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scarletsaphire · 1 day ago

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This is my fic for @ecto-implosion 2024 with my artist partner @kaidebat! You can find their incredible art here, go check them out!

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Phantom comes back to Danny's workshop damaged. Luckily, Danny can fix him. He's the one who built him, after all.

Danny did not look up at the sound of metal against metal; that instinct had been phased out of him after spending his whole life around the rumbling of gears and the clanging of pistons. If he jumped at every mechanical squeak in his own workshop, he’d never get anything done.

He did, however, jump at the mechanical hand on his shoulder. He calmed down once he saw Phantom’s glowing green eyes. “How did it go?”

Phantom’s eyes darted down to his other arm in lieu of an answer, and Danny followed his gaze. The arm hung stiff at a 20 degree angle, a metal rod stuck in the elbow and sparks flying off of the shoulder.

“Poorly, I take it.” Danny let the chain he’d been fiddling with fall to the desk. He could continue working on the project later; he had more important things to take care of right now. “Get comfortable. I just need to grab my stuff.”

It didn’t take him long to find the tools he would need and a small collection of spare parts; the clocktower he’d repurposed into his workshop was smaller than his parents, and he prided himself on being neater than they were. Not that he was complaining about their poor organizational habits; if they kept better track of their stuff, then he wouldn’t have a need for a workshop at all.

Phantom was sitting in one of two chairs, his functioning hand hovering around his throat and his face pointed up towards the inner face of the clock. He smiled at Danny as he set down his tools.

Danny grabbed his own chair from his work desk and dragged it across the floor. “So, who got you this time?” He sat on Phantom’s right, tracing his finger over the cool metal of his arm. It was normally warmer, just above or below the temperature of a normal human, depending on how hard he’d been fighting. Cold to the touch meant the pipes were being interrupted. That wasn’t good.

Phantom did not reply.

Danny furrowed his brow, glancing up at Phantom’s face. He still had his good arm rubbing lightly at his throat. “You’re not talking.” That also wasn’t a good thing; Phantom was always talking. “Move your hand?”

It fell to his side with a clang, revealing a puncture in the metal. Steam leaked from the gash with a slow hiss, mirroring Danny’s own. “Ouch. Nicked your voice box, I assume?”

Phantom began to tilt his head in a nod, but Danny grabbed his chin before he could. “Don’t! You could hurt yourself. Just-”

It was a challenge, holding Phantom’s head still while maneuvering over him.

Keeping his grip steady while climbing over the armrest was awkward, not to mention getting into a position where he could more clearly see into the gash was a tight squeeze on the small chair. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t let Phantom do anymore damage to himself.

The damage wasn’t as bad as it could be, mostly a surface level scratch. It was a miracle that it didn’t damage more; there was a lot of complicated machinery in Phantom’s neck, and if it had cut any deeper, Danny might’ve needed to do a full emergency reconstruction.

“I think I can fix this right here.” Danny didn’t look up, reaching between the gap in the chair for his tool box. “You just need to stay very, very… still…” He trailed off as his hand wrapped around what he was looking for.

There were three things he needed to worry about: the pipe, the voice box, and the surface metal. Danny’s first concern was the pipe. Steam leaked from it slowly but steadily, condensing on the surrounding metal and dripping further into his throat. He needed to take care of it quickly, before it interfered with the other parts.

“I’m going to need to stop the flow to your head,” Danny mumbled. “I can’t fix this without burning myself otherwise. You okay with that?” His eyes darted up to meet Phantom’s.

He couldn’t talk, obviously. With Danny holding his chin, he couldn’t even nod. None of that mattered; Phantom’s eyes sparkled and Danny knew the answer as clearly as if he had spoken. “I trust you.”

Danny nodded, then got to work.

It was not an easy process by any means. Having an off switch would’ve been far too much of a risk, what with everything he needed to be doing. In fact, Danny didn’t think there was a way to turn Phantom off, not completely. Even disabling a specific part or pipe was very, very difficult, and ideally no one would be able to get close enough to ever begin to figure it out.

Danny didn’t need to figure it out. He knew exactly what to do, and exactly how to do it, just like he knew every cog, ever gear, every scrap of metal inside Phantom’s body. He’d spent far too much time building him to know anything less.

A few moments later and Phantom’s head fell limp on Danny’s shoulder, his eyes still glowing faintly, darting around in the sockets. “You’re okay,” Danny whispered, shifting to once again grab Phantom’s face. “I’ve got you.” He held Phantom’s head up, tilting his head up by the chin to give him better access. “I’ll be as quick as possible.”

With the steam out of the way, Danny could make out the exact problems much, much easier. The puncture in the pipe was miniscule, so small that it would’ve been invisible to the untrained eye. Just enough to cause problems, but an easy one to fix. The voice box was in a worse state, but still manageable. The mechanisms that caused it to vibrate had remained undamaged, but was disconnected from the functional speaker. Tricky, but quick. The gash into the metal of the neck was a nonissue - if Danny had a nickel for every time he had to tear through Phantom’s “skin,” he’d be working with fresh, new metal, not scraps, and that wasn’t even considering how often the other automatons punctured it.

“I’m going to need two hands for this,” Danny said. The back of the chair was ever so slightly shorter than Phantom, which was a blessing; Danny settled his head on the back of the chair as delicately as he could. “Is that comfortable?”

Phantom’s face remained perfectly still, his eyes staring directly into Danny’s, and the gears in his neck whirred.

Danny shrugged. “Well, I can’t do much else for you, so it’ll have to do.” He grabbed his goggles from the work desk and a soldering iron from his bag. “Don’t try and talk while I’m working, ok? We don’t need both of us hurt.” He leaned towards Phantom’s neck, and started the repair.

There was something oddly comforting about poking around Phantom’s insides. Nostalgic, almost, which was stupid. Danny had only finished building Phantom a few months ago, and it was dumb to be nostalgic from something so recent. It didn’t change the fact that the inner workings of Phantom’s body were familiar, and working on them again - not just surface level repairs, but actually working in him - felt a little bit like returning home.

It made sense, in a way. Danny had spent more hours in the clocktower than he’d spent in his actual house, even before he’d started thinking of it as his workshop. So much of that time, all meticulously measured by the resounding hourly echoes of the bell, was spent working on Phantom - on blueprints and concept sketches, and then individual parts, all long before he’d ever even began to work on the body - of course it would be more familiar than his bedroom at home.

Thinking about it, Danny couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d spent a whole day in his house. It was before his parents started the construction, that was a given. There’s no way Danny would’ve been able to stay overnight with the racket they’d been making, even before they ever finished the first automaton.

He’d thought it was harmless, at first. The first ones had been. A couple of robots with funny shapes whose only real purpose was to prove that they worked, that through science and mechanical work his parents could create life , or at least a semblance of it. It was only after the fourth one that Danny got worried.

It had taken them months to perfect the shell of a kindly old lady, complete with a warm smile and the smallest of hunchbacks.

“She’s here to help with meals!” his father had said, his arm thrown over the machine’s shoulders. “Make sure that we all stay fed while your mother and I work.”

“We can’t have our kids going hungry, now can we?” His mother smiled at them, and then the two of them had retreated back into the basement, leaving Danny and Jazz with the automaton.

For an hour it had stood there, perfectly still, smile stretched across the metallic faceplate. The longer Danny stared at it, the further it went from warm to unsettling. When the clock struck noon, it only got worse.

“I-I-I-I-It’s lunch time!” she stuttered to life, wheels below her fake dress spurring her towards the kitchen. “Children need to e-e-e-eat three square meals a day!”

The two of them sat on the couch, watching from a safe distance as she banged around in the kitchen, making a comical amount of noise for the small sandwiches she brought to the table a few minutes later.

If it had ended there, it would’ve been great. If it had ended at the soup she brought out a little while later, that would’ve also been fine. If it had ended at the salad, or the brownies, or the pitcher of lemonade, that would’ve been excessive, but manageable. The problem was that it didn’t end at any of that. It didn’t end until every last possible ingredient in the kitchen had been used up, and even then it was only because Jazz took a bat to the things wheels when it tried to leave the house to get more food.

That was the problem with automatons. They never knew when to quit. They were created with one task in mind, and they would do anything to reach it, over and over and over again. It was only through destruction, when the damage to their physical bodies was too great for them to continue, that they would stop.

Danny’s parents cared about this problem, of course. It was an issue in their process, a barrier between real life and the artificial one they were trying to perfect. They just didn’t care enough not to make more.

It’s why Danny started designing Phantom in the first place; an automaton to make sure that the others don’t go haywire and hurt somebody. An automaton that wouldn’t stop trying to help people until there was no more help left to do. A protector that doesn’t need to worry about the damage the others could do, because he could be fixed. Because Danny could fix him.

“Done.”

He removed his goggles, letting them settle around his neck while he inspected the patch. He’d needed to open the gash further to access Phantom’s inner workings, which meant that it couldn’t just be welded shut. The square of scrap metal was a different color than the rest of Phantom’s body, but not noticeably so; at least, Danny hoped not.

“Go ahead and say something.”

“Testing, testing, one two three.” Phantom’s voice came through clearly, with only the slightest bit of static from the speaker.

“It sounds good to me. Is it comfortable?”

Phantom hummed. “Much better than before.”

“Yeah, well, a monkey with a brick could’ve made it feel better than before.��

Phantom’s laugh was warm and crackly, as if the speaker couldn’t transmit all of the feeling in it. “You’re selling yourself short again.”

“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that.” Danny rolled his eyes. “I’m going to power your upper motor functions back up, and then I’ll deal with your arm. Sound good?”

“Everything you say sounds good.”

The soft thud of flesh hitting metal resounded as Danny playfully slapped Phantom’s shoulder. “I could just turn you all the way off if you want to be like that.”

“But you won’t.” Phantom couldn’t turn his head to look at Danny, but he could feel the automaton’s burning gaze on him anyway.

He couldn’t help the soft smile that spread across his face. “But I won’t.”

Phantom’s first move after getting powered on was to roll his head, testing the new metal patch. It held, bending with the rest of Phantom, blending into the fluid motion as if it was skin. “It’s good.”

Danny’s smile widened. “Wonderful. Means I can get started on the bigger problem.” He moved to slide off of Phantom’s lap, only to be met by his metallic arm, holding him in place.

"You can fix it from here, can't you?"

Danny was suddenly struck by the warmth emanating through Phantom's body, the subtle vibration of hidden mechanisms working inside of him, and Phantom's hand, settled in the crook of his hip, holding him firm. He’s sitting in Phantom’s lap. He’s been sitting in Phantom’s lap for the better part of an hour now.

If Phantom were alive, it would’ve been an incredibly intimate position. But he wasn’t alive. He was an automaton, nothing but metal and steam. It couldn’t be intimate.

So why did Danny suddenly feel so warm?

"Um. I can?

"Then stay." Phantom lets his grip loosen ever so slightly, but he didn’t pull his arm away. The only movement was to gently rub the small section of skin just under Danny’s shirt. "Please."

It was Danny's turn to burn far, far too hot. “I don’t- I-.” Danny swallowed hard, trying to will away the feeling of Phantom’s fingers on his back. “I don’t know if I can… focus very well. Sitting here.”

Phantom looked up at Danny, staring directly into his eyes. “I have faith in you.”

Danny breathed in the smell of the workshop, letting the piercing scent of metal cut through him. He blocked out the feeling of Phantom’s fingertips on his back, the feeling of his cheeks flushed and red, and the feelings rushing through his head far, far too quickly for him to process. Phantom was hurt. He was hurt and Danny needed to help him before he could deal with…whatever was wrong.

Removing the pipe lodged in Phantom’s arm was a clear step one. Ideally, the job would be as simple as grabbing and pulling, but that would depend on how it was bent, and what exactly it was lodged between. Danny bent to the side, reaching into his toolbox on the floor and ignoring the way that Phantom’s fingers slid further up his back. He tightened his grip around his screwdriver and straightened, then got to work removing the arm plates.

Undoing the screws was easy, repetitive, and time consuming, and Danny couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. Something was… off. Not just the weird fluttering in his stomach as Phantom’s hand slowly migrated from his back to his thigh. Something was off about Phantom himself. It was only after Danny had managed to get the first panel unscrewed that he realized what was bothering him.

Phantom wanted something.

He had wanted things in the past, of course. Upgrades and repairs and disguises and techniques to help him stop the other automatons, or to help repair damage, or a dozen other things. A dozen other things all related to helping .

That’s why he was created, to help. To help stop the destruction his parent’s experiments wrought, and to help restore what he couldn’t stop, but always to help. As far as Danny had figured, he couldn’t want anything outside of that.

But here he was. Asking Danny to stay sitting on his lap, even though it would slow the repair. Even though it had nothing to do with a threat. Something was wrong. Or maybe Phantom had a reason for asking, something that made sense within his metallic brain that Danny just couldn’t compute.

“Tell me about the fight?” That was a safe topic, and Danny could gather information from it. Maybe there was something that happened that caused this weird behavior?

Phantom sighed in a small puff of steam. “Must I? I was savoring the moment.”

Danny’s hands stalled for just a second before continuing their work. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

Phantom was quiet for a moment, his thumb rubbing absentminded circles. “I can if you need me to.”

“I’m more curious about why you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Like I said, I am savoring the moment.”

Danny turned his eyes to Phantom’s face for a moment, studying it from the corner of his vision. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that Phantom was zoned out. That he was telling the truth. But Danny did know better; that shouldn’t be possible.

“Are you okay?”

“Besides the obvious, I assume?”

Danny realized he’d stopped working again, and quickly went back to removing the last arm panel. “Yeah. Besides that.”

“I don’t believe I suffered any other damages.” Phantom frowned ever so slightly. “Have you noticed something I haven’t?”

Danny turned his eyes back to his hands. Should he say anything? Phantom had never lied about his injuries before, and if he said that he didn’t think anything was wrong, he was telling the truth as he knew it. Of course, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t damaged in some way that Phantom didn’t know. If Danny told him, then they could try and figure out what was wrong together. Unless whatever was wrong was messing with his head and had some kind of self preservation built in.

“You said you wanted me to stay.” He wouldn’t be able to figure out anything if Phantom couldn’t help him, not when so many of these problems lied within internal reasoning. “What purpose does that serve you?”

Phantom tilted his head to the side in confusion. “Does it need to serve a purpose?”

“Of course it needs to serve a purpose!” The final panel of Phantom’s arm fell to floor with a clatter, punctuating Danny’s statement. “You’re an automaton. Everything needs to serve a purpose. That’s part of what you are, how you work.”

The green glow of Phantom’s eyes burn bright and hot, but Danny did not look away, did not blink in the face of the fire. “Is that truly what you think?”

“I don’t need to think about it, I know it! I know it because I know every inch of you, every cog and gear and piston and screw. I know it just like I know that you’ll be just fine when I do this.” Danny grabbed a hold of the pipe’s top part and pulled, generating a horrible grating metal sound. It finally came out with a pop. “I know you, Phantom. And I know that this isn’t normal, and if something is wrong I can fix it.”

“I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do.”

“How can you-” Danny was cut off by Phantom leaning forward, metallic lips pressing against his own.

It was strange. Danny knew these lips, had worked for days and days to sculpt them and make them mobile. Having them pressed against his own, feeling those infinitesimal motions on his skin, the slightest feeling of steam drifting through the space between them? It was something else entirely, something completely foreign and yet so much like home. It was almost instinct to kiss back.

Phantom’s hand, now free from the pipe, raised to the back of Danny’s neck. It made an ugly sound as it moved, slow and sluggish without the final repairs put in place, but neither of them seemed to care right now. When Phantom finally pulled away, Danny was staring at him wide eyed and open mouthed.

“I have wanted to do that for as long as I can remember, and I know you didn’t know that.”

Danny blinked slowly, his own hand raising to his lips, his mind lagging behind his body. “I- I don’t.” He swallowed, trying to buy himself a moment to catch up. “How? How are you…?”

Danny trailed off, and Phantom continued. “How am I like this?” Danny nodded. “I have no idea. I just… am.”

“You’ve always been different.” Danny’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “I just didn’t realize… how much.”

“And I never told you.”

“Why not?”

Phantom finally looked away from Danny. “I was worried. That you would deconstruct me. Try and make me more like them.”

Danny grabbed Phantom’s chin, just like he’d done to fix his neck, but now it had a different air to it. More delicate. More human. “I’m not going to do that to you. Not now, not ever.”

Phantom smiled. “Thank you.” A moment of silence, before, “Now what?”

Danny dropped Phantom’s chin to crack his knuckles. “Now I finish fixing your arm.”

“And then?”

“We’ll figure that out then. Hold still, will you?”

“Whatever you need.” Phantom’s smile grew and Danny couldn't help but return it.

#danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #danny fenton #pitch pearl #steampunk au #ectoimplosion2024 #dp fic

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hisredvelvetqueen · 18 hours ago

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Written by the 18 year old me on a P.F. Chang's Napkin

Falling in love is deadly. One of lives biggest mistakes because the heart and mind will become confused. The mind will tell it's not okay while your heart will scream that this is it! "Don't miss out!" you heart will say. Yet your mind knows better. People say not to trust other people. When the truth is NEVER trust your heart. It lies, deceives, misleads, and cheats you out of true happiness. Think hard about how many times the mind and heart have competed and caused the question of who is right to arise.

Comforted by the possibility that your heart could be right this one time. Family and friends give no comfort or answers in great times of confusion. In fact, it becomes worse once you receive opinions and input from them. Then your mind becomes even more unfocused and confused. This often pushes people to side with their heart and make the tragic mistake of letting someone in. The first step to losing your innocence. True words written now for the world to read. Many may misunderstand, not comprehend, even just not care. Then they will be faced with the great ordeal of having to decide who is right. The greatest battle in the world is the one within yourself.

Truth be told that is where world peace begins, within one's self. Still because of people's confusion, insecurities, selfish thoughts, and beliefs, we are stuck in a cycle. Fly into the past and realize that times are not very different.

Fighting, hate, death, crime, natural disasters, and illness are still alive and just as bad as before. Some places much worse than others.

Still it makes sense once you take the time to think. When love does not exist, or at least allowed to bloom within your mind, how could love blossom around the world.

Can money buy true love? What really decides if what you are feeling is true love?

Toss and turn while your mind continuously wonders what is okay and if changes should be made.

People say that dreams do and can come true. So than why are mine not coming true?

Maybe its because man-kind as a whole is not capable or worthy of such a large task. To love and be loved. Be respectful and kind. Knowing that things will improve.

Now that I truly think about it maybe evil makes the world go round. Then again if I am the one to start another great movement would this time before to change the world? Only time will tell and only my ancestors know.

One thing I know I am 100% positive of is that I want to and am more than willing to ensure it happens.

PEACE OF THE WORLD!!

33 years of life experience reflection......the 18 year old me was fucking right!! When I finally found true love, I was afraid and broken and made so many mistakes. I love this many with ALL OF ME, because of that I had to learn to love ALL OF ME, so I could give to our goals and desires endlessly.

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valentine-cafe · 3 days ago

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hi!! I asked about mtf reader so I wanted to request something with valerius or any other character, I don't mind! reader just had top surgery so maybe some fluffy smut (light overstim and breast play if possible) with lots of praising

I'm pretty thankful to find authors who are comfortable writing mtf reader so thank u so much!! (��灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡

im so very thankful sorry if this isn't very detailed

˖⁺. “ pretty girl . . . ” :

﹙ top demon lord bf x bttm mtf reader ﹚.𖹭 ݁

. . . valerius ariti x mtf reader !! 🍓 : ﹙ demon lord ˖ rhytaari character ﹚

you just got top surgery - and your demon boyfriend wants to worship you a bit

﹙ cws ﹚: explicit content ˖ breast play ˖ slight overstim ˖ praise | wc : 0.7k

﹙ receipts ﹚: this is our first transfem request i think! thank you soooo much and we really hope that you enjoy this! no need to thank us, we always wanna be as inclusive as we can which is why we encourage the trans requests <3

꒰ other treats : guidelines ˖ m.list ˖ characters ˖ our lore ꒱

The small jiggle to your new flesh brought only elation to your head that laid back against pillows. Comfortable in the cotton. If only to further relax when warm fingers slowly rake up along your sides.

His soft breath hitch flutters your glimmering eyes up to his. Happiness pouring from them. Much like your legs down below leak at the minimal grinding the two of you shared but a moment ago.

“How’d they look?”

The demon bites onto his lower lip at your question. It is answer enough. But just to be sure that you are well aware of his delight, he murmurs: “oh, sweet thing. They are beautiful.”

A finger adorned in rings, like the rest of his hand, slowly eases circles around you areola. Feeling the familiar yet foreign flesh. He smiles at the gasp that he draws from your lips. Lightly pressing down at he center and joining with his thumb. A small pinch befalls your bud. Shooting unknown pleasure from the base of your spine.

“Does it feel good?” Valerius’ croon brings heat to your face that he hovers over directly. You all but nod. Receiving both of his hands that cup at your breasts. Stroking his thumbs in slow, yet firm circles around your nipples.

“Pretty girl. . .”

You already feel your eyes beginning to water. So you tilt your head back and drape a forearm across your brows. Your chest stuttering with shaky breaths as your sweet moans fill the air. If only to whine when you feel his comforting lips pepper kisses around your breasts. His long fingers fall back on massaging the plump flesh.

