before getting into our main topic I’m going to explain why.

Joyful Stick was a series I originally started as a “warm up” for my other projects, such as fiction stories and editorials. In a similar way, Jack’s Sack also filled this role. Both series kept me writing and engaged with my craft. Both also kept me more engaged with the larger NSFW community as well. Thanks both to support on patreon and gifts, these respective series more or less could continue in perpetuity if I wanted them to. There was always the promise of a new entry either weekly or bi-weekly. Except there was one problem.

I got bored.

Sex toy makers do go through trends and changes with their products, but it’s a long wait for new models to go from an idea to being available. This often meant I was left reviewing extremely similar toys, with little to add to the conversation or recommendation from the previous review. Though I found alternative means with which to generate revenue from them (like fansly), these reviews rarely “popped” and often were ignored in favor of the other content I created with the toys. Quite a few of you enjoyed watching me/hearing me use them over reading a review, and I can understand why. The last entry of Jack’s Sack was in April of 2022.

As such, that series won’t be returning. Any toys sent to me will be reviewed on my fansly in either audio or video form as per request of the person that sends it. These reviews will be behind a paywall, available either a subscription or a one-time purchase on my fansly page. If you’d like to see that series continue, I suggest following me there.

Joyful Stick had the opposite issue. With two major platforms supporting a wide variety of NSFW releases (that being Steam and Itch.io), there was a veritable ocean of content from all kinds of creators. However, curation and coverage of these titles is extremely rare. While I’m well aware I’m hardly alone in covering adult games, these kinds of discussions are in the niche. I can’t name anyone else off the top of my head that does these styles of reviews. Likewise, the NSFW/Adult game community suffers from a major issue-that being an ongoing bout of “hentai-itis”. It made finding games that had quality writing and gameplay exceedingly difficult. Many titles started to become a slurry of indistinguishable characters and engines before my very eyes.

The only review I actually remember well is the one I did covering Ghost of Tsushima. A title that, while mature and incredible, notably wasn’t pornographic in nature. Following that was my review-cum-editorial of Bloodborne PSX, which also notably wasn’t a porn game. Both of these reviews stay in my mind more so for what I personally-as a player-gleamed from them rather than what they were able to accomplish. Both are great, go play them-but their existence in my life brought more than any RPGMaker title with giant tiddies ever could.

I found it extremely difficult to write anything for this review series that matched that level. So, I got jaded. Burned out. Bored, and disinterested.

As December came in 2022 and I was going through a depressive episode, I began to ask myself what I truly wanted from my creative endeavors. Addressing the obvious, growing gap in my writing was first and foremost. It had been months since I wrote anything, even longer for series like Joyful Stick. I thought back to those prior reviews-and the answer became readily apparent.

Joyful Stick is returning, as made obvious by this entries existence. However, it’s no longer going to focus just on the games themselves. I always felt a bit shameful measuring anything with arbitrary metrics of  “buy or don’t”, as I felt it cut into the artistic endeavors of the developers. Rather, I’m going to focus much more on what the title itself is trying to say, along with my personal reception and the communities.

I absolutely, positively will review anything gifted to me. This includes Non-NSFW/Adult title. If I feel as strongly about something as I did Ghost or BBPSX, you can expect a write up on it in due time. I’ll try to veer towards coverage of NSFW/Adult games, as there’s not nearly enough done for them. But I am no longer going to limit myself to those only.

So.

Got something you want me to check out?

Drop me a line, and if you’re so inclined I’ll give you means to gift me it.

As always, I’ll gladly answer questions on twitter.

Now without anymore delay…onto our review.

One Thick Robot Changes Everything

Haydee is not an great game.  

Not really.

It’s not terrible, but rather something a bit worse-exceedingly average and simultaneously aggravating in ways too familiar to even draw inspired criticism. It’s a third-person shooter that has enemy variation you can count on one hand. There’s minor puzzles and platforming, which are either brain-dead simple or inherently crafted so badly that asking for a guide would be meet with a sneer before someone tells you to “get good”. It’s three hours long and feels twice that.

But Haydee had exactly two things going for it-Haydee herself, the tit-ular character, and Steam Workshop accessibility.

Haydee is a faceless, curvaceous robot with her assets on full (if tasteful) display. Her upper body is covered in white-plated science fiction clothing meant to simulate combat armor. Her long legs and ass lead to the floor running free of a blue-tinted singlet. Yes, every part of her jiggles as well. While not an especially inspired design, Haydees presentation launched a thousand Source Film Maker videos and several careers. If we’re to make an argument on whether that design was inherently sexualised or not, I think therein lies the answer.

Players get to gaze and look at Haydee through an over-the-shoulder camera which can be rotated freely with the mouse. Her movements are likewise exaggerated, requiring additional button presses to make her squat then get back up, haul herself over platforms and more. The water effects in the game are a far cry from sensational-but getting Haydee wet predictably adds an appealing shine to every part of her.

It’s no wonder then that I heard about the game through the porn first. Before I was even made aware that Haydee had a steam page, I watched her deeply impregnate several Dead Or Alive girls, tit fuck several men and jerk off folks with her ass cheeks. Her design, albeit horny, was just “sci-fi robot generic” enough that I had no idea what she could have been from. Upon finding out there was an entire game with this character, I purchased it the moment it went on sale.

And.

Well.

Yet, Haydee continues to be something I come back to every so often specifically because of the community response to Haydee herself. The reaction to a character who was realistically “thick” and proportioned right at the front stage of a game garnered the title enough success that a sequel was released. I’m not purchasing the sequel and have zero interest in playing it. A community of fervent supporters also began cranking out mods, reskins, new levels and more within the same month of the titles debut.

Which lead to the discovery of one of the greatest collective efforts of archiving I have ever seen.

Nude Mods, Censorship And More

Nude mods and alterations which add sexual content to games aren’t a new concept.

I remember reading a preview for Morrowind in an issue of PC Gamer in middle school that very specifically joked about “the harem of nude, big tiddy mages” available through community efforts-and that was the specific reason I bought the game. A Gameshark code to make Kasume in Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore nude was available at some point when I was a freshman. With sweaty palms, I fervently typed in fifty lines of code to get a character model with as much anatomical detail as a barbie doll. Someone had legitimately sat down and figured out how to remove her layers by reverse engineering that specific part of the game and building a code to alter it. Rumors of a “nude mode” in the original Tomb Raider are almost as old as I am.

These aren’t new concepts, but industry and platform reactions to it absolutely are. It’s a mixed bag of ethical reasoning-fighting sexism in the industry and creating safe environments and platforms for everyone is always a good thing. Puritanicalism is not. Some companies fumble this, others don’t. There’s no right answer saving abstaining, which in of itself can be particularly insidious.

Steam handled this a few years ago by announcing they would allow any content that didn’t represent a direct threat to it’s user base, adopting the “new grounds rule” of “everything by everyone”. Except this wasn’t a hard and fast rule-Red Candle Games infamously had their title removed after place holder art was left in by accident. Similar layers of censorship have also occurred with other titles, often after pressure was applied by the public or a government entity.

In regards to adult titles, Steam has a hypocritical stance. Titles themselves can often have any number of NSFW/Adult things or themes within them (over half the games purchased for this series were on steam). However, things uploaded to the Steam Workshop abide by a totally different set of Terms of Service. Quite specifically, adult content is more or less forbidden, with uploaders and creators resorting to clever titles, hiding what’s actually in the file or altering the mod with minimal censorship to abide by Steams rules. Most of the time users simply circumvent this by going to larger, more lenient mod databases such as Nexus.

The Haydee community had a radically different idea.

For all the obvious reasons, Haydee is a title that had an abundance of sexualized content in it’s mods. Total reskins, posers, levels mimicking BDSM dungeons and more abounded. Of the most wild I personally saw was a “barefoot sounds” mod which…made Haydees bare feet sound like bare feet. An overwhelming majority of these were pulled from the Steam Workshop, often without notice to the creators. As the last seven years of my life have been devoted to sexual entertainment, I can’t even begin to quantify how devastating de-platforming can be to an individual or team.

While these were often dual uploaded on other platforms, the Haydee community decided to fight back in a unique way. As the Steam Discussion features for games has a totally different terms of service from either Workshop or Steam itself, they created a thread with a google-drive archive of every single mod pulled as a result of censorship.

As of this writing, it’s over twelve gig and features over two hundred mods.

It’s single handedly one of the most ambitious community efforts I have ever seen for what is otherwise an un-extraordinary game, the direct response of attempted censorship. The mere fact this is pinned at the top of the community board featuring content in flagrant violation of Workshop’s TOS lays bare how pointless crusades against such content actually are-and made me come to the following realization.

Censorship in of itself is a pointless practice compared to efforts like proper age gating and other means of restricting adult content. Removing adult content from your platform does not stop people from being horny. As a sex worker, we’ll either exist in spite of your TOS or because you directly allow us to. One is going to be a much bigger pain in your ass than the other. As sex workers and adult content drive a sizable portion of website traffic in all cases, adjusting the TOS and allowing us to ethically conduct business is paramount to maintaining your own.

This efforts of the Haydee community reminded me of the countless times a “NSFW Purge” has been rumored to occur at some point on twitter. Except SWers, porn and more make up so much of Twitter’s traffic that there were internal talks to simply allow us a platform of our own within twitter’s ecosystem. Getting rid of us would have killed the site, just like tumblr.

Censorship isn’t the answer, ever. Rather, it’s a band aid on an issue to show investors and nothing more.

-j

[logos-of-experience-and-truth]

