#what the fuck has been going on US borders for the past two decades then.

[bl00dh0rs3]

Watching someone play afop and im so. Oh my god. Oh my GOD. It's literally just a fucking showcase of all the Exact type of shit that has been happening to indigenous people and people of color have been dealing with for Centuries at the hands of white supremacy and imperialism. Like its literally just Showing all that Shit from the perspective of a Na'vi in universe. So it "demonizes" the RDA accordingly. And uet so many fucking reviewers are joshing on it and calling it Boring and Slow and Uninspired and that it makes human's 'cartoonishly evil' LIKE YOU PEOPLE HAVENT LOOKED AT A SINGLE FUCKING CURRENT EVENT IN YOUR LIVES. Oh my god im so mad at all these fucking reviewers now. The fucking AUDACITY to look at something this fucking Honest about the cruelty humans are capable of, while living during the fucking day and age with all this Knowledge we have at our fingertips -- the fucking audacity to look at this game and what the character goes through and not being able to muster up ANY other fucking emotion besides "ubisoft never was great at story anyway so idc lol" fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. Like actually. You can't even fucking ATTEMPT to connect to this story emotionally? Not even a fucking Smidge? Jesus fucking christ people need everything to be spoon fed to them these days. God forbid a piece of media actually ask you to meet it in the middle for once.

[thefanficmonster]

Piss off your parents pt.3 (finale)

PART 1

PART 2

Colby Brock x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Drinking, Swearing

Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Time wasted can only be compensated with time well spent.

"You wasted us so much time."

Y/N's reply is so far from anything he could've expected, he nearly sprains his neck when his head snaps up. To find a small smile on her face, of all things.

"What?"

There's a note of deep-rooted anger in the laugh that deflates her lungs, "How long?"

"Huh?"

"How long have you felt that way?" She doubles down, her gaze now stiffened into a glare piercing right through him.

"Since we fucking met, ok?!" He'd be less nervous answering questions in front of the FBI. He doesn't know how the script flipped to her being the angry one but it's clear she's gonna let him have it. And he's gonna have to take it, he owes it to her.

"I can't fucking believe you." She shakes her head, shifting to back further away from him and lean her back against the cold mirror behind her. She'd rather hop off the counter and run off - that's what sober her would do, anyway. But, for one, her drunk alter ego is a lot more confrontational, and for two - she physically can't do that. Somewhere along the past ten minutes, Colby somehow ended up standing between her parted legs, blocking her the ability to run away without even meaning to. "You've kept me at arm's length for a whole fucking decade! Treating me like a child, a porcelain doll you feel obligated to look out for! You broke my heart so ignorantly by sleeping around with half the damn town and bragged to me about it! You pushed me into brainwashing myself in love with someone else, led me to believe he felt the same way and now you have the gull to say you were in love with me all along! Bullshit!"

Hellfire, she's showering him with utter hellfire. Each thing she listed got worse than the previous just when he expected it couldn't. It unlocked so many memories he made a vow to never again visit. That was such a low point in his life he didn't notice he had dragged one of his best friends into it as well. Well she's spelling it out for him right here, right now. Loud and fucking clear.

"And to think I was in love with you throughout all of that...fuck, I'm stupid..." She adds in a whisper, highly contrasting the rain of bullets she unleashed seconds prior. It was meant more for herself than him yet it was the final blow for him. His heart is officially down for the count.

"Was? Past tense?" Colby's eyes widen immediately. He didn't hear the words in his brain, they were as news to his ears as they were to hers. He doesn't know where the audacity came from. It's as if he's asking to get smacked. At this point, he'd prefer that to whatever venom she might spew at him. All well within her right.

To his luck, Y/N's gotten tired. Physically and emotionally. And she can't keep the grudge flame alive. Not with Colby at least. She can't help the soft spot on her heart for him. A spot so bruised and sore she can't believe it hasn't turned stiff as stone. It can't, not when her heart starts racing within his proximity every damn time. Not when a smile spreads across her face every time she looks at him. It hurts, yeah, but she doubts it'll ever go away.

"Like it fucking matters." She whispers, again with the same bitterness from earlier.

"Yes it fucking does, Y/N." It's like his brain has been shut off, all rationality has gone out the window. "You said I wasted us so much time. Don't waste more just because you're angry."

She's quick to bite back, "How can I not be? You deserve it, Colby!"

"I know that!" He might not be rational, bordering on desperate, but he's still self aware enough to see and admit to the error of his ways. But he'll be damned if he lets go of this last string of hope. He's clinging onto it like a twig in a flood. "I know I deserve it. But we don't. What we could be, that doesn't deserve more time down the drain, Y/N."

Sudden banging on the door startles them both, reminding them they're in a very peculiar location. A public bathroom. The ladies' bathroom on top of all.

"One second!" Contrasting the deer-in-headlights panic on Colby's face, Y/N takes it upon herself to handle the situation. The sound has scared him into backing away from her, giving her the required space to hop down. She turns to him, poking a finger to his chest, "Act normal. Nothing happened."

With that said, she leads the way out, unlocking the door and slipping out, giving the two girls waiting outside an apologetic smile. They return two knowing smirks when they see Colby emerge from the bathroom right behind her.

"Sorry, girl. Didn't mean to interrupt." The brunette slurs, winking at them both before following after her friend.

"You're good." Y/N replies politely, muttering after the door closed, "You helped."

The pang in Colby's chest cannot be put into words. Before he's had time to recalibrate, she's already gone, having made her way back into the party, disappearing into the crowd.

And just like that, he feels that last string of hope break.

* * * * *

"Hey, I'm so sorry about what I said earlier." Nate shakes the strands of hair away from his eyes so can properly look down at his semi-sober companion who's currently carrying him towards the elevator.

Y/N can't help but smile at him. It hurts like hell but at this point it's like the twentieth blow to the heart tonight. She's become used to it.

"It's ok, Nate. Thanks for being honest and not leading me on." She's aware she's thanking him for the bare minimum but that little conversation with Colby earlier proved to her she should be grateful for that even. Hey, he could've lied. He could've stringed her along, had his fun and then pulled the 'nothing serious' card.

But that's not Nate. He could never.

You thought Colby would never lie to you either. Now here we are

"No, that's not what I mean. I got scared, you know? Friend groups don't survive romance. But I don't care now that I think about it. We should give it a shot. It could be great. Fuck what they think." His words are slurred and his eyes are glazed over, but each syllable is drowning in sincerity. Drunk words are sober thoughts and all that but she'd rather take it as complete nonsense right now.

"Nate, sweetie..." She readjusts the hold she has on her heels so she can grab hold of his hand, "I doubt you know what you're thinking right now. Let's talk in the morning, ok? Get some sleep, sober up, and then we'll figure it out. Sounds good?" She says gently, as if explaining to a three-year-old that Santa isn't real.

He gives her one of those smiles that were the initial reason she (thought she) fell for him, "Yeah." They stop at the door to his shared hotel room with Sam and Colby. Before she can reach for the doorknob, Nate turns to her, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. She momentarily lets herself play along and leans into his touch, knowing how wrong it actually is. "You're the best, Y/N." Their faces, almost instinctively, inch closer and she doesn't do anything to stop it. Fuck all rationality. This night can't get much worse, how bad could a kiss shared between friends be?

She never gets to find out though because the door to the room is thrown open, forcing them apart in an instant. The person standing on the doorstep makes it ten time worse - because of-fucking-course it's Colby.

Y/N immediately starts regretting what almost just happened, semi-glad it didn't. She shouldn't have let it get that far. She's doing to Nate what she was thankful he didn't do to her - stringing him along. She can barely recognize herself - almost kissing one of her best friends while being completely in love with another.

"Oh, um....sorry. I wanted to come help carry Nate up but.....guess you got that covered." He speaks up, trying to cut the awkwardness him and Y/N are currently drowning in. Nate is none the wiser, waving off his friend's apology with a quick 'don't worry about it'. He gives one last squeeze to her hand before going inside, leaving the two staring at each other.

"Is Sam ok?" Y/N asks, cocking her head to the side to take a peek inside the room where she can see Sam's shoes at the foot of the bed. "That fall was pretty bad."

"Yeah, he's fine." Colby sighs heavily, looking over his shoulder at the blonde in question, "Should've stopped climbing on tables like he has nine lives long ago. This might be the lesson he needed."

"Hey!" She frowns at him, "Have some compassion!"

He chuckles, opening his mouth to respond when a sudden yell cuts him off.

"Y/N? That you? Come in!" It's Sam, his voice conveying the pain he's currently in.

She knows she should be heading back down to the front desk to grab her key and go to her own room. But she can't just leave her friend on 'read' in real life and at such a dire time.

So, despite her better judgement, she goes inside to find Nate already out like a light and Sam laying flat on his bed with an arm over his eyes.

"Hi Sammy. Partied a little too hard there, dude." Y/N smiles softly at him, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Sam removes his arm from his face, looking up at her with puppy dog eyes, "Am I gonna die?"

Simultaneously both her and Colby snort out a laugh, sharing a look of mutual understanding and amusement before she returns her attention to the wounded soldier, "You won't. I promise. Just go to sleep." She replies reassuringly, readjusting the ice pack Colby had placed on his knee, causing him to hiss but still nod.

"Stay here for the night?" He asks, almost pleadingly. This interaction is a good insight on the siblingship they have. Colby and Nate have always been variables to her, but luckily she has Sam to be her constant.

"Where am I gonna sleep, Sam?" She asks lightheartedly, looking around the room at the two already occupied beds and the couch by the window.

"There." Sam points at said couch where Y/N can see some trademark Colby clothes splayed around. That's his little nook, clearly.

"And where's Colby gonna sleep?" She laughs, shooting Colby a soft look to find him already staring at her with the same gentleness she's always felt emanating from his eyes.

"The floor." Sam says with no hesitation, causing you both to laugh.

Colby is quick to flip him off, "Fuck you, man."

All he gets in response is a soft snore, alerting them that Sam too has drifted off. Probably for the best cause that scrape on his knee doesn't look pleasant.

And suddenly, they feel like they're alone. Sure, there are two other people present but a canon firing wouldn't be efficient in waking them up. So, they're practically alone.

Neither of them is happy about it.

"Really though, you should stay. What are you gonna do alone in your room?" Colby breaks the brief silence as he awkwardly struts across the room to subtly clean up the mess he's made on the couch.

Y/N shrugs, "Watch TV, drink some more, snack on something, pass out. The usual." She shrugs, carefully getting up so she doesn't nudge Sam out of his slumber.

"You can do all that here....with some company." He offers, cautious about every word that comes out of his mouth. "We don't have to talk about anything. Just raid the minibar and snack tray."

They should talk, they both know it. They're aware that they're at an age where they are considered adults. And adults talk about difficult shit even when they don't want to. They do what should be done.

Not Y/N and Colby, though.

They've cracked open a bottle of rosé and a bag of Cheetos and are currently sitting in silence. A comfortable one, for a change. They've quietly agreed to have this moment be outside the realm of everything else that occurred tonight. Like an island in a stormy sea. There will come a time when they'll have to talk about it, but most definitely not tonight.

Unless...

"Remember the first time we got drunk together?" She asks, watching the pink liquid splashing around in her glass.

Colby snorts at the memory, or whatever he can recall of it. "Barely."

"Yeah, same." She laughs, downing the rest of her wine, "I remember you disappearing for a good portion of the night. Sam and I found you bruised and bloodied hours later."

He joins her in the reminiscing, "That rose bush really did a number on me."

She takes a moment to look him in the eyes. She stays quiet, analyzing him in a way that heats up his skin as though her gaze were a physical force, "You didn't actually fall in a rose bush, did you?"

Ah, there's another lie. A small one in comparison to the first but still a lie. And since it's a night of confessions..."Remember Austin?"

He just unlocked a forgotten part of her brain, "Oh shit yeah! Whatever happened to that guy?"

A dry chuckle rattles his chest, his hand coming up to rub his face, "Well, in short, he liked you a little too much for my liking. So he found out what happens when I'm jealous and drunk."

Y/N can't help but smile. She's a simple girl, of course she finds it hot. But she'll be damned if she lets him notice. She quickly masks it with a joke, "Oh my God, you killed him!"

He laughs, shaking his head before leaning towards her a bit as if he's about to spill some government secrets, "Full disclosure, between you and me..." His eyebrows lift, waiting for her to nod a vow of silence before continuing, "I got my ass kicked."

She busts out laughing, undermining all concern for her two sleeping friends, "I'm not surprised." She teases him, reaching for the bottle for a refill.

Colby doesn't let that happen though. He quickly snatches the bottle, keeping it out of her reach, "Excuse you?!"

"You can't be salty after admitting it yourself." For caution purposes, she sets down the glass before getting up on her knees, extending her arm in a futile attempt at retrieving the stolen item. To her dismay, he just stretches his arm further, making it that much harder. "Oh, fuck you..." she mutters, hovering herself over his lap precariously, putting them in a pretty compromising position.

Colby kicks it into high gear, freeing his hand by setting the bottle down so he can sit her in his lap with a slight tug, earning him a small gasp from her. She settles into him just perfectly, like this is far from the first time they've found each other in such predicament.

Their faces are inches apart. His hands are on her sides, hers are on his shoulders. The proximity is more intoxicating than the alcohol they've consumed throughout the night. They are high on each other and are just now realizing it. Or just now admitting it.

"I thought we weren't gonna talk about it." She whispers, afraid of breaking the thin veil of tranquility currently surrounding them.

"We're not talking about it." His tone mimics hers as though he's afraid he'll scare her off. His grip on her is gentle but firm. It'll physically hurt if he tries to force himself to let go of her.

Luckily he doesn't have to because, before either of them know it, their lips collide.

The innocence of the kiss is brief and gone within seconds. Hands start roaming, breaths are shared, lines are crossed. And, technically, they aren't talking about it. But still, plenty is being said. A decade of pent up emotion is coming to fruition. It's nothing short of passionate, desperate almost.

Right on-brand for them.

* * * * *

"Hi."

"Hi."

They're fully clothed, cuddled up on the couch and alone in the room. Not all lines were crossed last night of fear they might regret it in the morning. However, if their smiles are anything to go by, nothing is being regretted.

Neither of them attempts to move from their comfortable little bubble. Neither of them cares that Nate and Sam probably witnessed this sight when they woke up. Neither of them tries checking the time. It's their way of trying to make the moment last longer into infinity.

"What's going on in that head of yours?" Colby breaks the silence, threading his fingers through her hair.

Her ear is directly over his heart, listening to its steady rhythm she finds so much comfort in, "Just that I can't even lie right. I tell my mom one lie and it ends up becoming true."

Laughter vibrates throughout his chest, sending waves through her body as well, "Is this you asking me out?"

"Do you want it to be?" Y/N shrugs, tilting her head to look up at him.

He smirks down at her, "So much for rebelling, huh?"

"Shut up."

Knowing he won't do so on his own, she tends to the matter herself by pressing her lips to his, effectively shutting him up.

Tagging: @benbarnesprettygurl @beanredacted @m1tsk1l0v3er

[bumpkinspice0]

Parallels Chapter 18: Worth Everything

Miguel O'Hara x Spider!FemReader

No use of y/n

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 2k

Summary: You deal with the aftermath of Miguels choice

Warnings: Angst O'clock, Talks of death, Panic attacks, like I have no idea how to write these feelings but we're here

A/N:  I am so horribly sorry for the wait, life just be life. Bad news, this update is a little short. Good news, it's short because I took half of it and put it in the next chapter which is now half written and will be posted (hopefully) in 2ish weeks

Previous

Series Masterlist

AO3

_______

No one ever talks about how desensitized you become with this job. How easily things bordering on impossible become mundane to you. What you deal with on a daily basis, if you think about them too much, it all becomes somewhat laughable. Things like interdimensional travel and building-sized mutants just become part of your everyday life. You’re not entirely sure anything could shock you anymore. After a decade of this shit, you’re not sure what was left anyway. 

Yet, you sit completely silent on the couch. 

You’re not supposed to be here. Not just with Miguel but… here here. It was all going to end. You had your fair share of brushes with death in the past, an accepted hazard of all this crap, but just knowing the finality of it somehow made it all the more sobering. You always made it out okay. But this time… This time you weren’t supposed to.

You were supposed to die— and they all knew about it. He knew about it— and he saved you anyway. 

The most sacred rule was broken by the very man who declared it. What more was there left to say? 

“This whole shit storm just got even worse,” Gabe grumbles as he analyzes the numbers, “With her not even being in her own dimension… I don’t know.”

“ Shut. Up.” Miguel scolds him in a hushed tone. His eyes keep darting over to you as the two brothers work. 

After their immediate confrontation— with a good amount of screaming— they got to work. Countless projections filled Miguel's living room. You had no idea how to decipher the equations and charts and readings— which were all likely pointing to the same solution. You shouldn’t be here. This feels so wrong because you should be—

And you're just… sitting here. Fucking useless.  

“Can I help?” You dare to ask.

“No,” Gabe bites, “You’ve done enough.”

“This isn’t her mistake,” Miguel hastily steps in front of you, “It’s mine. So I’ll fix it.”

“Fix it?” Gabe barks out a laugh. “I thought I could trust you. I thought you’d learned.”

“There are things at play here that none of us could have anticipated,” Miguel says as calmly as he can. 

“Don’t,” Gabe groans, pushing his current projection screen away. “Please just don’t… talk like a scientist for one minute.” He runs his hands over his face with a deep sigh, stepping backward until he practically trips onto the adjacent couch. The sun has started peaking through the windows behind him. 

They’ve been at this for hours. 

Miguel seems to share the sentiment, stepping away from both of you. The neon projections hover motionless around all of you. They tell a story you don’t know how to read, and you're afraid to ask one of them what it says. 

So, you just sit quietly, waiting for one of them to deliver the final blow… whatever that may be. 

Death? Banishment? Some kind of interdimensional imprisonment? This is uncharted territory. The unknowns are stacked against you in every way. Miguel always plays it safe. Always bends to the will of the canon. Always makes the tough choices. Will he realize saving you was a mistake?

Even with all the gibberish equations floating around your head, you knew what the easiest option would be. The cause and the solution to this problem was sitting right here on the couch— quiet and useless.  

Being Spiderman is a sacrifice.

You push the intrusive thoughts back. He wouldn’t have saved you, he wouldn’t be working tirelessly just to let all that effort, all that risk, be in vain— right?

He saved you. He chose to save you.

Miguel is the first to break the bloated silence that’s settled over the room. He turns to Gabe.

“Get out.”

“ Excuse me? ” Gabe is instantly back on his feet. “After what you pulled—”

“We all need a break,” Miguel towers over his younger brother, “We’re spinning our wheels. No solution is going to come up if we don’t give ourselves time to digest what we know.”