“Please, do not hide from me, my love.” It spins within your ears. Makes them heat at the helixes. “My pretty girls shouldn’t hide from me. Not when I’m making her feel good.”

You slip your arm from your teary eyes and bring them down to view his face just as his long, demonic tongue drips out of his mouth. Caressing one of your nipples and slowly swirling around. All the while - his gaze remains on yours. Lovingly. As though you are a god. A divine to a demon that he will worship for all eternity.

“Valerius,” you quiver. It is the only time that his eyes flutter shut. Brows crease at the center and he puts his full focus on your soft mounds. Switching. Sucking. Licking. At one point he ventures to the valley and presses a bite. So that you might remember him when you pull on a new shirt for a few days.

Your spine finds an arch. Breaths and pants leaving your swollen lips. You can all but moan as his hands and mouth adorn you. Smearing his aphrodisiac saliva that makes everything feel as though it is spinning. As though you are on cloud nine. And he simply takes you higher - and higher -

“V-Valerius -!” you gasp. A cry tittering along your voice. Your hips steer up against his. Your head tilted into the pillow as warmth coils at the core of your tummy. “V-Vale - please -”

“I am here, αγάπη μου. I am here. Sshh. . .” a large, delicate hand flattens along the small of your back. Pressing you closer as he continues his divination on your breasts. As though it is all that he knows. All that he has ever known. “You deserve - mmm - deserve this, pretty girl. All of it.”

The tears spill down your face. Hands shakily reach to thread into his long, gold strands that reminded you of sun rays. Streams of gold. It is all that floods your vision as arousal pools between your thighs with stuttered whines of his name.

“Doing so good,” he groans along your right breast. Hand massaging along the base as his lips and tongue lather over the nipple. As though he is addicted. And you are simply the sweetest of fruits. “That is it. Keep going. My good girl. My best girl.”

It is all you will hear as your head spins. As he caresses you with the softest of touches. And stirs pleasure through your body for the night to come. Until you are clinging to him. Whining. So that he might kiss you and swallow all of your sweet, sweets sounds.

﹙ taglist. ﹚: | get tagged for specific posts

﹙ tip jar. ﹚: like our work? consider suporting us 𖹭

#﹙ cupcake rush. ﹚: valerius 𖹭 ݁#monster boyfriend #teratophillia #smut #monster smut #demon x reader #terato #monster fucker #monster x reader #rhytaari x reader #oc x reader #original character x reader #x reader #reader insert #valerius ariti #asterism

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asexualannoyance · 2 years ago

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i very desperately want some good pete angst

#just pete grappling with the reality that now there is sb who Sees him who Knows him #and that vegas will continue to do so and won't let pete fade into the background #(at least not with him)#and also sth sth about how there will always be an angry man in your house if you've been raised by one #and how pete vegas and macau #(even though macau maybe less so but idk)#have grown up with one and how pete sometimes jumps/flinches in certain scenes #yk the one where vegas let's the noodle bowl fall to the ground and pete jumps?#yeah sth to that effect #i just want to read some good good pete angst #you can even make vegas angsty too because he isn't really sure what is going on and shit and doesn't really know how to help #just pete wanting to be Seen but also to disappear into the background bodyguard style #i love angst can you tell lmao #i also love the resolution and comfort but i am very shit at coming up with it #if it involves subspace and maybe cockwarming but like no actual fucking 👀#if anybody read this far in my tags and has recommendations please give them to me 🥺#vegaspete #(fun fact: i came up with a whole plot before falling asleep last night so there's that lmao)

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allthingswhumpyandangsty · 4 months ago

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HOW TO WRITE A CHARACTER WHO IS IN PAIN

first thing you might want to consider: is the pain mental or physical?

if it’s physical, what type of pain is it causing? — sharp pain, white-hot pain, acute pain, dull ache, throbbing pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain (typically caused by nerve damage), etc

if it’s mental, what is the reason your character is in pain? — grief, heartbreak, betrayal, anger, hopelessness, fear and anxiety, etc

because your character will react differently to different types of pain

PHYSICAL PAIN

sharp and white-hot pain may cause a character to grit their teeth, scream, moan, twist their body. their skin may appear pale, eyes red-rimmed and sunken with layers of sweat covering their forehead. they may have tears in their eyes (and the tears may feel hot), but they don’t necessarily have to always be crying.

acute pain may be similar to sharp and white-hot pain; acute pain is sudden and urgent and often comes without a warning, so your character may experience a hitched breathing where they suddenly stop what they’re doing and clench their hand at the spot where it hurts with widened eyes and open mouth (like they’re gasping for air).

dull ache and throbbing pain can result in your character wanting to lay down and close their eyes. if it’s a headache, they may ask for the lights to be turned off and they may be less responsive, in the sense that they’d rather not engage in any activity or conversation and they’d rather be left alone. they may make a soft whimper from their throat from time to time, depends on their personality (if they don’t mind others seeing their discomfort, they may whimper. but if your character doesn’t like anyone seeing them in a not-so-strong state, chances are they won’t make any sound, they might even pretend like they’re fine by continuing with their normal routine, and they may or may not end up throwing up or fainting).

if your character experience chronic pain, their pain will not go away (unlike any other illnesses or injuries where the pain stops after the person is healed) so they can feel all these types of sharp pain shooting through their body. there can also be soreness and stiffness around some specific spots, and it will affect their life. so your character will be lucky if they have caretakers in their life. but are they stubborn? do they accept help from others or do they like to pretend like they’re fine in front of everybody until their body can’t take it anymore and so they can no longer pretend?

neuropathic pain or nerve pain will have your character feeling these senses of burning, shooting and stabbing sensation, and the pain can come very suddenly and without any warning — think of it as an electric shock that causes through your character’s body all of a sudden. your character may yelp or gasp in shock, how they react may vary depends on the severity of the pain and how long it lasts.

EMOTIONAL PAIN

grief can make your character shut themself off from their friends and the world in general. or they can also lash out at anyone who tries to comfort them. (five states of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventual acceptance.)

heartbreak — your character might want to lock themself in a room, anywhere where they are unseen. or they may want to pretend that everything’s fine, that they’re not hurt. until they break down.

betrayal can leave a character with confusion, the feelings of ‘what went wrong?’, so it’s understandable if your character blames themself at first, that maybe it’s their fault because they’ve somehow done something wrong somewhere that caused the other character to betray them. what comes after confusion may be anger. your character can be angry at the person who betrayed them and at themself, after they think they’ve done something wrong that resulted in them being betrayed, they may also be angry at themself next for ‘falling’ for the lies and for ‘being fooled’. so yes, betrayal can leave your character with the hatred that’s directed towards the character who betrayed them and themself. whether or not your character can ‘move on and forgive’ is up to you.

there are several ways a character can react to anger; they can simply lash out, break things, scream and yell, or they can also go complete silent. no shouting, no thrashing the place. they can sit alone in silence and they may cry. anger does make people cry. it mostly won’t be anything like ‘ugly sobbing’ but your character’s eyes can be bloodshot, red-rimmed and there will be tears, only that there won’t be any sobbing in most cases.

hopelessness can be a very valid reason for it, if you want your character to do something reckless or stupid. most people will do anything if they’re desperate enough. so if you want your character to run into a burning building, jump in front of a bullet, or confess their love to their archenemy in front of all their friends, hopelessness is always a valid reason. there’s no ‘out of character’ if they are hopeless and are desperate enough.

fear and anxiety. your character may be trembling, their hands may be shaky. they may lose their appetite. they may be sweaty and/or bouncing their feet. they may have a panic attack if it’s severe enough.

and I think that’s it for now! feel free to add anything I may have forgotten to mention here!

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flovverworks · 7 months ago

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sorry i got overwhelmed with love for akira again

#stardust speaking !#they gave us one(1) anime headshot thats basically just the ingame one in the anime style #and im daydreaming #ITS DIRE OUT HEREEEEEEEEEE #also if we dont get animated canaria i Will be crying #sometimes i think of lesbian akira meeting canaria. falling in lov. abd then immediadetly finding out shes engaged #to a guy whos also named after a bird #the comedy for ME #i love akira. i love heartfelt akira whos a loser and keeps messing up in this new place and tastes the rain falling #'sage what r u doing we dont know if this rain is safe or not?!?' 'huh?!?!?!?!' JSJSJWJQKQKKWT.........AKIRA VS THE UNSEEN DANGERS #but also akira who DOES do cool stuff. akira who is scared and shaking but still shields owen when hes out of commission #against a UNICORN......(owen ends up doing the protecting but ykno). akira whos life is threathened but still #continues to speak to their wizards. akira who picks up shinos scythe to keep them safe #THEYRE SSOOOOOOOO scared and awkward but they do what they can #way more skilled at saying very sweet things and speaking from their heart. despite struggling with words when comforting ppl #theyre so charmy.................i lov akira............i lov both designs for akira......................give me an expression sheet for #anime akira NOW❗❗❗❗❗#im so excoted i desperately hope they capture the loser and the otome-route side of them #akira & cains back & forth stunning e/o with something smooth the other said is everything to me #i need that so bad #(its like always unintentional too!!! theyre both just speaking from their heart!!!!!!!!!!!#also rly need akira freaking out over how prettt everyone is. i NEED the 'are all of them models or something wtf' in there #guy who spends like 5 sentences in a row describing someone as handsome

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chuluoyi · 4 months ago

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𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐋𝐘 (𝐔𝐍)𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋

- sylus x reader

master and servant. man and his right hand woman. you and sylus are labeled many things, but does love exist in many labels of your relationship?

genre/warnings: 18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—angst, fluff, unrequited love, explicit smut, fwb, jealousy, hurt/comfort, description of major injury, blood loss, gore, assassin!reader (not l&ds mc), spoilers! takes place throughout long-awaited revelry

note: my very first love and deepspace fic! :') w.c 5.2k ! i have a severe brainrot omg tagging @sanriosatoru per request <3

Everyone knows of your relationship with Sylus.

The leader of Onychinus and his notorious lady assassin, you two strike fear into his foes and allies alike. You are as deadly as you are beautiful, and that's more or less why he keeps you around.

What everyone doesn't know, however... is that behind closed doors, you too share his wealth and his bed.

“I don't mind to spend the whole night with you,” he’d whisper in your ear seductively at nights, deft and veiny hands roaming your body all over. He often made you ride on top of him, dark burgundy eyes hazed with lust, knowing full well that you desired the very same goal he did.

And you’d respond his hunger with the same fervor, crashing your lips into his, your tongues intertwining, your hips moving vigorously against him.

“Ahh... ah!” Before you knew it, his cock—thick and long in size—slid inside you in such a snug fit, making you throw your head back and dig your sharp nails into his skin.

“Keep me going with your voice, kitten.” Sylus growled, eyeing your wobbling lips and tightly-pressed eyes as he sank even deeper inside you. “Yeah, just like that...”

Sylus always began roughly, seemingly not minding your breathless moans and wishes, and you liked him that way too—

“Is this... all you've got?” you panted in a hoarse voice, sweat lining your neck and forehead, the coil in your belly tightened so deliciously each time he thrusted into you. “Surely... y-you can do better...”

“Ha,” he gave a low snort, his red eyes blazing as he grabbed your bum and squeezed it, making you gasp. “Careful what you wish for... sweetie.”

And then your vision literally tilted upside down—Sylus gladly flipped your position so he could see you even better. This way, he also had even better access to you, intertwining your hand with his, spreading your legs wide so he could rut into you.

“—!” Breath was knocked out of your lungs as immeasurable pleasure washed over you, crashing and receding in an instant. You almost screamed as your back arched.

He broke into a satisfied smirk. “Let it out,” he murmured against your neck, biting gently into your skin, voice muffled. “You never hold back with me, do you, hmm? So, don’t start now.”

“You b-bastard...” you looked up at him with a breathless smile, knowing how close you were to losing your wits.

He simply made your nights worth remember. His allure was undeniable, with a voice that was naturally sultry. And his hands... fuck, they did heaven's work.

It didn't take you long to finally reach your climax, and once you did, your moans were the nastiest all night as you continuously lined his back with scratches.

You could feel how he was chasing his own orgasm all the while, before pulling out right at the last minute and made a mess on your belly, falling beside you.

“Tired?” Sylus’ chest rumbled with laughter as you laid sprawled there in a haze. His eyes narrowed at the sight of your burning cheeks. “I really like this look on your face right now.”

You rolled your eyes, catching your breath and shivered. “I bet you tell that to all other women you manage to lure to your bed.”

“How presumptuous.” He sent you a sour scowl. “I have a high standard— you should consider yourself lucky.”

Well, you do. Holding back a smile, you changed the topic. “I’m cold. Clean me up already.”

“Now, now… what a spoiled little thing you are…” Sylus chuckled, his voice deep and low, yet wrapping his arms around you nonetheless, hoisting you up.

Nights of passion. Mutually beneficial relationship. Nothing more and less.

No strings attached.

This is thrilling. Intimacy without commitment is more than enough to spice your checkered life. After all, what could be better and more rewarding than fucking the hottest man in N109 Zone and getting away with it?

At least, you thought so.

. . .

“Damn, you’re going to make me sore…” you grumbled, letting out a deep sigh as you sank into the sheets after he had cleaned you up, still basking in the afterglow and ready to drift off to sleep. “Ahh...”

Sylus’ lips curved into a wry smile as he watched you make yourself comfortable on his bed, slipping on his black shirt. “Well, I’m just that good, and you did ask for it.”

“Are you going out?” you asked in a small voice, teetering between sleep and wakefulness as you noticed him taking out his favorite gun. “It’s midnight.”

“Luke and Kieran said she has arrived.” Sylus said in low voice, not even sparing you a look. “After all, she has gone through all that trouble to come here, it is only right that I greet her myself.”

The woman. Sylus had told you several times, how a woman with Aether Core and powerful Resonance Evol would eventually come to N109 Zone. And that when the time came, he would make her resonate with him.

A part of you didn’t really know what to feel about this vague plan of his. “Will you bring her here too?”

“I’ll have her stay here until we have reached resonance,” he responded casually while shrugging on his coat.

Sylus valued others depending on their worth. He said it so himself—he isn't a philanthropist. He saw potential in your evol—the Speech Manipulation—which is why he rescued you three years ago, even after you had swung a blade to his throat.

This time must be the same. You played with the edges of your hair. “Well, consider me jealous then. Seems like I’ll have a rival soon.”

Your quip finally caught his attention, as he finally turned to you, one side of his mouth upturned.

“Ha.” Sylus strolled over to where you lay on the bed and placed a hand under your chin, letting out a throaty chuckle. “Is there even anyone brave enough to go against you?”

You shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “We shall see about that.”

Little did you know, the coming of this new girl would be the start of the undoing of your mutually beneficial relationship.

You would've expected the woman bearing Aether Core inside her to be way more interesting than that clueless, weak and easily spooked hunter from Linkon City.

But your and Sylus' definitions of interesting clearly differed though, as you caught him smiling after he pulled the most outrageous stunt on himself— having her shoot him right in the heart.

“She is funny,” he said to himself, almost snickering even as you wiped the blood off his toned body. “She was shaking so much the moment I pulled the trigger.”

“Is that your only finding—” you snapped as you wrapped the bandage around his bare chest, fuming. “—after shooting yourself just to mess with her?”

Luke and Kieran told you how he had used his Evol to pull the hunter girl onto his lap, then handed her a gun and made her shoot him. You couldn't believe it at first, until the sight of Sylus staggering to his bedroom, his shirt bloodied and clutching his chest made you almost scream in horror.

“Is that really necessary?” you scowled, tightening the bandage with more force than needed. “Or are you just trying to get her attention?”

Sylus’ sharp gaze settled on you then, seemingly not taking your comment well.

“What’s got you so worked up about this, hmm?” he asked, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips as he observed your cross expression. “Last I checked, we agreed not to get involved in each other’s personal affairs.”

Personal affairs, he said? Everything you two had done had long past breached all personal boundaries.

But the fact remains that you two are nothing more than—

“Fine.” You tied the bandage abruptly and about to storm off, making no effort to conceal your ire. You couldn’t say you were worried or that you hated seeing blood smeared across him. That was never in the agreement.

Until you felt a hard tug on your arm—

“And where does the angry kitty think she is going, hmm?”

Before you could discern it, your back was pressed against the wall—your left arm pinned beside your head, with Sylus filling your view.

His sculpted abs were right in front of you for the taking, his scent permeated the air, and his unsettling swirls of crimson eyes had you completely captivated.

“Have I ever told you that you look beautiful when you’re angry?” Sylus laughed as he leaned in, gripping your chin with his other hand. “If I didn’t know you were more than capable of slitting my throat in my sleep, I’d want you to look at me like this every day.”

It struck you how your heart raced wildly under his intense gaze. With his perfect face so close, the only sound that seemed to be most prominent was the pounding of your own heartbeat.

“What’s wrong? We’ve been closer than this,” Sylus taunted with a wide grin, his breath warm against your ear as he pressed his body against yours. “What’s making you so nervous?”

If you knew anything about Sylus, it was that he took pleasure in seeing you squirm in his hold. You glared daggers at him. “I hate you.”

“How lovely.”

“You’re infuriating,” you spat, devoid of any amusement.

He barked a satisfied bout of laugh once again, before releasing your chin. However, to your surprise, that very same hand groped your chest roughly—

“Then perhaps...” he hummed, a wicked glint in his red eyes, whispering to you with sultry voice right before he pulled you into him and devour your lips in heat: “You can help to fix me, sweetie.”

His kisses were hot as his tongue and hands made his mark on your body. Pressed against his bare skin, you gripped his strong, broad shoulders as he lifted your legs to his waist.

As always, he managed to dissolve all your lingering thoughts with lust. You just never knew one day you would finally reach the last straw though.

. . .

"Are you going out again tonight?" you muttered, tracing your fingers along his abs as you lay in his arms, still a bit giddy after your passionate session.

"No, I'm sleepy," he replied quickly, his voice low as he pulled you closer and closed his eyes. "Go to sleep already, kitten."

"I can't sleep."

"Poor you. I can though."

You quirked a frown at him. "You're so annoying these days."

"Oh?" Sylus cracked his eyes open, a smirk on his lips. "If you find me so disagreeable, you can always make me obey you, no?"

Your speech manipulation could make people do your bidding and it was a pretty useful talent. Apart from the first day you met Sylus three years ago in the wasteland of N109 Zone, you had never tried using it on him again.

"I won't, you idiot." You sighed and turned away, your back facing him. The idea of bending him to your will somehow didn't sit right with you. It was against your conscience now.

"Why are you facing away? It's freezing," he grumbled almost in a petulant voice. You nearly rolled your eyes, until you felt his strong arms wrap around your middle from behind.

"Why are you hugging me? We’re not usually this touchy after sex."

"I'm telling you, I'm cold, and you're my heat pillow."

"You're so damn insufferable..."

Despite your sharp retort, a smile found its way to your face. Moments like this were rare, and when he was the one seeking you, you couldn't help these butterflies in your stomach. Still...

You two are not in love, dammit. Sometimes it confused you a great deal. What is love anyway?

“Caw, caw, caw!”

“Mephisto, shush.”

Sylus’ robotic pet crow had surprisingly taken a liking to you shortly after you began living in the base. He obeyed your commands just as he did with his owner. The same couldn’t be said for Miss Hunter though, as Mephisto seemed to have a strong dislike for her.

You were idling at the living room with the crow when you realized how close it was to dawn.

“Luke, Kieran,” you called to the twins, who were bickering over a crate of oranges, frowning. “Where did Sylus go?”

Both stopped and looked at you, and Kieran blurted out, “Boss? Oh, he went out with Miss Hunter!”

You supposed you shouldn’t be surprised, but you were nonetheless. “And he still hasn’t come back?”

“Ah, yeah... but I think they just went on a short errand. He’s probably back or already on his way?” Luke mused, and you clicked your tongue.

It irritated you, it gnawed at you—how Sylus had been spending so much time with that hunter these days. He was trying to make her resonate with him, but still, the way you saw it, he was going through his playbook—

Just as he had done when he pursued you.

Calling her “kitten”, “sweetie”... everything he did with her seemed like a replay of the first year you spent in this place.

Deep down, perhaps you had hoped that, in some way, Sylus would see you as you saw him. Love might be out of reach in your bleak existences, but you at least wished he would consider you an irreplaceable presence.

You were petty, and you knew it.

“Mephisto,” you whispered to the cooing crow as it turned to you pliantly. “Go find and bother her, okay? Don’t let her out of your sight,” you added, letting the bird fly away on your command.

Deciding to rest in his room, you left the living room with a sense of exhaustion. You had stayed up for Sylus on a whim, as he had promised to share his plans for the upcoming auction soon. However, sleeping at dawn was giving you frequent headaches, and the habit was wearing on you.

You took a bath and then headed to his bedroom, and you would have never guessed what scene you'd walk into—

Sylus, in his bathrobe, and that girl… nestled against his chest on his bed. The very same bed where you two made out just the other night.

“Y/N?” Sylus looked at you over the girl’s shoulder, and you were frozen on the spot, feeling an indescribable rush of emotions washing over you.

In the next moment, the hunter girl scrambled away from him in panic, her face flushed with shame. “I-it’s not what it looks like! I swear! Sylus— I was just trying to find his brooch and—!”