Podcast Transcript - S2EP16 - Dreams and Dream Experiences

Podcast Transcript - S2EP16 - Dreams and Dream Experiences

Click link for Podcast Page In this episode we will continue where we left off last time and explore the realm of dreams and their import or non-import spiritually. I know in modern times there are many sects, especially in Christianity, that frown upon dream interpretation, which is rather strange since it was an essential aspect of understanding God in the Old Testament. There is obviously the danger of trying to understand and interpret and then implement a dream depending upon one’s station in life, but the general consensus in the Old Testament is that they were worthwhile to explore. No clearer examples of this are to be found than in the book of Genesis with Joseph interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream of impending drought and in Daniel, where Daniel interprets the Persian king’s dream and gains favor from the king. Interesting that the two books share similar thematic elements. I won’t go into possible interpretations about this, though obviously by saying that I have my own internal theories as to this. Moving forward in time through the Old Testament, I think I mentioned it prior, but when you get to what are called the minor prophets, they exclaim that God has become silent, for there are no more visions and no more dreams as they wail and wail in lamentation for God to return and help His people. Interesting as well that they distinguished between the two: visions and dreams, so clearly, they knew and understood them to be two different spiritual phenomena as well as desiring that the Word of God would come to them in either or. So, I find it strange that there are some circles in Christianity that say that dreams are of no importance and are the work of the Devil, almost as if they don’t want their parishioners having contact with the mystery of God. To be fair though, since I’m remembering I think the stance on dream interpretation is more geared towards not placing your entire spiritual existence on them, let’s do something boring right now: math. If we calculate the number of days over the twenty-year span from my near-death experience in 2001 to this year, 2021, twenty times three hundred sixty-five days would give us seven thousand three hundred days during that span. Since I’m not going to count, and I have journals from these early years that were handwritten and are utterly incomprehensible to me due to how fast I was writing them and I can’t know exactly how many dreams I wrote about during these early years, let’s just say I have detailed notes of a spiritual nature of about one hundred dreams in my database. That equals about 1.3% of all the days during a twenty-year span giving me dreams that I felt were spiritually important enough to jot down. We’re only going to be exploring four maybe five dreams here, or the most important dreams out of those hundred or so dreams, which is like 0.0007% of the number of dreams I’ve had since my near-death Awakening Experience being of a certain level of magnitude and gravitas. So, I can definitely appreciate the Christian voices that say not to put too much trust in one's dreams, just as I can say that building the habit of keeping track of those dreams, even though tiresome and tedious, will every now and then give spectacular dreams of a spiritual nature. Genuine spiritual experience is rather rare, so why not stay open to that possibility occurring a few times over a lifetime through dream journaling and interpretation? Only you dear listener or reader can decide if building that habit of dream journaling is worth the time, alongside following the words of the wise, or the Saints, that teach the importance of discernment, since this is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that is incredibly important when it comes to the interpretation of dreams. Unfortunately, I’m unclear on the exact timeline of the three to four dreams we’ll discuss during this time period, and I say three to four since one of these is such a strange experience that I still don’t know if I was dreaming, had a vision of some sort, or had just gone bat-shit crazy for a brief five minutes since I have no idea what the heck this was. I would later have a similar experience that was in fact a dream, after my more recent mystical visions in 2018, along with understanding what this experience and the unclear experience meant at both times, personally and mythologically, since this is one of those experiences I had that revealed the mysteries of the ancient Classical Hellenistic world of mythology to me. Cryptic I know, but you’ll understand further as we move along. The first of these dreams if I remember correctly, I’ve already discussed in a previous podcast episode in Season 1, while briefly mentioning that I think more in terms of pre-existence versus reincarnation. I was inside of a brightly lit room that appeared to me to be a library of sorts since I was seated and reading through some sort of book and the wall next to me had more books. The door opened behind me and an incredibly luminous being was standing at the doorway with things floating to the side off its back which obviously in the dream told me the being was an angel. It had no face so I can’t describe that to you, but the being spoke. He said, “You are needed on Earth,” and nothing more. The primary element I remember was my reaction to what this being had said to me. I wasn’t happy, wasn’t thrilled, wasn’t excited at the prospect, wasn’t heroically ready for the challenge. It was more of an annoyance, more of a setback or more of a grievance that I had been called up since my only verbal reaction to this in the dream was, “Ah crap,” or something to that degree. But I closed the book, got up and walked out into the doorway alongside the being and in the dream, I wasn’t in the shoes of myself, but was seeing myself walk out of the doorway and down what looked like a hallway with the angel in tow. At the time, I felt this dream was giving me a sense of purpose to all that I was reading and studying, that my methods were worthwhile to the world in a way and that I must continue for I existed with a purpose. It wasn’t until later on when I started seeing this in the pre-existent manner since it took time to work my mind around the differences in understanding a spiritual or soul-filled human body and if this existed in eternity with God after death, then the question of did it also exist prior to life on Earth as well naturally arose. In an interesting foreshadow, I would have a similar dream when I finally emerged out of the Desert of the Soul phase and returned back to walking the Narrow Path towards the mysteries once more, which I’ll recount in a later episode. The next dream might get me flamed by Christians, but I know what I dreamt and some of the thoughts I’ve had regarding what I saw in the dream can’t be held back for the sake of existing within any one paradigm of thought or religion for I exist in many paradigms of thought. If you haven’t understood this about me quite yet, hopefully I’m being crystal clear. My eyes opened up inside of the dream and I found myself surrounded by space. But I looked ahead of me and there was another body seated right in front of me, and we were moving. When I turned to the side and looked at what else there was, I could see the planet Earth beneath or to the side of me, however you want to imagine the vantage point, with many, many rings stretching out of the planet, like conveyor belts stretching out and into space and upon each of these ringed belts that moved almost mechanically, were seated innumerable bodies of seated beings. The only thing I’ve ever seen that matches this in popular media, just so you can understand and get a second visual, was in the Matrix, when Neo takes the red pill and wakes up for the first time and looks and sees all the other people in their little embryo sacks and the ringed skyscraper looking buildings with the machines attending to them. The key detail that I noticed in the dream though was that the colors of each of the bodies on these conveyor belts streaming and extending outward from the planet were different. Now just to be clear during this hyper-racial time period, I don’t mean color of skin. It was more their luminosity, their inner light, or if we get esoteric, New Age or Eastern, their aura. But there were only two different colors to these hues. It was either black, or merging into space, or disappearing I suppose, or blue. I say disappearing because those that appeared to lack the blue hue to them and only had a tiny portion of this light within them, I knew intuitively to be in a state of misery. And there were many with this different space color gradation upon their bodies. If you need another visual, I just bought my daughter a Marvel action figure called Genesis-Vel, and his body is like a star body. So, these beings on this conveyor belt looked like this, but without the star light actually upon them, though sort of being reflectors of the lights that surrounded them, and more of a merging into or a dissolving into space. There were other bodies with various gradations of blue with the overwhelming majority of them just a barely visible blue hue, and I remember seeing one body that was intensely blue and was seated fully upright as it sat upon this conveyor belt thing and when I looked at this being, I intuitively knew it experienced no misery as all these other ones did. Another of the details was all those that were without the blue light seemed to be crouched and hunched in their seated position, where the blue-hued bodies appeared to be more upright, especially the brightly lit blue being. Now I could easily lie and tell you what my color was, but I honestly don’t remember checking what color my body was before waking up from the dream. So, where I may get flamed on is from the comment I’m going to make regarding this. I am positive that whoever it was, whenever it began in India since I don’t know the fullness of the history of India or the Hindu religion, but whoever it was that first began artistically depicting the Hindu pantheon of gods in the color blue, probably saw what I saw, or something similar that they would understand in their world view and time period compared to what I saw in my world view and time period. There could’ve been a multitude of other colors on the bodies especially considering this was sort of a vision and definitely a dream, but no, it was either space-like disappearing black, or blue, with only one of the beings on these infinitely numerous belts extending out of the planet, intensely blue. And obviously if you’ve seen any depictions of the Hindu gods, they are all depicted with their skin as the color blue. That’s all I’ll say about that, and you can take it for what it’s worth. I think there’s also some esoteric stuff that says Heaven and the spirit are blue as well. And now that I get to this next dream, I may get flamed for it as well, especially when I give the same type of interpretation of where in the West, I’ve seen this experience depicted as something to be feared, evil, the work of the devil, especially since it arose during the superstitious medieval time period. I mentioned this type of dream experience briefly in a previous episode. I have compared it to the experience of sleep paralysis and can’t find the similarity to it since I’ve had a few actual sleep paralysis dreams, and though elements of that are found in this dream, this dream contains far more to it than just not being able to move. It was actually a lucid dream since I woke up in my bed and could see and realize that I was still sleeping. So, you could also say it was sort of an out of body experience, though after waking up and seeing that I was sleeping, I was almost instantly back in my body, especially because I was pushed back into my body by various unseen other invisible bodies that suddenly had their invisible hands upon me as they pushed me back into my body. I began to thrash my arms and legs as they held me down and even though a gentle voice told me to calm down and that I needed to go through this, I continued to fight. It felt as if something were pressed against the side of my head, on both sides, and then it felt like I was being electrocuted. Having recently at the time watched the horrifying movie Requiem for a Dream, in the dream experience itself I remembered the scene when the old lady gets electro-charged on both sides of her head in the psych ward and instantly attributed whatever I was experiencing in the present lucid dream to what I had seen in the movie. This dream actually messed my sense of reality up for a while since I wondered if I maybe wasn’t in a psych ward somewhere and just didn’t realize it and that the Jonathan that lived and experienced life as he saw it was just the imagination of the real Jonathan that was actually inside of a psych ward and was a crazy person. The electro-charge kept happening on the side of my head and what was weird was I wasn’t just feeling it in the head, but it began to course throughout my body, especially my belly which is where the feeling of immovableness was most pronounced since it felt like Thor’s hammer had been dropped on me and I was unable to move or lift myself up because of it. I don’t remember the experience actually ending, I just suddenly woke up in a hot sweat terrified of what I’d just dreamt. It wouldn’t be until I had the experience two more times in the negative and then once in the positive when I understood this was some other type of the experience of vibration I explained occurs during an actual mystical or spiritual experience, or the lowest form of the sensation of this when one meditates deeply and starts to feel the vibratory pulse on their foreheads between their eyebrows or on other parts of the brain. The next two negative times I had the experience, it felt again as if beings were holding me down, but when I consciously turned it into a positive experience the third time, there were no sensations of beings, and I knew it to be some type of raising of the consciousness within. I know that sounds weird but that’s how I processed these experiences. If we use more esoteric language, these experiences were like the raising of my vibration. As stated prior, I was reading and meditating like crazy during this time period with an actual regimented time frame of making sure I meditated in the morning after I woke up and before going to bed, along with slamming my head with book after book after book. So, my mind was changing. My thoughts were changing, so naturally, I was changing, and I suppose when this occurs to the degree it occurred with me, some type of re-tuning of the spiritual inside occurs, a higher attainment, a higher level of being. If we use other esoteric language, or that of the New Ager or the Eastern religions, we can say that my auras were being cleansed or that my auras were being heightened, or that the flow of energy within my auras or chakras had been enhanced or unlocked or opened up further and maybe these unseen beings were helping and or causing this to occur even though I fought it the first three times this occurred to me. I don’t know, but I’ve given you every concept I’ve come across when trying to understand whatever this experience is. In contrast, when I’ve had just sleep paralysis, there were no feelings of beings around me, there was no vibratory sensations pulsating within my head, no vibratory sensations around my navel that made it feel like I couldn’t move my torso. It was more like I couldn’t move my legs since I was in between sleep and waking and I was telling myself to move my legs or arms and it didn’t seem to be occurring. That’s not at all whatever it is this experience has been the times I’ve had it. Now the superstitious interpretation of this experience. It matches perfectly what has been described as the succubus from medieval lore, coming to take the sleeping person down to hell, especially due to the feeling of another worldly being, or in my case, other worldly beings in the plural being felt in the dream. But the voice I heard wasn’t trying to scare me, it was trying to calm me down and reassure me that whatever this was, needed to occur. It was me that was scared, so I assume the legend of the succubus was created to answer this strange experience in much the same manner, since obviously feeling like invisible beings are holding you down is a terrifying experience to have in that half in, half out, lucid dream. Next, let’s discuss the bizarre experience I have no explanation for and don’t know if it was vision, dream or crazy person in a temporary state of insanity for like five minutes, since I honestly don’t know what this was, though as I’ve said, I have since understood its similarity to one of the myths of antiquity, and have a theory as to what this is using scientific language as well. So, I’m in my apartment, its nighttime, and I get a phone call. I answer it and on the other line is a girl saying what’s up to me by name. I have no clue who she is, and I say, “Hello, do I know you?” And she says, “What do you mean, of course you know me.” I answer, “No, I have no idea who you are. Where do I know you from?” She responds, “I used to be your girlfriend.” Mind you this isn’t the girl I was dating I mentioned during the near-death experience. “When and where were you my girlfriend?” I ask. “When you were living down here in Orange County,” she responds. At this point, I think my heart is exploding out of my chest. Why? Because during the entire ten or so months I lived in Orange County prior to moving out to West LA, I didn’t have a girlfriend. Other than some partying and stuff, I didn’t even have a periodic fling while I was out there, and sure as heck wasn’t on friendship terms with any girl that would’ve had my number or anything deeper than just macking at a party or a club. I was in destruction mode during that time, constant drug and alcohol use and could barely keep a job, barely get my schoolwork done, let alone attempt at a girlfriend. I said in the previous dream that my sense of reality was out of whack for a time and this whatever it was only added to that confusion since in all truth I think this occurred after the being held down vibratory dream I just recounted. I tell her I’m seriously confused because I didn’t have a girlfriend when I was living in Orange County, and I really needed her to tell me her name and how she knew me. She responded, “Look that’s not important. What’s important is your answer to this question: what type of woman are you more interested in being with?” She then gave me two different options, or personality types I suppose. “A woman that will love and honor you but seek only to please you, or a woman that will love and respect you by challenging you to be your best?” I gave her my answer and she said, “Great, that’s all I needed to hear.” I tried to ask her again who she was, and she simply answered that she had to go. I asked if I’d hear from her again, and all she said was maybe. And that was it. Read the full article

[youandtom2]

Contraband

MILITARY!TOM HOLLAND X READER (NOT BASED ON CHERRY)

Summary: The British army is ruthless. Especially with someone as equally ruthless as Sergeant Holland. So it’s advised that you don’t break the rules. Except you do. And Sergeant Holland has a certain punishment in store for you.

Themes: SMUUTTT (18+)

w/c: 5.9k

NSFW

Includes: dom!tom, use of sex toys, mirror sex (ish), oral (fem rec), slight sir kink, overstimulation

MASTERLIST // PART 2 // PART 3

Military training is hard.

You always knew it was going to be hard because you were warned of what to expect: unbearably early mornings, insufferable body cramp as a result of conditioning days prior, the strict discipline of the staff, each of them regimented in their own deranged way, and the push for resilience to face new challenges every single day. Recruitment officers warned you when you signed up that you were about to experience true exhaustion like you had never felt before. That it was a test of mental, physical and emotional endurance and that natural selection was a key element in completing your training - the British Army didn’t want civi’s, they wanted soldiers. They warned that, above all, they could not guarantee your survival. Yeah, you knew what you were signing up for.

Just days in was when you started to realise that the recruitment officers weren’t exaggerating for the sake of putting you off, no, they were trying to prepare you. Those who didn’t take the warnings seriously were the recruits who didn’t last more than a month. Tired, weak and broken, they faced the shame - or relief, depending on the person - of dropping out and returning back to civilisation. As for you, and a handful of others in your squadron, determination drove you to continue, convincing yourself that you could make it when you sensed that you were slowly, but surely adapting to the dangerous lifestyle and the long, gruelling days of training. By the end of the second month, your emotional security was somewhat still intact, your body was fitter and stronger than before and your mind hadn’t completely snapped. Things were starting to look positive.

~~~~

Bright and early, you enter the mess hall with a yawn, mindlessly shuffling over to Squadron B’s table. Already sitting are your friends and fellow recruits, Archer, Stevens and Clark. First names don’t exist in the army, it has become a habit to refer to each other by surnames. Only the staff refer to you by insults.

You crook an eyebrow when you notice that you are one man short at the table.

“Where’s Sanders?” you ask.

“Don’t know,” shrugs Archer. “He got caught smoking in his dorm yesterday.”

“Shit. How dumb do you have to be to get caught by Osterfield?” You snigger but Archer glances at you solemnly, your mocking runs cold in his bones.

“It wasn’t Osterfield that caught him…”

You look back up to him, stunned. “Then who?”

“The Dutch.”

The boys around you curse in hushed murmurs. You sigh heavily, pinching the bridge of your nose between your eyes knowing that Squadron B will be a man down for the entire day. No sympathy is to be spared for squadrons with missing recruits with the reality being that when you’re out there in combat and in enemy territory fighting for your lives, no enemy will sympathise for you. You remember the day Clark slept in, which left the four of you to tackle a full medevac drill which in itself would normally be fine, but The Dutch ordered for two of you to play the injured for failure to cooperate as a team. Needless to say, Clark still got absolutely slaughtered by The Dutch afterwards.

So not only do you feel sympathy for yourselves and the day that lies ahead, but sympathy for Sanders, for anyone that has ever experienced the wrath of The Dutch.

The Dutch, or better known as Sergeant Holland, is the physical embodiment of torture. He is brutal, demanding and his presence alone is a mental torment that puts the devil himself to shame. He has a keen eye for the weak and a proclivity for reducing them down to their most vulnerable before ultimately breaking them. For every life he enters, he makes sure to tread heavily, bearing his footprint to leave behind him a trail of trauma wherever they go. Sergeant Holland is nothing but an absolute monster of a man. He is downright insane and there is nothing on Earth that you would not sacrifice to avoid being his next victim. People may think you would be exaggerating, but then again, people thought the recruitment officers were exaggerating…

However, Sergeant Holland poses more of a threat to you than any other member of your squadron, more than what he even realises, because what you’ve discovered is the curse of being a woman. A curse more dangerous than the man himself, it leads you blindly astray from his short-circuit temper, or his horrible methods of intimidation and authority, pulling the wool over your eyes and seeing that, despite everything, Sergeant Holland is a very attractive man.

“Heads up!”

You all stand to attention, breakfast quickly disregarded as Sergeant Osterfield enters the mess hall, followed very closely behind by The Dutch. Both of them are donning enraged faces, inconceivable at 5:30 in the morning, and stand poised in the middle of the room. An audible gulp is heard behind you.

Although Osterfield likes to believe he has authority, even the rookies can recognise that it’s Sergeant Holland that quietly dominates.

“It seems that some of you think we’re providing hotel services,” Osterfield announces, his voice lacking the same emotion his face conveys and it’s the reason why nobody flinches; he doesn’t have the presence to intimidate. Again, that responsibility lies with The Dutch. Nevertheless, he continues as The Dutch begins to saunter around the perimeter of the room like an omnipresent ghost, arms folded, observing, listening, intimidating. “Some of think you can do whatever the fuck you want. But this is the fucking army. So you can’t.”

God, he sounds like a child having a tantrum. You peer over to your left to see Squadron A keeping their eyes down, hiding their smirks.

“Something distracting you, soldier?” From nowhere, a gravelly voice hums directly into your ear from over your shoulder. It takes every ounce of willpower to prevent you from flinching, but under his scrutinous eyes, nothing goes amiss. You’ve never been directly addressed by The Dutch before, and as the realisation hits, your heart thumps harder. As conditioned upon hearing his voice, your head whips forward, stoic, emotionless, very much like your response.

“No, sir.”

“So why isn’t your attention on Sergeant Osterfield?” His voice crawls closer to you, so much so that you are certain you feel the soft sweep of the tip of his nose skim across the baby hairs you let loose from your bun. Alongside first names, personal space is another thing that ceases to exist in the army.

“No reason, sir.”

“Then I’ll give you a reason.” His words are laced with venom as his threat falls upon your ears. As he takes slow and calculated steps to circle you, you subconsciously shift your weight, a tell-tale sign you are suffering under his oppression. All too soon, his chest meets with your eyes and you refrain from looking at him directly because that’s how he gets you; a glare so intense it’ll make anyone cower.

“Contraband!” He shouts, words loud enough to slap you in the face. The echoes bounce endlessly across the room before it falls deathly silent, smirks wiped clean from faces. Sergeant Holland takes the foreground and leads the demonstration, Osterfield quickly forgotten about. “Beer, cigarettes, snacks, weed. According to your new best friend, Sanders, there’s a shit tonne of it. All stashed in your dorms.” There’s a momentary pause to let the message sink in, and the panic to begin. The Dutch seems to thrive off the collective flood of fear that fills the room, and all of a sudden, it’s hard to breathe. “Isn’t that right, Sanders?”

“Yes...sir.”

Nobody even notices Sanders lurking in the shadows until the words fall out of his mouth in a quiet whisper. Honestly, he looks like shit. Hollow eyes droop to the floor in humiliation, one that has certainly been inflicted on him by The Dutch and his sick, twisted investigation tactics no doubt. Poor fucker. Outed and exposed as a snitch, his future here doesn’t appear to be optimistic.

Everyone is afraid to admit what the Sergeants have just discovered. It’s true. Everyone has contraband, even you, and though it’s forbidden, nobody can deny how it makes training that much easier to do knowing that there is something rewarding at the end of it to indulge in. A self-rewarding pat on the back. Because God knows you never get anything of the sort from staff. Nobody ever gets caught because Osterfield usually carries out the dorm searches every week, too cursory in his searches to find the stash of cigarettes between the planks of the bunks, or the square of carpet cut out to conceal a hole filled with snacks and sweets. To him, if it was tidy, it would suffice. However, with The Dutch, it’s a completely different story. He is guaranteed to not make the same mistake.

Each and every one of you stand there radiating guilt, teeth chewing through your lips, cursing the irony of the mentality the army teaches you to have. ‘Teamwork; when one falls, you all fall.’ Of course, you understood the necessity of it out in the field. It had been the very first lesson you were ever taught; to trust each other, to cooperate as part of a team, to never leave any man or woman behind regardless of the depravity of the situation, and it was a lesson you all exercised daily. You would never be where you are without the help of your squadron.

But in this case, it has doomed you all. When one falls, you all fall.

“Dorm searches start immediately.” The Dutch turns to you, his steel expression holding you hostage. “Squadron B has volunteered to go first.”

A gasp slips between your lips and The Dutch smirks. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

~~~~

You are helpless as you stand stationary by your bunk, a mere observer to Sergeant Holland ransacking your dorm. It takes approximately 1 minute and an absolute mess to find the four cans of beer hidden within the fake ceiling above your wardrobe, and an additional 30 seconds to find the stash of sweets down the side of your bunk. But he’s yet to find it all.