“What we know?!” Gabe brushes past him. “We don’t know anything!” He waves his arms around the projections.

“Gabe!” Miguel hisses as he grabs his brother’s arm. His eyes briefly dart to you then back to Gabe. It’s a subtle gesture, you almost miss it, but his message is clear. 

You’re scaring her.

Are you scared? No, not scared— absolutely terrified. 

“Miguel…” You see Gabe’s shoulders drop ever so slightly. The anger is dissipating and being replaced with something you can’t quite place. Defeat? Pity? He glances at you for a split second before looking back to Miguel, “Migs… No puede volver a su casa.”

“ Sé…” Miguel says solemnly. 

“Ella no puede quedarse aquí.”

“Si…lo hará.”

“Mig–”

“I’m right here,” you bite out, harsher than you intended. Your Spanish may be extremely lacking but you’re not an idiot, “You can’t just talk about me like I’m not right here.”

“I’ll go. We’ll continue this later,” Gabe sighs, pulling his arm from Miguel’s grasp. He pauses in front of you, you finally look him in the eye. It was pity that replaced all that anger. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

“Thanks,” you dismissively respond, turning away. 

You hear his boots shuffle over to the elevator. 

“Lyla’s main controls are turned over to me for the time being.” He announces as the elevator dings open. 

“Understood.” Miguel all but grumbles in response. 

Miguel can’t be trusted with such power anymore… because of you. Because he had to save you he’s been stripped of leadership. 

The energy in the room lightens when Gabe leaves but it’s still nowhere near comfortable. You still don’t move from the couch, blankly staring out the window. You pull your knees into your chest for some semblance of comfort and find none. At least the sunrise was beautiful today. 

“ Arañita ?” You hear Miguel’s voice. You feel the cushions dip next to you. Still, you don’t look at him. “Please… say something?”

“What do you want me to say?” your grip around your knees tightens, “What could I possibly say right now?”

The spider-sense hums faintly between you two, as it had for the last several hours. Strange how you always thought you could trust it. It was just another instinct after all. An extension of yourself. It would be like not trusting your own hands to tell you a stove is hot. Yet here you both are with your hands on the stove, the flesh long burned away. 

The numbness and shock were finally boiling into something else. You need a release. You need to feel something… anything else. 

He doesn’t hesitate to pull you into him when the tears start. To your surprise, you don’t pull away. You don’t know if you hate or adore him for this. You don’t know what to feel for any of this. Gratitude? Horror?

You feel like something was taken away and everything you wanted was given to you at the same time. You should be dead. You’re so happy you're alive. Someone will pay the price for this. Miguel has saved you. Miguel has doomed you. How can you fix this? Is there even an answer?

For now, crying will just have to do.

“Why?” you finally croak after an eternity. 

“Why?” His lips brush against your hair.

“Why save me?” you lean against his chest, part of you hating how much his touch comforts you, “Why interrupt the canon if you, of all people, understand the risk.”

He’s quiet longer than you’d like. You’re head rises and falls with his breathing. His heartbeat speeds up ever so slightly.

“I tried not to.” 

The admission stings more than you’d like it to. Of course he tried not to. Of course he didn’t come parading over on a white steed as soon as he got the news. This is Miguel O’Hara, the king of law and order in the multiverse. This is Miguel O’Hara… the man who’s changed your life forever.

“But you didn’t.” You finally say. 

“But I didn’t.” He repeats, running a soothing hand over your hair.

You finally turn up to face him, surly looking a mess with red puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. 

“I– I don’t know what to do, Miguel,” you choke, willing more tears down. You’ve had enough crying. It won’t solve anything. 

“You don’t have to do anything.” His hands find your face, forcing you to look at him. You see the pleading in his eyes. “You don’t have to do anything. I promise you I will fix this.”

You want to believe him. God, you do desperately want to believe him.

“We just haven’t done anything like this with a—” he cuts himself off, his teeth biting into his lip. 

But you know the next words. 

“Say it.” 

“Arañita, I don’t think–”

“Say. It.” 

His shoulders drop, defeated. “An anomaly.”

You scramble out of his grasp, suddenly suffocated by the magnitude of all of this. You pace over to the windows. Your emotions have been running high for the past month and this is the horrible climax. The horrible, perplexing climax. You finally let out a gut-wrenching scream, and it somehow helps more than the tears.

You're alive. You’re alive but you're just so… so something . Angry? Or maybe you're scared. Or maybe everything. Yes, that’s it. You feel everything. Rage. Gratitude. Confusion. Fear. All of them— but one is distinctly missing. 

Hope. You feel absolutely no hope. 

You’re an anomaly now. A bug in the system. Something this whole tower was built to stop. Of course there’s no hope here.

You should be dead, but you’re not. You should have taken the cure and ended all of this, but you didn’t. You should have done a lot of things but you never had the strength to do them. But if you did… you’d be dead right now.

Miguel catches you before you fall to your knees. He holds you close, comforting you the only way he knows how. This is all his fault. 

What, saving your life? That continuous voice in your head reasons. 

You can’t bring yourself to hate him, but you can’t bring yourself to be completely grateful either. What was honestly the right reaction to this? There isn’t one.  This is all just so… fucked.

You’re an anomaly. Something unstable that causes damage without trying. Your mere existence could end universes now. A realization hits you.

“I can’t go home, can I?” 

His pause is answer enough. He eventually speaks anyway.

“No.” You feel the remorse in his voice, “For all your world knows, you are… gone. The canon is playing out as predicted. Entering and interrupting it could have severe consequences. Your atoms are—”

“What are you going to do with me then?” You ask the question almost clinically as if trying to bypass the raging storm inside your head.

“What?”

“I’d lock me up if I were you. We don’t know—”

“You think I’d do that to you?” Miguel pulls away, forcing you to look into his eyes. “You really think I’d do that?”

You shy away from his gaze. “It’s the safest option. I’m dangerous.”

“You’re staying here. You’re staying here with me until we solve this.”

You can’t help but feel like he’s breaking more rules right now. Keeping an anomaly in your home? Unthinkable. You're a monster now. The enemy. 

An anomaly. 

“I’m not worth this kind of risk. I’m not—”

He pulls you into him, his lips enveloping yours with a deep moan. He cradles your face as he kisses you passionately— with meaning. You almost taste his pain. Your shared pain. The spider-sense quakes between you, just as afraid as both of you. You lean into it hoping to find relief there. And there is some, but not enough. It’s never enough when it’s Miguel. Not enough to fix things this time, unfortunately.

He pulls away, resting his forehead against yours. You breathe each other's air, both surely hoping a kiss fixes the mess you’ve made. He places another small kiss on your forehead. 

“You are worth everything .”

________

No puede volver a su casa.- She can’t go home.

Sé- I know.

Ella no puede quedarse aquí.- She can’t stay here.

Si…lo hará.- Yes… she will. 

Please please please let me know if any of this isn't correct

________

Taglist:

@ineedgarlicbread @pinkiemme @thesilenthill @bontensbabygirl @fallenangelsongwolf @raerorigel @littlefreakymunson @viriexo

@w33ni3 @del-ightfulling @radiantlyfemme @5sosuperntaural

Taglist post here!!!

[takeariskao3]

Day 7: Lover written for #SeveralSunlitDaylights & @corneliaavenue-ao3

a version of this has existed since may of 2020 and it feels so good to finally put it into the universe after sitting on it for three (THREE!) years... i have a feeling i will continue this at some point and hopefully turn it into a full blow fic, but until then, enjoy some non-traditional, pandemic themed, sex pollen, a/b/o dynamics <33

They said it started in China. At the annual festival in Shanghai. 

Some experts claimed the mutation originated because of an uncharacteristically dry winter. Some blamed climate change. Others said it was all part of the cyclical nature of the earth. A purification process. Nature taking its course. 

The more hysterically minded said it was the end of the fucking world. 

Either way, Ginny watched in horror with the rest of Edinburgh as more and more reports flooded the news.

All across the northern hemisphere, the cherry trees were blossoming, and people were going mad.

~~~

The thing about fear was that it spread like wildfire. 

Grocery stores emptied of necessities overnight. The Prime Minister issued stay at home orders, some of the more populated areas even attempted a voluntary curfew. Borders were closed, air traffic came to a grinding halt, restaurants were instructed to only offer takeout, and any non-essential businesses were told to close their doors entirely. 

For a while, it all felt over-cautious. 

At least until the first case hit Cardiff. 

They said the little omega lasted three days in a severe heat until the pain and the dehydration finally rendered her unconscious. Her family rushed her to the emergency room and it was another two days before the hospital identified what was happening to her. They said before she was quarantined, she infected almost thirty people, nine of them hospital staff. 

It spread from twenty-nine confirmed cases to over three-hundred within a week, three-hundred became eight-thousand within the month.

And that was just Wales.

~~~

Birmingham was the third city to reach critical levels of contamination, after Liverpool and Manchester. 

They projected a global spread, the more densely populated areas being hit first. Each day the estimates increased, predicting numbers so catastrophic, there hadn’t been anything like it in over five-hundred years.

The real test, however, was London. 

There were reports that all the major cabinet members had been moved to separate and secure locations. That way if any of them contracted the sickness, at the very least, they wouldn’t infect the rest of the country's leaders. 

The worst part was nobody seemed to know anything. Records of the last pandemic were inconclusive or didn’t exist. No one knew how long the sickness lasted or how debilitating it really was. Less reliable news sources even reported deaths when the first wave hit eastern China, rumours spreading of alphas ripping each other apart over the chance to mate an omega.

But that’s all they were. 

Rumours. 

~~~

Designation had never mattered much to Ginny. It was just something stamped on her birth certificate next to seven pounds two ounces, eighteen inches long. Her ruts weren’t dramatic events, they were hardly even a disruption. Four times a year, she’d get the urge, use her fingers on herself three nights in a row and wait out the subsequent five days of bleeding.

Designation also hasn’t mattered to the world in decades. Suppressants went out of fashion after the turn of the century, the human race’s more animalistic instincts fading with each generation until the ruts and heats became nothing more than quarterly nuisances. Only a very small percentage of the population still needed herbs and homoeopathic blockers to get by, the rest went about their lives business as usual.

Humanity had evolved past such trivial things as Alpha, Beta, and Omega. 

But now, it was all anyone could talk about.

~~~

Dawdling around the townhouse, Ginny took her frustrations out in the form of kneading a lumpy, soon to be loaf of bread while half listening to the news. Her television emitted a scratchy noise every few seconds, but for a dumpster dive, it worked fine enough. Especially since for the six weeks she’d been stuck at home, she’d hardly turned the damn thing off. 

It wasn’t so much that she was dedicated to being informed, she just couldn’t bear the silence.

No honking cars, no nosy tourists, no shouting street vendors.

It was quiet in an uncomfortable way, in an unnatural way. In a way that left Ginny too much alone with her own thoughts. 

As she punched the dough down as hard as she could, her telly warbled out an odd static followed by the evening news anchor chatting animatedly with a couple who supposedly recovered from the sickness.

“And you think having each other,” the journalist asked in disbelief, “helped speed up your recovery?” 

“We realise it sounds a bit crazy, we aren’t even sure if there is science to support it–” a male voice responded. He sounded rational enough even though what he was saying went against every directive of social distancing. “But I’m an alpha, and my wife is an omega. When we both came down with it, we decided to stay home and wait it out together. Within a week or so we felt completely back to normal...”

Ginny snorted. The hospitals reported the illness lasting between twelve to fifteen days, not seven. And what were their credentials besides claiming to have been infected? The news station could interview anyone off the street. They’d probably interview her if she claimed she danced naked, covered in chicken’s blood beneath the full moon and it spared her. If anything, the segment was irresponsible. Now people were going to go out looking for a sex partner for the week.

Sighing at the downturn in journalistic integrity, she tuned out the rest of the interview, content to bask in the early May breeze wafting through the open windows.

Until she heard the squeak of brakes slow to a stop out front. 

And muffled voices. 

Followed by a car door slamming shut. 

She’d just begun to wonder which bluenose neighbour had arrived to hole up in a holiday house when footsteps scuffed up the stone walk, her stone walk, and a key slid into the lock of her front door.

The knob turned, the door clicked open, and Ginny stood rooted to the spot, covered in flour as her landlord (slash older brother’s best mate) appeared framed on the stoop. 

At first, Harry didn’t notice her. He stepped inside, careful to scrub his shoes on the mat before closing the door behind him and dropping his duffle unceremoniously in the foyer. He looked the same as he had nearly a year ago. He scratched a hand through the disaster hair piled atop his head then patted it all down again. His glasses were the same, and he still had the same little divot permanently etching his brow into a scowl. Beneath his anorak she could tell his lean frame still gave way to lanky limbs that shifted into slender fingers. 

Then the telly switched programs, the News giving way to some crime documentary, or something. Ginny wasn’t actually paying attention. At the change in music, Harry froze with his back halfway to her and his shoulders went tight. 

Then he turned on the spot, and he finally registered Ginny’s presence tucked away in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Their gazes held for several beats too long, both of them wide-eyed and startled by the existence of the other in such close proximity. 

Ginny’s heart thundered inside her chest, in a way that was achingly familiar and entirely unwelcome. 

“What are you– I didn’t think–” Harry stammered quickly. “Ron said he was meeting you back home?”

“He was,” Ginny answered, just as flustered. “I’d planned on it but– I couldn’t– I mean, I…changed my mind.”

Harry dug his fingers into his eyes behind his glasses and swore softly. He looked a bit peaky.  

“Christ, I’m an idiot,” He croaked. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve called.”

“No, it’s fine,” she reassured, not quite sure why she was pardoning his intrusion. “It’s still your house.”

They stared at each other in the silence for several beats too long, both of them seemingly at a loss for what to do next. 

“Er–” Harry finally stammered, a grin taking over his face. “Hi, by the way.”

Ginny laughed. “Yeah... long time, no see.”

They went in for a hug at the same time, but it was too light and too quick to feel natural. As he pulled away, Harry averted his gaze and let his eyes wander around the hall and the front two rooms. 

“Is Luna…” he trailed off, as if those two words were question enough. 

Ginny realised she was still covered in baking powder and half finished dough. She grabbed a tea towel from the hook and wiped her hands just for something to look at besides him. “She and her Dad were visiting family in Hamburg when the stay at home orders hit. She’s been stuck there for over a month. They can’t get a flight home.”

Harry nodded and let out a deep exhale of sympathy. “Fuck, yeah, that’d be awful.” He paused, shooting her a furtive glance. “And you? How–how are you?”

“Yeah, fine,” One half of her mouth tipped into a smile. “You?”

Shaking his head as if in thought, his hands fidgeted slightly in front of him. “Well, London is a disaster. They aren’t letting anyone leave their homes, or letting anyone into town. They’re letting people leave, but it took me ten days just to get approval to hop a train. I figured it couldn’t be so bad up here, you know? That’s why I…”

He trailed off again and Ginny wondered if he’d become incapable of finishing a coherent sentence in the time since she’d seen him last. 

“Makes sense,” she nodded generously. 

Harry remained exactly where he was, awkwardly perched on the welcome mat. 

“You can come in,” Ginny asserted and he flinched a bit like he hadn’t expected to actually be allowed to stay. 

“Right,” he cleared his throat and stepped forward like a man walking the plank. 

Busying herself with the kettle, she tried not to be too aware of his progress through the sitting room. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him wave to the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Ginny grinned. The house held tell-tale signs of being solely occupied by her for the last month and a half. Stray jumpers, and rumpled throw pillows, and forgotten cups of tea sat scattered all around. The dishes in the sink were piled several days too high and the bananas on her countertop were just a shade too brown. 

“It’s a disaster,” she corrected, pulling her last two bags of tea out of the cupboard. 

Harry flashed her a smile, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. “I mean the furniture and things. The colours.”

“The colours?” she repeated incredulously. 

“Yeah,” he hummed, finally inching his way fully into the kitchen. He swallowed as his eyes settled on her once more. “It looks nice. Cosy.”

Snorting, she pulled her nearly empty carton of milk out of the refrigerator. “A sight better than when you and Ron lived here, you mean?”

That fleeting smirk again, there and then gone. “Do you know our sofa broke in two when we tried to move it out?”

“That does not surprise me in the slightest.”

Ginny poured and they both chuckled. She passed him one of the mugs and the milk, remembering how he took it. She reckoned it was one of those things she’d never forget. Like the opening to her favourite Spice Girls’ song, or her childhood phone number, or the rhymes to bonfire night. Two plus two equals four and Harry took his tea with milk, no sugar.

He tipped a splash into his cup, seemed to hesitate for a second, and then burst, “I can get a room. There’s got to be a hotel open in Old Town–”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ginny cut across him, spooning a heap of sugar into her own tea. Again, she wasn’t quite sure why she was contradicting him, but she refused to chase the thought down, because then she’d have to acknowledge that somewhere deep down she wanted him to stay. 

“Ginny,” he croaked. “I can’t intrude like this. I’ll figure something out. I’ll go stay at Sirius’ place in the country, or–”

“Harry,” she interrupted him again. “It’s your house.”

He seemed determined to put himself out. “But I can’t just show up out of the blue and–”

“Luna took your old room–” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“I mean, you pay rent!” Now he was just talking to himself. “I had no right–”

“And she’s obviously not using it–” Ginny reasoned, though the ramifications of what she was suggesting crept up on her in a gradual recognition of awareness. 

“I bet the Chisholm Hunter has rooms–”

“Harry!” she cut across him in humoured agitation. “It’s fine. Stay tonight, or the next few days, or a week, until you figure it out. It’s fine.”

He blinked, the furrow between his brows deepening in thought. “You’re sure it’s okay?”

“Yes,” she lied, like a liar. “It’s not a big deal.”

It was kind of a big deal, but she could handle it. 

“You said they aren’t letting people into London, right?” Ginny continued. “What are you going to do? Rent a room until they let you go back home? That could be months!”

He opened his mouth as if to argue, then shut it again and exhaled sharply through his nose. 

“Yeah, alright,” He conceded. “But only until I can get ahold of Sirius. Then, I swear, I’ll get out of your hair.”

The statement stung, just a little. As if getting out of her sight was vastly preferable than remaining in it. 

“Where is he?” Ginny asked instead, lifting her mug to her mouth as if completely unaffected. 

Harry pulled out his mobile and punched in his passcode. “Australia. Apparently their cherry trees don’t bloom until September.”

A scoff bubbled up in the back of her throat. “Lucky Australia.”

He muttered something that sounded like agreement and pressed the phone to his ear. As he meandered back into the sitting room, Ginny turned her cupboards in search of biscuits. Surely, she still had a package left somewhere. 