In that instant, something inside you turned ice-cold. Her frantic explanations—none of it registered to you. The fact that he let her into his bed was enough for you.

You weren’t sure if Sylus noticed, but your eyes darkened, your fists clenched, and a storm raged within your chest.

“Sorry for intruding,” you said frostily, cutting her off and casting a contemptuous glance at both of them before turning on your heel and slamming the door shut.

It was no use, you finally realized. In this twisted relationship you two shared, there could never be anything more than hot sex and flirtations.

Somehow it hurt more deeply than you expected, as though your heart were being scorched. Yet, you couldn’t even find the tears to cry—as you weren't allowed to do so.

Sylus noticed the change in you immediately.

You vanished from the base and returned in the evening, not sparing him even a look and he could tell then that you had come back a different woman.

And it was the part he hated the most. These days, he couldn't read you at all.

"Luke and Kieran, keep an eye on her tonight," he instructed his two underlings as the two of them were getting ready.

"Who? Miss Hunter?" Luke questioned.

"Or boss lady?" Kieran supplied.

Both of them liked you as well. Unlike him, you’d spend your free time indulging their nonsense, and over time, they even gave you that friendly moniker.

They didn't really know the nature of your physical relationship though. Or at least, didn't really know fully.

"The latter," Sylus gruffly replied, and then he went to the hunter girl to prepare her as well.

He had a justified explanation. If you had asked him, he would tell you nothing had happened. Your ire was better than silence, definitely a hundred times better than this.

But why didn't you come to him?

And why does he want you to come and demand him for an explanation?

However, tonight was the auction for the Aether Core. He had to finish this first before he could get a word with you later.

At least that was what Sylus had thought... until he saw you at the auction venue.

You were stunning in that black cocktail dress. He didn’t know when you had your hair done, but you looked as if you had spent the entire day preparing for this occasion despite having barely two hours after coming back. You were definitely a head-turner, drawing the attention of many vermin as you navigated the ballroom with grace and everlasting smile.

And it grated at him. Severely. Sylus's eyes were locked on each lowlife hell-bent on taking his life and desperate to get into your pants, knowing he would end them all tonight.

...and as if it wasn't enough, he then saw you entertaining one of them with that sort of smile you used to reserve for him.

. . .

"Mm-hm, really?"

"Yes, I've heard they are inside the safe number 209."

You coyly smirked, looking the man with mask in front of you, whom you had led to a deserted hallway, who had been complying and smiling at each and every question of yours.

"Thank you then." You flashed him your best smile, about to go back to the main hall.

"And uh, miss," he suddenly turned to you in a flurry. "I believe I haven't gotten your name—"

You chuckled, facing him again. "Oh, you want to know my name?"

"Very much so!"

This was like bread and butter to you. You effortlessly wrapped an arm around the man's neck, standing on your tiptoes, and whispered in his ear:

"Halt."

He went rigid the moment the command left your lips, and you could feel his panic rising as you pulled away.

"W-what happened—!?" he thrashed against the invisible hold manifested by your Evol in pure panic, to no avail, whereas you regarded at him with a cold smile.

"What a shame. I planned to let you be, but then you gave me the perfect opportunity." You maintained your eerie smile as you pulled out a thin, needle-like blade from the hem of your dress. "You have been a great help. Thank you."

With that, you slit his throat, and blood splattered onto the ground in a continuous pool as he jerked, collapsing like a broken statue.

You felt nothing at the sight, but you knew you weren't alone as you felt his presence.

"You started the party without me?" Sylus' deep voice resonated through the hall. "Didn't know you have that much of bloodlust this early, sweetie."

The clench of your heart was still there, even when you had decided to discard all your lingering feelings for this man. Still, you put on the perfect poker face when you met his eyes.

"I want this to be over and done with quick. I'm exhausted already."

Sylus eyed you calmly, yet somehow it felt as if the depths of those red eyes were trying to assess your soul. "Your actions said otherwise. Is flirting with him necessary?"

"You're one to talk, Boss," you scoffed at the last word. "As long as it entertains me, why isn't it?"

Sylus didn't deign you with an answer, and you decided to pour more oil into it.

"Strictly professional, no?" You lifted your chin defiantly. "Last I checked, we were not supposed to meddle in personal affairs—"

You didn't realize it until he did, because the next thing you knew, his right eye suddenly glowed with that terrifying shade of crimson. "You—!"

He has seen it all. In the three years since he took you in, Sylus had never used his Aether Core-infused right eye on you to peek into your mind. The first and only time it had happened was when he restrained you from attacking him on the day you first met.

This was the second time. And now, he knows. Of your petty feelings, of your deepest, truest desire.

At first, Sylus remained silent, but then his eyes narrowed at you, low voice booming through the hall.

"Jealousy is unbecoming on you, Y/N."

And after all that he knew, that was the only thing he could come up with?

You felt shame wash over you. You wanted to run from him. This was too much because he most definitely didn’t reciprocate your feelings, did he?

"I don't want to hear it," you resolved, the space around you felt constricting all of a sudden. You walked past him, about to break into a sprint—

Sylus immediately caught a hold of your arm though, sending a glare at you. "You—"

"It ends here," you blurted in heat. "I don't want it anymore. We're through, Sylus."

"Listen to me!"

He snarled at you, and it was the very first time he did so. However, you paid him no mind and pulled out your ace card, staring hard into his eyes. You could feel the start of his black and red mist, but your Evol was faster—

"Move."

His hold on you loosened, and he jerked back several foot away from the impact. You kept your manipulation on him, avoiding his fury-blazed eyes, bolting away before he could catch you.

. . .

The night escalated so much worse than you had imagined. Explosions and a sudden appearance of an Arbiterwings threw the whole auction into chaos.

You were fighting off the sudden wave of wanderers alone, relying solely on your blade since your voice was too hoarse to use your Evol. When one of them struck you and sent you crashing into a wall, you just sat there in a daze.

It was exhausting. Usually, Sylus would be by your side, covering your back at the very least. He wouldn't let a single scratch get to you. His black and red mist of doom would dominate the battlefield, offering you protection while at it.

You loved that bastard. It was so beyond stupid. Why did you have to ruin everything by having these feelings? If your heart was gone, would these feelings go with it too?

You got your answer sooner than you thought.

White-hot pain engulfed you when something impaled you right in the chest. The searing agony was mind-blinding, the only thing you could discern was your own wails.

No, the feelings didn’t go. Even as you teetered on the brink of death, that damned love only evolved into many regrets.

And in your final moments, you could've sworn you felt the exact moment your heart stopped beating.

"Oh my god! Luke! She is here!"

"Kieran...! Is she alive?!"

"So much blood—! Luke, call Boss! Call Boss here!"

"Boss! We found her!"

"What do we do?! Shit! It's right... in her heart..."

"What!? Boss! S-she is...! Oh lord..."

You had a dream, and it was of your first meeting with Sylus.

Three years ago, in the wasteland of N109 Zone, you were a mere scavenger until he found you. You had thought he was a threat much like others in this lawless city, so you unwittingly showcased your Evol before him in defense, until he pinned you down on the hard ground, crimson eyes holding you in place.

"I'm giving you two options: go with me and live, or die here in vain," he had told you then, a smug smile on his face. "I assure you, so long as you're still useful to me, you won't have to worry about food or roof above your head ever again."

What kind of homeless person would refuse that tempting offer?

Since you followed him, Sylus had never been untrue to his word. He made good of his words, idly engaged you in his circle, showered you with gifts, and at one point—

"You're... trying to tempt me, aren't you?" he growled amidst kisses, pinning you on his desk. Apparently, seeing you up close and personal every day in his home had worn down his patience. He was just a man, after all.

You wickedly giggled, even breathless, cradling both sides of his face and admiring those ruby eyes of his. "What if... I am?"

"Then consider me tempted, little kitten," he chuckled, his baritone voice casting a spell over you. "Remember though, curiosity can kill most cats."

Thus began your thrilling relationship, and you knew you would gladly stay with him just to have a taste of that heaven. And you knew too, he wouldn't cast you easily this way.

And of course, so long as you are useful to him, that is.

When you came to, you felt warm, and your position was so comfortable that you were almost lulled back to sleep.

At first, it didn't register to you where you were. The scene before you was so familiar, but you were so lethargic that you were late to recognize it.

"Awake?"

Sylus' bedroom. The realization dawned on you as that deep, low voice questioned you flatly. You jerked instinctively, looking up at him as he came into view, holding a glass of wine.

He was still the same. Even with you out of commission, he would still indulge himself with his wine. Somehow you couldn't really pinpoint what you should feel about it.

However, Sylus then did the thing you didn't expect him to. He went back to his pantry to get a glass of water, and then he came to your side to prop you up.

"Drink," he commanded, positioning the glass on your chapped lips. You complied and did so, feeling relief for your throat. Once you were finished, he gently laid you back on the bed and tucked you in, never once taking his eyes off you.

"How are you feeling?"

"Have been better," you quipped dryly. Then it dawned on you that he had never been this gentle with you before. He was showing care, which confirmed one theory you had about him: Sylus could be considerate when he chose to be.

The very fact that you ended back here didn't really faze you much, because in the end, you belonged to him out of all people. Just one thing that still didn't make sense in your mind: "What did you do?"

His burgundy eyes squared at you. "What?"

"There’s no way I could've survived that," you mumbled, trying to gauge his reaction. "You must’ve done something."

“Ha, when it comes to these things, you’re sharp,” Sylus said with a light scoff, and you frowned.

"Answer me."

"Aether Core," he supplied. "It was now in you, repairing your coronary system."

"You..." you were rendered speechless. "You—what? You infused my heart with a Protocore...?"

Just like the one in his eye, he had implanted you with that dangerous fragment that was from something as horrific as a Wanderer. The very thought made your breath hitch.

"Stay calm," he commanded, his hand found yours when he noticed your horrified expression, squeezing it as if to provide some sort of reassurance. "You'll be fine."

"H-how... why..."

"That was your only chance, or you would’ve been dead." Sylus' tone was harsher now, his jaw set firmly. "I keep telling you not to rush in carelessly, and yet you did. Did you even know how bad your state was when I found you? No, you didn't."

The way he spoke made you feel as though you were being blamed, and overwhelmed with your frustration, you retorted sharply, "No one asked you to save me."

Awkward silence lingered for a good one minute after your jab. You turned away from him, feeling conflicted, because you knew you should be grateful that he did so, because it meant the Aether Core inside you now was the one he had been looking for in that auction.

He gave it up to save you.

Still, it confused you.

“If I died...” you began, bitterness creeping into your voice. “Then it just means I’m no longer useful to you. You always discard things that no longer serve your purpose.”

You turned back to him, meeting his impassive gaze. “So why? Did you pity me after discovering my feelings? Is that why?”

There are many labels in your relationship. Master and servant. Onychinus leader and his right-hand woman. But you were also his lover, even unsaid. Was that fact that did it? Or a mere charity for the weak, you?

Suddenly, Sylus placed his palm over your chest, right where your heartbeat pulsed. You stiffened, bracing for some sort of impact.

But no, it wasn’t anything sensual like he usually did. His hand—large and warm—was a comforting presence, resting on your chest and feeling the steady rhythm of your heartbeat.

"Haven't I told you that I never act out of pity?" Sylus' voice was strained but softer than usual, his deep burgundy eyes holding yours. "Do you really need me to spell it out?"

You didn't dare to look away, for the moment of truth was right in front of you.

"My only regret is not being able to pull you back," he said quietly, his tone somber. "I shouldn't have let you get hurt."

Oh. You blinked, taking in his sincere words, something inside you softening and warming at his words.

You had noticed it too. Despite his roguish exterior, he had always looked after you during your time together. It was just that you hadn’t dared to hope for more.

“The naughty little kitten has managed to worm her way into me, it seems,” he chuckled then, flashing you that cocky smile. “So now, she has to be held responsible for her actions.”

His red gaze narrowed as he added. “Moreover, since I have saved your life— you owe it to me not to throw it away so easily. So you can’t rush into danger carelessly again, you hear?”

Those playful remarks were enough to dispel your doubts and insecurities. They answered everything you had been questioning, and knowing it, finally you let out a relieved sigh and exasperated snort. “You shameless bastard...”

And when he leaned in to place a fleeting, innocent kiss on your forehead, you realized that, in his own way, he saw you just as you saw him, even if only a little.

Sylus settled into the bed beside you, wrapping his arms around you and letting your head rest on his arm. Tonight, there were no passionate kisses, no steamy foreplay, or dirty talks— just you being alive and well in his embrace.

“How long have I been out?”

“Three weeks, woman. Luke and Kieran keep mourning you everyday.”

“Three weeks?! How did you manage without me for that long?”

Sylus glanced at you, a contented smile on his face as he held you close. “It’s been horrid.”

Neither of you would be caught dead saying “I love you”, and yet, regardless, you knew that right this moment meant so much more.

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acid-ixx · 5 months ago

Text

ch.3: again &. again (platonic! yandere batfam x neglected! gn reader)

directory: preq, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four

read until the end for an author's note.

tw: allusions to sexual assault, prostitution, and alcohol abuse.

"hey baby bird!!! <333 long time no see! how are you?!"

please stop.

"i know that we haven't been talking for quite a long time—"

no, you have never once had a solid conversation with him.

and you wish it stays that way between the two of you.

"—so let's catch up over coffee, yeah? i'll be staying at the manor for a week!"

you don't want to, you don't want to see his face at all, his dismissive eyes. don't want to hear his voice, how it only sings praises for everyone but you.

"(name)??? it says you have seen the messages :( are you asleep? you shouldn't sleep with your phone on, baby bird, that's dangerous!"

he doesn't have the right to scold you, he's not your older brother anymore. and you're not asleep, fuck, you regret not dozing off this afternoon. hell, you're more than awake and aware of the messages he's sending you, eyes scanning over the train of spam that clutters what was once an empty one-sided conversation.

"baby bird? c'mon, i miss you!!!"

lies, lies, lies. all he ever says are lies and you wouldn't fall for it, not anymore.

yet you're simply frozen in shock, seated up in bed as you simply watch dick's messages stack upon each other.

you watch, and wait. it's like you have lost autonomy over your body's actions.

five minutes pass.

your phone rings.

it was the only sound that fills the room other than the wringing in your ears.

it continues ringing, reverberating throughout the room, but all you do is stare, stare until the it ends, for everything to end and for all of this to be a sick hallucination your brain played on you.

there's nothing else you could focus on, your heartbeats spike the longer the call sound continues. you didn't even have the strength to decline the call, let alone move as you fear you might end up pressing the accept button.

so you wait, you wait until it stops.

and once it does cease, your sweaty thumb immediately pressed the block button on dick's profile, even going as far to delete all the past chats you had sent him. then, without moments hesitation, hastily scrolled all the way to the bottom of the list, where their other contacts lay barren of messages.

you have only used enough effort to message dick. that's what probably triggered his sudden intent on spending time with you, no? or was this all for his sick pleasure?

fortunately, all your other contacts with your past family are empty.

it will remain empty.

so you immediately blocked them, all of them. the thumps in your heart are erratic, so much so that you had to remind yourself to breath. through your nose, and out your mouth.

that's it, right? he'll get the message, definitely. that you don't want him to talk to you, to get rid of the false pretenses between the two of you, you don't want to "catch up" over coffee, or over anything.

it's all over, you tell yourself.

'calm down, relax...' you're in the safety of your own apartment, you should feel safe right now, he wouldn't bother you anymore.

not anymore would you be led to believe that they care for you.

— so why is it that you can feel that familiar rise of bile? taste it, even? why is it that your body is shaking so uncontrollably?

what the fuck.

seriously, just what the absolute fuck is wrong with you?

you never take yourself as an overdramatic person, especially not now, at the age of eighteen where you had finally learned to live for yourself, to never yearn what you knew was unattainable. your past tantrums were no more, no more you say but you wish so badly to carve a knife into your very heart.

why is it that now— now that you were out of your comfort zone, out of their empty presences and their overwhelming absences; why is it now that he just suddenly decided to appear? why is it just now that you feel your skin scorching uncomfortably at just a single message.

shit, your heart hurts so much. you want to take the beating organ out of your chest, just to make the pain stop.

your momma always told you, she said it herself that you are a brave child, her pride and joy despite the hellish living conditions you both were subjected to.

why is it so hard to believe her now?

just, why are you so weak?

when your mother hid you inside that closet - one too small for even a malnourished child like you to fit - telling you to hush for her, and that it's just a game of hide and seek with the 'bad guys', to not make a single sound at all or even come out if you hear screaming— you did what you were told, obediently, covering your mouth, trying your hardest to ignore your sore joints and heavy breathing.

"woah, mommy! is this really me?! you always make me look so nice." a young voice squeals, the sound echoing throughout the hollow room.

"yes, it's you, baby. you who are so strong, unlike me. momma will always love you." scarred hand, littered with gashes and soiled bandages run brush through your messy hair as your small form sat on the dirty bathroom sink. your eyes are drifted towards a mirror, checking out the new shirt your mother had bought for you.

"i love you too..."

you never cried that loud when light suddenly hits the cramped interiors of the closet, when you were caught and shoved outside of your hiding space by strange men, your mother nowhere to be found. when you felt the same men ripping your clothes apart, knives branding your skin like a searing hot pan; you never fought back because that's what your mother taught you. even when they pinned you down and injected you with a strange substance, head suddenly numbing and vision darkening; you still woke up alive, no?

... you woke up alive and conscious in a police station, where you had questiomed to the kind officer about your mother's disappearance, where she had bared the news that you would be taken in to a new family; a new home where your father resides in. one way cleaner, way safer she says.

yet for the next 15 years you were neglectef of the love your mother had given you. you were only raised by a butler too busy to fully focus on you. you had compared yourself to your siblings, siblings who had achieved so much in so little time.

and you?

you are only a wayne by name, but a (last name) by heart.

but you are brave, you are strong— you came from the lowest of the low, yet you pushed through and through to be a better person, and look where you are now...!

... just look at yourself now.

your phone lays untouched on the bed sheets. it tempts you, mocks your panicked state, and you want to rip that rectangular piece of metal apart. yet all you do is stare at it, sitting upright as one hands supports your weight. your fingers clench the mattress, it does nothing as your vision darkens from your lack of breathing.

breathing.

oh, breath in, breath out. do what alfred has taught you years ago, the- the one he uses whenever you would run alone in the desolate halls of the manor to alfred's room, just because you were anxious of the monsters in the corner of your eyes, where he would help you return to your senses and play you a lullaby from an old music box right after. the one he uses after you two would watch horror movies and you were too scared of any sounds that engulf your surroundings.

your throat tightens, and you want to vomit out the contents of what you have eaten— but you have to try.

five things you can see.

your eyes, although frozen wide and stinging with tears, darts around the room. everything is darker now, it's cold and you feel so small. your apartment was small. unlike the place you had lived before, it lacks of furniture, of life, of personality. the only things in your tiny apartment were basic necessities, but even food was scarce for someone like you who had juggle working multiple jobs and college just to pay for rent.

you can see your phone, the candy wrappers you had forgotten to throw, the overflowing trash bin, an empty bottle of prescription pills, alfred's gifts on the shelves counts, right? you laugh sarcastically at yourself; even a trashcan has more contents in your shitty apartment.

fuck, your chest throbs, you remind yourself to breath a little deeper.

four things you can feel.

the mattress is too hot for you, sweat already running down your forehead as if you had ran a marathon. you can feel the tears well up your eyes, overflowing with bitterness that you thought you had already buried deep down, and your hands gripping the sheets so uncomfortably tight. the weather is too cold, winter's nearing but the blood pumping through your veins scorches your very being.

that's four, three more to go and you hope this would all be over. you hope that this would all be a dream, a hallucination, anything.

three things you can hear.

does your choked sounds count? or does it need to be anything else? fuck, why doesn't it work as well as when alfred helps you through? you told yourself that you could take on anything in life, but is it all just a lie—?

focus. focus on your surroundings. you can hear your sniffling, heavy intakes of air, and a repeat of the phone ringing with dick's name as the contact.

shit, shit, shit. don't remind yourself of that. move on, just get onto the next thing.

two things you can smell or... taste? you don't remember, why can't you remember? your thoughts keep running back in circles to the messages, that stupid '<3', the way his desperation could be felt through the phone.

it reminds you of yourself.

before you knew it, your fist brought itself to punch your chest.

thump, beat, thump.

every time your heart beats too loudly, you strike your chest as hard as you can, uncaring for the pain it inflicts you, uncaring for the way you beat the air out of yourself. as long as it distracts you from the bile rising up your throat and the unsated nausea from sitting in the same position— it'll be fine if you hurt yourself. you've already done so a million times, no?