Guilt diseases you, it plagues your mind with images of the one place where your most treasured contraband is hidden, losing an inner battle to refrain from glancing over its location. In your head, your conscience is against you, screaming the words that you know The Dutch would absolutely love to hear - under the floorboard, under the floorboard, under the floorboard - but in a bid to keep what feels like your life, you bite your tongue. Hard. If he found this, it would simply be the end of you. You could cope with losing your confectionary, but this is something you cannot let him find.

The Dutch slams your wardrobe door, watching as the door falls off its hinges with little concern. Fists burled, he turns to you and catches your stare. He encroaches your space, standing toe-to-toe with you like an angry bull presenting a challenge, using everything in his power to unnerve you and break your silence. From his angry stare to his clenching jaw warns you he’s about to bite, then he asks you one simple question.

“Is that it?”

“Yes, sir.” You answer with as much conviction as you can, hoping that he’ll take the bait and leave. You hold your breath, waiting, pleading that he’ll just fucking leave.

Sergeant Holland glances over your features once more before he goes to take one step towards your door, one step towards your salvation but the creaking of the floorboards beneath his boot halts him. He slowly peers down as the thought enters his mind, and by the time he turns to you, it’s set in stone. Your blood runs cold, the colour draining from your cheeks as your heart stops dead in your chest. Defeated, and positively trembling with fear, you can’t bear to watch as Sergeant Holland wordlessly sinks to his knees, keeping those dark eyes pinned on you. Because he knows. Your guilty conscience hides nothing now.

“What have you got hidden under here?” He asks, but you sense it’s more of a demand. You swallow the thick lump, hesitant to speak.

“It’s...it’s nothing, sir.”

“That’s twice you’ve lied to me now. Do you want to make it a 3rd? What is under here?” His words are gritted, and though that would normally be something to coerce you into submission, you unequivocally refuse to say the words.

There is nothing about your body language that conveys innocence and he knows this. Years of training and experience of interrogation tactics gains him the upperhand; the wringing of your hands behind your back, the sickly, nauseating paling of your face under his stare and your resolution to avoid eye contact. Blame is written all over you.

His hand reaches in and grabs the small cardboard box, using his other hand to sweep away the thin layer of dust. Silence consumes the room while he opens it and lets his eyes widen as he discovers what you’ve been hiding this entire time, contraband unparalleled to anything your squadron have or know about. This was your personal secret that you would travel to the Earth’s end to protect. And the most intimidating man on this base holds it within the clutches of his hand.

Your small, but powerful, purple vibrator.

You are utterly mortified.

He stands, resuming his steel expression while tightly holding your sex toy in his hand. It’s alarming how unfazed he is considering the explicit nature and purpose of the purple device he holds carelessly, regardless, it doesn’t stop the blood rushing to your cheeks. You’ve completely broken away from your stance, shriveling into yourself with embarrassment and time seems to run on endlessly.

“Sir, I-”

“You dirty little thing,” he whispers. When you look back up, you don’t expect to see him stand so close to you, nevertheless he’s right there, mingling his breath with your own, and you certainly don’t expect to see the callous smirk teasing the corner of his lips. Back pressed against the frame of your bunk, you have nowhere to run. Sergeant Holland purposely cages you in while he revels in your flustered state, amused by your inability to keep yourself together in front of him, tilting his head as he observes you crossing your legs beneath you.

“This,” he refers to your sex toy, holding it up in the space between you, “will be confiscated. It will stay with me, do you understand?” You nod, shame painted in your eyes. His head sinks lower, teeth gritted, voice threateningly quiet. “You will address me properly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.” Those two, very simple words place a catastrophic effect on your heart as it skips a beat. The slight quiver of your breath confirms everything Sergeant Holland has suspected of you within the two minutes since unveiling your little secret. Lips parted, he swipes his tongue across his bottom lip, and keeps a keen eye for your reaction as he tucks your vibrator deep into his pocket. Your expression doesn’t deviate much from widened eyes and parted lips, even as he leans in to whisper his words directly into your ear.

“You will receive your punishment after your training. See me in my office at 2200 hours.”

~~~~

You haven’t been able to divert your eyes away from the clock as it ticks closer and closer to 10pm. You’ve bitten away all of your nails, trembling with nausea swirling in your stomach in anticipation of your discipline. Everyone else in Squadron B has already received theirs, returning with very little colour to their cheeks and lacking life in their eyes. You don’t even ask what exactly The Dutch’s discipline entails, you rather not know what you are about to face. It would make the short journey to his office twice as daunting as it already is.

You sit in the lonely chair outside his office. The ambience of people walking and conversing in the surrounding hallways has quickly dissipated into the late hours of the night. The buzz from the harshly bright lights above you is the only thing you can hear; it makes you wonder how Sergeant Holland, being as he is, can be so quiet in his office. The thought is short-lived as the door swings open and in one fell swoop he appears in the doorway. You stand to attention, locking all of your muscles in place.

“Sir,” you greet, ready for instruction albeit with the utmost dread.

“In,” he simply says.

His office is surprisingly small for a man of his rank, but rather than the size being an insult to his authority, you sense it’s more based on his efficiency. His plethora of awards, medals and decorations fit neatly into the glass display cabinet tucked into the corner where above it hangs a Union Jack, colours bright and bold. His desk lacks familial intimacies and stands proud in the centre of the room, facing directly towards the door. Probably a strategic move on his part to immediately face whoever dares enters his office.

You’ve never been in here before, and now that he has shut - slammed - the door behind you, you can feel the heat of tension rising in your body. Four walls enclose you in but you have to ignore it. You have been conditioned to stand, legs shoulders-width apart, arms tucked behind your back with your head held high, eyes forward with emotion nowhere to be seen.

At first he doesn’t say anything, nor does he move. He subjects you to the torment of the unprecedented for just a moment longer - he wants to drag this out for as long as he can. The sadistic fucker wants to make you suffer.

“Soldier, you are here to receive discipline on violating military code of conduct, possessing contraband and failure to demonstrate moral integrity. You have inadmissibly lied to superior members of staff resulting in failure to adhere to British Army principles. Do you understand?” He has now entered your periphery, wavering in just to your left. You gulp.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you confirm that this…” he pulls your vibrator from his pocket and swivels it between his fingers that it’s almost sinful, “belongs to you?”

“Yes…” your voice comes out weak and strained, so you clear your throat and try again. “Yes, sir.” How could you forget how embarrassing it is to have your sex toy exposed like this? Your cheeks are burning.

Sergeant Holland stands directly in front of you and demands for your attention. Tentatively, your eyes lift to his. Behind that handsome face hides a dangerous mind. You can’t bear to think what sick method of discipline he’ll inflict on you, and considering how messed up the others were when they returned, your guess is that it’s all mental. He’ll worm his way into your head, mess with you, torment you, push you to your mental and emotional capacity before you crumble, all without laying a finger.

“As your superior…” his voice is quieter, but it’s heard all the same, “it’s my responsibility to punish you, to teach you a lesson.” A bead of sweat rolls down the back of your neck fluidly, your hands itching to wipe it away but obedience locks them behind your back. Suddenly, he snaps forward, crouching just an inch or two below full height and locks his gaze with yours. The precision of his quick movements make you flinch, trapping a breath in your lungs and he notices, lips curling momentarily. Just a second later, words flow out of his mouth like a lullaby but their motive is far from anything equally idyllic.

“You’ve been a bad girl,” he whispers. “A very, very bad girl.”

Your lips part in stupor, breath wavering in the space between you. With those words, you know, that whatever happens from this moment on, Sergeant Holland will not be following any official protocol but his own. You conclude in the split second of sanity you have that, unlike the others, your punishment is to be a little more personal...

“Turn around, soldier."

“Sir?” You plead with your eyes, heart pounding inside of you. He tilts his head, questioning your disobedience.

“I gave you an order. Turn. Around.”

You do, painstakingly slowly, bracing for whatever is to come. A controlled exhale draughts through your lips in a poor attempt to remain calm but who are you kidding? Your insanely attractive yet dangerous army Sergeant is standing so close behind you, ready to punish you and you’re trying to stay calm? Even the most experienced soldiers wouldn’t retain their composure.

Even through the thick lining of your army uniform, you can still feel the weight of his hands anchor down low on your hips. His body moulds into yours, wrapping his arms around your waist, eager hands running across the surface of your stomach to find sanctuary in the dips of your hips, locking you in. A gasp slips innocently from your throat when he pinches his fingers into your sides and pulls you just close enough that his chin rests comfortably upon the crook of your shoulder. Your mind is collapsing in on you, almost dazed that a man with such attention to conduct and discipline would abuse his power. A power so formidable that with each touch, he lures you further into his embrace, sinking deeper into his trap while his lips sink deeper into your neck.

Inexplicably, you find yourself tilting your head, opening yourself up to him while he places feather-like kisses up the column of your neck. Quite frankly, it’s startling. You never pinned Sergeant Holland to be gentle in any way, but yet, you stand here, so easily falling victim to his seduction. Soon, the tension in your body disperses and your arms hang loosely by your sides.

When he senses you fully embracing him, he pulls your earlobe between his lips and bites down.

“Ah!” you wince.

“So easy.” A sinful moan hums against your ear as he returns to kissing your skin. “Don’t let yourself get too comfortable, soldier. This is your punishment, remember?” Just as that little reminder seeps into your head, his hands begin expertly unbuckling your belt, pulling loose of all your constraints, just enough to slip his hand in underneath the layers of clothes. The hand that also contains your vibrator.

At first, the shock of his cold hands against your burning skin forces your hips to buckle, only exacerbating the situation by grinding against him. He suppresses a groan, exhaling roughly into your temple. Adamant, he runs the silicone tip of the vibrator down the length of your slit, coating it in your slick before settling it directly against your clit. But he doesn’t press the button, no, Sergeant Holland is one to taunt and tease so you know exactly who’s in charge.

He subtly circles the tip around your bud. “You want this?”

“Yes, sir,” you whisper.

“Of course you do. Dirty, little thing. But you’re missing something…”

“Please, sir.” His movements don’t stop and you can feel your hips chasing him in every direction. With his lips attached to your pulse, he hums as if mulling it over.

“I don’t think you deserve it,” he concludes. The caressing of your clit slows to almost nothing and it’s absolutely tantalising, breaking your sanity into two. You’re almost beginning to anticipate the vibrations to start buzzing against your clit, but Sergeant Holland makes it clear that his intentions are to avoid anything of the sort.

The more he teases you, the more he coaxes you into a climax, the harder it is to resist the sob that’s bubbling in your throat. Your head rests fully flush against his shoulder, physically straining to push yourself into release but he always refuses you before you have the chance. Within seconds he can build you up, swirling the tip of your sex toy around your pulsing clit, the damn thing isn’t even on, and just as quickly, if not faster, shuts you down.

“Please, sir, please. Just turn it on.”

“If I do…” he nibbles on your earlobe, “it’ll only make it worse for you.” You don’t doubt him, but your desperation is stronger than your doubt because right now, you’ll do anything for the sweet feeling you know awaits.

“Yes, sir, plea-oh! Fuck!”

Instantly, the vibrator buzzes to life and your breath stutters. The powerful little thing softly pulses against your clit as Sergeant Holland dances it around in circles, knees buckling beneath you. You have to grapple onto his arms to keep yourself from succumbing to the pleasure he teases with, yet he seems subdued as he continues to nibble and pierce the skin of your neck. He’s slow. Seductive. Feeding you with fluid movements to lull you into a false sense of security, held together by the firm, sturdy arm that keeps you standing and stable. His gentle reminder of this being a punishment easily gets swept aside, the pleasure too spellbinding to heed it. Sergeant Holland builds you up perfectly, leaving you teetering on the edge of orgasm quicker than you could yourself.

At the slightest movement of your legs closing, he kicks them apart, wider than before. “Stand to attention, soldier. Hands by your side.” You let loose a groan of frustration, every movement seeming like a mission when you have the sensuous buzzing of your sexy toy pressed directly onto your little bud. “Can’t believe I recruited a whore. Bet that’s what you fucking love. Being a whore for all these men.”

“No!”

“No?” He shakes the toy from left to right very slightly, giving you just that extra push towards snapping. Your nails are burning into the skin of your palm. God, you’re so close to cumming on your Sergeant’s hand. “So just being a whore for me then-” His words stop abruptly as a new thought spawns. “You little slut. You wanted me to find this, didn’t you? Dangled this fucking thing in my face so I could use it on you, well, congratu-fucking-lations, you got what you wanted.” You don’t even have the strength to tell him that he’s wrong or that he’s completely misjudged the entire situation, besides, Sergeant Holland is a stubborn man. Telling him he is wrong is his equivalent to slapping him in the face. In the end, you let him have his delusions.

His hand clamps onto your forehead, yanking your head back completely against his shoulder and within seconds, his lips meet your ear.

“It’s going to be the biggest regret of your life.”

You hear a click. Then another. Then another, until the pulsing blurs together into one intolerable shock. You thrash around, three settings too high and the overstimulation ruins you. Fuck, you only ever used this thing on the first setting, anything past that was too powerful. Like the merciless bastard he is, cackling at your expense, Sergeant Holland has quadrupled the intensity and it’s completely consuming you. He palms his hand against the curve of your cunt harshly, pressing the toy further into you until you’re curling into yourself. Every instinct is telling you to rip his hands away from you, to break free from his hold but he’s unshakeable.

“Stop! Stop! Fuck!”

Struggling to contain you, he whips you around and presses your chest against the surface of his desk, cheek flat against the cool grain of the wood. All you can see is your own reflection in the sheen of the glass cabinet standing at the edge of the room staring back at you, teasing you with the wider image of Sergeant Holland completely demolishing you. It’s filthy yet deliciously salacious. You have a gleam of sweat glistening on your forehead, baby hairs sticking to your skin and neck where purple blemishes slowly materialise into existence. Your eyes follow the length of his arm, popping out from his shoulder to curve round your waist to sink below the hem of your army uniform, tensing as he moves it. Pupils blown wide, you imprint the image into your mind. It’s quite possibly the most erotic thing you’ve ever seen.

The last of his moral integrity slips away when he claims your first orgasm. As you lie there, quivering and panting, he smothers the repercussions of your orgasm with his own body weight, leaning down to press his chest flat against your back, and his bulge firmly against your ass.

When he finally relieves the toy, you sigh with relief.

“Absolutely soaked. Open your mouth, whore.” Obeying, he shoves the silicone tip into your mouth, a burst of bittersweet tanginess flooding your tongue. Watching you taste yourself has Sergeant Holland rutting his hips, delving deeper into your ass, stuttering when he reaches the confinement of your uniforms. “Hm,” he hums, acknowledging a slight envy growing in him. “Let me have a taste.”

He’s going to what?! Your head lifts slightly at the startling words. “Wait-”

“Head down.” Your face is slammed back into place by his hand clamping your head, leaving you to watch through the reflection of the glass cabinet again. “And keep your hands behind your back.”

Your body sways from side to side as Sergeant Holland drags down your layers of uniform until you have nothing but your frail, lilac underwear covering what’s left of your modesty. His knees knock onto the wooden floorboards and hearing their creaking brings back a wave of embarrassment just as it did back in your dorm. His hands roam the back of your thighs and ass, teasing a wince from you as the cool metal of his rings seers your skin. Then, his breath. A gentle, warm breeze fanning over you before he takes the dive.

You inhale so quickly that it stutters in your lungs, feeling his warm tongue slither up your covered slit and you almost can’t bear the tedious pace he moves with. A small whimper passes your lips, and he responds with a squeeze to your hips, fingers curling round to press against your hip bones, easing you away from the edge of the desk. He places a chaste kiss against your clit, still inexplicably buzzing from your previous orgasm unaided by the way his lips nuzzle into it. As his rank definitely proves, he’s a man that knows what he’s doing. The novelty of having whom you viewed as staff, both superior and authoritative, pleasure you so intimately has yet to wear off. And even now, as he buries his head between your thighs, you have to let the internal squeal loose.

With the slightness of his finger, he loops the material and drags it to the side, revealing everything to him. With that same finger, he runs it up and down the length of your cunt as if he’s acquainting himself to the shape of you. You shudder.

“Remember, soldier,” he husks, “hands behind your back.” With one final warning, he plunges his tongue deep into your core and like the flick of a switch, he’s demonic with lust. His engorged lips suckle on every part of your cunt as if it’s the elixir of life, toes curling at the overstimulation and arms twitching behind you. As much as you want to see the obscene reflection in the glass, you can’t keep your eyes open long enough to see it.

Just when you’re beginning to think you can’t take anymore, he proves you totally wrong. His amorous tongue finds the little bundle of nerves, abusing it as if it hasn’t had enough, as if he hasn’t had enough. He coates it with long, languid licks, staining his tongue with your taste as if he has an appetite to satisfy. You begin to wonder how long his dedication to the army - a very questionable one at that - has deterred him from his desires. Truly a man on a mission.

“Oh, shit,” you can feel the pang in your stomach ready to burst. “Shit.” A flick to your nerves and you writhe, squirming on the table as he chases after every one of your movements. “You’re going to make me cum!” Through the slits of your eyes, your face flushes at the reflection of Sergeant Holland’s face submerged between your ass. You look to yourself, a wordless expression of ‘what the fuck is going on?’ evident on your face.

For the second time tonight, Sergeant Holland has you cumming all over him. You cry out, unfiltered and uncaring for anyone who might have been walking past his office but in the back of your mind, you know it’s unlikely that anyone would want to be near Sergeant Holland’s office. Of course, that was what he had planned. You breathe through the raging rush of blood pumping straight towards your cunt, thankfully settling the gentler he becomes with his kisses. Deflated, you lie still on his desk, clenching through the ferocious pressure of liquid bliss in your lower abdomen, consciously aware of Sergeant Holland perched behind you, observing you. Curious, he follows your line of sight and catches the scene playing out in front of him in the reflection. He realises, quite quickly, that he becomes infatuated with the image of you, splayed half naked all over his desk utterly exhausted while he stands masterful over his work.

He hovers low and plants a gentle kiss to the back of your neck before catching your eye in the reflection.

“Such a pretty sight.” He gives a quick double tap to your ass. “You look as good as you taste.”