Harry returned within moments. “Didn’t answer.”

“Well,” she shrugged, “Isn’t it like three in the morning?”

Harry gave her a flat look. “It’s Sirius.”

She laughed. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

Something in his expression sparked at her reaction and it made the breath in her lungs go shallow. 

Just like his smiles, the flare of something was there and then gone in an instant. She tried not to feel the familiarity of it, really she did, but something hollowed out spread through her middle at the reminder of her nearly debilitating infatuation, and then its eventual collapse. 

Ginny cleared her throat, coming back to her senses. “So, you said it took you forever to get a train ticket. Have they decreased the routes?”

“Oh, erm–” Harry took a sip of tea that was clearly too hot for his mouth and he winced. “Yeah, and they’re checking into everyone who books.”

Understanding washed over her. “Right, so they make sure people aren’t…”

Great, now she was incapable of finishing her sentences. 

He looked to her uncomfortably. “I hadn’t actually ever seen my birth certificate, I just always figured I was a Beta. Had to have a Doctor check me over once to make sure I wasn’t — you know — that I hadn’t gone unidentified.” 

“Right, good. Nice.”

Why exactly was it nice? She should really stop talking. 

“Is that why you…” He gestured vaguely south with one hand. “Couldn’t…go home?”

“Oh, er-” Ginny resisted the urge to cringe. “No.”

In reality, she’d had plenty of time to book a train to Devon before they started restricting the passengers who were designated one way or the other, but she hadn’t had the funds.

Harry’s gaze sharpened in curiosity. 

“Do you want to put your stuff upstairs?” she asked brightly. “You must be knackered after travelling all day.”

~~~

Ginny retreated to the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her and leaning back against the sink. Shortly after Harry had settled into Luna’s room, his old room, she’d heard his mobile ring. His muffled voice through the mostly closed door had been maddening, and nearly too tempting to eavesdrop on, so she’d escaped. 

She was half-torn. One part of her wished Sirius was offering up his country house to his godson immediately, and the other part hoped there was some flood, or fire, or other natural disaster that made it inhabitable. 

Because the prospect of spending time with someone, but especially him; to not be alone hour after hour and day after day, was almost too exquisite to contemplate. 

Christ, she was hopeless. 

With nothing better to do than simmer in her own thoughts, Ginny turned the taps to the bath and adjusted the temperature until the shower spray was borderline scorching. She spent an excessive amount of time washing her hair and scrubbing her skin. She didn’t bother trying to figure out if she was doing it consciously or subconsciously, but she did know she was avoiding the end of her shower. Because as soon as she left the bath, she’d find out if he was staying or going. 

Both scenarios felt too formidable to contemplate. 

Eventually, though, the water ran cold, and Ginny couldn’t hide any longer. 

After brushing her teeth, applying night cream, and wrapping herself up in her dressing gown, Ginny yanked open the bathroom door to find Harry standing directly in the doorway, with his fist raised as if to knock. 

“Oh, sorry–” He muttered, his gaze flitting down her body and back up again. His face flushed just enough to notice. “That was Sirius,” he continued. “I can stay at his place, so I’ll be out of here as soon as I can book a train.” 

Ginny pulled in a breath and did her best to keep it even. “Right. Good.”

She felt anything but good. 

Squeezing past him and into the hallway, she kept her expression bright and open until she was safe inside her bedroom. 

In her haste, she missed the way his eyes fluttered shut as she passed. 

~~~

That night was unseasonably hot. The forecast had called for it to be a mild week, balmy and temperate, so Ginny wasn’t sure why the air wafting in through her open window felt so stifling. As she tossed and turned, a light sheen of sweat clung to her skin, and she contemplated the merits of another shower. This time a cold one. 

She settled for a glass of water instead. 

Padding down the hall toward the stairs, Ginny skirted past Luna’s room as quickly and quietly as she could. However, in the end, stealth didn’t matter.  

Harry was already in the kitchen, propped up against the sink and looking pale. 

“You okay?” Ginny muttered, taking a tentative step forward. 

Clenching his eyes shut, Harry kept his head down and nodded. “I don’t know what’s happened to my stomach. Food poisoning or something–”

“I may have some Pepti upstairs?”

Harry nodded again. 

She took a step closer, reaching for a glass from the shelf when the scent hit her. It smelled like fresh spring mornings, and the citrus of Earl Grey tea, and the warmth of never being alone. It smelled like home. 

Every instinct she had screamed at her to take in more of it, to surround herself in it. Harry’s eyes met hers through the dim light and she saw him pull in a deep inhale through flared nostrils. 

In an instant, her mind was restless and her body uncomfortably warm. Parts of her she didn’t know could ache, gnawed and cramped in time with her too loud pulse.

She dropped the glass she’d been holding at the same time Harry lept backwards. 

In some corner of her mind, she knew what was happening. All of the doctors listed the same symptoms over and over; heightened senses, irregular body temperature, lower-abdominal cramps, increased libido. However, she was firmly ignoring the signs… especially the last one. It was much easier to dismiss her body’s immediate urges as coincidence. Otherwise, she would also have to admit what triggered it. 

For fuck’s sake, Harry triggered it. 

But that would mean he–

Fucking fuck, fuck, fuck.

[iturbide]

Kay, but if Gangrel hates Chrom's dad so much, why he in such a hurry to be just like him? Chrom's dad be like 'hmm i believe i shall kill all those people for being plegian and i shall call it a crusade.' And then years later after everyone who could rightly be held accountable is dead and all that's left are victims, Gangrel's like 'hmm i believe i shall kill all those people for being ylissian and call it justice.'

Frankly, I don't think Gangrel has the level of self-awareness to recognize that he's become what he hated.

Because that's the thing, isn't it? There's a joke of sorts in a lot of media, where a character will be doing something and suddenly stop, saying "I've become my parent" or something along those lines, because they realized that their behavior replicated something from another person. And that same character may have sworn they would never become their parent, only to have it dawn on them that they've done that anyway. They needed a revelation of sorts to become self-aware of the behavior they were replicating.

Gangrel doesn't have that self-awareness. Gangrel is fueled by hatred for the country that nearly destroyed his own, and since it's been fifteen years and Ylisse seems content to just hide that stain on their history under the rug, somebody's got to bring justice to the situation. And with the power that comes with kingship in his hands, coupled with the backing of Validar's cult, Gangrel decides he's going to be that somebody. He doesn't stop to think that "hey, maybe I'm replicating the same crimes perpetrated by someone I despise," he barrels right ahead and takes out his pent-up rage on them once he has the means to do so, because it feels good to give Ylisse what he feels it deserves after they tried to wipe out Plegia.

And I do understand how he'd come to that. Because it's heavily implied that nobody from the Ylissean side ever came forward to say "hey, what happened under the last Exalt was really fucked up." I'm not even talking about reparations -- Ylisse didn't accept any accountability for that attempted genocide: Emmeryn ended the war...and then that was it. She focused on internal politics, trying to restore the Halidom after the toll that the crusade took on her own lands, and left that open wound to fester across the border. The victims from Plegia never got any justice. They were left with a war-torn country, struggling to rebuild in conditions already hostile to habitation, with no assurance that this wouldn't happen again. I think that their conversation in Chapter 5 of Awakening is pretty telling in that regard (emphasis mine):

Gangrel: Surely you have not forgotten what the last exalt did to my people? Your father named us heathens! His "crusade" across Plegia butchered countless of my subjects and my kin! Emmeryn: ...I have never denied Ylisse's past wrongdoings. But I have sworn to never repeat those mistakes. Ours is now a realm of peace.

She admits she hasn't denied Ylisse's past. But she says nothing about Ylisse accepting responsibility for those wrongdoings. Gangrel has spent the better part of two decades letting his hatred of Ylisse keep him warm: he's clung to that above all other things. And that focus has made it impossible for him to see that he's become exactly like the man that ruined his life all those years ago.

[pregnantseinfeld]

My man really posting Hamas’ Charter and doing the soyjack pointing meme: “See it says right here that the equally reprehensible group of religious fanatics says they pinky promise NOT to exact horrific revenge on their oppressors!”

Like a fuckin document would control them just like the Magna Carta meant that the English crown respected property rights, the Constitution made it so the US was super ethical, and the UN charter means they will actually fucking do something?

Israel has similar documents promising they will work towards a two state solution and shocker: they don’t do it.

Neither party in that conflict would suffer the other to live at or in their borders. If observing 70+ of violence hasn’t taught you that flimsy charters mean nothing then the easier observation is that root of conflict is religious fanaticism which is the core culture of both aggressors and victims and neither will back down because they have framed their struggle as an existential moral issue.

I agree with your politics on this matter but I’m writing this to encourage you to think about saying vs doing as it relates to government and to caution against ardor for either side (because they are both bloodthirsty religious factions filled with murderers)

I'm not sure where to start because I think your whole framing is completely off the mark. This situation, at it's heart, relates to colonialism and not religion. Describing why a religious faction is now the primary militant force in this anti-colonial struggle would take a rather lengthy history of both Israeli support on one side and earnest disappointments with the some of the more left/secular organizations in past decades on the other. But in summary you need to gloss over a great deal of history (and the existence of say, Palestinian Christians) in order to paint this image of a war that is only of two equally naughty groups disagreeing over whether Judaism or Islam is cooler. The way you write about this as if it's been 70 years of unchanging religious feuding makes me wonder if you've done any reading at all or if you are regurgitating things you've heard?

You are correct that sometimes ideals on paper do not reflect reality. I claim to be a human but I could just as easily be a dog that has learned to type. The world is filled with mysteries.

I'm honestly trying to follow your line of thinking but what implication would this have other than implicitly suggesting we all go back to the status quo (well, you can't take back the mass death and loss of infrastructure that already happened...) for years and years until the political situation makes you more comfortable? If these people want to escape their prison NOW instead of some far off day, I will not disavow, condemn, or complain. I am allowed to do this. I am not running for congress.

I'll continue to value the messages coming from PFLP over those coming from tumblr anons, sorry.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

I'd entirely forgotten about the Krieg book.

I remembered because I stumbled across my half-finished, half-coherent thoughts on it.

So, below the cut, my unflattering thoughts.

-

I did not enjoy this book.

I did not enjoy it to such an extent I am going to talk about it at length.

There’s quite a lot to cover here, but we should be very clear and open by of course saying that my gripes are wholly and entirely subjective, and what I think is agonising and unacceptable someone else might think is fine or even good. 

This is kind of an obvious thing to say, I just felt it would be best to make it explicit and plain right out the gate. I’m talking bollocks, basically. I am hardly a qualified authority on what constitutes ‘good’ writing beyond what I find tolerable to read, and I am (unfortunately) not the canon police for all of 40K.

(Though if GW would like to make me the canon police for all of 40K I am sure I could oblige. There’s been some very strange stuff going on with the Necrons over the last decade or more, and the sooner we get that sorted out the better. Hah. Fake laugh hiding real pain.)

So, making it abundantly clear that this is all just me whining, we need to start with some background.

The Death Korp of Krieg

To the best of my knowledge the Death Korp were first concocted and introduced back during the Third War for Armageddon campaign way back when, for flavour as one of ‘The many regiments involved in the war’ (see also Elysian drop troops, Savlar Chem Dogs, etcetera) and were originally portrayed using Steel Legion painted black, basically. In the beginning they were notable for their martyr complex owing to their planetary rebellion, their artwork depicting them as very “WW1-era Imperial German Army” and the background making the ‘atomic cleansing’ of their planet explicit.

They went on to become very popular, because they’re rad as fuck. Forge World in particular seemed to have got very smitten, as the Death Korp turned out to be a pretty good excuse to make big chunky tanks and neat artillery pieces and whatever. Fluff-wise I think - and I could be wrong - the only real wrinkle added to their background was the addition of the Vitae Womb as their secret, bordering-on-tech-heresy means of keeping their numbers up on a nuked deathball of a planet. 

Which makes sense, honestly. But we’ll get to that.

But yes. To sum up. Krieg. Planet. At some point its ‘ruling autocrats’ rebelled against the Imperium and the ensuing civil war resulted in ‘five hundred years of atomic’ cleansing (infamously instigated by a guy called Colonel Jurten) and eventual loyalist victory, thence the Death Korp - the only valuable thing left for the planet to export. That was basically all you had, every detail left ambiguous.

One of the books’ issues is that it seeks to make some of those details less ambiguous, and does so poorly. We’ll get onto that, too.

The book

So. The book is called ‘Krieg’ and has two broad narrative strands: one concerning some Cadians and some Krieg doing their best to retake a hive after Orks crashed a spaceship into it and overran it, and another concerning Krieg’s civil war in the past.

I will be spoiling the plot in here probably, just so you know.

We have a couple of characters to follow, principally a Cadian Colonel and Sergeant in the present, an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor and his interrogator also in the present, and in the past Colonel Jurten, the (nameless) rebel Chairman and also General Krause, right-hand man of the Chairman kind of. Oh, and Magos Greel, I guess, who helps out Jurten.

In broad strokes it goes something like this:

Present, after the Great Rift. Orks crash a spaceship into a hive. Inexplicably this is said to have happened without warning, but let’s not think about how that’s possible. Both the ship and the hive survive this, and enough Orks survive the crash to overrun the hive itself. An Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor and his retinue fight their way clear of the ensuing anarchy and escape the hive, meeting up with an incoming Krieg troop and the remnants of a Cadian detachment that was in the hive but had to pull out after putting up stiff resistance. Now outside the hive, they need to retake it because. The Inquisitor has secret motives that obliquely relate to the Krieg civil war. Kind of. Not really.

In the past, Krieg rebels against the Imperium. Or rather, the ruling autocrats and their Chairman rebel, and it’s up to Colonel Jurten and one regiment of Krieg Imperial Guard to retake the planet from the single hive they managed to hold onto. Stuff happens.

That’s basically it.

Style

Obviously critique of style is subjective, and doubly obviously if you don’t like something you’ll just keep noticing and picking at the things about it you don’t like. With that in mind, the style of this book is kind of like having a sore tooth - it was impossible to ignore, and it was always there.

Orks are forever howling. It feels like every other line some Ork is howling. Likewise people intone a lot. These are personal preferences but things like this either stick out and catch you and annoy you or they don’t, and they did for me. Gah.

Other than that just kind of dull, really. I was unmoved. And no jokes. 40k should have jokes! And then things should get awful! You can’t appreciate how awful things are if you weren’t feeling okay before! You can’t have your hope dashed if you weren’t hopeful to start with!

Boring people doing boring things boringly is boring! And that’s coming from me!

Characterisation

There aren’t many fun characters in this.

In the present you have the Cadians, who are boring, the Inquisitor and co, who are boring and annoying, and the Death Korp, who are kind of arrogant pricks. In the past you have Jurten, who is annoying, and the rebels, who are all flabby and moustache-twirling villains, which is annoying.

That’s a style judgement I’ll admit, and I’m sure some would disagree. Mainly I’m unhappy about the modern-day Krieg, as they don’t come across as flat-affect stoics, but as aloof and superior bastards. Much is made of their body language, but what they say and how they say it makes them come across as

Status quo

This applies to the segments set during the Krieg civil war, and it refers to the odd haste with which everything we know about the Death Korp in the modern setting of 40k is applied to Krieg was it was in the past. 

Quick! Make the lasguns like how we know them! Quick! Greatcoats and skull-faced gas masks! Quick! Call them the Death Korp! Quick! Death riders! Quick! Invent the Ragnarok tank! Quick! Get the Vitae Wombs warmed up!

The war lasted five hundred years, guys! Five hundred years! You don’t need to immediately have the Death Korp battling exactly as we know them now. Ease into it! Or - even better - don’t ease into it at all! Have the Death Korp be entirely unrecognisable as they what they turn into!

If you really wanted to spice it up you could have someone who knew Krieg before - hell! Have a Krieg regiment or something off-world! Some survivor! - who, thanks to the vagaries of Warp travel - comes back in time to see the planet totally changed, and have them horrified!

(I can’t remember if they mentioned the other Krieg Imperial Guard regiments from before the civil war. They did exist - Colonel Jurten’s regiment wasn’t the only one - so did they all die off-world? It was five hundred years, I guess they did.)

A lot of this isn’t helped by the very loose way in which the passage of time is conveyed. The civil war segments are meant to be taking place over the course of years, but it really, really doesn’t feel like it. We’re just told about it. Oh yes this war has been going on for years it has, oh my. Rubbish, isn’t it? Ho hum, when will it end. Oh look, another five years have passed. Tempus fugit!

Civil war

The beauty of leaving things ambiguous is that you can fill in the blanks yourself, and this is what I did. Having someone come in afterwards - with GW’s blessing, it would appear - and pour their own blanks over my blanks is deeply uncomfortable, particularly when I find the new answers thoroughly uninvigorating.

Five hundred years is a long time! And I always pictured that it was five hundred years of pretty constant, grinding warfare - the loyalists driven by pious fury, the rebels with their backs against the wall on the nuclear hellball the loyalists turned their planet into. Rather, the book kind of has it that after the nukes fly and the dust settles it’s the Death Korp just kind of picking off the survivors one hive at a time.

This probably isn’t helped by the book having it that the loyalists only had the one hive to start with, with the whole rest of the planet seemingly set against them. I imagined that the split was a lot closer to even, but still tipped in the rebels’ favour, hence nukes. I imagined that the loyalists ran the numbers and saw they’d lose the attrition eventually and no help was coming and Jurten - who wasn’t a main guy, just some guy - seized the initiative and launched all these nukes before anyone could stop him, levelling the playing field by making everything that much more hostile. This followed by hundreds of years of grinding trench warfare across a frozen, radioactive hellscape.

The frozen radioactive hellscape part remained, but now Jurten is the main dude, and the loyalists are just one city, and there isn’t much of a war after the nukes it’s mostly mopping up. Eh.

Ork attack!

On paper, the Orks are the primary threat in the modern narrative strand. In practise they’re just kind of…there. We have no idea what leadership they have or how many there are or if they’re actually planning on doing anything, they’re just…

…there.

Which is a bad thing, sure, because Orks. But the Orks are explicitly just whatever Orks managed to survive the crash, which is apparently enough to overwhelm not only whatever defences the hive had but also the Cadians stationed there. Sure, they got hit by a spaceship, but the Orks were in the spaceship! 

Eh, you could argue a good ten or more thousand survived. There’s a lot in those ships. And with all the explosions and collapsing hive there’d big a lot of chaos. You can argue that it kind of shakes out.

They’d still need a leader though, wouldn’t they? The Orks?