... yet nothing works.

why doesn't anything work out in your favor?

please don't do this to me.

your fists eventually stops. everything hurts even worse.

just earlier ago, you were praising yourself for all the progress you had made. how you weren't in need of validation anymore. you try so desperately to erase any inch of evidence that you were a wayne.

it all crashes down, again and again, and again and again.

moments ago, you were laying on your bed, scrolling through social media, making plans to hangout with your small group of friends in college, trying to cling on to the good parts of your past— ignoring the empty chats of what was once family.

but even without them, even if they haven't knew that you pushed them away from your life— they're always seeping their way at the back of your mind.

you truly can not erase your past. no matter how much you shake your head to rid of the thoughts, no matter how much you try to erase any documentations, any

even talking to alfred reminds you of your stupid past. a past that eats you up every time you wake up from the nightmares, wishing that there would be someone, anyone, who would hold your body tight and tell you it's alright. your mother, your father, your brothers and your sisters— they just were never there for you for so many years. and you hate to admit it but; you still cling to the wish that one of them would...

would hug you and kiss all your wounds away. drive away the countless of dreams filled with terror and torture.

you're independent now, but at what cost? what good does it do when you still try your damn hardest to live? when you know it in your soul that you still desire for a semblence of familial love.

and now that you've pushed alfred away, you're truly alone.

alone and stuck in a loop of trying to run away from your past and failing miserably.

and all you can ever do is, well...

you cry.

the tears bursts out of your eyes like a broken faucet.

you cry because that's the only thing you know how to do. you let the waters loose, hands quickly tangling itself on your hair, ripping fragile strands apart. you cry because you've been living a such a life full of lies, of broken promises, a life where you have to constantly walk on eggshells. you cry because you want to turn back and throw away all your progress just to feel the embrace of a family who had never once held you in their arms. you let yourself heave, let your voice wail out to its deepest frustration, uncaring for the thin walls, or the sleeping neighbors next door, or the rumbling of your empty stomach.

you cry, for what seems like hours, unending like the memories of solitary isolation, like the wanting of a love that you could never quite catch. you let your eyes become all puffy and red; red like the gashes you have scratched upon your skin, like the crimson, beaded blood from your bitten lips.

you don't find any strength in yourself to stifle your sobs anymore.

not when you're so, so lonely in this world.

and when your voice dies down, when your hoarse shrieking becomes no more; you simply force yourself to stand, despite the spinning of your vision, the stumble in your steps and the lack of air in your lungs; you run to your bathroom, slamming the door shut, letting adrenaline take its course into your already tired body.

your knees, they buckle after its few wobbly steps. it's sore and lacks the circulation to be properly controlled, but you ignore it in favor of expelling the acidic bile that finally rushes itself up your tongue.

at least you find just one thing to be grateful for— that your knees slipped on the wet tiles and land coincidentally towards the toilet's rim, a loud thud vibrating through the room.

alfred says the best way to cope is to never jar your emotions.

it's painful, everything is so painful that you want to scream; you need to let it all out.

you don't care if your knees were to bruise because you couldn't help it anymore, spilling out the contents of your breakfast onto the toilet bowl. your throat constricts into itself, and all you could do is gag and force every bit of food out of your mouth.

and it tastes so bitter that you cry even more. there were some bits and chunks stuck on the sides of your tongue, you can taste the acid on the back of your throat. you feel the urge to vomit even more but there's no more to expel. all you can do is dry heave, shaking hands finding its way to cover your mouth from gagging anymore.

it's so pungent, so fucking disgusting— but all you do is force yourself to stand once more, to look away from the mess you had created and flush it away.

the tears just wouldn't stop, the throbbing in your heart could never be expelled just as easily as the contents of your stomach.

yet you chose this life, there's no more alfred to assist you on your own personal struggles. there's no more rubs on the pack, pats on the head or a warm meal that greets you every time you drown in your own emotions. it's only you who can solve your own problems. you can't depend on anyone but yourself...

if only life was as easy as it is to flush away unwanted contents from your stomach.

if only you weren't in gotham... if only dick wasn't in...

gotham.

he's in gotham right now.

shit.

shit, shit, shit.

dick is in gotham, and you know he just doesn't give up.

he can track you down, he'll find you, he might hurt you because you blocked him— you know of his temper, of his unadulterated anger; you're scared of that. just what have you done wrong? did you take something that was his? no, no, never.

you've never been in his room before. he knows yours because he had visited once, but you don't know his. you don't even know which hallway leads to it.

oh, fuck.

you stumble towards the bathroom sink, hastily twisting the faucet's valve. cold water immediately rushes down, you cup your two hands together to collect the running water.

you need to get to you bearings, prepare for the absolute worst because you know, you know the power he holds in his arms.

with the amount of times he had spammed you, called you even— there's something he wants from you, and you don't want to entertain whatever he has on his mind.

you splash your face - splotched with tears, snot and drool - clean multiple times, rub your swollen, red eyes, and wipe the bits of vomit on the sides of your mouth. you can still taste the vomit. god, it's disgusting.

so you hastily grabbed your toothbrush, pushing an insanely large amount of toothpaste on the bristles. you scrub your teeth aggressively, feeling the urge to rid of the pungent taste of stomach acid. then you gargle mouthwash, twice, and spit it all out.

your movements are too quick for your own self to catch up, but you have to do this. your brain tells you to follow through whatever it has to do.

follow through instincts, get him out of your mind.

distract yourself from dick and the cryptic messages he had sent, that you had thoroughly deleted but...

it dawns upon you that albeit all your failed attempts at bonding with him— you know nothing about dick beyond the circus incident that had killed his parents and his identity as gotham and bludhaven's vigilante, nightwing.

you know nothing about him...

and you fucking blocked him before you could ask for an explanation.

what does that message mean? what does he want to talk about all of a sudden? a person doesn't just fucking waltz in someone's life after 15 years of absence and exclaims himself as close as your friend, no?

it had been so long since you had last heard him call you baby bird, let alone even read your messages, so why spam you now?

your knuckles grip at the bathroom sink's tiles, it was the only thing that provides you balance, legs too wobbly to support the dizziness. you feel a huge lump on your throat again, but you can't just erase all the efforts you had done to get yourself together.

— but at the same time, it's too hard to ignore the panic that resurfaces on your very mind.

so what do you need exactly?

distraction, something to get your mind off of the current situation? before you run away from gotham—

you need a distraction, anything. even if it's stupid, you'll regret it later, just not now.

cigarettes? no, you don't smoke. alfred will kill you if he finds out and you can never lie to him.

drugs? you'll be shot in the head by nasty criminals scamming naive citizens for half the price before you could even purchase them.

... then what?

you look at yourself in the mirror, puffy eyes glazing with emotions you yourself couldn't comprehend.

'despite everything, it's still you, no?'

if you could describe yourself right now, you would call yourself a mess, a big loser who had let their emotions run free for too long, let themself go way too quickly, gave up too quickly, and believed too naively. you had lost so much yet gained so little. a wayne so stubborn that it was the only thing you could ever relate to your father who had estranged you without knowing it.

there was more negatives than positives, you're aware of it.

but if there's one trait that anyone could generalize off of you, it would be that you're always desperate for something.

anything.

and just one time, you tell yourself. one time and that's it, nothing more, nothing less.

once you done relaxing, you're packing your bags and making a run for it. you'll even cut alfred off of your life once and for all. no matter how much it pains you to do so, it's necessary so you could make a new identity from scratch.

it'll hurt you so deeply.

but that's why you're going to do what you wish you had done back when you were still so young—

you need a drink right now.

the wayne manor, in all its glory, is truly just an empty palace that houses buried memories.

with walls that cover the cries of one lonely child; a child who yearns for the unreciprocated love of their family. it was a cage for a child who stalks the frigid halls without any company, who sleeps in a room too small for their age, who cries for anybody to notice the pain that they had hidden with rose colored tints for so long, who yearns for a warmth that could never be provided in the spaces of harsh, black wallpaper and harsh winters.

it will always be innately lonely, and cold.

yet it's even more sullen now, an atmosphere so empty nobody could pinpoint.

no more was the voice that sings of the butler's splendid cooking. no more was the etching of ballpens on smooth paper on an intricately designed diary that stores all the rants of one's daily life. no more were the strokes on colorful canvases that paint dreams of a different life. no more was the humming of multiple tunes every morning. no more was the presence of the ghost who water the plants every afternoon. no more were the footsteps that thud in the kitchen and the hands that opens the fridge.

and most importantly—

no more were the hushed cries of the kid who resides in the smallest room of the wayne manor.

a house could be described as a building where a unit, moreover a family, lives in; but a home is what represents comfort, a place of belonging and safety.

it was a place encased with deep, historical roots.

but right now, encased in a field of damp grass - wet from heavy rain - and the overwhelming scent of petrichor— the manor is simply a house.

for it could never be complete without the presence of the very lonely child who cries for a love never to be attained.

the wayne manor, in all its worth, would never be the same without (name) wayne, a child who had always belonged, but at the same time, always wronged.

bruce wayne never considered himself the greatest father.

he could be gotham's best detective, the most feared vigilante, or the heavily beloved billionaire who donates millions on hospitals, hosts charity events, and so much more.

he could spend his entire life saving countless of other lives that do not deserve the turmoil of living on edge constantly, attend meetings, plan out his every moves, sit on cushioned seats as he broods over where the all the next criminal hideouts; he could do everything and he'll be damned great at it.

—but he will never be the greatest at being a father.

he had long accepted that fact, embraced it even, facing countless of criticism from both alfred and media alike, but it would never be an excuse to neglect or mistreat any one of his children, just like how it would never be right to just ignore a kid's cry for comfort in the barren halls of a manor.

bruce was never outright cruel towards anyone, every action of his baring significance to his moral code.

which was why bruce feels a pit of neverending regret now.

in all the years that he had spent trying to raise his children, children who, in a way, are trouble. who all differ from each other from ideals, to pasts, to habits, to preferences— he wouldn't lie and say that he never had difficulty helping each and every one of them grow to be who they are now.

living through his decisions are never easy, especially if the outcomes were unpredictable; raising a child, let alone children, could go so many ways.

the lives that he had to juggle, alongside his identity as bruce wayne and as batman, they were all an endeavor that he had chose to balance. he had come so far and stumbled so often. but at least by the end of it, he would be proud to say that he truly will never regret having them by his side when he was at the lowest points of his life.

he had his flaws and his mistakes, he had done irreversible actions that he wishes he could reverse, and most importantly, he had failed each and every one of his children indubitably.

but he really tried.

he tried his best to be there for every single one of them. he was there for dick when he had witnessed the death of his mom and dad, adopting the boy who was overflowing with rage towards the killer of his parents and utilizing his gymnastic skills for good. he was there to pick jason up when he had stolen the batmobile's tires, helping the child unlearn the past abuse he had fallen victim to (and although he had died, then resurrected, and turned cold-blooded towards criminals, murdering without hesitation— he still cares for jason deeply). he was there when tim had lost his parents. there for damian who had only been raised as an assassin since he was born. for cass, for duke, for everyone.

he really tried to be active in their lives, supporting them through their blood, sweat, and tears.

... but he had never tried to be there for you.

his forgotten third child, the biological firstborn, child of a well-known prostitute, (name) (last name), whose identity has long been erased off of the face of the internet; the scandal of a century that took the shared efforts of him and barbara to decimate whatever information the late (or missing?) (last name) has in the underground.

(name), his child he has never once bat an eye on, too preoccupied with tim, aversing his attention away from you to train the other kid; ultimately ignoring the immense trauma you must have dealt with from being raised by a mother targeted by most criminal organizations from extorting their cash. it was sickening for him to think of just how cruel were the conditions the two of you were forced to live through.

it was sickening for bruce to imagine the even lonelier years you had to suffer through after your mother's disappearance— years where your father's presence was elsewhere, years that a child has to suffer through alone without any figure to look up to.

it was your name that he had hesitated to even say, in fear of butchering the pronunciation and earning more of alfred's judgemental looks.

(name) wayne.

not even a face can be associated with you, not your voice, your hobbies, nothing.

he couldn't recall a memory where he had taken you to a fancy gala, or one-on-one father-child dates, or any occasions that requires bonding with each other.

he wasn't the man who welcomed you through the doors of the manor, nor was he the father who should've picked you up at the police station.

bruce wayne knows nothing of his third child.

if alfred hadn't confronted him about your terrible living conditions as of now, living in debt whilst trying to push through college, then how long would he have ignored your presence inside the manor? how long would the years pass without him acknowledging any important milestones that you would reach?

until your untimely demise perhaps?

he couldn't even remember a time he had at least given you a gift during christmas or new year or any time of the day.

not even the name of your elementary and high school, or your college university. he doesn't know of your friends, your teachers or what subject you excel in.

you had already graduated highschool, and he wasn't even there for your ceremony. he wasn't there to walk you up the stage, wasn't there to shield you from the thousands of photographers who would've attended should they know that a wayne would attend, wasn't there to offer you a pat on the shoulders for a job well done.

then who had to walk you up the stage?

"alfred..." he stops walking, clearing his throat as alfred turns back at bruce, offering a raised eyebrow at the sudden pause and bruce's rigid pose.

"yes, master?"

"when... (name) graduated," he hesitated on saying your name again, catching on alfred's sudden squint of the eyes. "who walked them up the stage?"

he hopes you didn't have to go up there alone, that a teacher at least accompanied you or—

"i was the one who attended in your stead, master bruce." the butler replies without hesitation, as if it was a normal occurrence. he sighs again, too tired to scold bruce's surprise for absolutely dismissing all the important dates that include you and instead turns back to continue on his treck to guiding bruce to your room.

alfred's look of condescension makes him sink deeper into the void of regret. for being unable to

fuck, how many important events had bruce missed? from school plays, to parent-teacher conferences, to talent shows— was there ever a "bring your father to school" day?

oh... he really hopes there wasn't.

his hands find itself scratching his head, fingers tangling itself onto his hair in hopes of providing distraction— but his thoughts all circulate towards you, a faceless entity, an itch that he could never reach unless he sees you for himself.

the further he walks through frigid halls, the smaller the space seems to get.

how many birthdays had he missed?

when even is your birthday?

you are eighteen now, five when you were taken in which means... almost fourteen years of missed birthdays...

he didn't even give you a single gift card out of pity. not even money for allowance, or a birthday cake.

bruce was never there for you, and he has a feeling that that may have been one of the reasons of you moving out.

he needs to make up for it at least, once he contacts you he'll apologize for everything—

but first, he needs to see the state of your room. to at least have a first impression of you, of what your life was in the manor; any clues that pertains to just who his child is, as humiliating as that sounds for a father.

which was why he didn't hesitate to let alfred lead him straight to your room, albeit the shame he feels for not even knowing where his own child's room is located.

back when he had taken damian in, it was him who introduced the boy to his own room, whom had promptly thrown a tantrum and demanded someplace bigger before ultimately accepting his fate.

... how would you have reacted to your own? he wishes to at least picture your face, probably opposite to damian's, as you get to live in an entirely different space from what you're used to.

would you be pleased? would you look at him with sparkling eyes and thank him? or would you maintain a neutral stance? an overwhelmed one?

he really wants to see you, your expressions, just a sliver of your presence.

but nothing comes up in his mind. not the length or color of your hair, not your height, not anything. he could picture a vague imagery of your mother, but not you.

it makes him wonder; does any of your siblings know what you look like? were you at least any closer to them that you are to him?

he hates just how much desperately the darkness in the pit of his chest is crawling in need to hasten his steps towards wherever your room was.

the rain outside had already ceased, but a newer thunderstorm was brewing inside bruce's heart.

he needs to see you.

as he walks behind alfred through the halls of the manor, he had just noticed how barren the other side of the manor truly is.

cob webs and dust particles litter through the corners of the untouched furniture, the wallpaper peeling off itself and revealing untreated mold and even more cocoons of baby spiders that would soon crawl out, and even most of the ceramic vases they had passed by houses no flowers, instead being covered in a thin sheen of dust.

it was obvious just how neglected this corner of the house is.

just like you.

alfred was always meticulous in his duty as a butler, but bruce had advised the old man to leave unexplored parts of the manor be, seeing as how nobody would stroll by; and to only clean it whenever he would host an expensive gala in the manor with spare rooms as guest rooms.

it made bruce wonder if these halls are the path that leads directly to your room, which it actually does, and he feels even more guilty at just how... different your living condition is compared to your siblings.

it was no wonder why the butler would always excuse himself early, seemingly always making a treck towards a forgotten chamber that he rarely visited.

he'll make a note of relocating you to a room closer than his if you ever were to decide to come visit during holidays or vacations.

... alfred said it had been six or seven months since you had left, just how many occasions have he missed?

counting only fills the dread in his the growing hole of the pit of his heart.

yeah... he will get you a new room, one preferably closer to his; just so he could greet you every morning by knocking on your door and at least escorting you to the kitchen for breakfast. he'll try to make small talk, invite you over and... bond with you.

that'll be a good habit he could incorporate into his daily life.

a small part of him wishes you wouldn't look at him in disdain if he had to forcibly visit your apartment.

he swears it's in all the good of his heard; he just needs to check for himself if you were doing okay.

as him and alfred nearly arrives at your bedroom, the two had already noticed the light peaking from outside the doors and what seems to be two voices ensuing an argument.

even alfred, who had ceased his steps, looked surprised at the presence of the people who seemed to be there before them.

bruce doesn't even hesitate jogging towards the room, unaware of alfred's immediate shift to a calculating gaze, as bruce immediately opens polished, mahogany doors, inviting himself in.

... it smells of bleach and fabric refresher.

his heart clenches at the implication.

"father...? why are you here?" damian's voice cuts through the tension, bruce merely dismisses youngest child as his eyes takes in the space, ignoring how the other presence in the room - dick, with wide, feral eyes - quips about an ongoing "family" reunion.

bruce analyzes every detail, heart thumping loudly in his chest.

small... your room is way too small, and lacks of any design or life whatsoever. a tiny bed is shoved in the corner, the closet too miniscule to even contain clothes for someone your age (just where do you store them, then?), the windows barely welcome any ventilation nor sunlight, even your bedside table was too small to be considered one; the lampshade on top of it could be easily toppled over by a single sway of a hand.

everything is clean, too clean and orderly.

his eyebrows furrow at its state. even a model's walk-in closet is significantly bigger than the cramped space he calls your bedroom.

no proper ventilation, not even any space is provided for... your hobbies. hobbies that he wasn't even aware of.

is this how you had been living for almost eighteen years of your life?

how do you live like this?

just how much has he neglected you?

"bruce...?" it was dick's voice that he had now registered. it sounds out of breath, way too abnormally distraught and out of character.

he slowly looks at dick, equally befuddled at the presence of his eldest and youngest sons.

he seems disheveled, stressed even. the athlete's blue eyes were wide and dilated, seemingly unfocused as his stance was rigid. he was breathing too deep, hand clenching his phone too tight, veins popping through muscles, and he holds a... notebook in the other, this time like it was a delicate piece or artifact.

"... why are you here?" dick tries to cover his current state with an awkward laugh, but he could never hide the furrow of his brows, the flickering in his eyes, nor the anxious stomping of the his feet. sweat runs down dick's forehead; it looks like he's been inside the room the longest.

and dick refuses to get out of it. he won't, not until he finds out just why were you pushing him always all of a sudden.

he's afraid of forgetting his baby bird once more and neglecting your needs. if you were just as self-depracating as he is then... just how well would you be coping all by yourself?

does bruce share the same intentions as him? he doesn't know, his thoughts all leading to a path of thinking about, well, you.

you and your wide eyes looking at him like he was the world.

"i'm just here to visit... (name)'s room." bruce replies, a deep tremor in his parched throat, threading even further into the cramped space as his eyes seem to lock into the multitudes of messily stacked notebooks in the center of the bed.

they were all captioned '(name)'s diary', each having different fonts for every notebook and a date plastered on the very bottom.

"and you both are...?" he stares at them, demanding an answer as he sits on your too small bed (—it creaks, he hates that it does so he promises to get you a new one, a bigger one even, with enough space to fit in at least four people just as you deserve), picking up one of the diaries in his hand; it sports messy calligraphy and peeling stickers, reminiscent of just how old it was.

the hold he has on the diary is delicate as he flips through the first page the same way the eldest child had done. the papers were stained gray from the lead of the pencil, doodles littering every page, from flowers to animals and even faces that bruce couldn't recognize.

at least it provides the void in his heart food for thought, taking in every small detail about you and your hobbies.

you like documenting your life through diaries, that was the first thing he noted about you. the entries all date far from back when you were five or younger, the earlier pages highlighting, well, you and your mother's life. though the handwriting wasn't all that eligible, bruce finds himself becoming fond of the common topics you often rant about from "momma's burnt stack of pancakes" (paired with a drawing on the side, colored with dried markers and glitter gel pens), to the fairytales your mother loves to read you.

as much as it was entertaining for him to read through your mind, it's sad how aged the papers were and how some pages were crumpled to the point some contents were incomprehensible.

he'll get you even more high quality ones, rather than the cheap paper the one he's currently holding has. and he'll buy you designer pens, or do you prefer the more functional ones? would you like fountain pens or glass dip ones just to enjoy the experience?

bruce notices a pattern of the pen's strokes, an array of thinner lines were preferred in most of your entries compared to the thick pencils you sometimes force yourself to use, as there was an entry you had mentioned where if you use thicker lines then you'll run out of pages quicker, and "my mom doesn't have enough money to buy me one right now."

even the doodles in pencil had prefered line widths. finer quality for even finer details, thicker lines to emphasize and exaggerate your art on the side of the papers.

would you prefer mechanical or charcoal pencils? charcoal is messy and smudges, bruce knows as he sees small drawings of a tiny sprite that point towards a smeared sketch of a flower, a look of disdain on its furrowed brows.

he couldn't contain the upward quirk of his lips, blocking out dick's shadow that seems to get closer to bruce.

unfortunately, there were no ballpens of your preference on your bedside table for him to take for himself. he'll find out himself sooner enough though; what materials you like to utilize for your diaries and sketches. hell, it seems you like using a mix of normal and puffy stickers alongside a mix medium to obtain different colors.

journaling supplies, you'll find a lot of them in your arsenal soon.

he'll make sure of that once he finds out where you live.

he looks at damian flipping through what seems to be one of your sketchbooks.

art is, undoubtedly, one of your hobbies too— that's the second thing he notes, picking up what seems to be your second diary right after he flips through the first one, wasting no time to learn more about you.

this time, your second diary talks about your early life into the gotham manor. your anxious yet earger energy to meet your father, how the dick grayson (presumably your idol, with how you mention him as the) is now your brother, and how you almost got lost just wondering in the manor; they all highlight your innocence and curiousity about the world. you write so effortlessly, unafraid of writing down what you truly feel.

though you barely mention the incident regarding your mother, you have stated multiple times about how you miss her beautiful smile and her captivating laughter.

he's grateful that you're fond of writing diaries, exposing bruce to the deeper, more personal parts of your life. he doesn't need to pinpoint any lies or truth. all your secrets, your endeavors, your dreams and your passions are buried deep into the crevices of your diaries, etched in thousands of words and drawings that tell bruce just who you are.

and truly, you are his child.

bruce craves to know more about you in person the more he reads through your entries.

fortunately, it wasn't only him that feels an intense need to take you in, as the presence of his eldest cuts him off of the his train of thoughts.