~~~~

Seconds before exiting Sergeant Holland’s office, you hesitantly turn to him with one particular question burning your mind.

“Sir?” His eyes snap to yours. “What...what exactly was my punishment?”

He stands up straighter, arms folded and casually saunters over to you with a nervous hand on the door. Wordlessly, he slips his hand into your back trouser pocket, digging deep and reaching as far as the material allows him to give you one lasting squeeze to your bum, leaving behind your vibrator. You gasp. Why is he giving you it back? Before the question leaves your lips, he pulls you forward, a supporting hand resting upon his toned chest. There’s no hesitance to be seen as he leans down and captures your lips with his own. As expected, he’s demanding but passionate, sinking deeper into the kiss. When he withdraws, you observe the slight twinkle to his largely brown eyes.

“Your little toy is useless now. It won’t give you half the pleasure I can, and you won’t be able to get yourself off without me. It’s going to drive you crazy because there won’t be anything you can do. But guess what…” he whispers. You’re scared to ask.

“What?”

“I’m not going to do anything about it either,” he smirks. “Dismissed, soldier.”

As you leave Sergeant Holland’s office, you walk through the dark hallways by yourself with your vibrator tucked safely in your pocket. Everytime you blink, scenes from your punishment replay before you, looping over and over and over again and even as you try to fall into a slumber, you fear that every second that ticks on following your punishment is going to be spent on the formidable Sergeant Holland.

If you think military training is hard, Sergeant Holland’s just made it a whole lot harder...

[beyondspaceandstars]

Happy Engagement

Relationship: Loki x Reader Warnings: contains some dark elements: manipulation Summary: Loki has always thought of you as his and there isn’t anything he won’t do to keep it that way. A/N: I’ve been sitting on this one shot for a while! I had the idea for it months ago and finally wrote it and then it just sat on my computer while I wrote other stuff but I figured since I don’t have anything really new this week it’d be perfect to put out! I hope you enjoy it because I greatly do :)

Masterlist

Loki had always been an interesting force in your life.

You two met when you were just children in school. You two were the official unofficial outsides of your school year — he was a prince, you were a peasant. Despite his royal standing, he’d play with you at recess. For these outlier ways, you two never interacted much with the other kids, life practically forcing you two to one another.

At such a young age, you hadn’t realized how significant this bond would become. As a child, you were just glad someone was talking to you. He shouldn’t have even been looking at you, should’ve maybe been disgusted with your presence alone. You should’ve been some onlooker, amazed by him and his magic but you weren’t — well, except for the magic part. His magic was little when you were kids but it drew quite the amazement from you.

Over time, you two naturally grew with one another. From childhood into your teens and still, now, you two made an unlikely pair of best friends as young adults. All of this though did not come without some bumps along the way.

In your teens, Loki had almost completely shut you out. For some reason, he seemed to be acting embarrassed by you. Your mother had warned you this may happen but you thought he was different, swore he was, unless his sincerity was like the many other tricks he played. Eventually, supposedly after some talking down from his brother, Loki appeared back at your door asking if you wanted to go for a walk.

This disappearing and coming back had become a habit for him over his teenage years and into adulthood. Loki never explicitly told you why but you could tell there was something eating away at him. It had been there a long time and it felt like disassociating himself with you was his solution.

You thought everything was coming to an abrupt end when you fell pregnant. You had been seeing a nobleman who was a regular customer in your parents’ shop. He was absolutely charming and delightful, practically swept you right off your feet within minutes of meeting. Your parents were ecstatic when he asked to court you.

You yourself were stunned but you ran to tell Loki about it. He was speechless. You tried telling him about the man but something in Loki snapped. He got unreasonably upset, spewing hateful comments about the man, practically forcing you out of his chambers in the process. He went radio silent again.

You tried to ignore losing your best friend — again — and focused on your new relationship. He wooed you endlessly with dates to lavish dinners and dawning you in lovely gowns. It was all so much more than you had ever expected in life. He’d tell you you deserved it and whisper sweet nothings in your ear as you two would get so lost in one another.

A bit shamefully, hypnotized by the romantics of it all, you gave yourself to him. Tangled in the sheets with him as your guide, you let the man you felt you would marry have every last bit of you.

And for a while after, it was blissful. Nothing had seemed to change between you two until he announced he had to go away for a bit. Confused, you asked why suddenly now facing the fact you were losing another person in your life. He explained he was needed by his father on a different realm, part of the family "business," as he described it.

Days after his departure, you learned you were pregnant. Around this time, Loki popped back up in your life. You felt relieved having someone to confide in but when you told him of your pregnancy, he was far from the supportive force you thought you’d get. He didn’t yell or get upset per se but he was beyond stunned.  

He left for a bit then but can back in less time than last. This time he brought along baby supplies and congratulated you. It was a complete one-eighty from his prior behavior but you accepted it, gratefully. Loki ended up being your main person throughout the pregnancy as clues of when your boyfriend would return were nonexistent.

"Did he know you were carrying his child when he left?" Loki had asked you one night. You two were sitting in the living room of the makeshift house you had acquired. You didn’t feel very good that this was the home you were bringing a child into when you knew her father could’ve provided her with a better one. But, at the end of the day, it was a roof over both your heads.

You crocheted another knot in the baby blanket. "No, he didn’t. I didn’t even know."

Loki gave a passing hum at that answer. He didn’t ask about your boyfriend very much after that.

Once your baby girl arrived, she became your entire world, your entire focus. Between caring for her and working to provide, you had little time to worry about your boyfriend still being gone. But it wasn’t as lonely as it may have looked because Loki was always by your side. Working around his royal duties, he’d take time to come visit you and your daughter even sometimes staying for dinner or to play with her. You didn’t miss how he was unintentionally becoming the father she was missing. You never said anything, though, always biting your tongue as you waited for her father to return.

Hope began to face on that front after your daughter turned three. Maybe he was just a footnote in your life, a foolish hopeful dream, but at least he had given you the lovely gift of your child. You weren’t giving up, still placing him in the boyfriend spot of your mind, but you couldn’t deny doubt crept in. Maybe a relationship of any capacity just wasn’t in the cards for you.

Or so you thought.

As Loki continued with his royal responsibilities, he was growing older and more powerful. That’s when the rumors of marriage began floating about. Your mother had brought it up to you once asking if you met any of his potential suitors. Your stomach did a somersault. You didn’t even know there were suitors, let alone met any of them. You tried to keep your cool and just told her no.

Who these suitors were and if they really existed, you never found out. You never even had the guts to ask about them especially after Loki pulled you aside one night after a dinner at the palace.

He rarely ever invited you to dinners with his family so to get this spontaneous invitation, you didn’t hesitate to attend. He even allowed you to bring along your daughter. She was playing with some servants’ children when Loki asked you to the garden.

"Feeling like a nighttime stroll?" You asked with a little laugh. Loki just smiled.

"There’s actually something I want to speak to you about."

"Oh," you frowned. "Is everything okay?"

Loki nodded. "Yes, yes, everything is fine." He looked up at the sky, almost lost in thought as you walked. You thought for a split second how lovely he looked. "I’m sure you have heard by now the…talk about my anticipated engagement."

Your heart practically stopped beating at that moment. Your hands instinctively gripped at the skirt of your dress as if you were ready to run away at the drop of a hat. Trying to keep your voice stead, you said, "Yes, I believe my mother mentioned that to me the other day."

He shot you an unreadable side glance. Your hands gripped the fabric tighter. Why were you feeling like this? Was that…jealousy you felt? You didn’t understand where that had come from. This was your best friend. Your prince best friend. He was bound to get married and have a lavish life with his bride. You couldn’t stop that, you couldn’t change it.

"Do you know anything of the women I have been offered?"

Was this another one of his cruel jokes? You wanted to vomit all over the bushes of flowers passing you as you walked. You managed to shake your head in response. "I’m sure they’re all wonderful."

He scoffed. "More like they’re all incredibly boring."

You gasped, "Loki, I’m not sure you should be speaking that way of them."

"It’s doesn’t matter," he shrugged, "because none of them are what I want."

You didn’t know if you actually wanted to know what he was seeking. You looked at him wearily.

You two walked in silence for a moment. Loki was now watching the ground intensely. You couldn’t believe how much his gaze was wandering. It must’ve been for courage because the next words out of his mouth were ones you had never thought you’d ever hear. From anyone.

"I believe you could be what I want," he said. He spoke your name so softly. "I’d like to ask for your hand in marriage."

You stopped walking, your legs suddenly unable to move. Your eyes grew wide as complete shock raced over you. You didn’t know what to do, too scared to speak because you didn’t know what was going to come out. Your first thought was that this was one of his magic tricks. Maybe he wasn’t even here, just a clone of him as he wished to make a fool of you. It wouldn’t be the first time but he had never been so cruel.

"You’re not saying anything," Loki noted. He had stopped a few feet ahead of you, completely taken off guard by your halt.

"I-I don’t understand." The words felt so heavy forcing their way out of your mouth.

"I don’t believe I stuttered, dear."

Your jaw dropped, surprised it hadn’t hit the floor already. He was seriously asking this. Loki, a literal prince, and your best friend, was asking for your hand in marriage. But — But you just didn’t know why. Why would he ask such a thing? Not only were you an unwed mother, he knew very well about your boyfriend. It was almost insulting he’d think you’d give up just because business or whatever it was was taking a while. You didn’t even want to begin to think about what this could all mean for your daughter.

"Loki… I… I don’t know. This seems crazy—,"

"Crazy?" His expression turned dark. You suddenly regretted the word despite it holding true. "What is so crazy about me wanting to take your hand? I thought this could be good. You and your daughter would have everything you’d ever want. You’d be a princess for crying out loud!"

You flinched at his anger. You had never seen him so enraged before. It made your whole body stiffen.

"I see. This… This is very generous of you but my boyfriend…"

Loki chuckled but there wasn’t any humor found within it. "Of course. The nobleman." He rolled his eyes. "Tell me again, dear, how long has it been? Do you really think he’s going to just show back up one day?"

"Of course," you nodded. "He told me—,"

"He’s not coming back."

You began shaking your head, growing more and more upset as the seconds passed. "You don’t know that."

Loki sighed, defeatedly. "I do know that, dear." A heavy pause. "I know that because I’m the one that sent him away."

You were certain in that moment your heart had stopped. Everything had stopped. You could barely tell anymore how you got from point A to point B.

"Wh-What do you mean?"

"What I mean is I’ve had my eye on you for a long time," he explained. He was standing so tall making you feel minuscule. "I always thought you could be just right for me but then that nobleman waltzed into your life. Granted, he wasn’t me. He couldn’t give you what I could but he tried his best." Loki shrugged. "I had no choice, really. He threatened everything. He derailed my plan but it’s alright. I think after tonight it’ll be back on track, correct?"

You held your hands up in defense, practically begging Loki to slow down. Your head was spinning. "You sent away the father of my child?"

Loki sighed, sounding actually regretful. "Truly, that wasn’t ever my intention. I didn’t know he was going to do that."

"And you think since you forced him out of the picture, you can swoop in and ask for my hand in marriage? We never had a courtship! Are you even hearing yourself?"

"I’m a prince, darling." He sounded so casual. "We do not court like the rest of you."

Gosh, you felt like you were going to vomit. Your hands fell to your stomach as you tried to calm yourself. You had never heard Loki separate you two so clearly before. Like he had drawn a line, definitively.

Your words tasted like venom as you forced yourself to speak. "Can I at least think about it?"

"I’m afraid not. They’d like an answer tonight."

Tonight. That was what this dinner had been for. You weren’t invited just out of the kindness of his heart. You had been attending your own engagement party.

"Loki, this… I— This is insane. You’re— You’re insane—,"

"Am I, really?" He pressed, taking a few steps closer. You trembled under a darkened gaze you had never seen before on him. "I’m not sure that’s how you should be speaking to the man trying to offer you a bit of… stability."

"Stability?" You repeated. "You think that’s all that I want?"

"Would this not grant your daughter a better life? The little shop of yours is only getting you two so far, dear."

The shock had worn off as you were now being filled with rage. "Don’t you dare bring my daughter into this anymore," you gritted. "Of course, I want nothing but the best for her but I also deserve someone who will truly love me. You’re — You’re just asking to fulfill some royal commitment and trying to pass it off like this is some big, grand gesture to help me."

Loki looked a bit taken back by your words. Even you were a bit surprised by yourself. You didn’t know where this fight was coming from within you. Probably from the depths of motherhood, if you had to guess. But it felt good in a way.

After a heavy moment, Loki asked, "Was I so wrong to assume this proposal could actually help us both?"

That was the real kicker of it all, you thought. This actually could help you both.

"I want to marry someone who loves me."

Loki seemed to debate around the idea mentally. "I’m certain that within time something could bloom. I’m not a psychopath, darling." He smirked. "But I truly can’t believe you’d give this up all for the minuscule chance at love, the hopeless thing that got you where you are today."

You gasped. "I would’ve had true love if you hadn’t banished him away!"

Loki let out a humorless laugh. "You are so adorable, you know that?" You flinched as he got close enough now to place a hand on your damp cheek. You were practically forced to look in his eyes as he spoke. "That man was nothing but a spoiled brat and I refuse to believe you actually fell for his game."

You felt yourself crumbling down again. Way beneath him. "He… He was really…"

"Don’t you dare try to defend him, do you hear me?" Loki spat. That darkness was washing over but this time it felt like a storm you couldn’t escape. "I will not have my bride speak such niceties about another man."

"Your bride—,"

"While I’ve enjoyed this little midnight confessional, we have some good news to share with everyone, don’t we?"

You didn’t know what to do. What to think anymore. He wasn’t letting up. You were trapped. It was like the prison gate had shut behind you. You were stone-cold now, completely under his control. You were giving up in complete defeat. You could scream until you were blue in the face but you were running in circles. At least your daughter would know a home.

"Yes."

Loki’s face lit up. He removed his hands from you. "Fantastic," he said, heading back towards the palace. You helplessly followed beside him. He wrapped an arm around your waist and said, "Happy engagement, dear."