Ah whatever. Orks. And after that the Orks serve mainly to be a threat when they try to retake the hive (and fail miserably), and then attack them outside the hive where the guard entrenched because you couldn’t possibly have Krieg and not have them dig some trenches.

The exact distance between the trenches they dug and the hive itself doesn’t help here, because while I think it’s mentioned once prior to the guard making their pitiful attack into the hive (across open ground), other than that it doesn’t seem to be an issue. The hive is meant to be perhaps two kilometres from the trenches, across open ground. So all attacks that do come at them come across two thousand metres of open ground. 

Across open ground. Bear that in mind.

Every so often a piecemeal Ork attack will come lurching out towards the guard for a little setpiece. At one point a dozen or so deathkoptas come out and attack them and that’s a legitimate firefight. You know? Deathkoptas? The warbike-sized little flying machines? Yeah, a handful come at them - across a vast expanse of open ground, at a few thousand entrenched guardsmen - and that’s a thing that happens.

Squigs also appear a few times, and are just sort of there, hiding out. The Cadian sergeant later gets her foot eaten by one, which might as well be a thing that happens.

Also at some point a stompa attacks. Just one stompa, busting its way out of the hive to come plodding at the trenches - again, across a vast expanse of open ground - and it somehow manages to avoid being shot to bits and actually gets there and causes some problems before it’s destroyed off-page.

Stompas are tough, sure, but they’re not exactly ‘advance slowly and entirely unsupported as the single available target for thousands of guardsmen and their support weapons’ tough. Also, you can’t target their legs. Felt I should point that out, given that they explicitly do target the legs to take it out. Again, you cannot do that to a stompa.

This is such a weird issue as the obvious, obvious solution is just to have more Orks. One Stompa is threatening, sure, but not in a shooting gallery. Three stompas, say, accompanied by other Ork armour, all at once? Now that’s an issue! Likewise, just some dethkoptas coming in all on their own is, like, not ideal but not exactly the worst thing? 

Also the narration seems unclear on how big and heavy dethkoptas are, which is confusing to me. They ain’t that big.

Hives

There is no uniformity in Imperial hive cities. You have kind of the stereotypical hive city where it’s like a big ol’ nightmare anthill a mile or more tall and which also goes underground and houses billions - Necromunda, basically. That’s generally what you imagine, but you also have ones that cling to the underside of tectonic plates and hang into vast acidic seas, or ones that spread tumour-like across vast, inhospitable marshes. 

There’s no real rule on them having to look like something, it’s just more a sense that hive cities are: A) Big B) Enormous C) Packed full of millions if not billions of people D) Are built on words that are not exactly suitable for human life, either prior to the building of the hive cities or as a direct result of the planet ending up a hive planet

The hive in the book is nowhere described, really, but it gives the impression of a classic hive city - big and tall. And that’s fine. Crash a spaceship into one of those, it might survive. Fine.

The issues - for I have nothing but issues - come with the basic idea that you could retake a hive with the amount of troops they have, and later someone goes to a spaceport inside a hive.

…ah, actually that’s not so bad. You could have a port somewhere up a hive, I guess, and given this happens at a point in the story where there’s been a huge explosion you could make a point to say that the bigger, higher-capacity out-of-hive spaceport has been taken out or something. They don’t though. Hmm.

Personal preference.

(As an aside I’ve always felt that describing Krieg historically as a hive city even prior to the civil war as a bit odd, as part of Krieg’s deal is that the planet was ruined in the atomic cleansing and you can’t go topside. Most hive world’s aren’t ‘Step outside and die instantly’ lethal but equally your odds of surviving unprotected on just about any of them are pretty slim. Ash Wastes, anybody?

So “Oh, Krieg was made a death world by nukes” is kind of weird when, by rights, it was probably a bit of a death world already. But that’s me. We’ll get back to that.)

Demolishers

This isn’t a huge issue but the book has a strange fixation on having Demolishers bombard things, which isn’t really what Demolishers are for or something they can do. They are, in case we forgot, big, slow, armoured tanks with short-range weapons designed to go into places where range isn’t a factor and support infantry. Urban warfare, mainly, or things like that. That’s kind of the point. That’s always been kind of the point.

If you want to fire a big gun at a wall, use a Medusa. Or a Bombard or whatever. You know, an artillery piece. You can use a Demolisher for this, sure, but why would you? You’d need to park the thing next to the fucking wall, when what it’s meant to be doing is be inside the wall, supporting an attack. It’s weird.

Vitae Wombs

In the background it is never made especially clear what Vitae Wombs actually are or what they do. It’s heavily implied they’re cloning people, and that’s kind of the line the book takes, but ‘Vitae Wombs’ on their own doesn’t really imply anything beyond having a way of artificially growing people.

I’m in two minds on this. Giving Krieg a way of keeping its population up makes perfect sense given their attrition rate and way of making way - spending men like bullets is hard if you only get those men from a radioactive death world, and in a toss up between kind of insinuating there’s a lot of (even for 40k) ‘conventional’ squicky stuff happening in those bunkers or else they fell back on forbidden techniques and forgotten technologies in their desperation to win the civil war and just kept going, well, I know which I’d go with.

What catches me is the clone part. The book surprises absolutely no-one by revealing - what a twist! - that Colonel Jurten got cloned, but isn’t especially clear on whether they’re still cloning him now, or whether they’re all Jurten or whatever. 

Either way I don’t like any of that. Just leave Jurten alone, stop making him the main guy. He launched the nukes, and let that just be an act that, over time, became something they celebrated. Stop making him be everything and everywhere. He’s just a guy. Leave him alone.

NUKES

This is a big one for me.

A big part of the story concerns the Inquisitor needing to get back into the hive because there’s something there the Orks shouldn’t get their hands on. Something terrible. Something ancient and powerful and- 

Surprise - it’s nukes. 

Another part of the story concerns the Krieg loyalists in the civil war uncovering a hidden vault of terrible, forbidden weapons that can possibly alter the course of the war in their favour. Surprise - it’s nukes.

Now I don’t want to sound dismissive of nuclear weapons, because they’re awful. But in 40k it is a little odd to see people talking about nuclear weapons in tones of horrified awe, like they’re something from the Dark Age of Technology and not, you know, something that would surely rank alongside the heavy stubber in terms of “It’s old - but not like archeotech. Just old old.” Nukes aren’t an unknown, forgotten item of dark awe, they’re just not used all that much. 

The Rogue Trader RPG (the Fantasy Flight one) - which is probably about as canonical as anything, really - explicitly states that the Imperium just has better ways of destroying things than by using nukes, which it does.

That Krieg had its five hundred years of atomic cleansing kind of made it obvious to me that they know about nukes and what they are and they had them. I always imagined they were simply one of the simply one of the weapons they had lying around - anti-ship weapons of some kind, maybe - and they used them because they had them. Not that they dug them out of a secret vault and spoke of them in hushed whispers and had no idea of the powers they’d unleashed.

Just figured nukes was what Jurten got his hands on, and as the war ground on the nukes were just what they had a lot of, and they kept using them. Not a big deal.

With that in mind, the Inquisitor’s subplot of needing to get into the hive because the former governor (who the Inquisitor had previously tortured to death) had a secret stash of half a dozen nukes in the hive and it is imperative that the Orks don’t get their hands on them is a bit ropey to me. 

Oh no! Nukes! A handful of nukes! With those you could…

…mildly inconvenience a void-shielded hive. Oh no!

If the governor had, I don’t know, managed to acquire a batch of cyclonic torpedoes or something then you might have had a point. But since his secret stash is, as said, half a dozen nukes, this urgent, secret mission is really kind of stupid. 

Remember that bit earlier in the story where the Orks crashed a spaceship into your planet? A spaceship that, oh, has a Warp engine in it?! And you’re worried about them getting a handful of nukes? It’d be bad Orks getting their hands on nukes, yeah, but the book starts talking about how they’re going to exterminatus the planet rather than let it happen. Jesus Christ, guys!

(As an exterminatus-related aside, cyclonic torpedoes are one of those wonderful 40K things where they’re as vague as possible about what they actually are, because all you need to know is that they’re powerful enough to kill a planet. How and by how much don’t matter, and in fact varies depending on who’s writing them at the time. They just can destroy a planet, and that’s all you need to know.)

This subplot comes to a head when a Krieg grenadier, left behind to guard the vault o’ nukes, sets off some krak grenades he’d set up to destroy them when the Orks finally break into the vault. The grenades blow up, the nukes blow up, the hive blows up. Boom.

I’m not an expert, but nuclear weapons - unless they’re armed, and even then - aren’t usually known for their sympathetic detonation. Which is to say if you explode a nuke, it doesn’t usually then explode itself. They’re quite complex devices and if you disrupt them by, say, exploding them, they tend not to work properly. You’ll have the issue of radioactive material spilling out, yeah, but that might be it. 

Again, not an expert.

Also, wouldn’t them detonating in a tiny vault under however many metres of solid rock also under however many millions or billions of tons of rockcrete and steel that is the hive kind of take the wind out of the explosion a bit? Nukes are, as said, scary and nasty, but a fair whack of their destructive potential comes from them exploding in the open air where the shockwave and fireball can happen. Deep underground, under a hive city, uh, not so much?

Again again, not an expert.

Presumably the handwave to all of this is “Grimdark future nukes” and fine, sure, but if that was the case why not have some other grimdark future weapon that isn’t a weapon we have now and understand? 

Then there’s also all the horror about the radioactive contamination (you blew them up underground! Just stay out of the hive! Everyone else is fine!) and a lot of stuff about black rain melting through armour and burning everyone. Yes, black rain is a thing, so maybe that happened. Just seems a bit ham-fisted to me.

Conclusion

So there you go. 

A tide of nibbling little quibbles and issues all adding up to create something I simply could not enjoy. 

Which is weird, as Steve Lyons wrote a book years back called Dead Men Walking which is basically Death Korp versus Necrons and that was a lot of fun - it had a bit which sticks with me even now, where Korpsmen are basically being killed one by one and are just systematically picking up the single meltagun they have as it is the only weapon capable of effectively killing the Necrons and anytime the man holding it dies the next one immediately steps in to keep going. It’s metal as fuck.

This book is not metal as fuck. It’s just deeply disappointing. There weren’t even any good setpieces. The battles are all dull and weird because of how bizarre the setup is and nothing especially interesting happens. None of the problems are worth your time, and none of the solutions the characters come up with to solve them are good or tense or anything you might actually want.

The book just happens.

How would I have done it? Well, I wouldn’t have, because I’m terminally incapable of following a plotline all the way through, but I have some suggestions:

Don’t have the guard in trenches outside the hive. Hives are big and if you have a couple thousand guardsmen just decide to dig some trenches across a tiny, tiny, tiny little stretch of the perimeter and then sit there a bit and fire some artillery at the hive, you make them look like chumps. Having such a paltry amount of guardsmen ordered to retake a hive was dumb in the first place, and this just makes them look worse. 

Especially given that they fail miserably.

Give the Orks a named leader and have this attack be part of a broader war. They don’t have to meet the leader, but having this be one ship of Orks just feels bizarre. And make it be more Orks. And make it so they’re not at a risk of grabbing some nukes but specifically going after else nasty that they know is in the Hive. Maybe cyclonic torpedoes, like I said! Maybe the governor blagged a couple somehow, and that’s why the Inquisitor killed them! It’s not hard!

But yeah, broaden the scope, have more guardsmen and just zoom in close to follow some Cadians (it’s always fucking Cadians now) and their interactions with the Krieg they’ve been lumbered with as they have to breach this hive alongside everyone else. 

And no fucking trenches!

As for the bits that happen in the past? 

Don’t have Krieg as a hive city. Have it as a developed world that is on the way to turning into a hive city as Imperial demands for manufacture start to increase. The threat of having their world destroyed gradually would be a fair motivator for the rebels, and would also make the eventual fate of the world more impactful than “Shithole planet is now radioactive shithole planet.”

Have it the loyalists were promised aid, but circumstances change and the aid no longer forthcoming. That lends further depth to their decision to use the nukes. Maybe some of them were considering surrendering when they heard and Jurten went ahead with the nukes in a fit of pique, dooming the planet. It works better!

Don’t have Jurten be The Guy. He’s just A Guy. Not a main character! Have someone else be the main character! Someone with actual character! Someone conflicted! Paint the rebels as sympathetic! Have the main loyalist see their point of view but remain loyal anyway! Then everything goes to shit when the nukes fly and they’re locked into a war none of them want! That’s a bazillion times better than “Jurten was always a dick and he’s in charge and also the rebels are all super-duper ugly and evil” which is what we got! Argh!

Leave Vitae Wombs as some expressly ambiguous compromise between cloning or just growing people in batches, or something. Leave it vague, but clearly unnatural. And don’t talk about it. For God’s sake don’t talk about it. Some things work much, much better if you don’t talk about them.

I’m done. I’m out. That’s it.

[paledoptera]

Glad you liked the snowberry clearwing suggestion! Big flashy ones like a lot of saturniids are somewhat hard to come by here (one of the more notable instances I've been able to find is the time someone found a cecropia cocoon in the woods and it ended up on the news because nobody who saw it initially knew what it Was lmao), so we've got a lot of smaller, less distinct (or at least less well known) ones - That clearwing is probably the most unique of them, but there's some others that are relatively notable, I think!

We've got a few sphinx moths - While at the mall this past summer, I had an encounter with a lettered sphinx, namely one with a reddish spot on the back like the one in sighting 1347349 on butterfliesandmoths (dot) org, but I would argue the one that leaves the most impression after the clearwing is the white-lined sphinx! They're another one that's fairly commonly referred to as a hummingbird moth, despite not being closely related to the hummingbird hawk-moth of Eurasia - A lot of sphinx moths around here have similar sizes and flight patterns to hummingbirds and also tend to hover around flowers when feeding, so they're all largely lumped in as "hummingbird moths" by casual observers, but the white-lined sphinx is probably the one most commonly referred to as such.

Outside of the sphinx moths, a REALLY distinct family we have here are the plume moths - They have a frankly bizarre shape to them, with a long, thin body almost more resembling a dragonfly than a moth in shape, and long, thin wings near the front of the body, so that, when at rest, they form an almost T shape. There's a few different species here, but the most common one I've seen is the morning glory plume moth - There's usually one or two hanging out on my front door during the warm months at night! Weird little dudes, they give me robber fly "what the fuck is that??? what IS that?????" vibes.

As far as smaller, less distinct moths go, there's a few here that are better known for their status as caterpillars than the moths themselves - We have both Isabella tiger moths and Virginian tiger moths here, better known as the wooly bear and yellow wooly bear in their larval forms, respectively! There's also the American dagger moth, which has a rather nondescript appearance as an adult, but a very distinct one in its larval form! As caterpillars, they've got a very dark face, and are covered in pretty vivid yellow yellow hairs, with a few black tufts that resemble spikes - There are some reports of skin irritation from their hairs, but they're seemingly non-venomous!

Another moth larvae that causes skin irritation, this time due to their hairs being toxic to humans, is the brown-tail moth! They're not native to the US, but there is a population in New England after they were introduced, and they've been particularly widespread where I live for the past decade - In 2018, the front wall of my then-workplace was absolutely COVERED in the adult moths, which are white with, as the name implies, brown tails (sometimes bordering on reddish). A few of them actually made their way into the building, and I brought them back outside - Interestingly, they lose the toxins in their hairs after they pupate, so adults don't cause a rash the way the caterpillars do! They used to be significantly more widespread through eastern North America, but they've declined for... not-fully-clear reasons, but one theory suggests that their population was suppressed by parasitic fly species introduced to counter ANOTHER introduced moth, the spongy moth (Whose scientific name is lymantria dispar! The name spongy moth is a relatively new one for it, so you may find more documentation using its scientific name than its common one. It was formerly known by another common name, but that name also happens to include a slur, so! I'm gonna make the choice to Not include that here 👍👍👍)! They've got some neat sexual dimorphism going on - In addition to the relatively common antennae size difference, males are a light brownish color, while females are a rather bright white with sort of rippled brown striping on the wings! I personally think the females stand out as more flashy than the males, which is neat to see, as someone who also gets a kick out of birds, where the opposite is often true - Usually in birds males are the ones with the more flashy plumage, or at the very least, females tend to have more spotted or mottled colorations in species with dimorphism, to help keep them more hidden while nesting. Even species with relatively little dimorphism beyond size tend to display this pattern - Common barn owls, for instance, can often be differentiated by spotting on the breast and the color of the feathering around the facial disc, where females tend to have heavier black spotting than males (whose breasts are often white with no spotting at all, though they get speckling occasionally) and also have darker facial disc feathers. (I follow an artist in the UK who has livestreams of the raptors that use the nest boxes in his garden, and he works alongside a rehabber who visits when their hatchlings get old enough - Some of the species he has are hard to differentiate even as adults by visual alone, but for barn owls, those are the standard ways of sexing owlets when they're getting their ID rings. But that's getting a bit off topic lol)

Anyway, the male spongy moths veer a bit in to LBJ territory, to borrow a birding term (LBJ stands for "little brown job" and is sometimes used by birders to refer to those fairly common brown birds that are difficult to distinguish - Trying to tell sparrows apart at a glance, for example), which is where a lot of the other moths here fall into. A lot of them aren't especially distinct, often various browns and greys - I'd say even that lettered sphinx I mentioned at the start probably falls into that territory if you're not as Normal About Bugs And Birds As Me. We do have one seemingly-LBJ moth that stands out off the top of my head, though - Amphipyra pyramidoides, or the copper underwing of the US (a distinct species from the copper underwing of the palaearctic), looks like a pretty unremarkable LBJ when its wings are folded up at rest, but as the name implies, the underwings have a distinct copper color that can be seen with their wings outstretched! Underwing moths have a bunch of species with that trait of colorful lower wings, highly recommend poking through them if you have a chance.

Anyway, that's a bit long, so TLDR: I'm Just A Touch Autistic and had a bit too much time at work with the snow this morning keeping customers away and yelling about moths is how I opted to spend the slow day, I suppose bfnfngmdngndn No pressure to read all of that if you haven't already, or to respond to it, naturally! I just get a kick out of cramming excessive amounts of words about bbugs (and bbirds) through my ISP's wires haha. Thanks again for the moths, and I'm glad to hear you're recovering well! And I gotta say, even if they're intended as a sort of quicker and easier, tiding things over while you're sick solution between the more detailed pieces (which are Very Good, for the record), I also love the ms paint moffs tbh. Iconic.

i don't know who you are anon but i love you thank you for putting an entire ass essay about moths in my inbox i knew about a lot of these species (because i'm a nerd who does a lot of research about shit) but i didn't actually know about plume moths!! they look really cool, def gonna draw them at some point.

they remind me of like, dragon wings or bat wings

[americanredragger]

I do not like Joe Biden's Israel Policy or his Border Policy or more of his other policies than I want to stand here listing, and I won't say anyone else has to either. I also think he should be a one term president by virtue of his age.