"y'know, before you forget we're even here, bruce," dick quips with a fond smile as he looks at his bruce's unkempt state, taking a seat next to his father who seems to be in his own world just like damian. the bed creaks against their weight, both cringing at the sound before bruce returns to his own world of... analyzing you, just like he did hours ago.

but he knows that his father knows how to multitask, so he doesn't hesitate to answer.

"i'm also here for (name), i promised to take them out for dinner month's ago." that seems to actually catch bruce's attention, as he looks up from reading your second diary, gazing at dick as if to urge him to continue.

dick proceeds with a sigh, a smitten smile plastered on his face as he recalls the only memory he has of you.

"(name) really has a knack for writing and all, right? i love them for it. when i first met them, they were just so adorable. my baby bird tried to ask me for an autograph!" dick couldn't help himself from yapping, chuckling lightly as he remembers the deathly grip you had on alfred's cuffs, how you were hiding behind the butler's legs and looked at dick so enamored. he couldn't contain his unhinged smile, the goosebumps on his skin made shivers ripple throughout his entire body.

bruce (and even damian, who had all his attention on your sketches) had listened in on his monologue.

"i was the one who helped lead them to their room," he continued confidently, tapping his phone with his fingers, "they clung really close to me when we climbed up the steps, even tried to hide under my jacket..."

looking back, dick wishes he had carried you up the steps. thing was, you were incredibly small back then, and the manor's staircase is particularly hard to transverse through when ascending, so you must've felt exhausted and leaned onto him for support. your tiny legs must've been sore once you two had arrived by your room.

oh, he should've noticed. dick swears he won't make that mistake again once he gets you back in his arms, he promises to carry you the moment you even show the slightest bit of fatigue.

he swears he will, and he'll make sure to spoil you rotten with all the affection you deserve.

oh, dick really wants to see his baby bird again.

"yeah, that's, uh, the only time we had only ever talked." he admits shamefully, opening his phone for what seems like the thousandth time, looking at your profile over and over again, one that had him blocked.

he bites his lips, nibbling his skin in anticipation, in hopes that in the good of your heart that you just, unblock him.

it was just so unbelievable, despite you having all the reasons to push them away from your life, he just doesn't want to accept it. doesn't want to think of the worst outcome; of you hating him.

his baby bird blocked him and he just couldn't comprehend the amount of hurt he's feeling right now. what's wrong with checking up on his baby sibling? on someone he hasn't talked to for a long time already?

scrolling up through your previous messages fills him with both dread, and another emotion he doesn't want to admit— the slightest bit of pride he feels that you chose him over everybody else. you chose dick grayson as your idol, as someone to look up to and eagerly wanted as your older brother.

he was the favorite.

yet he feels terrible at the same time for taking it for granted, for forgetting your his own younger sibling. and bruce? bruce feels terrible just looking at how much your disappearance - an existence he didn't even know existed not until a few hours ago - impacted the atmosphere of the house.

is your absence the reason why the manor had felt too empty, then...?

even alfred seemed to sulk more often, always having his phone around and... talking to someone?

does alfred know where you are? or at least maintain communication with you?

it seems like the family was equally keen to find out just who you were.

whilst the two engross themselves in their own personal matters, damian continues to stand near the middle where the light hits the brightest, analyzing all the pages of your sketchbook. the youngest couldn't even afford to miss a single detail, green eyes mulling over the poses of your human sketches; the anatomy, the composition. all the progress, the mistakes, the erasures... his mind seems to eat up every drawing as if it was a piece of art hung in a museum.

which it should've been— but he wouldn't even let worthless critiques lay their eyes on any one of your sketches. they wouldn't understand you as much as he does.

it's his to look upon, nobody else could understand the meaning of your art, the meaning of his older sibling's art.

the older sibling who he used to threaten with his sword, who he called vile names — a bastard child, he told you one day. he was unable to ignore the glare you sent him, how he felt a pang in his heart after — the older sibling who he ridiculed endlessly in front of his best friend, whose actions he criticized without end; who had started to avoid him like the plague after all of his incessant bullying.

his older sibling who he had used as a punching bag for all his negative emotions, who he was incredibly jealous of, who he felt the need to fight, to compete with, all for the sake of grabbing your attention without seeming frail in his intentions.

his weak and incapable older sibling, who he knew hated him with all their gut.

the unwanted and undeserved treatment he had subjected you to was gruesome.

it was just exactly like your drawings... gruesome and brutal, to say the least. as if it was a medium of releasing all your unparalleled anger. charcoal strokes violently covers the entirety of your pages, it was unpredictable where the lines meet and end, whenever there is color, they blotch each other without harmony, all the subjects of your art either human or anything else within your vicinity.

if someone else with inexperienced, undeserving eyes were to witness your sketches, they would not understand and dare say, criticize your art pieces for being too contemporary, for letting your emotions run free through cheap quality paper without any ounce of care for the rips and tears of the pages.

but damian likes it... he likes the rawness of your pieces, likes it when you incidentally find a way to express tragedy, grief, and all the antagonistic traits a human could bare. he likes just how all thr subjects you paint were muddled with dull colors, sometimes too vibrant, sometimes too neon, sometimes a mix of all— your hectic personality bleeds through the pages.

you should've... shared your talents with him. albeit the jealousy he feels towards you, the sense of competitiveness— a small part of him admits his desire to bond with his only blood sibling... he doesn't even know why he treated you like trash, yet felt so incredibly heartbroken whenever you would retaliate with a blank, soulless stare.

he doesn't know why he felt so compelled to melt into your embrace, despite never once being physically close to you. your warmth always emanates off of your body; he hates that he wanted your validation, your praise and your attention.

he'll apologize to you sooner, damian will drag you back even if he has to, he needs to, actually.

needs to get you to forgive him, to look at him fondly, and to love him without bounds. he's on his path to redemption, he acknowledges his wrongs, all the wrongs he had done to you, he couldn't list it all out but he knows just much it affected your views on him.

damian knows he should've dismissed your reactions— he was raised by assassins for gods sake! he should not be so perceptive of every micro expression of yours, but the connection he feels towards his blood sibling is stronger than any bond, a bond that he himself chose to sever and came to regret afterwards.

he remembers one specific expression of yours after he had criticized your anger issues when he had heard news of you being transferred into another school. it was a glare that lacked any fight or bite, you had long since given up on him and allowed him him harass you whenever he felt like so. but that day was the same day you had snapped, nearly choking on his

he told himself to ignore it, that you were merely throwing a tantrum (despite how hypocritical he seemed)

yet he didn't expect to be overcome with regret.

with hurt.

with empathy at the tears that welled on your eyes.

damian doesn't want to admit it but, that was one of the first times he had hesitated to retaliate with an even crueler comeback to your glare. he wanted to so badly run to you and bond with you and your unadulterated anger, to comfort you and provide you the affection you had so desperately needed— but in the bitterness and the jealousy of his heart, he had forced himself to leave you be; a decision even until now he regrets because... you had no longer seen him as a younger brother, let alone treat him as one, as he desired to.

after that incident, you tend to avoid him more and more, not even eating in the same room as him, let alone ditching whatever you were doing in favor of keeping to yourself.

he should've held himself back from hurting his older sibling, the one who, despite doning no skills or talent in combat whatsoever, who knew that he was more of a threat than a younger brother; was brave enough to approach him with a tray of alfred's baked cookies and a hesitant yet welcoming grin.

and yet he had replied with a sword to your neck and an insult to your origin, calling you a bastard child; the product of a whore and his father's terrible decisions.

he had simply watched as you had left the hallway with a knick on your neck and a wobble on your steps, nearly dropping the tray of untouched goods due to the inconsolable shivers you must've felt.

you hate him, no? he could see it in your eyes, no matter how defeated it may be, there was always a tinge of resentment towards him that he knows he couldn't undo.

you hate him, you must've hated him so much and he hates that. hates how he wants to throw a rampage over the fact that you would never consider him as a younger brother.

... if things were different, if he had never let his emotions and his past dictate his actions, would you love him?

for the first time in quite a while, he had felt tender longing and desire, his hands caressing the pages of your sketchbook as if it could bring you back to the manor.

for the first time in a while, damian allows himself to want, to dream about a fantasy where you would cherish him, allow him to melt on your chest whenever he feels the pressure of the world getting to him, let him sulk about his deepest darkest insecurities as you would run your fingers through his hair and tell him it's all alright.

for the first time in so long, he would openly admit the immense regret he feels, wishing for an opportunity to turn back time, to never unsheath his sword towards you and to never open his mouth to allow vile words to spew out of it.

time passes by oh-so quickly when you are left alone with only your thoughts to accompany you.

it had been quite awhile since the trio were left pondering about your very existence, alfred noted, watching the three scramble about through their minds. they had seemed to have forgotten the very butler who had been observing every single one of their actions.

alfred had waited so long for this moment to come, for them to realize just how crucial you are to the family, how you are the very final jigsaw puzzle the complete the picture perfect definition of a home, how much they need you if they wish to maintain even the slightest bit of sanity.

it was only right that he decides to place the final nail in the coffin.

after all, this was all to get you back to your safety, to where you rightfully belong.

—"it seems like the family has finally taken notice of young master (name)'s disappearance...?" alfred buts in by the door, a single eyebrow raised, crossed arms, an all-knowing look that just screams 'i told you so'.

he continues once he had their complete attention, "i would like to say that i am heavily disappointed in how it took more than a decade and a half for all of you to find out about their existence. if it wasn't for the long months of their absence and even a personal sermon towards master bruce about their financial struggles, they would've long been gone. well... they would be gone soon if they are unable to pay this month's rent for their apartment."

his tone was sullen as he nitpicks every single one of their reactions, a mixture of confusion, shame and regret a commonality between the three.

"(name) is in financial debt?" it was damian who asked first with furrowed brows and wide eyes, unbelieving of what alfred had just stated. "but father wires money to all of his children, right?

the youngest turns back to his father's seated form, expecting a nod of some sorts, but all bruce had was a tense jaw and a solid stare. it speaks of volumes, all damian could do was shut his mouth, looking back at alfred with a pout.

alfred expected this reaction. it was truly unfortunate how the family would never know just how important you were in their life.

yet all he could do was press on, further their guilt and desperation.

"young master damian, i am aware of bruce's willingness towards providing for his children, but (name), like you, had adopted your father's stubbornness to accept any financial aid on their part..."

the silence was defeaning now, tension so thick that not even a knife could cut through it. fortunately, the people alfred were with are trained combatants, formidle not only through fights but with words.

it was a shame they had never used their brains to connect the dots with just how sullen the manor was the moment you were gone.

"how do we...?" this time it was dick who talked, albeit hesitantly. "bruce could at least send a few thousands to them, then? or i could do it, you could just give us their location and—"

"unfortunately, there is nothing i could do about it, master dick," alfred interrupts dick's sudden onslaught, "for even i do not have master (name)'s address. they refuse even the slightest bit of a clue, hence why i have confronted master bruce about it."

it was like a needle had dropped on the floor, an intense, numbing feeling everyone present was subjected to feel.

... what?

it was dick who had reacted first, springing up from his seated position as he stared at alfred's defeated eyes incredulously.

"are you serious, alfred? (name) could be anywhere in gotham right now? unprotected, unsafe, and in debt?"

a long, defeated sigh was what he had merely received from the alfred.

"yes, master dick, you hear exactly what i say."

"but the world outside is too dangerous for (name)! we can't just let them loose in a street filled with criminals who can take advantage of their innocence!"

"they're eighteen, dick." all of a sudden, it was damian who cuts back with a roll of his eyes, "i'm sure they can survive on their own."

"yeah right, and have you even read their latest diary, or are you just gonna pretend like you aren't going to keep their sketchbooks all for yourself, huh?" dick retaliates with clenched teeth, letting himself be swayed by his own emotions. "or... you're planning to track their location without us so you can get a reservation to visit them first?"

"calm down, dick—" bruce stands, immediately holding dick back, gripping the athlete's tense shoulders.

"why should i, bruce?! (name) can be anywhere, we— i can't afford to bide time on anything but them!" he glared back at his father, slammimg his fist onto your bedroom walls without hesitation. cracks immediately formed on the chipped wallpaper, a testament to dick's strength; you'll be relocated to another room, a better one anyways and they'll... they'll turn this one into a bigger atelier for you.

dick just needs to let his anger out, yeah... unfortunately, his father seems to think otherwise.

bruce retaliates with a snarl, "we need a solid plan, dick. we can't just randomly search where they are—"

"look, if none of you are willing to help, then fine, i'll track (name) all by myself—"

"— i've never mentioned not coming, grayson." damian cuts him off with a glare, possessively holding all your sketchbook in one hand. "i'll be the one spending time with them first."

"yeah, right... and you, bruce? you coming with or no?"

defeated, bruce replies, "... you already know the answer, dick."

"of course, dad. glad to know we're on the same team after all," dick lets out an airy laugh, returning to his old demeanor. but bruce could easily pinpoint the sharp edge to his giggles, how calculated it is and how it's all merely a cover up to hide the unbearable itch to get you into his arms.

not like bruce could help it too, feeling the same way dick does— all he wants to do is see you for himself after all.

"then call the others into the batcave, now. tell them it's a priority mission, don't let them say otherwise, and don't settle on any excuses."

bruce is so grateful that he had his hands on your diaries, that he was given the grace to read through your entries and embrace even the slightest clue about you.

although there was no face to associate with your name, no photograph nor portrait— he at least has an idea of your personality, of what you like and prefer; something that bruce would hold dear, something that feeds the growing urge to find you.

find you to not only correct his mistakes, to make up for all the lost time, but to also get closer to you. to bond with his child, the one he should've focused on all those years ago. the one who, despite showing disinterest to vigilantism, chose to not fall deep into the pits of resentment, of committing heinous acts— you had chosen to run away from them without any intentions of badmouthing your own family even after the years of neglect.

his child, (name) wayne.

you were a symbol of what he had strived to cherish, to protect. it was your innocence through these pages, your eagerness to the world despite its cruelty, that relays the message to bruce that he should've centered his attention on both you and tim instead of just tim.

maybe then the dispair he had felt after jason's death would've been less devastating, maybe then you'd act as his source of light in the darkness he had choose to brood in. maybe then he wouldn't have acted so rash, so impulsive and tense.

after all, you had lost your mother too early, and your father was just somebody you can watch through the television and read through the newspaper.

and you? you were forced to take the short end of the stick, without any familial attention nor emotional support whatsoever— a substantial failure on bruce's part. you didn't deserve anything you were subjected to, didn't deserve to know what pain and despair felt like.

bruce should've been the father who had to shoulder all your burden. he should've been there for you as he was there for all your other siblings.

he should've been the man who would kiss your wounds away whenever you go out to the park with him to play. he should've been the man who would sit on the crowded bleachers to watch you perform on a talent show. he was supposed to be the father who would hold you close to your chest as you cry about your first heartbreak, about your overdue projects, about the bullies in the school.

but he wasn't that father for you. and now, you seek love and attention from people who weren't even family. because they had failed you, he had failed you.

there was so much things about you that he doesn't know of, so much he had missed out on. his absence was a constant in your life; what would you have felt if he suddenly barged in on it then? especially now that you've moved out on the presumption of neglect?

but could he help it if he does?

could bruce help it if he was already concocting a way to bring you back? alfred had explicitly told him that you were living off of debt

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

PLEASE READ: 11,100+ words. no beta we just die. undertale reference. this is my least favorite chapter LMAO, despite it's length i had to waste blood sweat and tears for this and i hate it so much. anways guys pls comment or send as ask if u like this and what's good abt it bec this chapter literally made me question my ability as a write 😭 erm im gonna take a break after this and mostly answer asks bec istg my energy is so drained. also is it jst me or does everyone default the reader as female ^^' it's jst weird for me bec i always write them as gn/male. oh and if anyone is wondering, yes i am gonna add the batgirls too bec they r family !! the entire family (universe) is obsessed with u !! also yall i cant add anymore to the taglist, tumblr won't allow me.

taglist: @lilyalone, @secretomelettetroops, @earlqurl, @simpingfor-wakasa, @amber-content, @ruiroku , @okaybutfullhomo , @trasshy-artist , @obsessedwithromance, @jjsmeowthie, @fairy-lenaa , @ilovvmyhusband , @6uuyuuhgy, @plsfckmedxddy, @lavender-moony , @sweetheart-era, @chemicalsandghosts , @darling006 , @starringyau , @samanthahanes, @rosecentury , @jaythes1mp , @pi1nkl0ver , @i-thirsty-boy, @sharks-are-cool-l, @silverklaus, @traumaramacenter , @maddimoon , @anxrq, @thedarknesslord , @h0rr0r-10ver-69 , @lazy-idate , @cupids-pretty-boy , @alishii, @mel-star636 , @sitepathos , @freakyotaku059-blog , @dirtydiavolo, @sunbleachedantlers, @24hrsoflanii, @ceramic-raven , @une-lueur-dans-la-nuit , @tdickensstuff4 , @thickerthanthieves , @arlandvery , @distressed-lezbo, @bunbunboysworld , @bellethesleepypotato, @nebuluma, @alliwantisadonut, @alishii, @kusakiguzen, @sirenetheblogger, @emmbny, @ryukyuin, @solkara, @starsdotalk, @nightstarblue, @huhuhhuhh, @shadowpup163, @sunshine-skz, @24hrsoflanii, @bazellawrites, @pato-spoiler-27, @harumy07cat, @rains-mae, @funnybunnyxxx, @littlelilithspost, @howisgroguthiscute, @yuyuzi-ling, @tullipam, @coldcrusadehideout, @princessloveweird, @hybridcon

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leaderwonim · 4 months ago

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❀﹐𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐍𝐎𝐖

pairing: park sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis: in which married couple park sunghoon and park y/n are on their way to court to divorce when they suddenly get into a car crash, losing their memories entirely. over time, they start to fall inlove with each other all over again.

genre: angst, exes to lovers + strangers to lovers (ynhoon are soulmates your honor!!) fluff

“You are the most immature person I have ever met!” You shout, “I should’ve never married you in the first place!”

“Finally, something we can both agree on.” Sunghoon seethes, and you just know the taxi driver is uncomfortable by the way he’s awkwardly looking in the car mirror.

The both of you crossed your arms stubbornly, huffing like little children who just threw a tantrum.

The only reason why you and Sunghoon were getting a divorce in the first place was because he was so busy at his office, inheriting the CEO position from his father just months earlier.

You felt lonely, and it really didn’t help that Sunghoon didn’t give you any reassurance because he was too tired.

“Aish, why is this red light taking so long?” Sunghoon angrily mumbles underneath his breath.

“Well maybe it’s your negative energy.”

“Can you be mature once in your life?” Sunghoon snaps back.

The taxi driver, very annoyed with the both of you, continues driving when the light turns green.

Then all of a sudden, a car rams through the intersection, crashing directly into the taxi.

You scream, and Sunghoon instantly puts his arms around your frame, shielding you.

Then, all goes black.

For a second, you could see the day that you and Sunghoon got married.

It was a Sunday, at the beautiful church nearby Sunghoon’s parents house, and you were wearing what Sunghoon called the most beautiful dress he’d ever seen. It was plain white, but long and so beautifully designed that it didn’t need any other colors.

When you arrived at the altar, Sunghoon had bursted into tears. Some of his friends, Jake, who had traveled all the way from Australia to attend, patted the boy on back as comfort.

That day was nonetheless the happiest day of your life. You don’t know if Sunghoon feels the same, and looking back, it feels like such a shame that you’re throwing it all down the drain.

❀﹐

BLEEP. BLEEP.

Your body jolts awake, head practically killing you with the amount of ache it produced as you tried to sit up.

“Patient is up!” The nurse says before walking into your room with a tray. “Good morning, are you feeling okay?”

You raise your hands to touch your head, which was bandaged by some soft tissue material.