[delimeful]

how easy you are to need (redux) (1)

the first chapter of my HEYATN rewrite! find the original here!

warnings: panic attacks, fear, hypervigilance, paranoia, mentions of freezing/starving

-

The first sign of the humans had been the smoke.

The scent had caught Virgil’s attention from the moment he woke, the light grey plumes curling over the tips of the trees in the distance. There’d been no recent storm to strike a flame, which meant that human hands had crafted it.

It wasn’t the first time. His forest was wide and sprawling, and it was near enough to a few well-worn traveling paths that humans thought it a fair place to set up camp for a night or two. The otherworldly aura of the forest itself tended to dissuade any longer stays.

(Eerie howling in the night also tended to do the trick.)

Virgil still had to check it out, of course, both as his home’s protector and to soothe his own agitation at the sight. It didn’t matter that they were almost always peaceful travelers, the presence of humans put him on edge every time.

And if the sensation of being watched drove the intruders away quicker? All the better.

He headed down the hillside, winding his way through the edges of his normal patrol route as he went. Nothing was amiss there, the wildlife scampering away at the sight of him, the natural magic of the area still abundant and thriving.

The source of the smoke was closer than he’d anticipated, though. It was rare that any were bold enough to camp any further than the edges of his territory, and yet here he was in the middle of the forest, the smell rapidly growing stronger.

He slowed, close enough now that the smoketrail was hidden by the long branches overhead. This was a familiar spot, there was a clearing up ahead, and—

Virgil stopped dead at the edge of the trees, staring at the abandoned cabin that had sat quietly in this clearing since he’d first stumbled into his forest.

There was smoke rising from the chimney.

He could smell the humans now, tracks and scent trails to and from the apparently formerly abandoned cabin. They must have trekked through a good quarter of his territory to get here, and he’d slept through the intrusion like an idiot. He paced back and forth agitatedly, circling around the clearing and remaining carefully out of sight as he did.

He’d been in that cabin before. How could he not have? Alone in these woods, there wasn’t much to do for fun except explore. Once he’d gotten past his initial skittishness, he’d been determined to investigate every inch of the dusty old place.

And then he’d realized it was a former den for hunters. He’d spent weeks on the other side of the woods, slowly working his way through the panic that had risen up in him at the simple thought: what if they return?

Even so, as time passed, he’d only grown more sure that the place was well and truly harmless. Nobody had been in there for years prior to Virgil’s arrival in the woods. Whatever use its hunters might have had for it, it had clearly been long abandoned and left to rot.

Of course, now there was smoke in the chimney, and the windows had been carefully pushed open, and there was a horse, grazing mildly.

Virgil took a deep breath, pausing his pacing to try and calm his racing heart. He couldn’t jump to conclusions.

Just because it was an old hunters’ den didn’t mean the new occupants were hunters. It might have been a simple act of opportunity, like a vole taking up an abandoned burrow.

The back door swung open, and Virgil went still, watching as a human donned in red strode over to the horse, patting its snout and murmuring softly to it. He offered it a handful of some sort of grain, which it seemed to enjoy, and then made his way to the center of the clearing and drew a sword from the sheathe at his hip.

Even from here, Virgil felt his skin prickle at the way the blade sang, radiating protective magics as the human moved through blocks and attacks against an invisible enemy. It had to be pure silver, and likely warded as thoroughly as possible against creatures like him. One didn’t simply obtain a weapon like that without knowing what it was, what it was meant for.

He backed away slowly, fading into the underbrush, until he was absolutely certain that he was free from the human— the hunter’s range of sight.

Then, mind full of white noise, he turned and bolted.

—-

He lost a day and a half to the blinding panic, cycling between fear-anger-exhaustion-terror until he’d finally burnt all the emotions out and collapsed.

It was an awful decision. He’d kept as far as possible from the cabin, even in his haze, and now he had no idea what the humans had done in his absence. If they knew he was there— if they’d set up traps— it would only take one slip and everything would be over.

No, if he was going to get rid of them, he needed to be as prepared as they no doubt were.

He spent sleepless nights scouring the forest, searching for any traces of them-- searching for their patrol routes, their traps, the damage to the forest they left in their wake.

But there was none. Not even a faded scent trail to suggest they’d ever been through at all. It seemed they were sticking close to the cabin.

For the first time, Virgil wondered if they’d really come for him. He hadn’t been seen by humans in years, often sticking to the shadows to scare off travelers that had overextended their stays. It was possible that they didn’t even know a shifter lived in the forest, let alone a werewolf. He couldn’t bet on it, but it was possible.

Whether he wanted to find out what they were doing here or just know what human tricks he’d be facing, he had to return to the cabin. He spent less time sleeping so that he could continue patrolling through his woods and also keep a wary eye on the humans when they roused.

The hunter was the easiest to spy on. He spent most of his time outdoors, running through a series of daily tasks that ranged from caring for the horse to gathering firewood to hauling water from the well. He practiced drills with that sword less frequently than Virgil would have expected, but when he did, he moved with the well-balanced motions and sure strikes of someone who knew their way around a weapon.

The other two were more difficult to get a read on. They didn’t seem like hunters in physique or manner, and they spent significantly more time indoors.

One had hands that carried the sharp, chemical smell of ink, and only made regular excursions from the house to mess with a plot of upturned land he’d had the hunter help him fence in. It was a garden, Virgil was fairly sure, though it looked nothing like the ones he’d planted, all careful rows and even spacing.

The other spent most of his time indoors, though he was anything but stagnant. Where the hunter focused on heavy labor and maintaining the exterior of the home, this one seemed to focus his attention on the interior care. Virgil often caught glimpses of him opening windows to air out dusty old linen or set sweet-smelling baked items along the sill.

Most interesting of all were the ways the three of them intersected.

The baker would bring simple food and drink to the scholar when he spent longer than usual wrist-deep in the dirt, and sneak the horse treats while the hunter wasn’t looking, completely unrepentant whenever he was caught.

The scholar would sit and watch the hunter run through drills, occasionally calling out an imaginary attack for him to counter, or share quiet conversation with the baker as dusk fell and the lantern bugs began to emerge.

Even the hunter was gentle, presenting freshly-plucked berries to the baker with a dramatic bow and excited smile, or crouching in the garden to listen as the scholar excitedly explained how well the new sprouts were doing.

It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen from humans before.

He eventually decided they couldn’t know he was there; any hunter worth their salt would know that encroaching on a pack’s territory was tantamount to declaring war. The other two didn’t even seem to be combatants. If Virgil was anything other than an undersized, scrappy outlier, he could have killed all three of them at any point.

He probably still could, now that he knew when they slept and was well familiar with the ins and outs of that cabin. Unless they’d set up new defenses, or sealed off the secret passages, or randomly deviated from their normal sleeping schedule. Unless, unless, unless.

The forest had been as uneasy as him at first, but surprisingly enough, these new residents worked hard to avoid wreaking the casual destruction humans were known for. They didn’t clear swaths of land of all life or hunt the new season’s young.

As the days passed, they continued to just… exist there, long enough that deer passed through the clearing with barely the flick of an ear at the voices from inside the house.

Over time, the forest’s reluctance turned to ambivalence, and then to amusement at Virgil’s expense. He was the only one who seemed to be taking the threat seriously anymore, much to his annoyance. Sure, they hadn’t done anything yet, but the key word there was ‘yet’.

It was well into the moon’s cycle that his patience in watching the human’s was rewarded with witnessing a change in their routine. As dusk fell, the three of them left the clearing entirely, trekking into the woods with careful steps. Virgil followed at a safe distance, feeling suspicious about their uncharacteristic silence.

The hunter led the way with a glowing lantern, wary but with no sword at his hip. The baker walked behind him, carrying a wrapped, slightly bulky package in his arms, and the scholar brought up the rear with a lantern of his own. Every so often, the scholar would pause and then murmur directions.

It took Virgil an embarrassingly long time to realize they were following a leyline, and sure enough, once they reached an intersection point, they stopped and set up a brightly colored cloth, a few wooden dishes, and bound, dried herbs from the garden.

An offering, the forest seemed to croon around him, pleased with the cuts of meat and burnt herbs. Virgil couldn’t hear what the scholar said, the words quiet and slow, but with the forest present in the back of his mind, he got the general idea.

Reciprocity. Giving for what they had taken, a declaration of their intent.

The forest accepted the claim as it had accepted his offer years ago, the sound of it in the buzzing of the insects and the breeze rustling the leaves. The humans returned home, as much residents of these woods as Virgil was, now.

---

Between the forest’s new fondness and their own persistent harmlessness, Virgil couldn’t justify getting rid of the humans.

So instead, he stayed well away from them, only venturing out of his corner of the forest to supervise the offering trips they made into the heart of the woods on every half-moon, both waxing and waning. If the humans noticed either the forest's fond touch in the brush of its greenery against them or the weight of his narrow-eyed gaze upon them, they didn't show it.

The season shifted slowly, and then all at once. The forest grew quiet again, its greenery fading away as it and many of its inhabitants dropped into snowsleep. Virgil wished his own winter could pass so simply.

The humans’ arrival had dragged his attention away from his usual preparations, and he had enough difficulties hunting alone without adding new complications to the mix. As it stood, he had barely any body fat to speak of, and even his winter coat felt pitiful against the cutting winds and heavy snow.

Whenever he wasn’t hunting, he was curled up in his cave, wishing for the warmth of a pack to surround him. He usually ran warm, enough that even the night’s chill didn’t bother him, but it was a different story in this weather. Shifting wasn’t an option either— His human form could barely withstand minutes in the cold, let alone hours.

Looking back, he wasn’t sure whether he’d drifted towards the cabin on purpose or simply subconsciously followed the smell of smoke. The result had been the same either way.

The house had looked unbearably warm against the bleak landscape, and Virgil had spent ages arguing with himself before slinking towards the abode, unable to bear another sleepless night having any scrap of heat leached away. Honestly, he’d been half-surprised to wake up this morning.

He slunk around the edges of the building, his heart pounding at the muffled voices inside. They had no reason to believe a werewolf resided here. He was small enough to resemble a normal wolf if they caught him. He might simply be earning himself a quicker death, put down like a simple wild animal, but he felt too numb to care.

The cabin’s foundation was solid, but Virgil had spent a fair amount of time exploring the human den as a pup, telling himself he was conquering his fear. It was certainly a hunter’s hideout; he’d found a staggering number of secret passages and hidey-holes built into it for easy escape. With a little prying, they could also be used for easy entrance.

The boarded up entrance to the crawl space was just where he remembered it, faded defensive runes carved into the wood. The enchantments were long defunct, the boards old and rotted, and he’d wriggled through the crawl space enough as a kid to know that there were no lingering traps in wait.

He braced himself, and then shifted with low cracks of bone and flesh. This close to the full moon, it ached like sore muscles, but not as bad as the cold stung at his now-human body. Gritting his teeth, he quickly dug his nails into the wood, able to pry the planks free even with half-frozen fingers. Task done, he shifted back as quick as he could and waited for an agonizing moment, listening for any signs that he’d been heard.

Nothing. The distant voices carried on without a pause.

He hesitated again, but in mere seconds, meager warmth began trickling out from the opening, baiting him more effectively than any supernatural lure. He ducked his head and crawled into the passage, which was more cramped than he’d recalled but still manageable. Step by silent step, he crept through the crawl space, letting the growing heat sink into him until the biting cold was barely more than a memory.

He hadn’t realized just how far under the cabin he’d ventured until a voice rang out directly above him, the actual words lost in the rush of panic he felt, crouched and vulnerable with a human was only meters away.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent like that, tremors vibrating through him as old memories came rushing back. It was small things that brought him back; the smell of ink, the crackling of a hearth, shared laughter. He’d had none of those, back then, but they were here now. He was here now.

The humans continued to chatter casually, none of them aware that there was a beast lying in wait just under the floorboards. They didn’t know he was there. He was safely hidden away.

Slowly, inch by inch, Virgil relaxed, head tucked against his paws, adjusting bit by bit until even the creaks of the humans moving about over his head didn’t register as a threat.

Finally warm, he dropped into sleep between one exhale and the next.

[mega-bastard]

Bitch in Heat Stuck Under Debris Gets WRECKED

a miki mouse whorehouse collab, the m.list you can find here 

cw: sexual harrassment, abo themes, dubcon kinda

as the poor quality picture can’t really show you, I got stuckage and I chose Bakugo with the finishing touch of making it ABO <3 It’s also two days late but shhhhh we don’t talk about it uwu also 2.7 words of pain enjoy 

katsuki bakugou is becoming a thorn in your side.

you’ve both been metaphorically and somewhat literally glued to each others sides since highschool. it’s not necessarily a bad thing, to be quite frank katsuki is something of a deterrent in a world of second genders and pheromones— something you capitalized on in high school.

being an omega hero isn’t something entirely world shattering, but it’s a position that comes with lots of stereotypes— stereotypes you fought tooth and nail to fight against in your younger years. being one of four omegas in your class was...irritating, to say the least. lots of preconceived notions that you needed to be helped with trivial things, and while your classmates intentions came from a good place it was maddening. save for katsuki, back when he had no restraint with his anger and aggression, he didn’t coddle you like your classmates did. Labeled a brute for his actions towards his omega classmates in trivial interaction or sparring, you thrived on the normality— katsuki was an ass to everyone. Your omega was placated, finally encountering an alpha who wasn’t belittling her with preconceived daintiness.

it was easy to hang near katsuki, ignoring the atrocity that was his vocabulary. eventually like the rest of the peanut gallery that was the bakusquad, you just existed alongside katsuki— which meant that you grew on him. katsuki swears up and down that you’re all a nuisance but you’ve seen him go up to bat for all you at some point, you knew you’d all made some sort of ragtag pack with one another. this was rather amazing to you at the time, not to sell yourself short but you’d never really imagined belonging to a close knit group of friends— especially realizing that they understood when it was appropriate to step in for you. katsuki in particular had a knack for being at the right place at the right time.