But he is ALSO one of the most effective progressive presidents we have had since fucking FDR in terms of actual bills signed into law.

The scope of what he's accomplished IS amazing, especially given the Center Right Democrat Party he has to work with and the political times his presidency inhabits.

None of us have to like him at all, but we DO need to stop lying to ourselves about him. We can acknowledge that he's been one of the best practical supporters of working class Americans in two generations, but still condemn his other policies -- a president can be, and nearly always is, several things at once, and also nearly always those things are contradictory.

Kennedy literally saved the world from nuclear hellfire at Cuba but was a rampant adulterer who also got us stuck in Vietnam.

LBJ was often a tyrant and the man who gave us COINTELPRO and badly escalated the Vietnam War, but also signed the Civil Right Act of 1964, put men on the moon, created Medicare and Medicaid, and pushed hard for the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

Nixon did a Watergate, militarized law enforcement, enacted Operation CONDOR to support ultra right wing dictators in Latin America and furnish them with well trained Death Squads, blew up Cambodia AND Laos, and used the War on Drugs as a means of keeping track of and incarcerating his political enemies and keeping a boot on the neck of working class Americans and especially the African-American population. On the other hand, Nixon ALSO scored the most momentous arms-limitations agreement history had ever seen up to that point, established the EPA, expanded the social safety net, ended American involvement in Vietnam, opened relations with China, expanded Medicare, and generally deescalated the Cold War.

I won't lie. Biden has SO MUCH blood and suffering on his hands. On account of his border detentions and arms enabling alone, he has more than several past presidents built up over their whole careers. That's not even going into his lackadaisical approach to Covid (which I will hasten to point out is at the very damned-by-faint-praise least still better than Trump's "no approach at all to Covid").

That cannot and should not be denied.

He's also the most pro-Union president we've seen since the Carter Administration, ended the TWO DECADE LONG War in Afghanistan (yes it was messy but that's mostly on Trump for not negotiating a more doable time frame and also not doing jack fuck to set up or prepare for), has enacted more student debt relief than I ever thought I'd live to see in this country, funded widespread infrastructure renewal (at least enough to finally, finally, FINALLY get that ball rolling for the first time in 50 goddamn years), enacted massive maintenance of the social safety net after his predecessor did everything possible to dismantle it, raised the minimum wage for federal contractors, and the the Build Back Better America initiative is our boldest piece of left wing policy since Kennedy at the least, with expanded childcare and pre-K access, healthcare subsidies, clean energy investments, and tax credits for working class American families. He also pushed and signed the CHIPS Act, which is bringing a lot of tech jobs and manufacturing back to America.

We need to hammer him on his flaws and failures, not treat him like he's Literally Satan. Or, alternately if you are gonna treat him that way, then swallow your fucking pride and never forget that Satan has your back way more than the guy on the other side will ever do.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

apostrophe, m | myg, jjk

pairing(s): yoongi x reader x jungkook brief mention of previous seokjin x reader

summary: The apostrophe indicates two things, the omission of information that is known and, of course, possession. As time passes behind closed doors, the possession is clear in the way Min Yoongi and Jeon Jungkook completely and utterly dominate your pleasure. The omission of admission, well, that becomes known too.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; short scenes of the trio at their respective jobs; descriptions of explicit D/s relationship; very intense smut (fem reader, semi-public sex in JK's tattoo parlor, restraints, obsessive biting / marking, nipple play, m-receiving oral, hair pulling, photography during sex, m/m and m/f choking, cutting off undergarments with a knife (you read that right), pussy / tit / ass spanking, fingering, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, (technically) squirting, penetrative sex, use of an anal vibrator, wall-fucking, anal sex, finger sucking, reader has a pain kink); shifting POVs between Yoongi, Jungkook, and you; non-idol!AU; rich heir to a hotel chain, dom!Yoongi x tattooed, sub!reader x tattoo artist, dom!Jungkook

tbh this is bordering a bit on PWP but, in classic me fashion, many emotions are conveyed via fucking XD

--

punctuation au semicolon ; | exclamation mark ! | period . | comma , | question mark ? | apostrophe ' | quotation mark "

-

Min Yoongi hated meetings like this.

He found them useless, boring, and a waste of his precious time.

He was much rather be in your bedroom, on that lavish bed of yours, his hand on your chin dragging you over the sheets, forcing you to crawl and service him.

Instead, Yoongi was sitting at the head of the table at a board meeting, the stand-in for his father who was off doing who-the-fuck-knows-what, listening to the worthless opinions of old men in suits about toilets.

Fucking shit.

The board of directors was trying to decide whether or not to invest a vast amount of money into renovating all the hotel bathrooms to be more economically friendly. The current finishings were from a few decades ago and, while they still remained modern and sleek visually, it was vital to update them to maintain the quality of their service. The discussion, however, was centered around sustainability and, regardless of what the public thought, sustainability was expensive upfront and offered very little return for the current generation who were making the decision.

Thus, the board wanted to take the cheaper route and update the style rather than give a shit about the environment they weren’t going to live to see.

He had previously been silent during this back and forth between the proposer and the board members, but for the past twenty minutes they had been fixated on toilets and, at this point, Yoongi was over this debate. In fact, he was over this meeting.

He sighed and tapped his pen on the pad in front of him, looking down at the budget. Yoongi didn’t really give a shit how much they spent. Spending more money would require reallocating from the board members’ potential bonuses amount at the end of the year. Taking it from their pockets didn’t bother him in the slightest.

His father wouldn’t do that.

But then, again, Yoongi wasn’t his father.

“The benefits of reducing water waste are not only eco-friendly, but will also attract customers,” he cut in, silencing the room. “The money we are trying to attract is new money. For years to come, we will need to appeal to the younger generation, and the younger generation follows trends. Being sustainable is trendy. They will look for efforts toward sustainability in all facets of their life, including which hotel they select to stay in on their vacations.”

He was aware that had the attention of the entire room on words alone. He did not need to stand up or speak loudly.

His presence simply commanded attention.

“We will appeal to their altruism. People are willing to pay a higher price if it means they are helping their country and the world they live in. They will also boast about it to their friends and post about it on social media. You are thinking too narrowly if your focus is only on the surface.”

Yoongi wasn’t exactly passionate about sustainability.

He simply remembered your conversation with him when watching the fireworks, after the first time he had you, you sitting in his lap and telling him they were rather wasteful with their excessiveness and not good for the environment.

He ticked his head, raising his pen and pointing at the projected proposal, raising an eyebrow.

“Transparency about our intentions will have immediate gains. We will be one of the first hotel chains to have such a focus. Being first is incredibly important for in the industry.”

Yoongi waited until now to make these points, until this moment when the board members had already gone back and forth for a while so they were worn out from their own discussion.

It made it easier to bend them to his will.

He lowered his pen, balancing it on the end, raising an eyebrow as he looked from face to face of every board member, every one of them older than him. They did not want to listen to him, but they were listening now because Yoongi knew when to pick his moment and what points to strike for the greatest effect. He knew when and how to take control.

Of situations and people.

It was, in some ways, his specialty.

“And we want to be first, do we not?”

After that, the board had the vote.

Of course, they voted in favor of the more expensive, eco-friendly proposal.

-

On the dot, the exact minute Jeon Jungkook was supposed to lock up, the bell on the door jingled.

This time, he did not inwardly groan and be annoyed. He was waiting for this moment, this opening of the door and that elegant form stepping in, slick black patent high heels, sheer stockings, pinstriped black pencil skirt, flowing white silk blouse, neatly pinned hair with a glittering crystal hairpin holding back the right side, keeping spare strands away from your face.

One hand clutching the black briefcase, the other stylishly balanced on the door, stepping into his space.

“Good evening, Jungkook.”

The way you smiled at him made his heart flutter.

He was so fucking screwed.

“Just a moment. Let he finish up,” he said cheerfully, screaming the inside, wanting to run to you and tear your clothes off and kiss every centimeter of your skin, wanting to bite and leave his marks all over you, needing to remind you that you were his, his, his.

Instead, Jungkook carefully taped down the plastic around the tattoo and gave the customer the tub of aftercare cream, all the while providing instructions them how to take care of their new ink, handing them the written directions in case they forgot. It wasn’t their first tattoo, but it was part of the protocol.

“And that’s it. You’re all set.”

He ended his short speech with a smile, collecting his tools for sterilization.

Jungkook wanted to tell the young woman to get the fuck out so he could ravage you.

Instead, she was checking out her new tattoo of the tree of life on her upper right arm. Today had been the completion of the coloring and shading, the sky colored in a teal-turquoise gradient. He was proud to say it was some of his best work along with the small, detailed leaves.

“Wow…”

The young woman turned around and thanked him, bowing repeatedly. Jungkook raised his hands, shaking his head, saying it was his pleasure. The young woman carefully slipped on her large hoodie, turning to see you standing there, waiting patiently for him.

“Your girlfriend?” she teased.

Jungkook felt his ears heat, his eyes flickering to you. “Ah…”

You weren’t looking at him. You had straight posture, heels together, left hand holding your briefcase, right hand behind your back. Even the slight tilt of your head gave your profile an ethereal quality, leaving him breathless.

You blinked slowly.

Eyes now on him, viewing him through your periphery.

The slightest hint of a smirk.

Jungkook could not explain the feeling you gave him.

“Yes.”

-

“Hello, Yoongi.”

Instead of speaking, he reached out and wrapped his hand around your head, pulling you to him, lips on yours, falling into the hunger. Spoiling your perfectly done hair, tangling it with his fingers, standing at his full height so you had to tiptoe to hold on, moaning at the way his tongue traced your lips, teasing you, making you want him, crave him, need him.

Yoongi knew the reality.

The reality was, the one who needed was him.

He let his hand slide down, sinking his fingers into your skin, pushing down your black silk robe, one nail down your spine, your gasps in his mouth, building the moment, feeling your hands on his suit jacket, clutching the lapels tightly, inhaling your scent.

Blackberries and the ocean.

Yoongi murmured your name softly, snapping your bra strap against your back.

You paused, looking up at him through your lashes, no makeup, beauty marks dotting your cheeks, the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, waiting for his words. His other hand was still in his pocket. Slow, even breaths, quelling the anxious hum of his own pulse that threatened to show in his touch.

You relaxed your hold on his suit, palms flat against his chest.

Patient.

It amazed him how in tune you were with him, how you seemed to sense the difference in tone so easily, how you seemed to know the difference between being attentive and submissive.

Yoongi had let himself in because you had previously given him the key. He had found you at your vanity, carefully doing your hair. You knew he was coming. He knew you would hear him entering. He had waited for a moment at the doorframe, watching you brush through the soft waves you had created, meticulous.

Your eyes had found his in the mirror, a slow smile on your lips.

And then you greeted him, standing up, black silk robe loosely tied, matching black lace bra and panties, the high French-cut revealing the ‘GOOD LUCK’ tattoo, geometric lotus and Sith Order tattoo covered by the robe, falling into his possessive kiss and touch, now waiting for him to elaborate.

There were many times like this, with just him but also when Jungkook was involved, moments when Yoongi would say your name and he would pause, staring into your eyes, wondering when he would say it, trying to tell himself it was only obsession, but Yoongi was not a pretender, and he knew what was happening even if he did not think this feeling would ever happen to him. He thought he was too seasoned, too jaded, too cold.

He tilted his head and kissed you again, softer this time.

Yoongi knew when and how to take control.

Of situations and people.

The only one he didn’t know how to control was himself.

“Take off my clothes,” he ordered.

-

“Give me your mark, Jungkook.”

Maybe you hadn’t heard. Maybe you hadn’t noticed what the young woman had asked before she left.

The door was locked, shades pulled, you laying on your side on the lowered chair, looking at him, mauve lipstick smeared, shirt half-unbuttoned, his bite marks on your cleavage, hands tied behind your back with his belt. Legs still trapped in your black pinstriped pencil skirt, one over the another. It was expensive, the thick material and the delicate craftsmanship, princess seams with a slight sheen to the black-on-black stripes, outlining your hips.

Jungkook wanted to rip your skirt so bad.

He wanted to rip it off your body and fuck you with the shreds of your clothing around him. But you would leave his shop after this and he could not bear the idea of others seeing the perfect body that was his, his, his.

Jungkook leaned forward, placing his knuckle under your chin, staring into your eyes.

He pressed his thumb into your lower lip, smearing your lipstick more, a mess, his mess, leaning in and flitting his tongue over your open lips, savoring your moan, ravenous for your sound, towering over you, hand slipping down, drawing a line of your own lipstick on your skin, sliding his fingers under the cup of your white lace bra, toying with your nipple.

“On your back.”

You did as you were told.

I don’t lie. I obey.

He straddled your body, the chair creaking at the sudden added weight, but Jungkook didn’t care, he just didn’t care, because nothing mattered to him but pushing down your bra straps and scooping your breasts out, pinching your nipples and pulling up harshly, forcing your back to arch, a pained whine escaping your throat, your ribs pressed against his jeans, a smirk on his lips as he admired the picture of you writhing under him, moaning at his roughness.

“Who owns you?”

The way you looked up at him from under your lashes, hazy and shivering with lust, whimpering as he twisted your nipples in his fingers, demanding an answer.

“Y-You, Jungkook…”

He let go, diving down, slamming his body onto you, grabbing your head and capturing your lips, silencing your howl with his mouth, your sensitive nipples rubbing against his shirt, his necklaces hitting your collarbones, raising you up, thrusting his tongue into your lips, messy and slippery, chest to chest, growling your name into your throat.

“Mine.”

One of his hands slipped to the right side of your face, pressing a finger into the pulse point under your right ear, forcefully breaking the kiss to turn your head, staring at the space that he would mark you, the spot where he was about to tattoo an exclamation point, his.

His.

You wanted to be his.

He breathed in.

Blackberries and the sea.

And sweetness. Sweetness, pooling between your legs.

Jungkook grinned against your skin, dark whisper of lust in your ear, enjoying your shiver.

“You are mine.”

-

Yoongi found that he liked it when you held his rings. There was just something about it, your fingers curled into fists, his platinum and white gold rings hanging off, too big for you, framed by white knuckles. He had put great thought into the ones he put on this morning, thinking about seeing them bunched up in your hands.

Diamonds embellishing his diamond.

He had you on your knees in front of him, your mouth stuffed with his cock, him wearing nothing but his open dress shirt, surrounded by his clothes and your undergarments, your hair collected in his right hand, the other in his own, running his fingers through his black hair, pushing it away from his forehead. He saw the effect it had in your eyes, hazy with desire, full all the way to the back of your throat, tongue straining as you licked his balls with effort, dripping saliva down your chin, struggling to breathe.

Yoongi always appreciated the pretty picture you provided him.

He never stayed longer than a night. He had things to do.

Too many things, honestly.

He pulled back and you retreated your tongue, lips wrapped around him, soft and tight, anticipating his sudden thrust back into your throat, burying himself as deep as possible, waiting for you to gag, but of course you didn’t, closing your eyes, enjoying the roughness.

“So greedy for the pain.”

One eye opening partway, darkened by your lashes and consumed by lust.

Asking him to play you, pluck your strings and make them sing for him.

“I’m going to stay all weekend with you.”

Yoongi simply decided it, just now. It wasn’t his usual pattern but, then again, you always broke his pattern.

Oh well.

He was starting to get used to it.

He began to fuck your face, rolling his hips into your mouth, slow but deep, building a rhythm, savoring the feeling, warmth and wetness and servitude, tightening his grip in your hair, leaving you nothing but parts of seconds to breathe, tits bouncing with the ferocity of his pace. He did not bother with speed. He had all weekend. He wanted to savor it, cherish it, make your jaw ache from tension, make your throat sore with how roughly the swollen tip was hitting it, filling your mouth with his hard length over and over, his wet balls smacking your chin.

Listening to your whines trapped in your throat, wanting it and him.

He let your name fall from his lips, coaxing you, encouraging you, shuddering at the effect your name had on him, erotic and sensual because it was never spoken outside of this context, a little faster at the sound of your muffled moan, the vibration humming through him, shimmering through his nerves, accumulating the complexity of the chords, a little harder, closing his eyes, his head tipping back, yanking on your hair with every deep stroke, cock sandwiched between your tongue and the roof of your mouth, losing himself in the sensation, the feeling he craved and obsessed over, telling himself it was just this, just this raw, visceral face-fucking, just the idea that he could do anything and you would take it and take it well, but, alas.

Yoongi was not a pretender.

It was more than that.

Because he would open his eyes and look down at your face, seeing you gazing back up at him, blown-out pupils and wearing nothing but his rings, pushing your tits together with your arms to add to the visual, and he would get harder, twitching in your mouth, clenching his jaw at the softness and the tightness, nearing the end, his ears ringing with your whimpers and his own pulse, a little rougher, turning your eyes glass-like, reflecting his own face in them.

There was an omission of admission, in words, but not in action.

He thrust his hips hard into your throat with a hiss of your name, spilling thick strings of cum and forcing you to swallow, smirking at the pleasurable sensation of you drinking him greedily and rapidly, running his hand through your hair, soothing your scalp. This.

This was gratification.

“Stand,” Yoongi growled.

You were so good at listening.

And yet.

You stood up, still holding his rings, and he grabbed your arm, trying to make you drop them, but of course you didn’t, eyes shifting to look at him in your periphery, smirk in your swollen lips.

“Hands up.”

You lifted your hands and his eyes followed, watching you raise them up, up, stretching them out over your head, backs of your hands against each other, holding his rings with elegantly splayed fingers.

“Tiptoe.”

You did.

“Don’t move.”

It was a warning as much as it was a command.

Yoongi leaned down, lips on your skin, seeing previous marks from another mouth, chuckling, tracing them with his tongue. He caught your flesh between his teeth, biting down, causing you to gasp as he sucked, leaving bruises, thinking about the marks on your cleavage that he was now overlapping with his own. He made each one purposeful and painful, soothing the irritated skin with his wet tongue, covering you in his saliva. He was sure the maker of the previous marks had done the same, although more likely in a hurried, wild manner compared to his deliberate, leisurely pace.

That was Jungkook’s style, after all.

“Yoongi…?”

“Do you think he will come?”

His tongue curled around your hard nipple, flicking it expertly, his fingers closing in on the other, making you tremble at the touch.

“I d-don’t know… He might be busy…”

“Doesn’t he want to spend time with you?” Yoongi murmured, pinching the other nipple harshly as he left gentle kisses on the first, juxtaposing it with his soft but sharp tone. “With me?”