“Where am I?” You say, looking around the room. You spot a unknown man groggily getting up, and for a second, you can’t help but notice how handsome he was.

That was besides the point, though.

“You’re in the hospital.” The nurse says, smiling softly. “Do you remember the events leading up to this?”

“I.. I don’t remember anything, actually.”

The nurse still smiles at you reassuringly. “It’s alright lovebug, it seems as though you two have lost your memories.”

“Us two?” You question.

“Yes.” She points to the guy on the other bed right next to you who just looked like he woke up from death. He too looked badly injured like you, having a broken hand and bandage around his head. “Park Sunghoon-ssi was in the same car as you and got injured as well.”

Park Sunghoon. Why did that name sound so familiar?

“Well since you're both awake," she said, relief evident in her voice. "You've been in an accident. Do you remember anything Sunghoon-ssi?”

Sunghoon shook his head slowly. "No... I don't remember anything."

The nurse nodded, sympathy in her eyes. “It's not uncommon for victims to lose their memories after a traumatic accident. Memory loss can be temporary. Just focus on resting for now.”

The nurse leaves the room, leaving you and Sunghoon alone.

“She said we were in the same car together,” you say slowly. “But I really can’t remember what you are to me.”

Sunghoon shrugs. “Me either. All I remember vividly is my parents. You must’ve been an acquaintance of mine, then.”

You nod, stretching your limbs. “You got more injured than me.”

He lets out an airy chuckle, lifting his broken arm which was in a cast into the air. “Yep, broken arm.”

You want to remember so badly what had happened leading up to all of this. What were you doing? Where were you going, and why were you with this Park Sunghoon guy in the first place?

“What did you get for breakfast?”

Sunghoon breaks the silence between the two of you, and you slowly look down at the tray in front of your bed.

“Uh, the nurse got me tiramisu and oatmeal.”

“Tiramisu?” Sunghoon’s mood automatically brightens up. “Can we please switch sweets? I really love tiramisu.”

You laugh at his childlike behavior, but nod anyway. “I’ll bring it to you Sunghoon, wait.”

You don’t know why, but it feels so right saying his name. Sunghoon must’ve felt the same way, because he swore his mouth went dry at you calling out his name.

You carefully make your way out your hospital bed, making sure not to accidentally detach any monitors that were attached to you. Grabbing the tiramisu cup, you make your way over to Sunghoon, who’s already shaking in excitement.

Then you make your way back, opening the lid of your oatmeal bowl.

“I may not know what happened in the accident,” Sunghoon says. “But I know this tiramisu is so fucking good.”

You shake your head, laughing at his words. “Yah Sunghoon, you think we were best friends before all of this?”

“Maybe.” He mutters, the mascarpone cheese of the tiramisu leaving a mark on the side of his lips.

“Well our humor is alike.” You say. “Would explain why we were in the same car together. Maybe we were going out to lunch.”

The rest of the day was spent with Sunghoon and you cracking jokes then and there, the awkwardness of the two of you being strangers quickly faded.

❀﹐

The next day, you were given tiramisu once again while Sunghoon was given cookies.

You descended from your bed, once again, and gave the tiramisu cup to Sunghoon while you grabbed his bag of cookies.

“You know what’s funny?” You say, biting into the warm chocolate chip cookie.

“What?” He says, although it’s muffled from the amount of tiramisu he’s stuffed into his mouth.

“Yah, you gotta stop doing that, it’s gross.”

Sunghoon sticks his tongue out at you, which makes you giggle.

“We’re both Parks, isn’t that funny?”

“Huh,” Sunghoon looks up at the ceiling, thinking for a brief second. “Park Sunghoon and Park Y/N. That is funny.”

Maybe both of your humors are broken because you hit your head too hard during the crash, but even though you were at the hospital, you’re glad you have someone like Sunghoon to keep you company.

“Do you want to watch the stars with me tonight at the balcony?” You ask the boy, who nods softly.

“I’d love to, actually.”

And that’s what the two of you did. By the time it hit 10pm, you two tiptoed out to the balcony, making sure to not let any of the night nurses see you.

“Whoaaa, it’s beautiful.” Sunghoon says, letting his broken arm lean against the railing. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

You smile, leaning your head on Sunghoon’s shoulder.

“Sunghoon.” You say, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure what we were before the accident,” you stop for a second. “But I’m glad we knew each other.”

Sunghoon turns his head to look down at your face, his expression morphed into a genuine smile. “I’m glad we knew each other too Y/N.”

That night, you slept the most compared to the other nights at the hospital. In your dreams, you see Sunghoon—only instead of being at the hospital bed right beside you, he’s in the kitchen, wearing a black suit.

“You look nice today.”

“Thank you baby.” Sunghoon leans down to give you a kiss on the lips. “Is that tiramisu?”

You nod, your eyes full of love. “Of course, you’ve been working so hard so I decided to make your favorite.”

He wraps his arms around your waist, letting the two of you swing back and forth slowly. “Thank you my love, I seriously don’t know what I would do without you.”

You woke up in a cold sweat, the dream feeling all too real.

“What’s wrong?” Sunghoon says, and you swore your heart almost leaped out of your chest, not expecting the brunette boy to be awake.

“It’s 2am, why are you even awake?” You say croakily, hands coming to rub your tired eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He shrugs. “Hey, I had a really weird dream just now.”

“Me too.” You say, “you were in it.”

Sunghoon raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t further question it. “You were a lawyer in my dream, you just graduated from Seoul University. We bought a house, and you told me you wanted to continue with your career.”

At least his dream was somewhat normal, you think. I can’t just tell him I dreamt of us being together and being all lovey dovey. He’d be thrown into a coma!

“Ah, mine was similar.”

Nice save Y/N.

Sunghoon suddenly gets up from his bed, deciding to sit at the dining table the nurses had brought out for the two of you yesterday night.

“Come sit with me.”

You slowly creep out of your bed, sitting on the empty seat next to Sunghoon.

Suddenly, you’re hit with a sudden pounding headache.

“You’re the worst, Sunghoon!” You scream on the top of your lungs, “I hate you! I hate you!”

“Stop screaming!” He grabs your arms gently, eyes directly looking into yours. “Y/N-ah, stop it.”

“So I’m Y/N to you now?” Your voice breaks. “No more baby or love? Am I just another person to you Sunghoon?”

“Of course not, why would you say that?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, taking in a deep inhale. “Let’s just talk about this calmly, okay?”

“What’s there to talk about? You are never home, you’re always cooped up in your office! We might as well get a divorce!”

Sunghoon’s hold on your shoulder makes you snap out of your daze.

“Hey, you okay?” He says concernedly, “you were breathing heavily.”

“What?” You gasp. “Yeah—yeah, I’m okay. I just think I had a flashback.”

“Really? What was it?”

You don’t want to tell Sunghoon that it was the two of you fighting. Why did you even mention divorcing in the flashback? Were you and Sunghoon something more than just friends?

“Just the crash.” You say. You want to tell him the truth, you really do, but you’re not sure if these were hallucinations from how hard your head was hit during the trauma or if they were actual flashbacks.

“Well, I’m here.” Sunghoon whispers reassuringly. “I’ll always be here. We survived a car crash together anyway, we’re kinda bonded to each other.”

You laugh, smacking him on his shoulder softly. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe.”

❀﹐

“Do you remember what your passion was before all of this?” Sunghoon asks, peeling his orange with his injured hand.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” you say, “l think I really would’ve liked becoming a mother. I love kids, the thought of them makes me happy.”

“I think you would be a great mother.” Sunghoon says quietly. “Even though we don’t know each other much, I can tell you’re loving.”

You look down at your lap, trying to suppress the bright smile forming at the corner of your lips.

“Thanks Hoonie.”

“Hoonie?”

Your eyes widened. “I’m sorry! Did I make you uncomfortable? I should’ve not—”

“It’s okay Y/N,” he chuckles. “It’s fine. I like it.”

You can’t help but laugh along with him. “Okay.”

The next few days go by quickly, with you and Sunghoon already warming up to each other.

You were both comfortable enough to speak your thoughts freely around one another, no matter how silly or ridiculous some of them seemed.

When the nurses brought you two breakfast, Sunghoon almost dropped his fork in shock.

“They gave me tiramisu.” He says, eyes glistening with joy. “They finally gave me tiramisu.”

“I don’t know why you’re so excited.” You snicker jokingly. “You’ve been eating my tiramisu this entire week.”

He turns around to look at your tray, which had a bag of snickerdoodle cookies on it.

With shaking limbs, he makes his way over, handing the tiramisu cup to you and swapping it with your cookies.

“I thought you hated snickerdoodle cookies, Hoon?” You ask, eyebrows furrowed.

“I do.” He admits. “But you’ve given me your tiramisu all week, I wanted you to have mine this time.”

Your heart swells at that, and you point your spoon at him accusingly.

“Yah, is this because you want my chocolate pudding at dinner?” You joke.

“Pffft, what? Nooo.” He quickly defends himself. “But if you’re willing to share—”

“Shut up Park Sunghoon!”

“Yes ma’am!”

❀﹐

You don’t know why, but you’re starting to feel giddy whenever you talk with Sunghoon.

Your palms does this thing where it sweats profusely, and your tongue feels like dried sandpaper.

There’s no way you like Park Sunghoon, right? You’ve barely known the guy for two weeks, so why was the heart racing at the thought of him?

“I’ve convinced the nurses to get us two bottles of coca cola,” Sunghoon says, practically jumping up and down as he entered the room.

“Really? Out of all the drinks you could’ve persuaded them to get us, you got us coke.”

“Don’t diss Coca Cola like that!” Sunghoon says, crossing his arms.

Just like Sunghoon had said, the nurse approaches the two of you an hour later, 2 bottles of coca cola in her hands. She hands one to Sunghoon, then to you.

"Enjoy." She says, smile reaching her eyes.

Sunghoon's eyes light up when he opens the bottle and takes a sip. "Ah, for some reason, this feels so nostalgic."

A little memory pops up in his head, one of him playing at the park with his mom and younger sister.

"Sunghoon-oppa! Mom says she brought us coca cola!" The young girl, Yeji, says. "C'mon! Come with me!"

The young Park Sunghoon lets his younger sister take his hand, running towards their mom who was on the other side of the park.

"What's wrong Sunghoon-ssi?" You ask, noticing how his thick eyebrows were furrowed and his grip on the bottle had tightened.

"Huh?"

"You zoned out for a bit."

He chuckles nervously, glancing around the room. "Sorry, I think I just had a flashback." He says. "Park Yeji."

"Who?"

"My younger sister." He explains. "I could see her clearly. I wonder where she is right now."

You too wondered where your family was. Maybe they were too busy to come visit you. You could briefly remember having a younger brother. Jungwon. Yang Jungwon.

"Cheers." He says, mood changing quickly. His canines shined brightly as he smiled, making him look all too gorgeous in your eyes. "To the car crash, for bringing me and Park Y/N together."

You giggle, raising your bottle in the air. "Cheers to the car crash, for bonding me with this weird guy named Sunghoon."

"Yah!"

❀﹐

"Is it weird?"

"Hm?"

It's 11pm, and you and Sunghoon face each other as you're both laying on opposite ends of the room.

"That we've known each other for only a few weeks and I already feel like I've known you for an entire lifetime?"

You smile at his words, shaking your head. "No, I feel the same way Hoonie."

"Would it be stupid to say out loud how much I want to kiss you right now?"

Your mouth almost drops at his boldness, but you quickly shake your head.

Sunghoon takes your silence as approval, sitting up to come over to your side.

He brushes the hair away from your face, leaning in to close the gap between your lips.

When the both of you pull away, you automatically lean in again, the feel of his lips on yours felt so right.

"I love you Sunghoon." You say as you cup his cheeks. "I don't want to fight anymore."

"I know," he whispers. "I love you. Cause even though we were both going down, we were going down together."

"I hate you." You say, a smile playing on your face. "I hate you for being the only person who I can't stay mad at."

"And I love you," he says. "For being there for me, always."

"Sunghoon."

"Hm?"

"I love you."

He smiles down at you, uninjured hand coming to hold yours. "I love you too."

❀﹐

"What?" You say flabbergasted.

The next morning was the date of both yours and Sunghoon's discharge, and both your families decided to come visit.

"You two were married." Your father explains, a bewildered expression on his face. "How could you not know? Was the Park Y/N not obvious?"

"I thought that was just my last name!" You say, defending yourself.

"Your last name is Yang, noona." Your little brother speaks up. It was Jungwon, the same boy you kept seeing in your flashbacks, only this time, his face looks more clear and matured. "It was before you married Sunghoon-hyung."

"You're telling me we got married and divorced?" Sunghoon says, stuttering over his own words.

"Yes son," Sunghoon's mother explains. "Well, not quite exactly. We don't know why you guys wanted to divorce, you kind of shut yourselves out when you were arguing. You didn't officially divorce yet, you got into an accident on the way to court."

That made so much sense now. The flashbacks of arguments between you and Sunghoon, the makeups after the arguments, the cute moments, everything. It started to all click in your head.

"You still share houses and everything, the lawyers had to put your case on hold because you were both hospitalized." Jungwon says. "We were here to pick you up separately, in case you weren't comfortable staying with each other."

"It's fine." You and Sunghoon both say at the same time.

"Are you sure honey?" Sunghoon's mom asks concernedly.

"Yes mom, I'm sure."

The drive home was awkward, you both drove in different cars but to the home you had bought before the accident happened.

"Noona," Jungwon calls out to you. Your parents are still in the car, looking at the scene in front of them.

"Yes Jungwon?"

"Listen, I may not know a lot about love," he says, "but I know what you and Sunghoon-hyung have is real. I could still see somewhere in his eyes that he remembers parts of you and he still loves you whether or not his memories came back or not. I could tell you love him too. I don't know why the two of you decided to divorce but I know you called me crying hysterically because of it. I just think you two needed to talk it out, without the lawyers, without the paperwork. You two are the two most stubborn people I know, but also the two most loving people I know, you wouldn't just leave each other like that."

You want to cry at your younger brother's words, tears already leaking from your eyes. "Thank you Won."

You reach your arms out to hug him, a hug that he instantly melts into. "I love you noona."

"I love you too."

❀﹐

"This isn't what we expected, huh?" Sunghoon says, leaning his head on the marble island in the middle of your kitchen. "This whole time I thought you were my best friend, turns out you were my soon to be ex-wife."

You laugh quietly at the irony of the whole situation. "Whatever we were in the past is in the past Hoon."

He nods. "I can't believe we were going to divorce."

"I can't believe it either."

"You know what my mom told me in the car?" Sunghoon sits up straight to look at you. "The reason I have a broken arm and you don't was because during the crash, I put my arms around yours to protect you. Isn't that funny? Even though we hated each other at that moment, my first instinct was to protect you."

You stay still at that, his words sinking into your brain.

"It's like the universe wanted us to be together." You say quietly.

"Hey Y/N?"

You turn around to face Sunghoon. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad I married you."

Even though you and Sunghoon aren't sure where you stand in terms of relationship, all you know is that you love him, and that is enough for the both of you.

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sushiyuzu · 20 days ago

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my turn

warning: fluff + comfort — it is finally your turn to return your devoted love and affection to soft!sylus 🤍

a/n: hi anon! many thanks for ur sweet words and request, i hope you enjoy <3

anon’s request / link: click here

hmm.

you’ve never seen sylus this quiet before.

you’ve always known sylus to be the confident one—the serious, bold, intimidating man who always seems to have everything under control. he’s the one who teases you with his smooth, elegant words, who pulls you close with a charming smile that makes your heart race. but today, you decide it’s your turn to change things up.

he’s sitting quietly in the living room, reading a book with that focused expression he gets when he’s deep into something. you take a moment to watch him, admiring his handsome face and the way his silver hair falls over his forehead. you’ve never seen him look so calm, so peaceful. a playful idea forms in your mind, and before you can second-guess it, you move closer.

you slip into his lap without warning, wrapping your arms around his neck. his eyes widen, his crimson gaze meeting yours with a mix of surprise and curiosity.

“what are you doing?” he asks, his voice low and smooth, the usual edge of authority still there. you smile and lean in, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“nothing,” you say softly, your lips brushing his skin. “just loving you.”

before he can respond, you kiss him again—this time on the other cheek, then on his jaw, your fingers threading through his silver hair. you can feel his body tense beneath you, his posture rigid like he’s not sure how to handle your sudden affection.

“you’re being... very forward,” he murmurs, his deep voice wavering slightly. clearly, he’s trying to keep his composure, but you can see the blush creeping up his cheeks, the way his eyes are flickering with uncertainty. it’s just so unlike him that it makes you giggle.

“i can’t help it,” you say, tightening your arms around him, your lips brushing against the corner of his mouth. “you’re just so handsome.” your voice is soft and sincere, and you watch as his confident mask slips just a little.

he swallows, his crimson eyes wide as he stares at you, clearly not used to you being this bold.

you decide to push him further, to see just how flustered you can make him. “i love you,” you whisper against his ear, your voice sweet and affectionate. you press a kiss to his temple, then his nose, then his lips. he freezes, his breath hitching, and you can feel the way his heartbeat racing against your chest.

“what has gotten into you?” sylus asks, his usual smooth tone cracking just a bit. he looks genuinely taken aback, his elegant words faltering as you continue to pepper his face with soft kisses. you giggle again, your fingers tracing small circles on the back of his neck.

“just loving you,” you say again, more firmly this time.

“you always take care of me, so now it’s my turn to show you how much you mean to me.” you smile, your eyes shining with warmth, and he blinks at you like he doesn’t quite understand what’s happening.

and that almost makes you burst out laughing.

keyword: almost.

“you’re... ridiculous,” he mutters, his voice low and unsteady, but there’s no real irritation in his tone—only a soft, shaky vulnerability. his hands settle on your waist, holding you like he’s afraid you might disappear. “you’re supposed to be the shy one, not me.”

you smile wider, leaning in to press your forehead against his. “maybe i’m tired of being shy,” you tease gently. “maybe i want you to be the one who blushes for once.”

his eyes narrow slightly, like he’s about to say something clever, but the words seem to catch in his throat. instead, he just stares at you, his crimson gaze searching your face, and you can tell he’s struggling to keep his usual composure. you feel a surge of affection for him—this strong, confident man who’s so easily undone by your love.

so you kiss him again, long and slow, your hands framing his face, your thumbs brushing over his high cheekbones. this time, he doesn’t resist. he melts into the kiss, his hands tightening on your waist, squeezing your flesh gently and you feel him shudder against you. when you finally pull back, his face is flushed, his breathing uneven, and he looks... shy. truly shy, like he’s never been before.

“you’re... unbelievable,” he says softly, his voice a little hoarse, his eyes half-lidded and warm. you can see the struggle in him—wanting to regain control, to be the calm and composed sylus that you know, but your gentle touches are making it impossible for him to act like his usual self.

and it drives him nervously crazy.

“so are you,” you reply, kissing his forehead. you can see him fighting the blush that’s spreading across his cheeks, his eyes glancing away like he’s embarrassed, and it makes your heart swell with warmth. you cup his face, guiding his gaze back to yours, and you can see the way he’s holding back a smile.

“you really are beautiful, you know that?” you say, your voice gentle and sincere. “i don’t tell you that enough.” you lean closer, pressing your lips to his ear. “you mean the world to me, sylus. i love you so much.”

you feel him tremble beneath you, his grip on your waist tightening, and you pull back just enough to see his expression—completely soft, completely open. he’s not trying to hide anymore, and there’s something incredibly sweet about seeing him this vulnerable, this undone by your love.

“you’re going to make me go insane,” he mutters, his voice barely above a whisper, and there’s a rough, raw honesty in his tone that takes your breath away. he’s not used to being the one overwhelmed, but he’s not pushing you away, either. instead, he leans in, his forehead resting against yours, his eyes closing as he lets out a shaky breath.

“then let’s go insane together,” you say softly, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. he makes a soft sound, almost a whimper, and kisses you back—slow and deep and so full of emotion that it makes your heart skip a beat.

you pull away just enough to see his face—his eyes half-lidded, his cheeks a warm shade of pink, and his expression so soft it makes your chest ache.

“you don’t have to be perfect with me,” you whisper, brushing a strand of silver hair away from his forehead. “i love you just as you are.”

he’s quiet for a long moment, his gaze locked on yours, and then he smiles—a real, gentle smile that makes his ruby eyes shine. “i love you most, sweetie.” he says softly, his voice steady and sincere, and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.

you smile back, feeling a warmth spread through your chest, and you hug him tight, burying your face in his shoulder. he wraps his arms around you, holding you close, and you can feel the way he’s finally letting go of that careful, controlled exterior. he’s just sylus now—your sylus, the one who loves you with all his heart, who isn’t afraid to show you his softer side.

oh, he’s so in love.

only with you.

just you, forever.

while you’re lost in the warmth of his hug, you suddenly feel his lips touch your shoulder. there’s a small, teasing pause, and then he gently nibbles at your skin—a light bite that makes you shiver. you gasp quietly, your heart fluttering with surprise, but before you can even react, he follows it with a soft, gentle kiss, pressing his lips where he cutely bit you. the touch is warm and comforting, and it sends a shiver down your spine.