During your second year you fumbled.

interning with miruko had its perks, a top 5 hero with raw strength, cunning, and the drive to just keep going— and an omega. landing and internship with her had been a dream, even more-so when you learned she’d been watching you since your first year because of the festival. bright eyed and eager, nothing could have dampened your spirits— neither katsuki and his usual moody behavior or the standoffish alpha from shiketsu. yes, you all had landed an internship with miruko and part of you was...worried? katsuki had never looked down on heroes based on their second genders but you couldn’t speak for the shiketsu alpha, both alphas interning under an established omega hero put your inner omega on edge— you didn’t quite know why though. but you chose to squash the feeling and enjoy your internship with who was essentially your idol and continue on.

then you started getting sexually harassed.

his name was omori kisai and he was the worst. hailing from shiketsu, known for their dignified schooling, he was far from it. salacious comments dropped when no one was listening, less that appropriate touching when passing by and just general ick that had your skin crawling and omega snarling. it was easy to brush it off as banter the first time, section off the awkward contact as an accident. The second time you made it clear the comments were not liked and the touches far from appropriate, after the third time you’d snap an insult or have to hold a trembling fish from making contact. but it was coming to a head and your suppressors could only do so much to hide your souring scent. looking back you should have said something, but your pride had told you that it was a necessary step to overcome and push through— that he wouldn’t be the last. it weighed you down, day by day, a heavy cloud that wouldn’t let up. one particular bad timed comment brought tears to eyes and shame to your entire being.

thankfully, as time would come to show, katsuki tended to nose into your dilemmas.

the day prior to the abrupt end of your harassment  you’d been tripped up by a villian and had fallen a sizeable distance into a pitiful excuse of pond. of course, omori had taken this as an open invitation to mock you and then offer you his shitty hero costume cloak— not without hinting at you returning the favor ‘somehow’. yeah right. you had stomped off, unaware of katsuki’s presence nearby. come next day, omori avoided you like the plague and katsuki not so subtly stuck to your side like an unwilling chowchow— all growly and temperamental. but his constant presence rubbed his scent off on you. despite his less than chummy attitude, you weren’t mad; katsuki smelled like cinnamon spice and whiskey with hints of burnt caramel— absolutely overpowering yet decadent all the same.

you tried not to think about just how much you enjoyed his smell. your omega was purring about it.

the omori incident was the beginning of katsuki’s subtle hovering. though you pried the truth of his involvement in omori leaving you alone after offhandedly bringing it up to mina and jirou one day, katsuki helped you out of situations as invasively as possible time and time again. by the end of third year it was no secret to you of your classmates teasing of your relationship with katsuki; an amiable and prideful omega and the irritable powerhouse of an alpha. you brushed it off because...well you didn’t know why, but katsuki’s seeming indifference to the teasing had you quelling every jittery happiness your inner omega expressed at the thought of katsuki being your alpha.

now, three years out of highschool and beginning to climb the ranks, katsuki was becoming testy— and for the life of you the reason couldn’t be more opaque.  you both work at the same agency, and due to the nature of your quirks you spend all your time together due to their compatibility. compatibility was a bitter word for you, katsuki and yours supposed compatibility had been talked about for some time now but the sobering reality is that perhaps you two were simply good friends— and now sharing your omegas endearment for the explosive alpha had reared its ugly head.

your heat was a week away and already you felt the familiar fatigue begin to lap at you alongside general moodiness. all that coupled with the annoying need to be around katsuki was maddening and sprinkling his own extra grouchy attitude on top and you were ready to snap. in hindsight, that should have been your cue to take an extra week off— instead you chose to once again to champion pride instead of your intellect.

you could have stayed home this morning, you should have.

patrol had been slow, not particularly unusual but favored nonetheless. face raised to the slowly dipping sun you couldn’t help but sigh, the warmth of the late afternoon sun was heaven sent-- you could sleep standing up with much issue. it remided you katsuki, strangely enough though most things did recently.

the sound of screaming and rushing feet shook you from your drowsy stupor. Set on alert, you spied the source of the sudden discordance and found several villains causing a commotion. quickly calling for backup for you before finding yourself facing a hulking mass of green charging you head on. tranquility gone, it was time to fight.

the ache in your body could not be more apparent but your humiliation ran more rampant in your system than any ache or pain could, your fatigue more than present as your body hummed with warmth. leave it to you to get stuck face down and ass up amongst the trashed ruins of what was an office building, weighed down between a broken desk and a collapsed bookshelf. the villain you had engaged with, some self-named idiot calling himself cruel croc, packed a punch and your bruised body and rendered office floor were a testament to that. of course, you’d done quite the bit of damage to him yourself before the entire floor collapsed underneath you both— rendering the meathead unconscious under a rather hefty pile of concrete and debris whereas you were pinned and to utterly weak to do much.

the thrum of your heat was beginning its path of vengeance through your body, feeling too pliant to get yourself out of what was otherwise easy to fix problem. you were feeling it, bad. the heat of your clothed cunt was beginning to become too apparent, unconsciously squeezing your thighs to provide relief to no avail. no, this could not be happening right now of all times. but as much as your inner monologue fought to try and will away your heat, the warmth was becoming too much and sudden breeze of wind had you trembling and whining. the feel of slick beginning to wet your hero costumes spandex set your hazing thoughts into sudden panic, if cruel croc woke up or if another villain came across you would they be above...the thought alone could’ve made you puke. flashbacks to second year had you bucking wildly for freedom, you wouldn’t let anyone have the opportunity for—

“ OI! Shitty ‘mega were are you? Are you—“

you stilled, biting hard to keep your mouth shut. your omega was whimpering, desperate for the alpha, HER alpha to relieve her from her heat. on a normal day she could melt into his scent, but right now? she could drown in it and die happy. with his scent getting stronger the closer katsuki clambered toward you, the more the head haze grew-- the slicker your thighs became. the whimper you let loose was pitiful, the need for some sort of stimulation to your cunt becoming near painful the longer you remained so close yet so far from katsuki. the pathetic little “alpha” you whined as you heard him quickly approach from behind would’ve been utterly embarrassing to you in any other situation.

but if you could have turned to see katsuki, you would’ve been met with the look of an unmistakably feral alpha-- pupils dilated to hell, fingernails blackened, and canines elongated and sharpened. but what you lacked in sight, you could hear and smell.

katsuki was the definition of an alpha as is, but the way he was pushing his scent out was like a big red sign that screamed ‘DANGER’. To you, it had you feeling utterly submissive-- if you weren’t already face down and ass up you certainly would’ve moved into position.  practically salivating at the thought of what katsuki could do--

the heated palm on the globe of your ass is thought pausing, the sudden heated touch coaxing a sugary sweet moan from deep in your throat-- the small touch quickly turning to rough palming at your moaning. tt feels so good, but you want more. need more. 

“Please, need more Alpha” it's breathy and whiny, something you're far from day to day but it feels too natural escaping you. mewling at the ghost of a touch over your clothed cunt, your blubbering when it presses harder-- escalating you to tears of frustration when it ceases. practically feeling katsuki’s harsh breathing near your cunt you begin to wiggle and wail with all manner of unrestrained vigor; chanting alpha and katsuki like a prayer and begging for relief like a sinner for forgiveness. it’s working, you know it is, if katsuki’s breathing is anything to go by but he refuses any further touching. you want katsuki everyday, but right now you need him. 

“Only want you Katsuki, please it’s only been you,” you hiccup your words through a shrill plea, but the tearing of your soaked spandex sends an excited chill down your spine. your legs tremble with excitement when katsuki grips the tops of your thighs and spreads them-- revealing your drooling cunt. it’s both too much and not enough all at once and you wiggle once more, yelping from a smack to your left ass cheek. it’s not particularly painful, not even as katsuki rubs over it right after the hit, but it quells your wiggling nonetheless. you open your mouth to urge him on but he beats you to it.

“No one else, you got that ‘mega? No one gets to see you like this, no gets to touch you like this-- your mine,” he punctuates his declaration with two of his deliciously thick fingers in your cunt and you squeal, “ you got that? I’m your alpha, always have been always will be.” nodding despite yourself, you struggle for words with his fingers pumping in and out alongside the ghost of pressure on your clit “Yes! Yes, I’m yours Katsuki!” you babble your words already teetering on the precipice of your first orgasm. it takes a pickup in pace and a rough rub along your clit and your wailing, slick streaming down your thighs as your first orgasm crashes into you.

despite the pleasant haze in your head, you faintly hear zippers being undone and the shuffling of clothes. licking your lips, you perk your ass up as much as the heavy bookcase allows, purring in excitement like a spoiled cat. The rough grab of your hips leaves you gasping, feeling the length of katsukis dick along your thigh-- long and heavy. you're salivating as he lines himself up with your weeping cunt, ramming his entire length in you with little regard. stars shoot across your vision and your ears deafen, crying out at being so full. it feels wonderful being stuffed this full and you babble it to katsuki. if you could see him, you would see just how prideful and smug he looked-- only he can take care of you like this, none of the other shitty alphas can take care of you this well.

katsuki sets a rough pace, drawing himself out slowly like he’s aiming for you to feel every vein of his dick before slamming back into you. your poor cunt clenches sporadically, drawing groans and growls from your alpha and all you can do is choke on broken moans because the way he feels churning your insides is downright sinful. you felt a band begin to tighten in your belly, your broken moans evolving into babbling-- how good katsuki was making you feel and how he was the only one who made you feel this good. it spurred him onward, fucking into you with more vigor alongside groans of your names and his own praise for you. “Good fuckin ‘mega”, “Takin’ me so well”, and “My perfect little mate” were some of the praise you could catch and had you preening. All of it combined you felt the band tighten and you couldn’t stop yourself from sobbing out. feeling the base of Katsuki’s length begin to swell, you could only salivate at the thought of being knotted.

“Want your knot Katsuki! Alpha I need it”

 at your blubbering demand, katsuki faltered in pace for only a moment before a deep mix of a groan and growl ripped from his throat. grabbing and bending your leg upwards he fucked deeper and faster into your battered cunt, the new angle sending you hurtling into your orgasm. eyes rolled back and tongue, you felt utterly boneless-- momentarily brain dead before screaming out at Katsuki knotting you, his own groan of pleasure mixing with yours as he filled you impossibly full with his seed. 

 trembling underneath him, you were only a fraction aware of movement above you before the weight of the bookcase vanished from you. weakly you glance back up at your alpha. your surprised to see just how feral he looks, no doubt you’ve pushed him into his rut. whimpering as he moves down upon you, he nibbles and kisses along your jaw and neck before biting down on you scent gland. a flash a white hot pain curtailed by just as intense pleasure wracks your wrecked body but the dopy look of happiness pulls a low purr from katsuki.

you wanna say something, anything, but your too exhausted and as katsuki knot subsides you let another weak whimper as he removes himself-- feeling his seed spill from your battered cunt. he pulls a quiet moan from you as he gathers some of it a pushes back in-- and a glance at his smug face lets you know that he’s decidedly not done with you yet.

[roscgcld]

HEADCANON + VARIOUS || when their siblings are evil

request: Hello, I was kinda wondering how would Gojo, Itadori and megumi react to a their younger sibling being evil but she has a reason to being that way. [Headcanon] -

note: hmm - this one is really interesting! honestly i had never thought about their reactions if their younger siblings are evil! this was an entirely new idea to me, so i definitely enjoyed writing something like this

characters: gojo satoru, itadori yuji, fushiguro megumi

pronouns: she/her

GOJO SATORU

in this sense, I feel it’s not that shocking that if his younger sister joined forces with geto

if you weren’t born with the Six Eyes like your older brother, your clan will just treat you like a slave - like maki was treated when she was in the zen’in clan 

after years of abuse and being told that you were a mistake, and that you shouldn’t have been born, and that you were a waste of space - that might crack you and made you go insane

gojo might have known this might happen, and had tried to move you away from the path of evil - because i feel like he would be a good older brother and shower you in all the love you deserve

he’d shower you in love and respect, getting you new clothes even if your parents tell him not to, spoil you rotten and even training you to use your powers under the cover of darkness

but sometimes it just isn’t enough though, and the emotional wounds are just too deep to heal - and he gets that

feel like he might end up blaming himself - what kind of older brother can’t protect his own baby sister? how can he call himself ‘the strongest’ when he can’t even protect the one person that he was born to protect?

screw the world - he’s your older brother. he should have seen the signs and stopped you from doing what you do

at the same time, he knows the reason why you left - you were sick and tired of the higher ups and their backwards thinking

the elders of your clan, the elders of other clans, the higher ups who control the jujutsu world - you hate them all, and you strive for the change that gojo wants to do as well. but with how you’ve been put down your entire life, and how underdeveloped your skills are, you went the only route you know - a route that strays you away from all you’ve ever known

if anything, he’s sort of proud - since along the way, geto definitely takes you under his wing and teaches you to unlock all the potential of your power - which will be a huge slap to the face for the rest of the clan and the higher ups

feel like he doesn’t have it in him to really take you down if he needs to, since he can see through you no matter what - how you’re scared to be on the run, how you hate being away from your older brother, how you know that you have innocent blood on your hands

yet you can’t leave, you’re in too deep now. and if you return, who exactly is there to stop the higher ups from killing you like they so desperate want to for so long?  

he’d probably spare you out of all the sorcerers that the higher-ups have branded as traitors, because at the end of the day you’re still his baby sister

and no matter how twisted your views of getting to your goal has become, you two still strive for the same thing - and that is to rid the jujutsu world of people like them

plus, if he was being honest, he’d want to keep you around as a slap to the higher ups still lol; the biggest middle finger he can give to them is by keeping you alive for as long as possible

ITADORI YUJI

yuji, being the sunshine he is, would not have known why you decided to leave for the other side of the war

it wasn’t his fault - if anything, he was the best older brother to be around. he’s what people dreamed of when they think of having an older brother

he took care of you, make sure you and your grandfather was fed, made sure you didn’t need to worry about trivial things like money or when the pay the bills - you just focus on being happy and that’s all that he needs in return

feel like the reason why you left was more because of manipulation - if you can just grow stronger, you can protect yuji from getting executed. that you can make a better world for the both of you, that you two can one day live in a happy world where curses and sorcerers were far behind you

of course yuji will be upset - he doesn’t see the appeal of the other side, and always advocates for you to realise how geto and the other curses are using you for their own benefit 

why would you give up your freedom to fight on the other side?

he’d be conflicted - this was the little girl who he used to braid her hair and cook for every day, the girl who he brought up from young to become the headstrong woman you are today. his best friend and the only person he can truly rely on during the darkest of times

how can he put that aside and hunt you down like you’re a prized animal in a hunting competition?

he’d wonder if he was a good brother to you too as well - wondering if he wasn’t giving you enough attention growing up, not as good as he thought he was at splitting his time for you

it’d take a lot of convincing from his friends that it wasn’t his fault, that you were being manipulated into thinking that this was the only way you can turn to in order to help him

since neither of you were really sorcerers to begin with - being thrown into a world where power dictates how you are treated would push anyone into a corner 

he’d use that to probably train harder - to show you that you didn’t need to do the things you are doing to make sure he’s safe, that he can protect both you and him with ease

that you two can go back to how things were before all this

if you two ever meet in battle, i don’t think he’d be able to handle it - he’d be hesitate when it comes to hitting you with full power, since he didn’t want to kill you by accident

the last he needs is to have your death on his conscience

throughout the entire battle he might still try to convince you that it isn’t too late, that you can return back to jujutsu tech and learn from the best of the best, with a warm roof over your heads and friends you can really rely on 

he’d stand in the way between you and any curse that tries to take you out, making sure that if either of you are to continue living, it’d be you

he’d lay his life down for you, even though he knows you’ve taken many innocent ones while getting to where you are today 

he still has all the love of an older brother, and nothing people say or do will waiver the vow he took when he first held you in his arms - that he was going to protect you no matter what

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI

with megumi, i can see why as well - you were abandoned at a young age, growing up watching your father working with all kinds of shady people

so it was natural for you to fall down the same path; since no one was really there to teach you right from wrong 

i feel like megumi might have tried, and he really did try to show you that going down the path your father did was not the best idea - but how much can he do as a young child?

he probably feels more guilty as time goes by - child or not, he was your older brother, he should have tried harder to show you where you could have put that skill

wouldn’t breath a word about your existence to anyone, not because he doesn’t want to be associated with you. it’s more so your name will not be as well known as geto suguru - that maybe, there was a chance that the higher-ups might overlook you and you can sneak back in without causing too much waves

but the entire time, he might harbour all the guilt from not trying hard enough as a child to convince you that going to jujutsu tech was the best way to get stronger and show the zen’in clan that your father wasn’t a ‘waste of an heir’

the first time his friends will even find out you were an actual person is when you would run into them whilst you’re on a job - kill a target your client gave to steal some documents that they view as valuable

you didn’t notice them until you felt someone staring at you, to which you turn to face the person - ready to threaten to scoop their eyeballs out

“oh, hi nii-chan.” you’d greet with a casual grin as he stared at you in shock, nobara and yuji looking between the both of you curiously. “didn’t think i’d see you ever again.”

yuji and nobara might talk to you like you’re a normal person, but they kept their guards up still - something you found amusing, but still answering their question truthfully 

megumi knew better - unfortunately you’re branded as an underground criminal, and if possible, any available sorcerer that bumps into you is to kill you before you accidentally reveal the existence of sorcerers and curses

however, no matter how hard he wills himself, he can’t do it - you’re still his flesh and blood. you may have chosen a path that’s different from his, but deep down you’re still living true to yourself

you’d glance over and see the conflict brewing in his eyes, to which you’d give him a soft smile before you lean over to grab his hand in his, causing him to snap his eyes up at you

“do what you think is right.”

with that you pulled away, and with another wave to the group, you melted into the crowd; somehow managing to disappear before their eyes

both his friends will be confused, looking around for you while he stared down at the hand you had grabbed, a slightly faraway look on his face

he’d probably realise that if anything, you’re living true to yourself and allowing yourself to fly so far ahead that you’ve slowly started to outshine any of them prior to this

and he’d feel weirdly proud, because you were still his baby sister, and you still achieved things that are worth being proud of 

© roscgcld — all rights reserved to me, rose, the author and creator of these works. do not repost/translate/claim my work as yours on any platform

[starshipsofstarlord]

𝑅𝑂𝑃𝐸𝑆 𝑂𝐹 𝑆𝑇𝐴𝑅𝐷𝑈𝑆𝑇

Summary: Kaz had faced two of his fears - almost watching you die and going against his touch aversion. And now he has to deal with the consequences that not only burden him, but also yourself

Pairing: Kaz Brekker x reader

Warnings: mentions of death, mentions of violence, touch aversion,

Word Count: 3255

Masterlist Link

The night, it’s integrity toiled with you, as you say at the camp, with Inej planning on abandoning you all, and Jesper missing that bleating goat. It made you wonder of what direction that you should pursue going in, as you ogled up at the glittered sky, the sequinned stars glinting mischievously back at you. You were nothing other than a speck in the world, as they were in the laminated skyline, the Saints and dark generals were the ones that whisked you down such demeaning paths. The crows were to scurry from their brash threats and existences, the journey of catching the sun summoner had been all for nought.