“He always… a-ah, Yoongi… always likes it when you can come.”

“Hm.”

He switched sides and hands, plucking at your nipples until they were hard and engorged, toying with them until your legs were shaking from strain at the position, moaning above him, pleading for him to stop and let you rest, and he pushed you a little more, a little more, your body flinching at the sensitivity as he lifted his head, placing the pads on his middle fingers on your nipples, holding them in place with his index and ring finger, rubbing hard and fast.

He could smell your juices dripping between your legs.

“Let’s send Jungkook a little incentive.”

Yoongi did not ask.

He did not need to, for you would tell him if it was something you did not want. That was your role as the sub and he knew you took your role very, very seriously.

He went to your vanity picked up your phone.

He had not told you to relax yet, so you did not, legs trembling from tension, gracefully poised like a dancer, holding his rings, thighs pressed together to maintain posture, his bites on your skin overlapping Jungkook’s previous marks, your nipples hard and abused from his touch, sticking out.

You smiled, tongue between your teeth.

Yoongi opened the camera app and took a single picture, sending it to the contact labeled with an exclamation mark. Only the photo, no text. He glanced at it, the composition, the pose, the way the light gleamed off your skin.

He was not disappointed.

You were stunning.

“On the bed.”

-

You looked at yourself in the mirror.

Traced the spot under your left ear, breathing out.

You often thought, I am over it now, but you were always proven wrong.

You sighed and placed your hands on the edge of the sink, standing in the pristine bathroom at the accounting firm. Steady, even breaths.

It was the little things.

Truly, no one at your job had anything bad to say about you. Even if you slipped and one of your tattoos showed, no one batted an eye as you fixed your sleeve or your hair. Even your superiors didn’t mind. You had been working here for a long time and everyone knew you had tattoos. No one talked about them in length or spoke down at you.

However.

Occasionally an older client would arrive and perhaps spot your rolled-up sleeve and you would have to quickly exit from their accusing stares and off-hand comments, gliding into the shadows as your co-workers stepped in and took over. It wasn’t them you disliked. The older generation, especially the rich with their contrived manners, had their feelings about tattoos. That was fine. It was a product of their time, a residual concept that remained with the stubbornness of age.

But the other feeling.

The feeling you were inconveniencing someone else because of your tattoos.

Your choices.

Your existence.

That brought back memories.

It wasn’t rational, you knew. This was work. You shared the workload. Hell, you yourself wrote the procedure of standard work so everyone was familiar with the same process and could seamlessly take over in case anyone went on vacation. Everything was a collaboration and that was intentional because, at the end of the day, the client was the one who mattered.

You knew this.

You sighed again, smoothing out your hair.

Still, the human brain was stubbornly against you.

When it was you and Kim Seokjin, your sex life very clearly served a purpose for both you and him. In some ways, however, you could see it had spoiled you. Between you and Seokjin, there was no real romance. Comradery, rapport, chemistry, yes. Love, yes. There was no one who could replace the experiences Seokjin gave you and you were quite sure it was the same for him. But it felt more like companionship than romance. Thus, you never had to think much about it. It was very much a release of a feeling both you and Seokjin could share with no one else and then you were both satisfied until the build-up for next time.

The internal annoyance you felt right now – annoyance at another for pointing out your ink and making a classist comment about the quality of the accounting firm, annoyance at inconveniencing a coworker to come over and redirect the discussion, annoyance at yourself for being annoyed, annoyance at the sudden berating spiral your brain was currently threatening you with – all this could be channeled into a session with Seokjin and forgotten easily. It helped you let go, just like how it helped Seokjin let go of any negative feelings he had from external and internal pressures.

It helped you both grow and change, reaching a point where you and him felt confident in who you were becoming. Seokjin had wanted to make sure you still had that. He wanted to focus on his career and fame, but he urged you to find like-minded people who supported your interests. You suspected there was a reason for that.

You looked in the bathroom mirror, scowling slightly at your reflection.

Probably moments like this.

In any case, you did find such people. Two, in fact.

You lifted your hair on the left, revealing the semicolon.

Min Yoongi.

Closed your eyes, recalling the moments he composed. You often thought people like him were pampered, far too refined to be doing depraved things and give in to such a crass sin like lust, and Yoongi proved you wrong, every time. He turned pain into art and art into pleasure, pleasure that bled into layers of details that fitted together like the many instruments of a grand orchestra, a composition so delicate and sensual that it seemed too precious to end.

You opened your eyes, remembering his.

Eyes that reminded you of midnights and moonlight.

You turned your head, slowly, brushing back stray strands, uncovering the space under your right ear.

The exclamation point.

You stared at it.

It was scabbing over.

He had held your head very carefully when tattooing it onto you. He went through all the correct steps, hygiene and sterilization included, incredibly serious about his own work. All of your tattoos were done by him. You traced them, trailing your fingers over your clothes, memories of him furrowing his brows, biting down on his lower lip and focusing deeply to etch his work onto you, even when you knew he wanted nothing more than to shove his cock into you and fuck you into the very tattoo chair you were laying on.

Your annoyance was vanishing little by little.

It was hard to regret your tattoos when they were done by none other than Jeon Jungkook.

The side of your lips curved upward.

Jungkook had made you hike up your skirt and spread your legs wide when he pricked the exclamation point onto you. He wanted to see your blouse open, pencil skirt bunched to your waist, thigh-high stockings and garter belt exposed. Wanted your panties soaked. Wanted to smell your arousal.

You were a little bit of a masochist.

The pain of the needle was far too short. It was only a small tattoo, after all.

Jungkook, however, had made sure to make up for it after he put his tools away.

-

"Here. And here."

A hold.

"Press."

Pressure.

His lips parted instinctively, abruptly injected with slight panic at the cutoff of blood flow, stemming it to a sputtering trickle, heartbeat racing. The head of black hair lowered, raspy whisper against his ear.

"Do you feel it, Jungkook?"

This.

Power.

This was the power of someone who knew they had it, power harnessed and controlled, power of one none other than Min Yoongi, not from his money or his social status, but within, an animal Jeon Jungkook recognized, realizing that his was untamed, unrefined compared to the apex predator within Yoongi.

He was sitting in front of the vanity in the penthouse suite, chin tilted up, Yoongi's hand fitted around his neck, those pale fingers dotted with gleaming rings. Jungkook stared at his reflection in pristine, high-quality, reflective glass, his long black hair framing his face, arrogant and defiant eyes narrowing, shutting his lips as soon as he noticed they were open, mole below his lower lip trembling.

Not from fear.

Anticipation.

The first few buttons of his black dress shirt were open, revealing the silver chain glinting on his collarbones. Jungkook always felt the need to dress well when he was on Yoongi's stomping grounds. He still was no match for Yoongi's tailored navy pinstriped vest, matching slacks, crisp white shirt, and platinum collar pins.

Orchids.

"Answer me," the older man commanded, soft and stern.

On the vanity was a vase of fresh flowers.

Mauve carnations, not yet open, giving the appearance of green flowers.

The hand around his neck tightened and Jungkook felt it, skin prickling with goosebumps, suddenly so hot even with his sleeves rolled up, black slacks too tight, thighs tensing at the foreign feeling, head in the clouds.

"Y... Yeah, I fucking feel it," Jungkook hissed, surprising himself as he realized he could still speak quite evenly, swallowing a breath, easy, but, shit, it didn't feel easy somehow. He could see what was happening, view the position of Yoongi's fingers around his neck, his thumb below one ear and four fingers on the other side, right under the pulse points, but what Jungkook didn't understand was why shivers were threatening from within, arousal pooling in his core.

He avoided eye contact.

Yoongi let go.

"You're not paying attention."

It took everything in him to keep his breathing steady and heart rate under control. The other man hadn't even touched his windpipe.

He just didn't understand.

"I am."

Yoongi cocked an eyebrow and still Jungkook skirted his gaze.

"I am paying attention... hyung."

"Then turn around and choke me."

Jungkook wasn’t sure if he regretted asking Yoongi to teach him erotic asphyxiation or not.

He turned, raising his hand, looking up from that slim waist, pinned handkerchief with a designer logo, up the mother-of-pearl buttons, past the orchid collar pins, stopping at Yoongi's neck.

"Look at me."

The other man's tone was sharp, hints of underlying meaning. You will respect me.

Jungkook lifted his head and made eye contact with Yoongi.

Pointed, observant, dark brown orbs watched his every move. His tattooed fingers closed in on the sides of that slim neck. Jungkook set his jaw, narrowing his eyes, trying to hide his emotions behind irritation, but it was a fruitless endeavor.

Yoongi's hand shot out and clamped around Jungkook's neck.

He jerked back, trying to escape, but the older man's grip only tightened, making him freeze.

"Watch your palm," Yoongi murmured, voice thin and wispy.

With a start Jungkook realized his palm was inadvertently pressing on the Adam's apple and he raised it away, not letting go yet.

"Power is in your fingers. Palm relaxed. Watch the skin tone. Not too fast and not too long."

As he spoke, Yoongi flexed his hold on Jungkook's neck, displaying the various levels and varying effects. Slightly lower. Slightly higher. Softer, but locking the fingers to display power. Harder, using the back of the hand to push the chin back, wordlessly demanding submission. Jungkook found himself mirroring him, fascinated.

A slow, open-mouthed smirk from those shapely lips.

Yoongi's grip tightened, choking him.

Jungkook's grip loosened, suddenly airless.

"Are you paying attention?"

The other man's voice was so low, so deep, invading his head.

"Y-Yes..."

The world felt hazy, unreal, the shadows leaping out, everything inside him hot, tight, on fire, sinking down, darkness seeping in. Why did it feel like he could see nothing but Yoongi's face hovering over him? Those lashes lowered over cat-like eyes, turning brown to black, an elegant hand catching Jungkook's wrist as it slipped, bringing them closer, eye-to-eye, and Jungkook couldn’t think, lightheaded, on air, hanging by a thread, a soft, low voice murmuring to him, dark, saturated whispers enveloping all his senses, until it was just him and Yoongi's hold on him.

"Do you feel it?"

Staring into those pointed eyes that had him on the edge, that handsome fair-skinned face peering down at him, and, strangely, a moment, something dawning onto him, finally making Jungkook see so very clearly as the blackness threatened his periphery.

The world was more than black and white.

"I... f-feel it... hyung..."

His voice sounded far away.

The hesitation wasn't from restriction.

Yoongi released him.

Blood thundering back, shooting into his vessels, oxygen searing into his brain, rocketing him into forced euphoria, and Jungkook gasped, pitching forward, caught by strong hands and waiting arms, his forehead hitting that expensive designer vest, shuddering all over, nerves singing, pulse roaring in his ears.

"You're okay," the deep voice said above him. "I got you."

The rush.

Fuck.

The rush.

Could he give you this feeling, this high, this rush?

Jungkook didn't know.

He was panting hard, lifting his head, looking into the mirror, his black hair messy, pupils dilated, pink lips trembling. His right brow piercing gleamed silver, his black hair all over his forehead, unruly from the lost control, his body still humming from the thrill.

"One more time," he breathed, glancing up, finding Yoongi's eyes in the mirror.

A dark eyebrow lifted.

Wordless.

The pale hand fitted around his neck once more, long fingers pinpointing the pulse points, and this time Jungkook watched his own reflection until he hit his limit.

-

"You look so good with my mark on you."

You watched Jungkook pull his t-shirt over his head, his silver chain necklaces jingling, falling back down into his muscular, tanned chest with a musical clink. He tossed it aside, leaving him in his jeans, his black hair pushed back from the action, revealing his right eyebrow piercing and his smirk, tattooed arm winding behind your back, sliding you towards him.

Your arms were still tied behind your back with his belt, skirt bunched at your waist, chest exposed, bra half-on. Jungkook tilted his head, lifting his free hand and tracing the bra cup, geometric lotus tattoo visible in his inner left forearm.

"How expensive is this?"

You sensed the unease in his tone despite him trying to mask it with nonchalance. You chuckled. "I thought when I was in your presence, I was yours, Jungkook."

His fingers stilled.

You leaned forward, your body pressing into his right arm, his black tattoos flush against your breasts covered in red marks of his bites.

"Go ahead," you purred.

His dark brown eyes flickered down to you. A fleeting pause. You raised an eyebrow and the side of your lips, challenging him.

"Do what you want to me, Jungkook."

You hooked your left leg around his hip and pulled him closer. His eyes darkened, amusement ghosting over his features, no longer in the plane of uncertainty, carelessly wandering into the wildfire that was burning between you, following your sweet scent. His hand dropped.

You saw him reach into his back pocket and pull out a switchblade.

Black. He snapped it open with one hand. Matte black blade, gleaming in the overheard lights of the tattoo shop.

"You look pretty in your lingerie," he drawled, tone slipping into a lower octave, sliding the blade between the two cups, sharp side facing him. "But it's in the way."

Jungkook flicked his wrist.

The fabric sliced cleanly. You sucked in a breath, feeling the tension of the straps go slack, shivering at the sharpness of the blade, catching his eye.

He smiled at you, gently.

You relaxed.

"Spread your legs."

You obeyed, his heat backing up, pressing your thighs flush to the side of the leather chair, watching Jungkook spin the switchblade handle with his fingers, catching it in his grip with a devilish grin.

Shirtless, tattooed, holding a knife.

You tilted your head, wetness leaking, following his actions, dull pricks of pain radiating from the fresh tattoo, unashamed at the exposed position, patient, locked into those dark brown orbs, causing Jungkook to cease his hand movement, gripping the knife tightly, stepping forward again.

He was holding his breath.

You waited for him.

His left hand lifted and a single fingertip traced the space where your right leg and crotch connected, that dip of flesh barely exposed by your high, French-cut panties, such a light and feathery touch that you whimpered, holding Jungkook with your eyes, your lips parting, leaning forward a little, raising your chest with your inhale. Another step. He was right in front of you now, tips of his black hair falling over his cheekbones, extending the moment.

A little unlike him, and yet...

"You always smell so fucking good," Jungkook growled.

He wasn't talking about your perfume.

His fingers hooked around your panties and you gasped at the graze of his knuckles against your hot, slick skin, turning into a moan as Jungkook yanked upward, twisting the drenched fabric in his hand, digging the bunched-up cloth into your throbbing pussy, instant harsh friction on your clit, your body involuntarily drawing back a little to relieve the sudden tension but Jungkook only pulled harder, arching a dark eyebrow.

"Stop."

You froze, holding the position, balancing on your fingertips to hold up the small of your back, panting.

"Jungkook, p-please..."

He drove your panties into your ass and pussy some more, stretching the lace out, audible rips at his forceful action, sending stings of delicious pain up your spine.

"Fuck it."

You clenched your jaw and wiggled your hips, gasping at the sensation of the collected seams rubbing against your sensitive clit, your own viscous juices adding to the slip, tiptoes of your heels touching the floor, finding a rhythm, hearing your panties rip further, the only sound besides your thin breathing and the leather creaking against your ass.

That and the inevitable lewd noise of your aching pussy being abused by Jungkook grasping the front of your panties and digging them brutally into your ass, pussy, and clit.

You angled your hips down, moaning at the additional pressure on your inflamed bundle of nerves, increasing the pleasure, your pussy lips turning puffy and red, burning under those dark brown orbs watching you, chasing the climax, fully expecting him to end it earlier than expected, and yet you climbed and climbed and climbed, muscles tensing, perhaps, almost, maybe...

The blade flashed in the lights.

Jungkook cut the tension away, tearing a pleading whine from your throat as he casually sliced your panties off your body with two quick cuts and flicked the switchblade closed, shoving it back in his back pocket. He tugged and you lifted your ass, shutting your eyes to push down the tears and the frustration, flinching as he peeled your dirty, ruined panties from your body and threw them to the floor with a wet smack.

Your name fell from his lips, silvery and sultry.

Your eyes opened.

His right hand fitted around your neck.

Your eyes widened, seeing his defined forearm and plethora of tattoos, his sleeve laid out in front of your eyes as he balanced for fingers on the left side of your neck and his thumb on your right, careful not to touch your new tattoo, following the blood vessel, leaving a pocket between his thumb and forefinger for your trachea.

You caught his voracious gaze.

Jungkook smirked.

"I asked hyung to teach me."

His grip tightened and you felt it, thinning circulation, falling into it, his lips suddenly on yours, a heated kiss, his powerful tongue thrusting into your mouth, fucking your lips, claiming them, your moan in his throat. Your back arched, pressing your chest to his chest, your sore nipples tingling, shivers all over, lustfully exhaling in Jungkook's mouth and listening to his satisfied groan, his free hand gripping your thigh, lifting his chest from yours, breaking the kiss, strings of saliva snapping, pushing your chin up with the back of his hand, your body falling back, lightheadedness sinking in, yelping as his mouth attacked your skin – lips, tongue, teeth – down the curve of your breasts, biting, sucking, tweaking and pinching to your abused nipples at the same time, his hot lips surrounding them, sucking hard and flicking the engorged sensitive nubs with that wet, strong muscle, your depraved moans vibrating his hand, your torso rising to get more, filling Golden Closet Tattoo with the scent of sweet, sinful sex and his name in weak gasps of ecstasy.

Jungkook was choking you.

And he knew how to do it right.

You would have to thank Yoongi with your body later.

He lessened the pressure for a second and oxygen came rushing back, sending you reeling, suddenly yelping at the slap between your legs, pain flaring up your core, struggling to see the brief image of your pussy juices covering Jungkook's palm through your hazy vision before he licked it off with a snarling hiss, and then again – smack! – gargling moan dying in your throat as his grip closed in on your neck once more – smack! – hips rising, begging for it, pleading for Jungkook and his power – smack! – leaking between his fingers, each slap of your pussy and inflamed clit getting louder because you were getting wetter, the heavy scent of your arousal soaking into his skin, covering his fingers, palm, wrist.

"Fuck, look at you, so fucking sexy..."

Your eyes dropped down, crying out at each hit, your skirt bunched at your waist, stockings and garter belt still on, bare pussy at Jungkook's mercy, his erection molded to his jeans, sliding down one leg with how hard he was, then shifting up, his face, fuck, strands of black hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, silver eyebrow piercing glistening, brown eyes narrowed and dark with desire, sly smirk on his shapely lips, yanking you towards him by your throat, your legs shaking and struggling to hold yourself up. His lips crashed onto yours, letting go of your neck and grabbing your head, plunging three fingers into your aching, sore pussy, you screaming into his mouth at the burst of oxygen and the sudden fullness of your abused core, your eyes rolling back, feeling so good you nearly blacked out, pain and pleasure stinging your scalp, his fingers tangled in your hair, clutching it tightly, breaking the kiss once more.