“sylus,” you whisper his name, a little surprised but mostly filled with affection, and he laughs quietly, the sound low and sweet. he’s still holding you close, his breath warm against your neck, and you can feel that he’s smiling—like he’s happy to share this new, tender closeness with you.

and deep down, that makes you giddy.

“i couldn’t resist,” he says in a soft whisper, his voice gentle and playful in your ear. his tone still carries a hint of his usual confidence, but it’s softer now. his arms pull you even closer, and you can feel the steady, comforting beat of his heart as you lean against his chest.

“you’re just too tempting,” he adds, his lips brushing your shoulder again. you can’t help but laugh softly, holding him tighter, your arms wrapped around his neck. you lean in and press a kiss to his cheek, feeling warmth spread through you—a feeling of love that fills every corner of your heart.

“and you,” you say softly, your voice full of love, “are absolutely perfect.”

he makes a quiet, happy sound, gently nuzzling his face into your neck. you can feel him smile against your skin, his warmth so close and comforting. his fingers start to trace gentle patterns on your back, moving slowly, and you can tell he’s calm and relaxed. his breathing slows, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, and you feel safe and happy in his arms.

you stay like that, wrapped up in each other’s embrace, for a long time. the room is quiet except for the sound of your breathing, and it feels like the rest of the world has disappeared. his strong, big arms keep you close, and you can feel every bit of him—the warmth of his chest, the softness of his breath, the way he holds you like he never wants to let go.

you lift your head slightly, just enough to look into his sweet eyes. there’s something more softer in them now, something that’s just for you.

only for you.

you lean in and press a gentle kiss to his lips, slow and warm, and he kisses you back, his hand moving up to cradle your cheek. you feel his thumb gently brush your skin, and he deepens the kiss, pulling you closer until there’s no space left between you.

when you finally pull away, his forehead rests against yours, his eyes half-closed and his face relaxed. he looks softer, more open than ever before, and it makes your heart ache with love.

you give him one more quick kiss on the tip of his nose, making him chuckle softly. he tightens his arms around you, holding you so close that you can feel the warmth of his body all around you.

“i love you,” you whisper, and you say it again, over and over, softly against his skin—each “i love you” gentle and full of emotion. he closes his eyes, listening, and you feel the way he relaxes even more, like each word you say fills him with warmth.

he lets out a quiet sigh, pressing another kiss to your shoulder, and you can feel him melt into your touch. his strong, protective exterior has softened, and you can see a slight blush on his cheeks, a sign that he’s a little overwhelmed by all the affection you’re giving him. but he doesn’t move away. he just stays right there, holding you tightly, his face hidden in the crook of your neck, soaking up every bit of your love.

you don’t let go either. instead, you rest your head against his shoulder, feeling his warm breath fanning your skin while his fingers continue to gently stroke your back.

you’re both wrapped up in a safe, warm bubble where nothing else matters except the two of you, and you know that this—being with sylus, being this close—is all you’ll ever need. and you know, in that moment, that this is exactly where you belong—right here in his arms, loving him with all the warmth and affection he truly deserves.

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rowarn · 1 year ago

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simon smoking while u ride him ):

afab!reader, blowjob, throat fucking tbh, simons a tease, alcohol (he was drinking), cum facial, cum eating i'm so sorry, u ride him while he smokes yeah — MDNI

the empty glass of bourbon sat on the night table, the leftover ice slowly melting into a watery puddle at the bottom.

but cleaning up the glass was at the very back of both your minds, you truly couldn't think of anything else except the stretch of your throat around his hard, heavy cock.

precum mixed with the bourbon that still lingered on your lips from when you kissed him.

simon almost always had a drink before bed, something to help slow his mind and relax him. tonight, however, he just looked too good to resist.

shirtless, legs spread as he leaned back against the headboard. you had greedily palmed at him and kissed him until you felt him chub up against his thigh.

you were swallowing him down before either of you knew it. with the alcohol coursing through his veins, he was much looser and louder than he usually was. he tilted back with his pretty, brown eyes rolled back in his head when you messily swirled your tongue around the head.

you were drooling but you didn't care, spit dribbling down his length and dripping down to his balls.

a strong hand gripped the back of your head and you heard him let out a low chuckle, "you wanted to suck my cock, love, go ahead and take it all."

you relaxed your throat and let him push your head down at the same time that he jerked his hips up, sheathing himself in your throat. you gagged, reflexively trying to pull back but his firm grip kept you there.

"easy, darlin'," he coos, "just relax and breathe, it's alright."

you blink away the tears that gather in your eyes from gagging, not caring that they fall down your cheeks and mix with the spit coating your lips and chin. you glance up at him through wet lashes to see his lip tucked between his teeth and his chest heaving from the pleasure before you suddenly swallowed around him.

his back arched a bit before he let out a choked moan, "oh fuck!"

he held you down around his cock, writhing and moaning brokenly as you swallowed and sucked him before he suddenly releases you and lets you come back up. you don't stay detached from his cock for long before you're taking him back in comfortably, moving your head up and down, slurping and moaning around his length as you stroked the rest of him with your hand.

cupping his balls, you gently roll them in your hands before his hand suddenly slaps down against the bed with a cry of pleasure.

"fuck, fuck!" he whines, tugging your mouth off of him.

you continue to stroke him through his orgasm, flinching when his cum splatters over you, dripping down your neck and chest. you lick a stray drop off your lips and release your hold on his cock, watching as he twitches and pants through the aftershocks.

but his hard on doesn't flag in the slightest, still twitching and hard against his stomach. you straddle his waist, dragging your dripping folds along the messy length of him.

gripping the base, you hold the tip against your entrance and slowly begin to sink down. your eyes are locked onto the way he disappears inside you, the stretch stinging and making you whine.

the click of a lighter is what finally drags your gaze away from the lewd image of his cock stuffing you full. you look up in time to see him toss the lighter haphazardly somewhere in the bed before he takes a long drag of his cigarette.

"s-simon..." you whine, feeling your cheeks burn at the sight of him leaning back so casually, just smoking as if you weren't sitting on his cock all wet and needy.

"go on, love," he smirks crookedly at you, "use that cock, sweetheart."

you clench around him, finally fully seated with every single inch buried inside you. you can feel him throb, lidded eyes focused completely on you as he takes another drag, blowing the smoke away from you.

you lean forward and pull him in for another kiss, the familiar taste of bourbon and cigarettes making you whimper. your hips slowly move, grinding back and forth to stir his cock within your walls as you get lost in the kiss.

his free hand grips your hip, kneading and stroking the skin there in encouragement. when you pull back, he dips his head down and drags his tongue through the mess of his cum on your chest and up your neck, collecting it in a puddle on his tongue before he's kissing you again.

the lewd sight of him eating his own cum has you gripping his shoulders for stability before you slowly begin to bounce on him - still locked in the kiss, tasting the bitterness of his cum on your tongue as well.

he pulls back to take a drag of his cigarette again, reaching over to the table to tap the ash away, gaze never leaving you as you bounce yourself on his cock.

"f-fuck, simon!" you squeal when you angle your hips just right and he hits that gooey spot inside that makes you gush messily around him.

"fuck, that's good," he groans, eyes rolling back at the same time he lets his head fall back against the headboard, "usin' that cock so well, sweet one."

you bring one hand down and find your clit, circling and tapping your fingers against the tender little bud as you continue to rock your hips. your thighs are burning and you're panting like you've run a marathon but you can't stop when your orgasm is so close.

simon sits there, cigarette almost done, offering no assistance even though you know he can tell you're starting to struggle.

"cum for me, love," he coos, "let me feel it."

your head drops to his shoulder as your orgasm finally crests. you fuck your self on his cock through it all, every twitch and clench and tremor. you cry out his name, eyes rolling back as you drool on his shoulder.

you come to slow roll before stopping completely, still completely seated on his cock before you lean back to look at him.

he loves that dazed, cumdrunk look on your face and can't resist grinning, taking one last drag of his cigarette before putting the bud out in the ashtray.

"that looked like a good one," he teases, "startin' to think you don't really need me to do anythin' to make you cum your little heart out."

"please, si," you whine, rocking your hips minutely once again as the urge to get truly fucked by him grows.

"nah, love," he pecks your lips when you pout, "why don't you use this cock again and cum nice and pretty so i can really watch."

#simon riley smut #simon ghost riley smut #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost smut #ghost x reader #cod x reader #cod smut

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darkdemeter · 4 months ago

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THE THREAT OF INTIMACY

⚤ Mafia!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Angst — insecure reader and depictions of negative thoughts and fear of sexual intimacy — profanity — SMUT 18+ mdni — virgin!reader/loss of virginity — unprotected sex — hurt/comfort — oral (female receiving) — le dasha of body worship —cream pie — mafia bucky being a huge softy for his wife — I think that's it ✎ 7.4k A beautiful bride marrying the man of your dreams. But when faced with what comes after the vows and first dance as Mr. and Mrs Barnes, you suggest that a particular arrangement be made.

↳ MASTERLIST | ↳ TAGLISTS ────────────────────────

It’s not so much of a grand show once the curtain falls. There hangs a greed of mischief and ominous silence. He looks at you, blue eyes piercing the exposed skin of your back, the white gown hangs an elegant silhouette on you. Its embroidered sculpts become melded into the fabricated folds as you stop midst the gate of your saunter forwards, each step a reminder drawing nearer as you do to the bed.

Did you really have to do this?

It was an era of change after all. But his seniors were old school, and so you expected him to be as well in the matters of the marriage bed. It is expected of you — the both of you. Your hands fish through the elaborate style of your hair, musing it loose and gaining a comforted scalp as you turn away from the bed and walk over to the large windows that extend from top to bottom, overlooking the twinkling space of stars fallen to earth.

Being far away from it means you are torn from it. Once you step foot back in that place, you are no longer the girl you once were.

You are now Mrs. Barnes. A wolf among sheep. The queen of the Bratva. A cooperation of mobsters who have bought police eyes and silenced officials of the government. But was this status and power worth what is intended to follow?

You didn’t have a real choice in the matter. Well, maybe you did. You fell for him, you won’t deny it, and you fell hard for him. Other pickings were not as savoury, nor did they explode with the chemistry you shared with him. But this wasn’t the only factor.

It’d been clear that your hearts were set on one another. With the subtle whispers into the other’s ear, hugging and kissing, fingers entwined, or the more assuring hand on the low of your back. This intimacy had been a flavour sweet – loving – and you came to embrace these softer textures of your life at his side. His proposal was impossibly expected but even then, you couldn’t contain your surprise and eagerly said yes.

You never gave the thought of what came next exactly. The very intimate aftermath. Until his mother pulled you aside, a smile on her painted ruby lips as she guided you to walk with her through the hedged gardens. That conversation is one you will never forget. Her love is shocking, her devotion to her husband and family, you can hardly stand the thought of not loving her in return.

But that talk shocked you.

Half of it because of the gory details she regaled, but the other half because of your own mind. Your poisoned mind that festers with anxious insecurities.

Of course it’s expected. Your virginity doesn’t exactly wave you as an expert, no matter what talks of womanhood you are subjected to. But by the standard of Mr. Bucky Barnes, his former bachelor days had given him what you lack: experience.

What if I’m so bad that he’s repulsed by me?

He’ll only need to take one look at me and that’ll be enough.

What if I can’t make him cum?

What exactly am I supposed to do— I don’t think I’m ready.

You continue on in your panicked, internal reverie, hand raised to rest your lips against your knuckles, the shine of diamonds catching in the dark reflection, a momentary blindness befalls you that then causes your stomach to writhe with unease.

“Hey,” your husband whispers, breath warm over the shell of your ear and his lips tease the curve of your exposed neck with light kisses. Your body flinches at the suddenness of his appearance right behind you, his chest to your back; you feel tears deep into the corner of your eyes, hot and wet and annoying. The stronghold of air chokes you in the back of your throat.

“Mm, hi…”

Your forced smile is quick to fade, just barely passing back a glance at him before looking away. He catches this falter. His expression is shadowed by a troubled frown. He noticed the way you flinched before him. And that glistening of tears is hard to miss when it comes to you.

“Talk to me,” he presses gently, “you okay?”

His hands are strong and sure as he holds you, turns you to face him directly now, putting the window to your back. Your ring bound hand massages over your face with a breath hollowing out in a deep sigh.

“Yeah. I’m good, I think we should get some rest. It’s been a big day.”

Before you can step around him, his hand circles the entirety around your forearm, holding you in place.

“You don’t want to…” At the trailing end of his words with his blue eyes alluding to his meaning, the sting of tears prick your vision again and a flush paints your cheeks and neck red. He lets you walk away with the train of your dress flowing behind you like a silken shadow.

“I don’t think tonight.”

Or any other night…

Bucky’s throat bobs with a thick swallow, nodding as he watches you. Always a man who knows what to do, how to maintain composure — his power — he feels that confidence wane like the fading moon. Powerless.

The words brewing on your tongue are tart, poisonous and unpleasant. Not the sort you would ever want to say to your husband, no less on your wedding night.

You’d ventured over to the vanity by now, you say beneath a shaken exhale, “I’ll look to hire a mistress.”

“Excuse me?” He gasps sharply.

Your reply, voice short of anything joking or playful. You sit before the vanity and bend forward, unfastening the golden clasps on your heels before you set them aside. “I’ll have a mistress contracted for you. We’ll do everything else together but she will… provide the sexual affairs.”

“And you?” His question makes you pause midway of turning fully towards the mirror, only barely do you see him trail the outskirts of the room, just only in focus of your view. With a sigh, you pluck your earrings out, saying more so to your own reflection than him, “I’ve gone this long without sex, Bucky. I’m sure I can go on the rest of my life without it.”

“No, no, we’re not doing things like that. I married you — I want you.” Why is that just too hard to believe? You can’t bring yourself to meet his eyes in the mirror, so you look away, anywhere that doesn’t meet his gaze. “Honey, where the fuck did this come from?”

You don’t answer. The man is practically brought to his knees before you like a servant ready to obey you like a goddess. Treatment he committed to you, though you don’t feel deserving of. He spins you slowly on your stool until you face him, knelt before you, he tries to find the stunning awe of your eyes only to find you hiding away from him. “Did somebody say something to you? Who was it?”

Quick to spare someone needless bloodshed, you stand abruptly, almost knocking him back and storm away from him by some feet, putting distance between you both, your voice carries over your shoulder, “Nobody said anything. I just think this arrangement will be better for us.”

You’re blinking back a curtain of tears that threaten to unleash. A wave rises high like a tsunami in your soul with these stupid, incessant thoughts.

You’re imperfect.

You’re ugly.

Let another woman – a beautiful woman – please him.

He’ll regret marrying you once he sees you.

Fingers ringing the course of massaging your temples, you are slowly being drowned by many, many thoughts like these. They're endless. They’re relentless and they are loveless. Not once do you give yourself the internal piece of mind that maybe, just maybe, there is hope in this relationship. That they are wrong. That he won’t judge or run from you. But who can say for sure?

It’s best to play it safe and keep what dignity you have left. Despite the spitefulness of seeing him become satisfied by another woman, it would be better than depriving him for the rest of his life. And you care more for his own happiness. It’s all you want for him.

He speaks up again, his voice going stern in his verbal study. “So, let me get this straight: I marry the love of my life, the very essence I love and breath for, only to… fuck another woman. After I swore a vow to you.”

“Bucky, you’re making it sound—”

“I’ll go without sex for the rest of my life than have some whore in our bed.”

You spin on your heel, mouth agape. Finally you look at him long enough as he works to slowly approach you and he sees just how badly you’re hurting on the inside. “Bucky—”

How quick he is to cut you off before you can even utter another heinous thing, now reaching you. “I wouldn’t stand at the altar for just anyone. I gave up that bachelor life to have you. I chose you. I want to have all of you.”

You mutter, mumble off-centred excuses that come out as broken noises on a record, and then you let out a shaken breath, chest feeling like it's being cleaved and ripped apart to the point your body trembles. You try your hardest to suppress your quiet sniffles as the flow of tears begin, fingers hastefully dapping away as to not smear your makeup; your only means of perfection that you’ve felt in a while.

When you saw yourself in the white dress every little girl dreams of for the first time in a bridal shop far too expensive for the average, then again in the dressing room with hair and makeup done to the nines, it all almost made you forget about the gut-wrenching aftermath once the reception concluded. That you were walking down that aisle with a purpose you would never come to regret.

Was it all a foolish fairytale to idolise this facade of beauty?

The hand bearing his ring uses a force so gentle you think it’s the end, that when you look up, he will be gone. That your wedding dress will fade into your everyday jeans and grandmother’s patchy sweater you treasure too much to throw away, her scent still lingering there to inhale on a bad day.

He drives your focus upwards until your eyes meet, your vision hindered behind a blur that wets your lashes as you blink. A vibrant colour of blue that once intimidated you now attends to assure you, to quiet your riled fears, but there is a reluctance to let your guard down this time.

His hands cradle your jaw in his hold with a promise to never let you go. To never let you know this fear again.

“I won’t judge. I won’t run in disgust or whatever you think I’m gonna do. I think my vows can be credited to that, yeah?”

Your bottom lip sinks inward slightly, teeth biting down hard on the plump of flesh, muttering a softly broken, “I-I guess.”

“You’re scared.”

It is shame that brings your eyes to falter, chin wobbling until it crinkles. “Yes…”

It’s like he could read you, knowing that your next move is to shove him off – push him away – he leans down and presses his lips to your own. Warm, a little roughened yet still retaining a softened plush of texture, he breathes some sort of cooling flame that soothes you if not for a short while. A rattled, sharpened gasp teeters on the edge of your voice and he parts from the kiss with a low and silky drawl. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, love. We can take our time with this.”

You’re hoisted into his arms, strength unyielding as he carries you over to the bed and sets you atop the mattress like porcelain. For him, he’s scared how easily it is to break you, no matter how hard you hide this fragility. You use the outside of your hand to wipe at your nose and exhale loudly, mind prattling on with your swirling thoughts.

Pathetic.

He’ll definitely need a mistress after that display.

And all you’re better off getting is a toy.

His family will ridicule you. He’s going to tell everyone that his little wife refused to have sex with him on his wedding night.

Poisonous thoughts. They aren’t going away. With a sniffle, you watch Bucky begin to strip himself down, leaving himself to his boxers. However much you admire the act in itself, it’s far too intimate than anything else. The idea of you doing that for him sickens you. You become repulsed by yourself.

Your mind is a hideous beast.

Like you.

Shut up!

You make this wedding dress look ugly.

“Come on, doll,” Bucky’s voice breaks through the hazardous cloud like a lighthouse awaiting for you ashore, guiding you to safety. He offers you a smile you try to match only to feel your lips twitch, muscles cringing as you keep the well of tears and cries inside. He invites you to join him and you move up the bed. You can’t bear to shed the second skin of your dress to reveal the lavish, risque lace and frilly lingerie you’d picked out at the encouragement of your bridesmaids.

You never really gave it much thought before until it was too late. This culture of intimacy you perceive as a threat.

Your husband doesn’t question you. Instead he lays beside you, arms stretched out to invite you into his embrace. An invite you half-heartedly indulge in, inching yourself awkwardly to his side but remaining to keep some inches from him.

Head laid on the tucked shelf of your arms, hair mused to fall over your features, you intend to wallow in silence until exhaustion overtakes you into sleep.

You’ve ruined his day.

“What are you thinking in that pretty head of yours?” The question is directed to you, you’re sure. But it also sounds like he’s asking himself for the answer to a riddle he cannot begin to understand.

“I’m sorry I ruined your day…”

The contortion of his features almost has your body locking up into a tightly wound position, the form of his dark brows bevelling in the middle, eyes widening until the blackened pupils shrink into tiny dots.

“What?” he sputters, “No– no, honey. This is our day.”

Our day?

There is a storm of emotion battling in his own eyes, however, he is just as quick to hide it from you. He trails again to caress the line of your jaw, his thumb strokes along your bottom lip. “Love, I will never force you into anything. Not your first time, not your hundredth. You hear me, yeah?”

Your eyes only look to stare at him with a stillness, before you absently nod. Then you turn, putting your back to him. You cannot bring yourself to look at him out of sheer guilt that no matter what, he cannot silence the honest and cruel torment of voices in your head. Not forever. They will find something to pick out and gnaw at to send you into this spiral.

If you could do so without the judgement of your husband, you would cry and howl into your pillow for hours until the perfect mirage of your makeup fell apart, you’d spare the dress from being a ridiculed taint by being on you any longer. You’d be on the phone to your sister pleading for her to keep you company and distract you from this pain, you’d cry into her chest as she held you with all the strength she possessed. You’d ask your parents to call you beautiful, even though it’s a lie.

But you keep it all in. And it breaks you so harshly on the inside that it cuts you like thousands of shards shredding you apart.

You’re not sure exactly how much time has passed between the void of silence. You can’t sleep. The tyrannical storm of emotion swarming inside you makes it impossible to even try lest you break and let it all out, letting it show.

“B-Bucky?” you squeak, clearing your throat and you hear him hum immediately in response, the weight of him rolling over until his body is a ghost along your back. “Can I… uhm, can I ask you something?”

Aside from the odd hiccup and sniffle here and there, you hold firm to sounding as you were before, the bubbly and playful girl Bucky couldn’t help but tease until you were a flustering mess, the girl who attempted to flirt back only to fumble over your words and proceed conversation with a shy smile. The girl he fell in love with. The one he gladly stood at the altar for. Before the voices.