Not a kruge had been earned in your name, the small bump of adventure had inevitably ended up as being a waste of both resources and time. And now the task of returning through the dreary and life threatening fold lay at your feet; such a plain that was created from pure evil was nerve wrecking. You’d never be considered as one of the goods that served the gods, but you were nowhere close to the Darkling’s maleficence. Had he not only taken hostage of a symbol to all geisha, but your veins were adeptly black, and the toxic venom was spreading with each hour that sourly passed. None of your fellow murder knew of the state that was combusting you; you had saved Kaz, with no regrets of doing so. That dagger had landed in Aleksander’s shoulder, and he had spread his shadowing cloud over to you, tormenting you with the image of complete destruction.

You were lucky to have escaped from his entrapment, Kaz had saved you, whisking your from the overbearing plough of suffering, even grabbing you with his glove covered hands, pressuring himself to do such an act to keep you alive. Though, you didn’t know how much longer you would remain so, and that was why you were gazing up at the constellations; hoping that you’d end up in their blazing glorification. Perhaps you’d survive, nothing was known of your current condition. Or you’d be cursed, turned grisha or something significantly worse. One thing that you’d learned on this gruelling mission was that anything was possible, even Kaz had made a step in his discomfort to rescue you, hauling you away from your inevitable doom by the arm, and stepping into the shrouding darkness. If it had not been for him, then you’d surely have composed into a defiled corpse, ripped apart by the darkness that Aleksander exhibited, and had enhanced through ancient looms that had been integrated onto absorbable parchment.

“I see that you’re less tense; does this mean that you are no longer mad at me?” His voice rang in your ears, prompting you to grind your teeth together as though you were mashing up crystals of salt. Eternally, you were grateful for the risk he had taken to ensure that you would not meet whichever saint you believed in once you travelled through the ropes of pitch and certain demise. You refused to give him the source of satisfaction of giving him your undivided attention; most feared him enough to comply and give him all the attentiveness he demanded as he struck his cane upon a surface, however, unlike those commoners, there was nothing about Kaz Brekker that struck fear in you. He were merely a man, whilst albeit had done some unforgivable things, had suffered same as everyone else, but terribly more so. “I’ll take your silence as a no then, should I?”

In turn, you crossed the folding origami of your arms over the expanse of your chest, and continued to ogle your pupils up towards the passageway of luminescence that hung like a chain in the velvet sky, causing Dirty Hands himself as he had been known, to release a heartfelt huff of frustration. It had taken quite the toll on him to oppose his own serious paranoia, and yet here you were, ignoring him after the cold events. Gulping, you couldn’t help but have annoyance seed in you as he continued to hover his presence beside you, he was using the tactic on purpose, full well knowing that it would eventually have you splintering until you cracked. You’d always had a soft spot for Kaz since the day you had met him; he was so brutally concurred with the ways of making a victim squeal like a sow giving birth, yet there continued to be an innocence within him, of which he hid from most. It was quite the contrast, as were his child like eyes that bore into you like his wish was to make you frail from poised embarrassment until you disappeared into a fine speck on the shoulder of his coat.

That was an irrational thought though, Kaz Brekker simply wanted to know, and not for the first time, why you disposed of reciprocated speech, and chose to pretend to be deaf to his consolation that he was attempting to reprimand with you. “Because if you remain to be angered with me saving your life, then, I would like to know. I’m not going to scoundrel around your presence all evening, we’re going to have to start moving sooner rather than later if we ever hope to get upon the route that I have planned. As useful as your combat is, and irreplaceable as I may think you are at times, I will allow you to go on your own path as you wish. You aren’t the only one that wants to part from the crows; Inej also has intentions to. If this is also because of the sun summoner, then they are freely your beliefs, though I certainly think you have the strength to strive towards something controversially more.” Inej leaving - that was news to you, and thus you finally surrendered, turning to him with spite written upon features, and commenced in supervising his lean form with integral eyes.

“To where do you have plans to go Kaz?” In turn, the volume of your sound increased, as you marked him as your target of choice. “And you’re right, I am pissed that you decided to save me rather than prioritising your own life; if anything were to happen to you, I’m not sure how I’d handle it. I have an inkling of a feeling that I wouldn’t even be able to. That’s because if you weren’t here I’d probably go crazy and envelop myself in a spiralling madness of which I’d be averted onto a path of nothingness. You are the one that has gifted me with a purpose, and time and time again you continue to preserve my life and I’m not sure I can cope with that. Just knowing that you are willing to throw yourself in the eye of danger to ensure that I do not meet my eventual end that is coming anyway. And worst of all, you faced off against that no good, dirty grisha, murderous General. Do you have any idea of what he would have done to you if he were to explicitly, and cruelly as are his routines, contort your body into the whim of his Darkling abilities.”

“I have an idea or two.” He admitted, toying with the fingers of his gloves, relieved to not see what lay beneath the leather. He stared at you in the face, feeling sickened from the sight of the creases that promoted your frown that was directed thoroughly towards him. It wasn’t a good feeling to be on the other end of your diverging glare, it was making him conflicted with the perishing of his emotions. A part of him was laughing inside that he was intimidated by someone, a woman no less, the other was rather impressed with your ample stubbornness. Now that was one thing that the two of you had in common; you both stood like stone, shadowing behind your beliefs or there lack of, as though Medusa had fixed the pair of you with her grey glazed glare, and forced you to be the way that you were. “And it was in fact you who decided to save my life first, I was merely returning the favour.” He now took it as his shift to allow his eyes to travel up into the beyond, the highlights that flawed his irises being triggered by the ambience that strobed in the frustrated sky, that was getting more antsy by each second that passed.

“I saved your life because I care about you, not because I value your skills and require them. That is a vast difference that separated us from being merely a single detail in a rope of stars. We’re separate in thought, and consolably close in real time and space, that fate has chosen us to be. We were both close to death in that second, he could have tarnished us both if that were his main priority, and we should be thankful that he realised that we were not lying when the admittance of not knowing of Alina Starkoff’s whereabouts fell off our tongues like misconducted liquor.” Your voice cracked, thinking about Kaz dead was the last thing that you wanted to obscure your mind, however it was the only thing that was roaming around the space like a moth darting around in a light fixture, having fallen captive to its own instinctive nature to fly too close to the example of fire. “Never, and I mean this Kaz, step in the path of death that narrows in my sights; I’d rather it be me than you of whom takes a fall into such a never ending abyss. You’re the face of this operation, and I am merely a killer that you decided to take under your wing whence times got too tough for either of us to cope alone.”

“I am not bound to make any promises, especially when you speak of accepting death so gracefully. And to answer your prior question, we are returning to Ketterdam, and I- i um-“ he fidgeted, his jaw contained to clench and release in a rhythm as he attempted to get the words out. “I need you to come with me on this, trust me, I have a plan, one that does not involve you dying. There will be no funerals that parallel this task ahead of us, if anything happens, you are my priority.” The heart felt ropes of words interlocked, much like the passage of beaming stars that made a blanket in the material of the sky; they shon stirringly in the abyss of the above, daring to deter you as its source of focus, causing you to freeze up as Kaz spoke his difficult to say words. “And when we get the one million kruge, that is when I will allow you to go out on your own, then you will have the expenses to protect yourself, and disappear if we cannot manage to end this eternal wrath that the grisha and hierarchy establish through the existence of the fold, they turn the tides of where whomever can go, and if they are gone, you shall have the freedom to venture to the place that your heart most desires, you’d no longer have to be trapped by my side similarly to my cane.”

“Everything that you are saying is tipping my head upside down; that I out of everyone, am your priority and that you are to set me free like a bird that has been trapped in a cage? Perhaps, this is a situation that it seems not you have enquired to think of, but I do not want to leave your side, even if I can. If I so much as wanted to, I’d have taken the chance to wrangle free in the midst of the journey from Ketterdam to these exasperating lands that want us to be persecuted for this job that we have taken underneath our midnight wings, though if you hadn’t noticed, I remain here. And whilst I wouldn’t have been peripherally if you weren’t to have saved me from my possible annihilation, I still have no intentions of abandoning you in any way, although that resolutes from you openly willing to take the risk of your own life in order to preserve my own. Never, and I compensate that with defiance, do that again.” You swiped your finger towards him, watching as the crease between his brows stiffened and grew deeper like a crescent that exhibited itself in the lawns of time, he poised his head back at your jurisdiction, clearly offended by your selfless demand.

“I cannot make that promise, there are little to no things that I have connective nurturing for; money and wealth stomp on nearly anything, but to me your life is priceless, even if your opinions do not retrograde the same reflection of worth.” His palm was shaky beneath its armour of leather as he went to reach for your hand, it took him a minute or so until he paid the dues of contact, but he faced his greatest fear, and denied avoiding contact. The prospect of Kaz touching anyone, let alone it being you, stirred a strange sensation through your body, as though you were being electrocuted via a storm, more specifically, a bolt of lightning that shot down from the angry clouds, shooting adrenaline and a high pulse through every limb of your form. “Do not mistake me for not having care towards Inej and Jesper, but without you I’d lose the path of succeeding through all my personal struggles, because you are the one thing that reminds me to continue to fight all of the harms in the world that wish to prosecute us, as though we are rodents that climb out from the sewers and run through the streets, poisoning them. There is a strong suit that wraps around me, stubbornly suffocating my interests, so that I have an avoidance of ever allowing anything to proceed to happen to you - get that through that steel skull of yours, you are smart and strong and my number one mine of gold for me to protect.”

“Kaz…” it felt like a forbidden sentence slipping off your tongue, simply by saying his name. You gave his hand a squeeze, noticing how he stiffened for a moment, and then relaxed a second later, getting used to the notion of silent amorist exchange; his blue eyes scalped every inch of your face, staring at the skin that compressed against your bone structure, the twinkle of the stars illuminating each distinctive feature that condoned your image. “I don’t know what I should say it’s - it is like we have been risking everything for nothing. And I am no gold mine, I cannot get us all that kruge, and I sure as hell can’t beat against the most powerful grisha known to man. I may be strong, but I am not strong enough. I may be smart, but certainly not smart enough. Overall, to everyone I am missing something, and it makes me wonder what else you see in me rather than an opportunist that can bring men to their knees in a second by sweeping beneath them, ready to swipe anything of value that they carry within the income of their pockets.” Drifting on their own accord, your eyes diverted once more to gaze up into the magnificent scenery that stroke above; each star was different within its placement, as well as how much it glowed under the pressure of insistent staring. It was as truly beautiful sight, and as you accorded your eyes to focus on the chord of light, Kaz’s eyes remained tuned upon your perseverance.

“The fact is you could bring any man, including myself,“ he gulped for a moment, feeling just how cheesy his words were as they spewed out, before he continued. Each word he spoke with giving you a new light that you saw Kaz under, he was not just a ruthless killer that likened to getting his hands dirty on a job, he was human like everyone else, many people seemed to forget that. But he had never appeared more humane as he did in the second with you, his hand clasped foreignly in the clasp of your own, and his eyes void of all intent, they were pure and for a second juridical with the haven of content. He wasn’t envisioning good, he was allowing himself to see what was right in front of him. “To their knees.” He finished his sentence, only to go on and elongate the mercenary like talk that he often had a problem with discussing. Though now could be the last moments that he could open up in such a way; it was uncertain how the turn of planned events would turn out, sailing through the fold was a danger all in itself, a toiling threat that was pushing you all forwards with a stern hand on each of your backs. “And you don’t even have to lift a finger to do so, every emotion you make me emit makes me possess a vigil weakness that I try to keep hidden, but in order to get the last of my strength through it, I acquire to get this off my chest before we venture to our next route. I care deeply for you, when I’m around you it feels like I am beneath water, the liquid gurgling in my lungs like sickening liquor. I have never felt this way, not have I ever had a desire to be monitored by these virtual sources, but they’re here, as are we.”

Taking a sturdy breath, you raised Kaz’s gloved hand and aligned it with your lips, gently pressing a kiss to the material that separated your skin. “You will not lose me Brekker, I’m not going anywhere. We’ve gotten this far, and that’s impressive all on its own. The trip back to Ketterdam cannot be as difficult as our journey here, we endured betrayal from that oaf that helped us cross the border, we got in and out of the Little Palace unscathed, and escaped the General on another account. I’d say that’s quite impressive, and behind every ploy you have been the grand mastermind. So let’s go home, and we can pick this up from there. ‘Tis a shame though, the stars don’t quite shine as bright back there, but we’ll have each other, and that is enough to brighten and guide me through the nights.” His lips stretched at the sides, depositing an appearance of relived thought. There had merely not been much of a fight between you on the situation, if he were to have pried any further about your safety he was sure there’d have been, but things had settled before they reached that stage. The primary battle though was to be against one of the most powerful grisha to walk the earth, of whom was keeping the Sun Summoner hostage. But as you had supposed, things would work themselves out. “I’m going to check on Inej, I won’t be a second.” He remembered the smile on your face as you trekked off, it was a notion to which he analysed that you were one of the few people who were kind to him. Once you were out of his vision, he looked up at the stars. There may have been no saints resting up there, but it sure was a peaceful view.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Serenade (Daniela Dimitrescu/Reader) Pt. 8

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language? Warnings: None? I think? Please let me know if I missed something Notes: Bit of fluff with some anxiety/update on primary conflict. Next chapter will be a cute date with Dani, the one after that will be maximum h*rny, and then what will likely be the finale. Music for this chapter here. PS this one is a bit on the shorter side, but I hope y'all still enjoy it. Past Chapters: Pt. 1: Nocturne, Pt. 2: Overture, Pt. 3: Accelerando, Pt. 4: Toccata, Pt. 5: Poco a Poco, Pt. 6: Elegy, Pt. 7: Harmony

Chapter 8: Obbligato

(Obbligato: An instrumental part which is essential in a piece of music)

“Okay, okay, serious this time, please? I’ll give you a kiss if you try hard enough,” you promised, grinning up at Daniela as you did. A week had passed since your talk in the library, with the two of you spending most days together, and you were progressing nicely with the musical lessons. Still, your girlfriend (you would never get tired of saying that word) was prone to getting a tad ‘distracted’. By you, usually. Not that it was intentional by any means. There was only so much you could do to keep her focused when the two of you were this close together.

“I could just kiss you anyway,” Daniela teased, leaning in with familiar intent. Right before your lips touch, however, she pulls back and smirks. “But if you insist, I can handle the challenge.” Then she’s turning back towards the piano, carefully finding the starting position. Even with her prior experience, you were impressed with how much she had already learned, and couldn’t help but be immensely proud of her. If anyone could meet Lady Dimitrescu’s expectations within a three month timeframe, it was the two of you. Except, of course, you still had to double-check just what her expectations were.

In the meantime, you were excited to hear your girlfriend play through the sheet music you had written up. Most of what you were working with had come from the family’s storage room, but you had also found some blank sheets, and figured it couldn’t hurt to create songs of your own. This particular one was relatively simple. It had been based on a song from a game you had played years ago, and only posed a moderate challenge due to its interesting rhythm. Daniela had seemed to enjoy playing it, with you even hearing her practice the song outside of your lessons, but had so far today refused to play it seriously.