"Who is making you feel this good?" he snarled, hot breath in to your face, wildfire uncontrolled, orgasm crashing down and overwhelming you, his fingers still going, no pause, only passion, barely able to make eye contact.

"Y-You, Jungkook...!"

Again, forced to the skyrocketing high, hopelessly lost in it, legs giving out, supported only by Jungkook's fingers ramming into your spasming pussy, again, his hold tightening, say to my name again, scream it, let the world know who you belong to, control deteriorating, over the edge, your spasming walls clamping down onto his fingers and forehead hitting his, nearly sobbing with ecstasy, pouring all that was left into his name, eye to eye, two animals trapped in carnal pleasure.

"Jungkook!"

You came so hard that you almost broke out of his embrace, but he held on, freezing your head in place as you collapsed against his cheek, drained moan and jerking hips, spraying all over his hand and forearm, so much liquid that it slid down your inner thighs and soaked your stockings, getting into his jeans, your sweet scent suddenly painted all over him.

"Fuck..."

Your body seemed numb, eyes closing, falling into it, falling into him.

"You're so fucking hot..."

-

Irresistible.

You weren't good at lip service, except when they were his.

He drew back, lips leaving yours, your tongue still extended, feeling sore and used from how hard he had been toying with it, your back still arched, clutching his rings to your chest, your eyes slowly opening, surfacing from the stupor that Min Yoongi had put you in with his kiss. He tucked the remote into your ring-covered fingers as you lowered back into the bed, looking up at him.

Yoongi cocked a dark eyebrow under black hair, naked, towering, rolling a condom down his thick length, delicate platinum chain bracelets glimmering in his wrists.

He was so very beautiful and handsome at the same time.

He breathed your name like smoke.

Like poison, the sound ate up all your nerves and made you numb with his tone alone.

"Y... Yoongi..."

Something about his voice was doing things to you, just his voice, fuck, what was he doing to you?

"Turn it on."

He shoved his cock into your waiting pussy.

You gasped and pressed the power button on the remote.

"F-Fuck!"

I love the way you hurt me, Yoongi.

Instant, violent, shattering throbs assaulting your lower half from the anal vibrator buried into your ass, Yoongi's unforgiving hardness slamming into your pussy, his hands on your thighs, pushing them to your stomach, fucking you hard and fast, wave after wave of searing pleasure devouring you, clutching his rings and the remote, gasping for air.

"Hold it."

Not a question. A command.

You pressed his rings to your breasts, hard metal against soft flesh, tensing your muscles, teeth sinking into your lower lip, wrapped up in it, the relentless pulsation, Yoongi's cock filling you up and stretching you out, his hips slapping into yours, wet and obscene, the low hiss falling from his teeth at your tightness, layer upon layer, gazes locking, fire in those sharp dark brown orbs, every thrust punishing, powerful, rough.

A little unlike him, and yet...

Yoongi leaned down, hitting you deeper, harder.

You whimpered, trapped between him and the mattress.

"Do you feel it?"

Slap!

"Oooh, fuck, yes, Yoongi..."

He smirked, devious and in control.

"I see you have a new tattoo."

He spoke very calmly, not even out of breath, slowing his pace so he could fuck you harder, brutal thrusts of his cock expanding your walls and increasing the intensity of the vibrations, causing you to struggle to listen, nearly slipping into the forced pleasure that seemed endless and eternal.

"J-Jungkook wanted it on me..."

"Press the up button."

"Yoongi, p-please..."

"I will not repeat myself," Yoongi cut in icily, lifting an eyebrow.

You whined, wanting it, obeying, whine turning into a wail as the speed and pulses amplified, knuckles turning white from tightening your core around the vibrator and his rock-hard cock.

"Again."

This time you didn't protest, pressing the button and throwing your head back into your pillows, squirming under him from the torrential pleasure, tumbling over with edge with orgasmic, fervent groans, thrusting your hips up, fucking him back through your high, hoping he didn't notice.

After all, Yoongi hadn't given or denied permission.

He said nothing.

Instead, his fingers wrapped around your neck.

"Look at me."

Fighting the daze of euphoria, blinking hard, seeing that small smile dancing on Yoongi's dark pink lips, black-brown eyes glimmering under strands of black hair, catching your breath only to be left breathless at his gaze, and then he cut off your circulation.

Something flashed in his eyes.

Elation.

Desire.

And...

Your lips parted and time seemed to stop.

"I... need you..." you choked out.

Yoongi leaned down, left hand pressing your right leg into your torso, closing the space between you and him, still buried completely inside you.

"I know you do."

His voice seeping into you, sultry, low, raw, rasp ringing in your head, starting the pace again, building it, step by step, the vibrations an afterthought of throbbing pleasure, clearly loud and rough from the sound and pressure, but that wasn't what you were feeling, the pain shimmering to a different level of stimulation, all the thoughts emptying out, lost only in Yoongi's hands and cock and body, eyes closing and rolling back, hips rising, chasing it, chasing him, hitting the tumultuous peak, thin drawn-out moan escaping from your throat, oxygen thundering back, hitting the up button by accident, howl of ecstasy cut short by Yoongi's strong fingers again, pleasure pounding into you relentlessly, endlessly, perfectly, unable to speak or think or breathe, such intense orgasms that your cum was dripping down both your inner thighs, thick and sweet and hot, both holes pushed to the brink, filled to the brim, clutching Yoongi's rings, his beautiful possessions in your hands, riches and jewels, but the true invaluable was in his hand.

Yoongi moaned your name.

You opened your eyes, fighting the lightheadedness, locking your gaze with his, his lips moving.

"I need you."

Your lips parted.

I know you do.

The crescendo.

Yoongi suddenly let go of your throat and planted his hand on the bed, sending you into a spiral of rushing blood, clawing for breath, thrown to the apex, flashes of light in your vision as your orgasm barreled into you, shooting up from your core and right past your racing heart into your brain, flooding out every thought until there was nothing but pure, raw, primal pleasure, clenching and pulsating around Yoongi's jerking cock, his fingernails digging into your thigh with his sensual hiss of release, thick spurts of cum filling the condom, thoroughly massaging his twitching length, forcing everything out.

Erotic bliss.

You almost didn't even register Yoongi prying the remote from your hand, turning the vibrator off and tossing it aside, barely even felt his hands slide under your head, messing up your hair, lips to your forehead, ghost of his words on your skin.

"I need you."

His tone was not guiding you to a headspace.

His tone was honest and it was for you.

You couldn't speak.

You turned your head, dull ache flaring from your neck from being choked, finding Yoongi's lips, pressing yours to his, your ring-covered hands spreading out shakily, fingertips to his chest, cradling his thundering heartbeat.

-

The tattoo shop reeked of sex.

Your briefcase was open, a spare pen and your phone pulled out, ripped condom wrapper beside it.

A black leather belt was on the ground, discarded along with your ripped panties and the pieces of your bra. A half-dozen bobby pins were scattered onto the ground. The hardwood was still slick with your juices.

Lust painted on the floor.

Jungkook’s hand was in your hair, forcing your head straight, not letting you move it as he shoved his entire length into you with one swift stroke, pinning you against the wall. Your arms were around his torso, clawing into his back. His jeans were still half-on and your skirt was still around your waist, your blouse hanging off your elbows. Still wearing your stockings and heels because Jungkook didn’t let you take any of it off, I want to see it, want to see you ruined by me, glittering crystal hairpin still holding back the right side of your hair, keeping spare strands away from his newest mark on you, focused on meeting his hips with yours, skin-to-skin, smacking ‘GOOD LUCK’ into his crotch.

“Jungkook, fuck, fuck…”

He was so strong that every thrust nearly lifted you off your heels, hooking one leg around his waist, your scent all over him, coated with it, skin, clothes, body, reflecting in his dark, dark eyes, pupils blown out, brows furrowed and jaw clenched, one hand gripping your ass and the other your hair, driving his hardness into you, black hair all over his face, sweet dripping down his high cheekbones, cocking an eyebrow and smirking as he noticed your stare, leaning in, pink tongue extending.

He licked your cheek.

Hot, wet, dripping saliva.

You whined, trying to turn your head, seeking his lips, but his fingers denied you, pulling on your hair.

“Who owns you?” Jungkook drawled, dark and dangerous.

He was an animal chasing your scent, and you were the hunted.

“You, Jungkook,” was your automatic, breathless gasp. “You own me.”

You let the smile dance on your lips, his saliva dripping down your chin, your nails dragging down his back, his smirk following your smile, rolling his hips up, your ass smacking into the wall, visceral and unstoppable now, locked into the vicious rhythm, hot breath mixing between your heated bodies, the entire space filled from floor to ceiling with moans, pants, grunts, echoes of fervent lust and vehement desire.

“Say my name again.”

“J-Jungkook!”

Harder, faster, rougher, trapped in his embrace, fuck, he was so strong, hard muscle to your softness, fucking you against the wall, pain radiating from your shoulder blades and up your one leg supporting you, ecstasy ricocheting up your core, veins blazing with adrenaline and endorphins, pushing you to the aching high, moaning his name again, and again, and again, wanting it, craving it, starved for it, more, more, more.

I love the way you hurt me, Jungkook.

“You always smell so fucking good…”

On the edge, shudders all over, vision hazy and unfocused, ears ringing with his silvery, deep voice saturated with animalistic pleasure.

“I need you.”

Your eyes shifted to him, jerking slightly for the ferocity of each thrust, seeing his eyes fixated on your face, not looking away, only focused on you and your body unraveling under him, tits bouncing, hips trembling, witnessing your addiction to his touch and his fire, completely consumed by his pace.

You viewed him under your lashes, hoarse whisper with an open-mouthed smirk.

“I know you do.”

Your smirk widened as the irritation flared in Jungkook’s brown orbs at your words, his hand leaving your ass and delivering a harsh spank that resonated in the room, tearing the breath from your lungs, airless scream and clutching his back, dragging yourself closer so he could fuck you and punish you, moaning with each loud smack, shivering exhale against his skin, getting wetter with every hit.

“Fuck, yes, Jungkook, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me…!”

“Don’t move your head and ruin my work.”

It was not a request.

You would never no matter how fucked-out you were.

“Yes, Jungkook,” you gasped obediently.

His eyes found yours and he saw you meant it with every fiber of your being.

“Good girl.”

His hand left your head.

Your eyes widened, sudden electricity eating you from the inside.

Jungkook gripped both of your hips and fucked you so hard that your hands flew off his back and braced yourself against the wall, his fingernails digging into your ass and leaving crescents of lust, length and girth stretching you out, abused clit rubbing against the base, hitting you deep and rough and fast, using you to chase his high, your pussy involuntarily clenching and wrapping around him, locking every muscle in your neck to prevent it from moving, forced to stare into his wild eyes and satisfied grin, enamored by your breathless whimper of his name.

“Jungkook, you’re… so… fucking… good… to me…”

Willingly helpless to his whims.

He clenched his jaw, hissing your name.

“Cum for me.”

He slammed you down onto his cock and you came immediately, splattering all over his crotch, pussy convulsing around his jolting cock, feeling him spill into the condom with harsh twitches, rutting his hips into you and groaning, clawing your ass and marking your skin, adding temporary tattoos in the form of his bruises and scratches, your arms around him, pressing your chest to his, cheek to cheek, his lips against your right temple, pulse roaring in your ears.

Dripping sweat, Jungkook’s large hands sliding up your waist, gripping handfuls of your silk blouse.

“I need you.”

You couldn’t speak.

Your legs threatened to give out, whole body trembling uncontrollably, turning your head and finding his lips, kissing him deeply, splaying your fingers out on his back, your chest flush to his skin, holding his heartbeat to yours.

-

Your name being called.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, sorry. Just fixing my sleeves. I’m sorry for troubling you.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s no trouble. You’re doing well, as you always do.”

“Ah… Thank you.”

Your co-worker smiled at you and you smiled back, stepping away from the sink.

“Think you’re going to win employee of the month again, by the way. Boss didn’t shut up about your efficiency for ten minutes to the client…”

You frowned. “We both know that award is fraudulent.”

“Pfft, yeah, it’s literally made just to have your face on the wall because everyone else here is ugly as fuck, me included.”

You winced. “Don’t say that…”

“Let’s be honest here. Who actually spends time to look nice at work every day? Hah? That’s right, you. High heels and pencil skirts and nice blouses? Ugh, sounds like torture… no, no, you can have the award…”

Torture?

You chuckled.

They didn’t know the half of it.

“It’s only a small torture.”

“Are you kidding me? Look at those stilettos, naaah, I’m not doing that…”

-

Torture was relative. What was the saying again?

One person’s torture was another person’s comfort.

Heh, something like that.

You couldn’t breathe.

“Y… Yoongi… Don’t… tease…”

You heard him suck in a breath above you. Pressure. Your face in your silk sheets. Clutching all his rings in your hands, attached to them now. You suspected he wore more than usual when he came to visit you. For himself. For you. Your mind was heavy and hot, thoughts fuzzy and uncoordinated. The world was slow, sluggish, and you let it be, lost in another’s touch, in fingertips that danced over your skin. You were on your knees, ass in the air. He was straddling your back, semi-hard cock on your spine, practically sitting on you and preventing you from raising your head, nails digging into your ass and scratching harshly.

Tongue.

You gasped hotly, eyes closed, unable to see anything anyway.

Drawing warm, wet patterns, exhale on your skin, making you squirm and shiver.

Yoongi didn’t say anything.

He raked his fingernails over your ass, letting it bounce back into place with every harsh squeeze, every movement getting closer. Closer. You were running out of air, but you didn’t care. He was delicate but purposeful, a measured composition, notes following after each other, one by one – the lack of mobility, the relieving helplessness, the sensations of his skillful tongue, the pricks of pain at his punishing fingertips, the festering anticipation of what was to come, his heated breath.

He pulled all the strings taut and played you like his instrument.

Your name drifted from his lips, raspy and smoke-like.

Nothing else in your head but Min Yoongi and what he was doing to you.

“Good luck.”

You whined as he gripped the base of the vibrator and slowly pulled it from your ass, sluggish emptiness and wetness, lube dripping out, your muscles shivering at the loss.

“Y-Yoongi, please…”

It came out with a lewd, slick pop.

“Please what?” he murmured, tracing the rim your gaping asshole with the tip of the vibrator. “Tell me what you want.”

A soft, faint pressure that wasn’t enough, fuck, it wasn’t enough, your chest heaving into the mattress, needing oxygen, shifting your head and whining as the slick tip dipped into your tight hole and back out, toying with your ass, drawing leisurely circles again, gentle but too gentle, pleasurable but not pleasurable enough.

You needed it, the harshness.

“Please… need your cock in there…”

“Hm? Is that so? You need a cock in this pretty, tight little ass of yours?” Yoongi teased, using his other hand to spread you out more, your muscles constricting around nothing, wet and open and raw and waiting, waiting for whatever was coming next, trusting him and his ability to conduct the symphony of the scene, lightheaded and breathless.

Suddenly, heavy weight on the bed.

You stopped breathing.

The sound of a button being undone, a zipper lowering.

Yoongi pressed your shoulder blades down with his hips, pinning you to the sheets.

A rip of a foil packet.

“I knew you would come,” Yoongi chuckled.

A new pair of hands on your ass and you screamed into the sheets as Jeon Jungkook’s cock buried itself into your waiting ass.

“Fuck, so tight…” Jungkook hissed behind you.

The pressure was relieved and you threw you head up, gasping for air, Yoongi swiftly leaving the bed, but you had no time or ability to speak, reduced to pathetic whines as you looked back, half-slicked back black hair, eyebrow piercing glimmering in the lights, raised eyebrow and devilish smile, wearing a black leather jacket and loose white shirt, smacking his hips into your ass, his black jeans half-pushed down his thighs and chafing your thighs, viciously taking you from behind while still mostly dressed.

You viewed him from your periphery, open-mouthed smirk on your lips.

“Miss me?”

Something flashed in those dark chocolate eyes of his.

Jungkook ticked his head and cocked his chin.

“Can’t let hyung have all the fun,” he growled.

Then he thrust into you, hard, violently shooting pleasure up your spine, your elbows shaking, clawing at the sheets and throwing your head back in a moan, hair cascading down your back as he gripped your waist and rammed your ass down onto his rock-hard cock, pain and pleasure immense, blending into one and the same, pussy empty and ass full of cock, at Jungkook’s mercy and addicted to it, to him.

A firm hand gripped your shoulder and pulled you up, your body going limp, small of your back pressed down so Jungkook could fuck you deeper, harder, vision unfocused as Yoongi gripped your chin and kissed you roughly, forcing you to hold onto him, whimpers at your throat, pinching your nipples that led to tugs of pain with every aggressive slap of Jungkook’s crotch to your ass.

He broke away, strings of saliva snapping between your bodies.

“Y-Yoongi – mmphf!”

Those dark, cat-like eyes narrowed, thrusting three fingers in your mouth in time with Jungkook’s cock.

-

So tight.

Fuck, it was so tight and so soft, sucking in his cock just right, not quite as slick or constricting as your pussy, but there was something extra erotic and dirty about fucking your ass and watching it bounce on his hardness, his hands on your hips, his fingernails digging in that malleable flesh, far too warm in his clothes but the entire scene was still so hot, staring at your shapely back and part of your ribcage tattoo in his vision, words that he wrote on you, quiet here, but nothing quiet about the way you were wailing his name, your elbows locked and belly dipped low to take him as deep as possible, his balls smacking your soaking wet pussy.

“J-Jungkook, oh, fuuuck…!”

He looked up to see his hyung slapping your tits roughly, switching between hits to tweak your nipples and make you cry out for them, Yoongi, p-please, the black-haired man giving your panting face an indifferent expression. Jungkook leaned forward, putting more of his weight behind each thrust.

“Aren’t you grateful to have a dick in your ass, hm?” Yoongi chided.

“Yes, oh, fuck, yes, Jungkook, you’re s-so good, so good to me…!”

He growled, feeling you tighten around him, still so soft, but with the added pulse of your orgasm, covering his balls with your juices, slick and sticky and sweet, blackberries, the sea, sex, smelling so fucking good that Jungkook was losing his mind, listening to the spanking of your tits from Yoongi’s hand that was covered in your saliva, your sinful, carnal moans filling his ears, gripping your perfect hips and fucking your ass, harder, faster, rougher, your cum splattered onto his balls, thighs, pants, so good, so good, reaching up, his tattooed fingers curling in your hair and yanking your head back, sharp whimper torn from your throat, open mouth and eyes glazed over.

Your hair fell back, away from your right ear, exposing his exclamation point.