“Of course, doll. Anything.”

Nervously your fingers flex and wind together, thumbing the fabric over your breasts, the enclosed circlet of cleavage pressed closely together. You wish you could giggle at the way you caught Bucky gawking numerous times in supposed awe of you throughout the day. He often is like that every time he sees you though, now that you come to think about it.

Supposedly.

Not likely real…

I’m going to regret asking this, aren’t I?

With a heavy swallow coated heavily in your hesitance, you take a breath in hope that proves to fail to settle your nerves. “You’ve been with plenty of girls before me… you know how to please them, what did…” you pause upon a whimper, “were they all the same?”

The amount of strain behind your vocal cords makes you cringe in disgust. You sound like—

“No, they were all different. Unique to each girl.” You can almost sense the way his head props up to look at you. His eyes staring a cool layer of heat into your back. “Just like you.”

“How can you say that?” Your voice betrays the toxins of a heart and mind poisoned together over far too long. Bucky hears the loathe of self in your words, dry and cynical, unbelieving in his words and your own image. “You’ve never even seen what I look like… you don’t know how I’ll be, I’ve never—”

Your hands press over your eyes in hope to suppress the tears glassing over your vision.

“Hey,” Bucky admonishes with a low drawl, tutting you, “hey. I’m not expecting the fucking grandios of perfect sex. I’m expecting you and only you. I want what makes you and your body unique.”

You turn your head to see him, chin wobbling slightly. How he’d crawl through hot coals and glass for you, seeing the beauty of what you see are flaws. He then grins and for a moment, it disturbs you how he could smile when you’re like this.

“I wasn’t the best for my first time. In fact, I’m telling you–”

“Bucky, no, you don’t have to,” you interject with a stifled cough. You shoot to sit up and your husband follows, chuckling.

“No, I will tell you I was shit at sex. Horrible. My first time—”

Your hands paw and pat at his mouth to silence him to no avail, your chorus of hiccups and sniffles turn into shy giggles.

“I–couldn’t–”

You giggle a little louder this time. “Shush, Bucky! No-ho!”

“Couldn’t even– find the cl—”

Your fingers are a heavenly pillar even as they hold his lips prisoner from speaking aloud. He smirks behind them and plants delicate kisses to them, enamoured by the faint smile on your face and the softness of your eyes. Seeing you cry and be tied to these human emotions makes a fire burn in his chest. Like for the longest time, he’s finally found someone who can make him feel whole. If only he could help you feel the same. In the make of those blue, puppy dog eyes, you crack and scoff out a snort. “New York’s infamous Mob Lord…”

He beams from ear to ear at the unfinished implication, taking the time to fall so hard in love with you all over again. He leans his forehead against yours with a rumbled, “Mhm.”

Mascara smudged under the barrage of wet lashes and tears, your lips part with a shaky breath. “Bucky?”

He hums again, so you press on, throat suddenly tight. “Do you think you could make me feel that way?”

His response is instant, deep voice trailing along the bridge of your neck, much like it had done earlier as his arms circle the lower curve of your arse and hoist you until you balance atop his thighs, keeping his weight on his haunches. “Moya zvezda, that and more.”

Your arms drape over the burly muscle of his shoulders, breath mingling with his in hot gusts laboured with anticipation, you hear him groan as you ever so slightly lower your hips against his and he pushes you that little higher on the pedestal he holds you on, it’s height greater than any earthly accomplishments men can dream of.

It’s why you’re his star.

I love this man.

With all my heart.

His front presses fully into you, he works to weave one hand beneath the shower of your gown and feeling along the sheer stocking attached to your garter; he groans again, more feral sounding in his sensational marvel of how perfect you are. How blessed he is to be the one to touch you like this. To hold and have you so intimately.

At his touch, your body erupts with a shudder, momentarily staggered by the electric push and pull and thriving buzz between your legs; though the stir of arousal isn’t foreign to you, it certainly is a stark contrast with his attentive action.

His lips smother the embers of your trembling gasps with a kiss, passion tasting as a fine wine on his tongue. The kiss is paced slowly to attend to your cautious nature, an utter surety that he won’t make any move against you. You take no part in stopping him as he pushes aside the obstructive barrier of your panties.

The way his fingers are gentle to stroke your core has you keening, teetering on a choked whine, his work deliberate in focusing on the pearl of your sensitive clit and the slickened beginnings of your folds. His hands that have sinned many times now amend themselves with the purity of worshipping every inch, exploring you with the intent to please. His thumb rolls in drawn circles, eliciting from you mewls and heated pants of air too heavy to stay in your lungs, cooing at your slow induction.

“Atta girl.”

I’m alright.

“You’re doing amazing.”

I’m safe.

His two fingers run along your entrance, causing your spine to arch slightly and he smirks, pulling from the kiss.

“You like that, doll? Yeah?” he asks smoothly, seeing you nod shakily with eyes half lidded.

Your hands entangle themselves to the bedded roots of his hair, tender as you can to pull with each spark that has your stomach tying knots and your muscles tensing, his thumb begins to roll a little harder and faster. At hearing the apparition of a moan escape you, he applauds you with his encouragement despite the way your hand covers over your mouth to silence these noises.

“Fuck, please again, zvezda. Please.”

“I want to hear you.”

“Please… fuck you sound so beautiful…”

In your stun over his pleas, your hand lowers away and you continue to let your moans lull him, hips moving at a slow crawl against his fingers that press to your core and with a single look you let him know you’re willing. He fights the tantalising grip of your fingers to reach your lips as he pushes two fingers past your folds. Your gasp is a sharp sound to his ears, one of alert that he seeks to comfort you through the kiss.

The trajectory to pull your hips away stabilises and you begin to find that rhythm with each grind and thrust onto his fingers, the waves of pleasure coming from your clit has your stomach tightening.

“B-Bucky…” you whisper and he swallows your words with a deep moan. Your walls clench around the intrusion of his fingers, moreso when he adds a third, curling them as if to beckon your body furthermore to his touch, to yield your fears and let him set alight that bloom inside your core and unto your bliss.

You pant harder, “B–ngh… Bucky… th-there.”

“Right there?” He asks with a sultry grin. Your voice comes out in a strangled response. “M—mhm.”

The voice of your whine is his commandment. He installs a level of dedication at gently fucking you with his fingers right where you needed him – wanted him. That swell inside you grows and grows, furthering into a maelstrom that leaves your body shivering, unexpected of where this sudden burst will implode.

“Good girl, you’re doing so well, doll,” he praises with a low timbre, groaning with a prided grin when you tug a little harder at his hair, your softer nature betraying to act out this darker side of yourself; this almost forbidden wanton.

I feel…

Your hips move to become greedy and much to Bucky’s approval, feeling the swollen bulge of his cock straining against his boxers has you weak and some instinct to move against it drives you, a louder moan slipping past your lips. Bucky’s mouth leaves a heated trail of passionate nips and teasing flutters of kisses against your neck, spoiling you.

You gasp and your hands fly to his shoulders to hold you at bay, the sudden shockwave a prelude to ride as your orgasm ascends upon you, he hears the feverish whimpers you make and he purrs, pumping his fingers, “That’s it, love, let go. C’mon, let me feel you cum for me. I’ve got you.”

The suppression of a scream hides in your chest, leaving only a choked sob to rack through you as you thrust and claim your first release, a hot flush of white behind your eyes blinds you, your muscles convulse in tensing and relaxing as you ride out your high.

Your arms that wound around his shoulders squeeze a little tighter in your recovery, your breath timed to slow down after a few minutes but your body remains to quiver against him. The form of his aroused cock clear and unhidden has your core weeping for more.

“There you go, that’s it,” he coaxes softly with a smile while he eases a kiss to the corner of your lips, “how’re you feeling?”

“G-good… really like… wow.” The words come out jumbled to you, as if you were still influenced by the strong wine at the reception, having made you reserve your consumption to a very limited amount.

Bucky hums and withdraws his fingers, leaving you to mewl at the loss. The sight before you has you in some chokehold, a crimson heat flushes into your cheeks and down your neck, rendering your blood into fiery rivers beneath your skin, a sudden jerk picking up in your heartbeat as Bucky cleans the slick of your release from his fingers, the crystalised shade of blue dimming with a certain darkness as the taste of you rolls over his taste buds.

He’s tasting me…

He moans with a thunderous growl. “Fuck… you taste amazing,” he grins, teeth gleaming with that cute, charming esteem.

I do?

The warmth in your cheeks glows ten fold, bringing a sight for Bucky to admire. That cute girl who’s face becomes rosy with embarrassment. It’s like he could read your mind and the way he says your name has you at a loss of breath, drawing your attention back to the shine of his eyes.

“You are exquisite…”

Following in action as the continuation of his proclamation, his hand finds the spine of your dress and upon reaching the apex between your shoulders. He seeks to pause and his eyes seek out your permission, brows slight to bevel. “May I, Mrs. Barnes?”

The crescents of your palms brush the exterior of his stubble, every inch of your hands covered by the sensational prickling that leaves you like putty. How he stares at you with this amass of love and fondness that feels overwhelming at times.

He’s just so… perfect.

The return of tears glasses over your eyes and you smile, brightly and toothy and nod, cupping his jaw in your hands before you press a softened kiss to his lips. You feel it in unison with him; it steals the breath from you both.

“You may, Mr. Barnes.”

With your approval, he draws the zip undone. Anticipation lines your nerves like a trail of gunpowder ready to be set ablaze. He’s testing the waters, ensuring that this is what you want and when you give no indication of refusal, he glides the dress from your shoulders, revelling in the delicate sculpt of your body; the warm, ambient light hitting the surface creates a heavenly glow upon your skin. With the overhanging light above, it frames a golden halo around you as his sights steer upwards.

Your gown drapes a sultry form over you, accentuating the mounds of your breasts pushed close together and the nakedness of your shoulders and neck. Bucky growls under a vice of hunger. But something lays in the glassy waver of his stare.

“Please be real?”

His voice barely rises above a near shattered whisper. A man who fears losing you just much as you fear losing him. His voice pleads with you. Your lips part, jaw coming to drop slightly as your eyes widen.

Please be real for me?

“I-I am, Bucky. I’m real…”

The man before you exhales loudly, gasping for breath to keep himself drowning. “Good. Because I want this to be real.”

He doesn’t waste another moment. His mouth clashes against yours, hunger succumbing as he ravishes you with the heated intensity of his kiss, tongue running a pleaful line along your bottom lip. You part them and he awakens the stir of arousal flooding through your veins, tongues dancing in an artistic battle for dominance he undeniably wins. You moan a muffled song and he drinks every lyric of it, intoxicated by it.

His hands are wild in their exploration, peeling your dress lower to reveal the laces and frills of your lingerie, not permitting you to shy away and hide from him this time, his hands feel every inch of it, mesmerised by the way it fits to you so beautifully that even the most talented of sculptures would struggle to capture your raw and enticing beauty to its complete and apex design.

Your hands scour to claim the roots of his hair again. This time, you hold no restraint and he loves it. He loves the radiance of confidence you find in every following second. You are claiming what is rightfully yours as his wife. As his one love that he will kill and die for without question. Though time and mortal breath dares to intrude and part you, you find ways around the schemes, momentarily gasping for air within the clash of your lips, too far entranced to pull away.

His hands glide up your sides until his thumbs are able to tease your stiffened nipples through the thin fabric, groaning at the noises you create from it, his touch sending those blissful tingles throughout your body. When time comes to see you both departed from your kiss, you each still remain to linger, tasting one another in the inch spared between you, chests heaving madly and brushing together. Dress pooled to a rolled belt over your waist, Bucky drinks in every detail of your body.

Why does he look at me like that?

His nose buries into you, nestling into the warmth and softness of your body as he utters phrases of praise to your skin, a trail of his devotion painted upon your skin with the invisible ink of his love and adoration for you.

“You feel what you do to me?” he asks, strong hands guiding your hips down to roll in unison with his, the swollen mound of his erect cock still suffering in confinement has you hiccuping in your stun.

Though your voice is light, you nod as you answer. “Yes.”

“That��s how fucking hot you are,” he says with a deep, velvety drawl, his words slightly muffled by the way his mouth caresses you. “You have me so hard right now, fuck, the things I wanna do to you, doll.”

His confession has you blushing.

He can’t possibly mean that…

He can’t help himself. He’s a man enslaved at your whim. Though you try to bring this madman to his senses with an embarrassed huff of his name, he only leans in to claim your lips with his, the melding of hunger brings you both into that feverish haze again. Tongues entangled with one another, Bucky’s hands paw and pluck the garments of your lingerie from your form, peeling away the details of floral patterns and lacy sheer to feel the heat of skin below, the way your muscles twitched under his touch.

You moan between the kiss and allow your hands to feel the soft tresses of his hair between your fingers, carefully weaving through the darkened locks and nails scratching at the roots against his scalp, a rumbling purr escaping him.

The rock of your hips move together, a desiring fire burning in your core to the point it borders on a painful ache between your legs. Your dress is discarded, left aside with your undressed garments to be reclaimed at a later time. He lays you on your back, your head nested atop the plush cushion of the pillows, bodies flush together without leaving so much as a morsel of space apart.

Entrapped by his lustful kiss, you thrust and grind your heated sex against him with shocking eager, a whine is tugged from your throat, unsure.

Bucky is quick to assure you of your arousal, that its intoxication is a vice wanted. He uses one arm to support his weight above, caging you, as his other takes hold of your thigh and gropes at it fervently while somewhere in the mixture haze his boxers are tossed aside. His swollen tip oozes with glistening, droplet streams, his size heavy and long that has a gasp escaping you.

W–will he fit?

Such worrisome thoughts are snuffed out like speckled embers as he deepens the kiss, tongues gliding together and moans and limbs entangle. His tip brushes over the sensitive spot of your clit and your hips take languid actions against his practised thrusts.

“It’s going to hurt at first,” he mutters across the skin of your jaw, “but it won’t for long. I’m right here, moya zvezda, I promise.”

A crystalline glint appears on the waterline of your eyes, a tender smile on your lips as your lips connect with a chaste kiss.

“I’m ready, Bucky…”

His blue eyes take the time to carefully read your expression. For a man so immersed in being so gentle and caring with you, you have come to know that with the very same hands he caresses you with – he has broken jaws, bloodied and bruised noses and strangled the very life of more than one person. He can tell when a man is lying just by looking into his eyes.

He sees you’re telling the truth. That you want this with him. You want him. Cock nudging at your folds, you push your legs a little wider to better accommodate his size after hearing him chuckle at the crimson blush creeping into your face, flustered at the thought of his entire cock sheathing inside you.

“Gonna fit all of me, my sexy little wife?” he’d teased with a wink.

His eyes retain their focus with yours as he pushes the head of his cock into your cunt, meeting the slight of resistance and surged forward, a sigh heavily laced on his breath that has his head bowing to press his forehead to yours, eyes scrunched tightly.

A hitched note on your throat is silenced, cut out with a high pitched whine as he sinks deeper and deeper, breaching past the wall of your hymen. Your nails mark their bite into his shoulders and down his back with angry red scars, tracing over the blackened inks already imprinted there.

Your walls constrict around the intrusion of him with a searing pierce that brings your tears to streak down your temples, chin slightly trembling, you feel Bucky’s lips hover over yours.

“O-ow,” you mewl, “It hurts…”

“I’ve got you, zvezda, I’m here.”

Your chest feels tight, suffocated, but his words comfort you. You cling to him tighter, thighs trembling at his sides and you feel his hand resume its place there, gentle to knead and rub soothing circles as he coaxes you through the blight of your pain.

“Fuck baby, you feel so good,” he whispers to your lips, the crinkle of a smile forming on his features. Just as quickly as it had come, the pain subsides and you feel so full at the point where your bodies meet, you finally nod for him to continue.

He goes slowly.

He sets a rhythm paced to ease you into the forcing motion of his cock gliding through your hot, velvety walls that clamp and shudder with each movement he makes. Your gasps turn to softly sung moans as you begin to grind your hips to meet his and he smiles down at you. “There you go, love. That’s it, you’re taking me so well.”

“This body… so perfect, so beautiful… I love it, I love you.”

Another moan escapes you. He heaves a deep breath with every thrust, still focusing hard to keep this steadiness, until you moan for him,

“Bucky… please, I-I need…”

“What do you need, love? Tell me.”

“I– need more– please.”

He groans, the thought of ruthlessly fucking you with abandon crosses his mind in flashes, the way you’d look spread out while being pummeled by his cock that ruts into your pretty pussy until you’re stuffed full of his cum that it overspills as a creamy ring around his girthy base.

To fuck you the way of a mafia lord.

“You want that, sugar?” he asks, his voice sudden to drop lower into a silken, deepened purr with a darkened smirk. “You want to be fucked the way a mafia queen should be? H–hmph, you want it harder? Faster?”

You choke on the release of your words, sounding breathless, “Y-yes!”

Your walls clench tight around him, a series of moans spilling from your parted lips as he then picks up his pace, the incentive of your permission driving him to thrust harder, his hand fists and squeezes the flesh of your thigh within his grasp, holding you fast to him as he strikes deeply into your pussy. His muscles bend, curve and tense and your hands greedily explore every single portion of him, granting you this chance to be upheld by the prison of your thoughts that may hold you back later.

You howl, whine and cry – all for more, for him to keep going, to not stop. His body arches over yours, hands now ahold of you at the hips he uses the advantage of his strength and position to forcefully piston himself back and forth, back and forth until you’re writhing beneath him Your hands attach themselves to the veiny reins of his wrists, your hips arched up until your lower half is lifted for his leisure to fuck into that spot that has you seeing an galaxy of stars.

“Bucky– Bucky, oh Bucky!” you cry out.

“Fuck— yeah baby, fuck you sound beautiful, shit— baby, keep screaming my name, I want to hear you.” Each word is intensely laced with an exerted breath or guttural groan. “Fucking hell, zvezda, you look fucking amazing like that—”

“You’re taking my cock so well.”

“I’m never getting over the sight of this.”

His eyes burn with lust at the sight of your breasts bouncing without restraint, the shudder of your body with each clash of your thrusts, how your face contorts so beautifully with pleasure and the holstered grip of your legs hooking around his waist repeatedly only to falter each time after several pumps, only kept upright by his hold. A knot coils inside you, a tidal wave of pleasure coursing through your veins that sets your nerves aflame and your vocal cords to strain with every sound you make. The more and more he slams his cock into you, your neck is forced to arch back against the pillows with a pleasured shriek.

You call out to him, “Bucky, I— I’m gonna… ah!”

“Cum for me, doll, I wanna feel how tight your pretty pussy is around me.” Your back arches further as his tip continues to hit that spot and the sensational toying of his thumb rolls on your clit, eliciting a flourish of sparks to ignite until you’re suddenly overcome with a flush of white, that euphoric hit crashing over you while heat pours into every inch of your skin with your eyes rolling back.

You chant his name like a sacred prayer, the meaning of your vows imbued within your slurred, intoxicated mantra. He pants, hot and heavy in your ear,

“Shit, shit— fuuuck, baby— ‘mgonna cum, gonna cum for you. I want my seed in you, I want it in you so bad.”

His thrusts increase, the sound of skin slapping skin is erotically loud. You don’t want it to stop. You don’t want him to stop and so you beg him to keep going.

You continue to whine, low and cooing, walls stretching and clenching around him, milking him of his release that sweeps over him with a long, baritone and throaty moan. His head presses into the crook of your neck to suck at the skin of your collarbone, marking you with dark bruises of his love and possession as he paints your pussy with his seed. The air is faintly filled by the sound of oozing slick of your combined orgasms that leak and drip around his still thrusting cock.

The erratic pace in which his rhythm held eventually wanes, instead he moves to a slow-crawling grind to ease you off your combined highs. His chest rises and falls and you allow your eyes to admire his form above you, A balance of skin and ink layered in a thin coating of sweat, as is your own, the muscles of his body rippling with each motion he makes.

His hands release from your hips after he’s lowered you back down to the bed, allowing your body to succumb to the exhaustion undoubtedly taking hold of you. Your gaze meets his own, the colour of them haloed by the shine of tears and his heart yearns for you.

He fears he’s done something wrong and his hands quickly raise to caress your face, thumbs stroke over your cheeks.

“Moya zvezda, are you—”

“I’m…” you trail off, blinking rapidly to see him through the watery veil and you grin up at him and nod. He’s relieved to see that smile, coming to mirror it himself.

She’s okay. My girl’s okay.

You reach your hand up, the warmth of your palm contrasted by the cool adornment of your ring. Bucky leans his face into your touch. “You stayed… you didn’t—” Though your words fail you, Bucky sees what you mean to say in your eyes.

“Of course. You’re everything I ever wanted…” Your brows furrow, touched by the sincerity in his words. Before you is a man whose heart is held in your very hands. And his heart is one you wish to cherish, hold dear and never break. To think you almost bargained him off to another woman—

“Have me again tonight, zvezda. Have me any other night. I promise, I will be there every time, every moment.”

He doesn’t want a mistress. He wants me.

Those voices are gone, replaced by newer, kinder ones.

You’re perfect.

You’re beautiful.

I’m not scared anymore. Not with him.

You now realise that intimacy was never the threat. The voices in your head were.

THANKS FOR READING!

✎ a note from the author, Did you want some tissues?

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