Finally that was going to change. Once she found the starting notes, she nodded to herself, then started playing. For the first time today her expression is stern, focused. Seeing her like this was nice. She was always cute, you just thought that she was extra cute like this. But you tried not to let yourself get too distracted, knowing that you couldn’t give her feedback if you didn’t pay attention. In your head you “play along”, fingers miming the movements, knowing that it would help you catch any possible mistakes. Throughout the piece there are only a couple that you catch, none of them being severe enough to ruin the experience. Finishing with a little flourish, Daniela returns her gaze to you, grinning expectantly.

“Well? I seem to recall you promising me a reward,” she said, perking a brow. Laughing a little, you roll your eyes, before moving in to give her exactly what she wanted. Both of you are smiling into the kiss, enjoying every moment of it. Soon enough Daniela is running a hand through your hair, and pressing against you more, tilting her head just enough to deepen the kiss. You’re blushing hard now, thoughts going everywhere other than music. It’s not until you pull back for air that you remember what you’re supposed to be doing right now.

“As wonderful as this is… we still have a few more songs to go over,” you murmured, despite how much you wanted to keep kissing Daniela. By the way she groaned in frustration, you figured she felt the same way, more or less. “Hey, don’t fret too much. Think of this as an opportunity to earn a few more rewards,” you teased, gently patting her on the shoulder. For a moment she simply pouts, but eventually she sighs and gets ready to play another song…

------------------------------------

Rushing up the steps, practically two at a time, you desperately hoped that you wouldn’t be late. This was your third “update meeting” with Lady Dimitrescu, which by itself was enough to make you a nervous wreck. Add in the fact that this was the first time you’d be meeting alone? And in her personal study, no less? Well, it was safe to say that you were terrified. You hadn’t even been told why things were different this time. No, you were about as clueless as could be, given the circumstances.

By the time you make it your Lady’s study, you cannot tell whether your heart is racing due to stress or physical exertion. Regardless, you make it there in short time, arriving precisely at the scheduled hour. After taking a moment to settle your nerves, you briefly knock on the chamber door. There’s the sound of movement from inside before the way opens. Lady Dimitrescu has to bend a little to see out, but quickly smiles when she meets your gaze. Which was rather unexpected. The last time you had met with her she had been distanced, although still polite. Then again, Daniela had also been with you, and the focus was, as always, on her.

“Lady Dimitrescu,” you greeted, giving a short bow per customs. Then you were being waved in, brought over to a small sitting area, where you waited for permission to sit down. Once it was given, you relaxed a little. Maybe I don’t have as much reason to be nervous as I thought, you muse.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. There are no reasons for you to be unsettled, as far as I am aware,” Lady Dimitrescu said, smile disappearing for a moment at the end. But it’s back as quickly as it had vanished. Did she suspect something? Perhaps she had seen the way Daniela looked at you, or even overheard the whisperings of your roommates. Both thoughts do little other than renew your anxiety. Noticing this, Alcina frowns and shakes her head. “I was merely joking. Now, let us get to the reason for our meeting: How are Daniela’s lessons fairing? There is only so much I can glean from listening.” Glad to have something to think about other than your secret relationship with your boss’ daughter, you nodded and began explaining.

“Lady Daniela is making outstanding progress, in my opinion. Even with her occasional… lapses in attention, once she puts her mind to something, she’s quick to master it. At this point she can sight read nearly as fast and accurately as myself. However, we’re still going over vocabulary, as well as keys and their corresponding chords,” you answered, barely able to maintain eye contact with your employer. Thankfully, she seems to have accepted the inevitability of your nervousness. You were especially thankful now that you prepared to ask her a question. “My Lady, may I inquire about what specifically you expect from my teachings? If there are certain genres you wish for Daniela to be familiar with, or techniques-... I must admit I am unsure as to how to best meet your requirements.”

Slowly reclining in her chair, Alcina appears to ponder your question. In the meantime she sips at her beverage, holding the cup as if it were a fragile heirloom (which it could very well be), eyes looking into the middle distance. Then she gives a soft hum, setting her cup down and returning her attention to you.

“I suppose I can understand your concern. In some ways you have already exceeded my expectations,” she said, expression oddly plain in comparison to her positive phrasing. “My daughter has rarely invested herself in anything as much as she has in your lessons. For this, I am left wondering what she finds so captivating- the music, or the one who pulls the strings?... But that is not the answer to your inquiry, is it?” In that moment, you are incredibly still, willing yourself to keep a straight face, despite the racing of your heart. At your silence, Alcina perks a brow, expecting you to respond. You can’t, your mouth suddenly dry. “What I expect is a passion to educate, a drive to see my daughter flourish. I expect you to teach her exactly as much as she wants you to, focusing on whatever brings her the most joy. But I expect professionalism. Your duties come first, above your health, happiness, and all other desires. Am I understood?”

“Yes, my Lady. Of course, my Lady,” you replied, stuttering, eyes wide. Did she know? Or merely suspect?... There’s another thought, one you try desperately not to voice, only to hear the words fill the room before you can stop yourself. “May I ask where Lady Daniela’s desires fit into this?” Silence hangs heavy over the room for several seconds. Your employer has narrowed her eyes, lips curled downwards into a sharp scowl, watching you with thinly-veiled anger. All you can do is gulp and wait for her response. When it comes, you are surprised by the stability of her tone. It was almost as if she respected your gall.

“She is young still, with the mind of a lovesick maiden. Daniela does not know what she wants, not really, nor does she understand what she needs. If her… flirtatious nature begins to interrupt your instruction, then your response must be swift, and uninterested. Regardless of how unkindly she takes your rejection, I will ensure that she does not harm you,” Lady Dimitrescu said, giving a stern nod at the end. Though her tone was reassuring, you hardly felt better, considering you were far past the point of turning Daniela down (if anything, you had only turned her on). “Now, with that settled, I believe I should let you return to your duties. Oh, and do tell Cynthia that the tea she brewed was perfect, should you happen to see her.”

Then she looked away, practically ignoring your continued existence. So you rose to your feet, gave another bow, and left before your panic could devolve into a breakdown. Daniela is not going to be happy about this.

[morganayenneferburnham]

Have I Known You 20 Seconds or 20 Years? – Nikolai Lantsov Series

Chapter 1: Devils Roll the Dice, Angel Roll their Eyes

Chapter 2: You Did a Number on Me

Chapter 3: You Could Call Me Babe for the Weekend

Chapter 4: The Best of Times, The Worst of Crimes

Chapter 5: All I Know Since Yesterday Is Everything Has Changed

A very short summary: Y/N has been working with the crows for a few years. Her life feels complete until she meets the insufferable Nikolai Lantsov. She finds herself forced to work with the King of Ravka on one of Kaz Brekker’s crazy schemes.

Word count: 2k

A/N: Hey there! So this took me a bit longer than expected but here it is! I should probably mention that it's an angsty one. Sorry. I hope you guys enjoy it. I'd love to get some feedback :)

Chapter 5: All I Know Since Yesterday Is Everything Has Changed

She woke that morning wishing she didn’t have to leave her room for the rest of the month. That was going to be difficult, however. Kaz would come to drag her out himself if he had to. She knew he would. It was probably best to avoid angering him any further. He had made his anger quite clear the night before.

---

Kaz had sent everyone away for the night after having heard their reports and studying the plans for a few more minutes. His gloved fingers had wrapped themselves tightly around her wrist when she’d tried to slip past him.

“Can you get the job done? Or do I have to worry I’ll lose my corporalnik to a king?” His voice had been heavy with disdain.

“Of course, I can do the job, Kaz! How long have I been working for you?” she’d felt panic rise in her, making her nauseous.

“I’ve known Jesper even longer. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t disappointed me.” He snickered. “You haven’t answered my question, Y/N.” The way he’d said her name had sent a shiver down her spine. It had been a barely hidden warning.

“Kaz…” her voice had broken. Would he send me back to Tante Ingrid? She simply couldn’t tell.

“Start tailoring Nikolai and yourself back. I’ll see you in the morning. Do not be late.”

She’d spent the next 3 hours tailoring the king, who threatened to ruin her life by occupying her every thought, and then herself. Nikolai had at least had the decency to stay quiet this time around. She had been far from done when they’d called it a night, but she’d judged it would be enough to keep Kaz off her back.

---

Y/N got ready quickly, keeping Kaz’s warning in mind. She shrugged off her nightgown. She’d slept terribly. She pulled her white shirt over her head, tucking it in the pants she’d chosen for the day. Her mind kept travelling back to Nikolai’s kiss and Kaz’s terrifying fury. She loosely tied the strings at her shirt’s collar, letting the delicate bow rest on her chest. Her brain seemed to be stuck playing both moments repeatedly. It was ridiculous. Nikolai had only kissed her to keep up the act. There was no reason to jeopardize her place with the crows over something so meaningless. So why couldn’t her mind stop bringing it up?

When she finally reached the music room that currently served as their boss’ office, Inej sent her a look of pity from her perch on Kaz’s armchair. Great, she thought, Kaz is still mad.

Jesper and Wylan were lounging, limbs tangled, on a small couch. She nodded to them, returning their greetings, making her way to the opened glass-paneled doors leading to the garden. She watched Marya Hendriks paint while they waited for Nikolai and Zoya to join them. The older woman was working on a beautiful landscape of the Geldcanal. Y/N focused whole-heartedly on the paintbrush strokes letting them erase the memories of the previous night from her mind as they went. She knew it wasn’t permanent, the problem would still exist once Marya stopped painting, but it brought her comfort for the time being.

“Thank you for gracing us with your presence, your royal highness” Kaz’s raspy voice brought her back to the present. His rage and disdain were barely leashed. She turned in time to catch the surprised look on Nikolai’s face. She might have thought it was funny if she wasn’t so scared of what Kaz could do.

“Good morning, are my general and I late?” Nikolai schooled his feature into a charming grin. “Though, you know, I was under the impression that Kings couldn’t be late, everyone else is simply early.”

Just when Y/N thought it was impossible, Kaz’s eyes darkened further. Nikolai had managed to make him angrier somehow. Kaz sneered, “You are late.” They were in for a horrible day.

The air felt colder than it had a few minutes prior to the Ravkans’ arrival. Kaz continued, “The first part of the job was a success. However, that was the easy part.” He sent a pointed look her way. “The next part will require everyone to follow the plan to the letter.”

She flinched. Kaz isn’t mad. He is livid. She moved away from the open doors opting to take place on the arm of the couch where Wylan and Jesper were still lounging. Jesper reached for her, letting his hand rest on her thigh, giving it a small squeeze as if he felt her distress. She was thankful for that small gesture. It would help her endure Kaz’s wrath.

“I still need time to figure everything out. These blueprints do give us the layout of the factory and the warehouse, but we still don’t have the guards’ rounds schedule. We’ll also need to find out the shipment schedule.”

Inej interrupted him “I’ll take care of that. Just keep planning, I do quite enjoy your scheming face.” Y/N always loved getting a glimpse of their relationship. It was always subtle, but they clearly did love each other. It was endearing how much they did.

Kaz’s features seemed to soften a bit at that. “Of course, my darling. Perhaps General Nazyalensky can be of some assistance.”

Zoya nodded. “Sure, we’ll get you the information. Just make sure we have a way out with the plans and the prototypes we need.”

Kaz nodded and turned back to Y/N his gaze cold and hard. “You’re not done with your tailoring.” It wasn’t a question, it was a critic. She felt a chill travel down her back. “You have to finish this morning before either of you can leave the house.” He considered her for a moment. “Use your room. We can’t risk a servant seeing you like this.”

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They’d left the room a few minutes later. Y/N leading the way to her room at the Hendriks mansion. She had been quiet, practically ignoring him the whole way. Only turning to him once to check if he was following her. Her brows were furrowed. Nikolai wasn’t sure if she was mad at him or scared. Scared of what? Me? Or Brekker?

Nikolai now watched her from his seat at the end of the bed as she readied her tailoring kit. She had tailored her body back the night before, but she still had ways to go before she was sporting her beautiful features again. She had her back turned to him, her olive pants hugging the soft curves of her hips just right. Nikolai’s mind kept travelling back to the night before and the outfit the Grisha had chosen for the day wasn’t helping him at all. He wanted to rest his hands on her hips and pull her body to his. He wanted to feel her comforting curves pressed against him, closer than they had been the night before, the fabric of her skirt no longer in the way.

He watched her finally settle in front of the mirrored desk, raising her hands to her face. He was glad she was starting with herself. It would give him time to gain full control of his brain again. He observed the careful movements of her fingers for what felt like hours. He was grateful for the time she’d bought him, until he saw her face as she made her way to him. He couldn’t help but glance at her full lips. He wondered just how different it would feel to kiss her now. Saints, I forgot just how naturally gorgeous she was. The urge to pull her closer was threatening to overwhelm him.

“So, I guess I’m only undoing my own tailoring? Not Genya Safin’s? You still need to look like Sturmhond.” She sounded guarded.

“Yeah. I don’t think you could handle how handsome I really look.” He saw her jaw tick. Saints, what a stupid thing to say. And why did I wink at her again? She’s obviously uncomfortable.

He watched her carefully as she came to a stop, standing between his thighs. Nikolai could feel his heart hammering in his chest. She was standing so close he worried she could hear it. If she did, she made no mention of it. “This is gonna hurt. Tell me if you need a break.” She sounded determined; all traces of her previous insecurity gone. He only nodded, not trusting his voice with her standing so close to him, her floral scent drifting his way due to the soft breeze coming from the open window.

Her fingers were surprisingly cold against his skin. He felt the familiar itch of tailoring as she started before the pain of bone remodeling fully settled in. He tried to stay as still as possible, focusing on the concentration etched in the girl’s features instead of the pain. He felt her set his jaw back, making sure Sturmhond’s characteristically pointed chin was just right. She had made a few adjustments the night before, but she hadn’t done any major alterations. He kept watching her as she set the rest of his face back. Her shirt had slipped dangerously lower on her chest as she worked. The small bow coming lose. It was driving Nikolai completely crazy. He wanted to reach out and finish untying the damned strings. He didn’t think he could take much more of this absolute torture. She was almost done with reworking the bone when he saw her bite her bottom lip, completely lost in her work. He was about to finally lose the last sliver of decency he had been holding on to for the last hour when she straightened up suddenly. She backed away to take in her work.

“I think that should be it for facial structure. I’ll work on your eyes next, and I’ll finish with your hair.” She seemed more at ease now. Whatever had been bothering her almost forgotten.

She took her place back between his legs reaching up to his face once more. Her fingers came to rest on his cheek.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was a mistake.” Nikolai blurted out. He could’ve sworn he saw hurt flash in Y/N’s beautiful green eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He must have imagined it. He saw her straighten her spine, her shoulders tensing up.

“Whatever, we got out. We got the job done. It doesn’t matter.” Any scrap of ease she’d gained was gone as she turned her back to him, taking a few steps towards the mirrored desk. Why did you have to open your mouth? Nikolai Nothing. Nikolai the Bastard. Pretender. Nikolai the fool. He had clearly upset her.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to upset you. Brekker told me you worked at one of the pleasure houses before… I just – I didn’t mean to cross a line.”

She whirled back towards him. Fury burning in her deep green eyes. “He had no right.” she hissed. Her rage melted quickly however, leaving her looking panicked. Nikolai saw her hands start to shake before she clenched her fists.

Another blunder. “He only told me because I asked about your tattoo.” Her hand flew to the bare skin of her arm hiding the iris burned into her skin from him. I am only making it worse, he realized. I should really learn to stop talking so much.

She lowered her head. “He’s going to send me back.” Her voice was trembling. She sounded absolutely terrified at the idea. Nikolai wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her. Why would she think that? Surely Brekker wouldn’t do that. She’s a corporalnik. If Brekker is actually stupid enough to part with such a gifted Grisha, she could have a place with the Second Army. She could have a place in Ravka… She could have a place with me.

“You could–” Nikolai didn’t get to finish his sentence. Inej had opened the door and walked in carrying a tray with tea and biscuits.

“Figured, you two were probably hungry!” Her warm smile faltered when she saw Y/N’s expression. “Everything alright?”

“Thank you Inej. You are absolutely right!” She laughed; all traces of her panic gone. “I’m starving. I could eat a stack of waffles as tall as you!” A talented corporalnik and actress, Nikolai thought.

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tagged: @power-of-words23