So beautiful.

Fuck.

Jungkook had left drinks with his employees early for this and didn’t regret a single second.

Yoongi shoved his fingers in your lips again, four and all at once, punishingly jamming them into your throat, and you gagged a little, saliva leaking out of your swollen lips and dripping down your chin.

That was it.

“Fuck!”

Jungkook snarled and slammed his cock into your tight heat, gasping hotly as your ass clamped around his entire jerking length, shooting his release into the condom, rutting his hips into you to feel more, that punishing grip on his cock squeezing everything out, his fingers unlatching from your hair and dragging down your back, leaving red lines of pain.

He needed this.

He needed this more than anything in the world.

Your body.

You.

Jungkook’s chest shuddered, jaw clenching, lifting his head, black strands over his eyes. He found Yoongi observing him, open-mouthed smirk dancing on his swollen, mauve lips.

Even him.

Even Min Yoongi.

-

“Shh…”

He loved the feeling of your hands on his forearms, his rings on your fingers pressing into his skin, your back trembling against his chest, nearing the end, coming down so you needed it slow, deep, his arms around you, fucking your ass almost leisurely.

“Ah, Yoongi…”

He collected your hair to one side and pressed his lips to your neck, travelling up, not speaking.

Yoongi didn’t trust himself to speak right now.

He felt weight back on the bed and spied Jungkook’s hand rising, gripping your chin, messy kisses that made you moan and buck in his arms, whining as that tattooed arm pressed against your stomach and strong fingers smacked your dripping pussy, hard and fast, listening to your cry out into Jungkook’s smirking mouth.

“Feels good when hyung fucks you right after me, doesn’t it?”

Yoongi gritted his teeth as he felt those fingers squelch into your pussy, scissoring and stretching your walls, your other hole clenching around his cock, pulsating from pleasure. Your head tipped back, landing on his shoulder, gasps radiating through you and into him, bouncing on cock and fingers, hips rocking and shuddering, Jungkook’s hand cradling your chin.

Yoongi made eye contact with him, the younger, reckless one.

Jungkook cocked an eyebrow and grinned.

He felt he should be irritated at the interference but, somehow, he wasn’t.

“I’m staying the weekend.”

Yoongi spoke it without inflection, directly to Jungkook, forcefully thrusting into your ass at the same time. He watched the other man purse his lips, narrowing his eyes slightly, looking over to Yoongi’s hands possessively over your breasts, sinking his fingers into the softness, savoring the way your ass wrapped around his cock and the way your hips rolled back into his crotch to increase the depth of his thrust, all the while with your pussy roughly stuffed with three of Jungkook’s fingers, moaning with your mouth open before closing around the finger that Jungkook slipped onto your tongue, messy sucking noises adding to the obscene, wet sucking noise of your ass drawing him back in.

“So am I.”

Yoongi tilted his head. “Oh? Not busy?”

Jungkook’s eyes flickered upward. He leaned in, but not toward you.

Towards him.

“Not anymore,” Jungkook drawled.

Roguish little devil was learning.

Yoongi sucked in a breath and set his jaw.

Jungkook turned away, pulling his finger out of your mouth and kissed you again, long, sensual, hand on your chin.

One eye on Yoongi.

Oh?

How fun.

Yoongi leaned forward, feeling his lips curving upward, rising to the challenge, looking into that dark brown orb, seeing those lashes lower, sensing the sudden unease. Yoongi continued thrusting into you and maintaining eye contact, not looking away, his heavy exhale on your shoulder and Jungkook’s cheek, basking in the discomfort that he was causing. The scent of your skin between them, blackberries, the ocean, your orgasm, saturating the moment, imprinting it to their memories.

Jungkook had pretty eyes.

Yoongi had thought this before, when he was choking him.

“That’s good,” he purred.

And Yoongi’s tongue extended, licking your cheek.

Jungkook’s eye widened, inhaling sharply, taking your breath away.

Yoongi let go, tipping his head back and moaning deeply, satisfyingly as he came, a wave that washed through him and into his twitching cock, thick spurts and delicious twitches paired with your walls pulsing around his length, soft but so, so tight. Your thin gasp seeped into Jungkook’s lips, one hand falling from Yoongi’s arm to grab Jungkook’s forearm, squeezing it and stopping his movements as you came, messy and dripping, wet and warm sliding down your thighs.

Your body collapsed between theirs, braced by their embrace.

“Yoongi… Jungkook…”

Voice weak, shaking, euphoric.

-

“I need you.”

Something left unsaid in those words, and yet they knew what you meant.

You were asleep, spent, right arm tangled in Jungkook’s left, a pair of geometric lotuses between two animals, left arm tangled in Yoongi’s right, a circle with a four-sided starburst entwined between two purveyors of passion. They were both asleep, all of you on your large bed, tangled in silk sheets, the scent of sex heavy in the air.

On your nightstand was a jade dish, crowded with Yoongi’s expensive rings. Clothes everywhere, strewn all over the floor, Jungkook’s leather jacket thrown on the back of your vanity chair.

Their marks all over your home.

On your skin.

Semicolon under your left ear, belonging to Min Yoongi.

Exclamation mark under your right ear, belonging to Jeon Jungkook.

Permanent now.

-

2021.09.01 - JK birthday drabble, m

the right words to say, quotation mark "

--

masterpost

[bibblelevi]

Hello friends have this sneak peak of chapter nine of silver soul because this chapter is likely going to be very long and I wanna give you all a little taste.



“Don’t even breathe,” he murmurs, feeling your breath ghost his nose. There’s a disciplinary flash in his eyes, and you want nothing more than to challenge him so he will put you in your place.

“Want me to die, then?”

He clenches his jaw. “Don’t even joke about that.”

Knowing he would rather not ponder on morality at such a time, instead you ask: “Where did you learn to do eyeliner, anyway? Past lovers?”

“I’m sure you would love to know all about my past lovers.”

Your face heats like a pile of coals lit aflame. “Maybe.”

Levi’s wrist pauses for a minute, and his pupil expands as his gaze flickers to meet yours. He stiffens, holding his breath before letting his shoulders slump. “You are the only one,” he admits with a quiet breath.

He may as well have tossed you unwittingly into a river of molten lava. The painful twisting of your heart prompts your stomach to churn, and suddenly you are far too aware of who you are and where you are and how Levi is looking at you right now.

You open your mouth, ready to gawk at him outwardly, before sealing your lips shut and locking away what would have been an utterly humiliating stream of thought.

Instead, you level the playing field. You reward his candor with your own. “You’re the only one for me, too.”

You mean it in more ways than one, but he doesn’t ruminate much, or make a move to dissect any hidden meanings.

His wrist remains still, and he moves his face a little further away. “You mean…?”

A sheepish laugh comes out of your mouth in the form of a breath. “Yeah. Thanks for some memorable firsts.”

“Should we buy a bottle of wine to celebrate? Only took us forty years to get here.”

Now, you throw your head back and cackle obnoxiously. Levi’s fingers still cup your jaw. He smirks at you. Barely, but he smirks. Even he can’t hide how much he enjoys this conversation.

“It’s not like we ever had any time to relax and indulge,” he adds, waiting for you to calm before starting on your left eye.

“That is true. But, it does hurt to know what I was missing out on all those years.”

More honesty, Levi realizes. He wonders what you mean—that you were missing out on him all those years, or missing out on sex? Insecurity tugs at his heart. He doesn’t want to imagine you with anyone other than him. The thought alone sparks something fiery. Something bordering on dangerous.

He doesn’t even want to think about how unfair it is for him to feel like this. He hasn’t “claimed” you, so you aren’t his to mark, but at the same time, you had operated beneath him and worked as his diligent little knight for decades, and the thought of reducing you back to something—or someone—he has power over, rouses something sorrowful and nauseating in his gut.

Maybe, this time around, he is hoping for you to claim him. That is, if you will have him.

“We had jobs to do,” he finally answers. “Now that it’s over, we’re free to do as we please.”

“Oh, come on. You really think that? All you ever do is hold back, Levi.” He blinks at you, unsure of what to say, but he doesn’t try to argue, either. You presume that you said something right then.

Of course he holds back. It’s hard not to when he’s so blatantly aware of how delicate this entanglement between the two of you is.

He remembers that distant but painstaking feeling, like being skinned alive and torn from his very bones, that time you nearly bled out on the airship. It was his desperation and blind thinking that resulted in you swept up in his arms, half-dead and muttering something he couldn’t comprehend.

One hand cannot count the amount of times you have been ripped away from him, and each time has left him floundering more than the last.

Anymore, and he would break wholly.

Even he can handle only so much hurt before it’s too much. And he’s right fucking there. Right on the ledge, taunting the inevitable by balancing on one foot. He never goes down without a fight.

So yes, this is fucking delicate. Perhaps he is a little more delicate than he would ever care to admit, too.

[thornfield13713]

Sparrington, multiples of 12 (+ 47 since it doesn't reach 48)

...okay, full disclosure, I have been out of this fandom for about a decade at this point, so...this may end up a bit weird because it has been a very, very long time since I've seen the relevant material.

Favourite non-sexual activity?

Honestly, this is a tricky one, because I see this as a relationship of quick trysts and then parting ways before morning for much of its duration, which makes it very difficult for them to figure out what their favourite things to do together that aren't sexual are. Very much a case of fucking first and loving later.

That said, I sort of lean towards them enjoying the way they bicker most of all. Jack seems to be more inclined towards guns than swords, so while I think they would enjoy sparring together, I feel like the sparring is going to end up more often verbal than anything just because fencing, for Jack, more often appears as a necessity than a pleasure, though he is still quite good at it. That, and James would probably win most of the time, since most practice sparring is done in environments that don't favour Jack's way of using the terrain to his advantage to make up for inequalities of skill.

That said, I've always liked the idea of Jack-as-cartographer, which appears in the original script for Curse of the Black Pearl and is mentioned in the novelisation of same. It might be very neat if he's kept in practice, even if some of his maps are...more than a little fanciful, to say the least. And if their favourite joint activity was something like that. Honestly, I could see these two doing two separate things in the same room and being fine with it...right up until Jack decides he wants attention and is going to be a pest about it, anyway.

Who remembers things?

That would depend on the things being remembered. Both of them remember grudges quite well, no matter how petty, which means that fights between them have a tendency to get nasty just as soon as they get past the 'playful bickering' stage, just because there are so many old grievances that they are both willing to use to score points off one another.

Anything to do with the maintenance of the Pearl, Jack remembers with an exactitude that borders on the monomaniacal. Her crew...he is perhaps rather less solicitous of. It's got him into trouble before, because a mutiny does not generally come out of nowhere. James is better about remembering that part of ship maintenance, and in any hypothetical post-trilogy AU where he sticks around on the Pearl, this probably makes him quite an invaluable person to have around.

Anniversaries and such are...variable, in large part because any relationship between them likely started in somewhat fraught conditions and in a way that makes it difficult to pin down a solid start date. They probably each hold a collection of dates that mean a lot to them, which may or may not line up with one another's.

Typical date night? Out or at home?

This changes, over time. Assuming a relationship starting while James is still commodore, in the beginning, they have brief assignations...usually at anonymous inns in various ports, once or twice, daringly, in James' own lodgings in Port Royal, usually because Jack climbed in the window (that classic of 2000s-2010s-era Sparrington fic). These are usually hurried things, primarily sexual but with conversation afterwards, usually while still in bed, before one or other of them gets themselves together enough to up and leave.

This changes, after James joins the crew of the Pearl and he and Jack actually get to the point of having a domestic life, when date night-type things shift to shore leave, when they're at port. In which case...it's usually a tavern, a few drinks (or more than a few, Jack being Jack and James...also having some issues with alcohol, though more usually when depressed than when happy), and sometimes a rented room if they feel like a bit more privacy than the Pearl's captain's cabin can allow.

How do they make up after a fight?

This is another thing that changes between the two phases of their relationship.

During the Port Royal days, they...didn't, really. If they argued during an assignation or clashed as pirate and commodore, they just wouldn't talk about it and then however many weeks or months later Jack would come slinking back through James's window or they'd arrange another assignation and continue just not talking about it.

And then James lost his commission, the plot of film two happened, the plot of film three possibly also happened, James miraculously survived, and suddenly they were having to be around each other all the time and just...not talking about it and slinking back into each other's lives once they'd cooled down just wasn't an option.

James...seems to be a 'talk it out straightforwardly' type, based on that one deleted scene of him talking frankly with Elizabeth about the fact that he knows he was, at best, her second choice. Jack...very much is not. This is going to cause issues. I suspect this is probably going to be the biggest stumbling block in their relationship - whether they can find a way to work through their (many, serious) differences of opinion and worldview.

I suspect that, eventually, they settle into a pattern of 'have a blazing row about it, sulk for a few days, reapproach the subject once they've both calmed down and had time to consider one another's points'. James is usually more direct in bringing the subject of the row up again, Jack weaves words around it, coming at things sideways, and they both end up talking past each other quite a lot, so it often takes a few cuts at an argument to reach an equitable solution.

[mauvecherie-writes]

Dirty Thirty [Florian Munteanu]

Summary: For Florian’s birthday, you fly out to Sydney to be with him for the celebration of a lifetime.

Warning: NSFW*** BDSM themes. Sex Toys, Anal Play (Fingering and Pegging).

Word count: 3+K

Note: Things are about to get heavy with this one so please if you’re uncomfortable with what will be depicted, NO NOT READ! FIRST AND ONLY WARNING. Uploaded on mobile. Will edit later

A small chuckle left her lips as she thought back to the faces of the security at the border control when she arrived in Australia. Having a suitcase full of adult contraptions would bring a blush to anyone’s face. They looked back at her and silently closed the case and allowed her to eventually leave.

The first stop from the airport was the rented apartment Florian was staying at. She was very thankful to have been friends with the production assistant Sammy, who had the pleasure of driving her around and keeping her company until the cast were able to take a break from filming in about an hour.

“Are you sure that you’re not needed back on set? I can honestly just order an Uber.” YN said as she continued to do her hair. After they had arrived at the apartment, YN took a shower and then changed from her tracksuit into a colourful printed strapless corset top and black high waisted pants that had slits at the bottom by her ankles. YN tied the straps of her heels around the bottom of her trousers.

“Oh it’s fine girl. There’s like five other production assistants and I had let them know that I wouldn’t be there for a couple of hours.” Sammy replied as she surfed through her phone as she waited for YN to finish getting ready. Her hair that was usually in an afro had been silk pressed and then an installation of a long braided ponytail that she could interchange with other hair pieces that were neatly packed in her suitcase.

“So how has shooting been with all the restrictions in place?” YN asked as she packed her small purse and then grabbed a black surgical mask as she stood up, indicating that she was done.

“Honestly, I prefer it this way. The number of unnecessary people around the set has been cut down tremendously. My job is still pretty hectic but now I don’t have entitled set workers demanding me around when I’m specifically for the cast, director and the link to the production company.”

“That’s good. Are people allowed visitors because I feel like I’m breaking rules here.” YN said as they settled back into the car.

“If you had come around May, June time then it would have been a problem but as cases have dropped, a lot of the restrictions have been lifted so it’s not a problem.”

“Oh that’s good then.” The two women continued to engage in conversation as they drove to the location of the set. It was mostly about Sammy sharing the stories of the crazy and bizarre demands of the cast. In particular, Florian had an affinity for the weirdest american chocolate and sweets which Sammy most of the time had to order from online as most australian stores do not sell what he likes.

“And the man can eat! I was so shocked when I had to deliver his lunch for the first time.” Sammy exclaimed.

“Oh yeah! Dude can eat for a whole football team.” YN replied.

“I don’t know how you deal with that everyday.”

“Most of the time, I cook a feast because I know he’ll eventually get hungry and because of my work, I’m not at home most of the time that he’s there and I’d rather he eat what I’ve cooked and not order a takeaway.”

“You’ll be disappointed to know that I don’t think he’s had a home meal since we got here.”

YN laughed in response. “Somehow, I don’t doubt that.”

Their conversation continued to flow as they continued their journey to the area that they were filming. YN was a little skeptical about her presence on set but Sammy let her know that she had been put down on the authorised visitors list, they just didn’t tell Florian.

YN was there as a surprise visit for Florian’s birthday. With his core friendship group all busy, trying to get their business back up and his parents still being at high risk, she did not want him spending his birthday alone. YN began making the arrangements for a birthday trip to him. As her own boss, she made sure to delegate power and responsibilities to her employees so that they knew what to do for the two weeks that she will be gone.

She had a plan and Sammy helped her execute some of it and she was grateful for that. Right now, she was only going to the set location because there wasn’t any

way she was going to wait until he was finished working to see him when they were in the same place. YN had not seen Florian for over three months, she desperately missed him.

As the car pulled into the parking lot, she could feel her eagerness take over but she was going to be patient and wait until she saw him.

As the day drew to a close, the cast and crew had finished with most of the shooting and they were now sitting outside the director’s trailer having a conversation about their days which dove into the crazy stunts the actors have done in the past. Simu was deep into explaining a stunt move that dislocated his shoulder when he stopped talking when he saw Sammy approaching with a beautiful woman behind him.

“Who is that?” When he asked the question, everyone around him turned to face the direction in which he was looking. Florian instantly smiled and pushed his large body up from his chair.

“Baby!” he exclaimed as he walked towards her which left everyone behind him questioning what he said. YN moved past Sammy and ran as fast as her heels could carry her into his arms. She moved her mask and immediately captured his lips and moaned into his mouth when their lips finally met. YN could feel her heart swell tremendously in her chest as their lips moved against each other. His arms tightened around her as he swayed their bodies.

“I missed you so fucking much.” he mumbled against her lips as he placed her back down onto her feet steadily. YN placed her hands onto his cheeks and caressed his beard underneath her fingers.

“I missed you too baby.”

“I can’t believe that you’re here. Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming.”

“Surprise!”

“Ugh.” He engulfed her back into his arms and dropped his head into the crook of her neck. “You don’t understand how happy I am to see you.”

“I wasn’t going to let you enter the next decade by yourself.” She whispered into his ear. When they pulled apart, he took her hand into his and ushered her towards the group of people.

“Guys, this is my girlfriend YN. Babe, this is the crew that had been keeping me company for the past couple of months.” They all eagerly stumbled over their feet to greet her as they were bewildered by her beauty and the fact that Florian had a girlfriend. He kept his personal life very private and never shared anything more than just he was extremely close with his family and had a close knit circle of friends, he always kept contact with. Not once did he mention that he had a girlfriend and seeing her in the flesh, they understood why.

.

They hung around the set for a little longer before they made it back to his trailer and YN lounged on his couch, scrolling through social media as she waited for Florian to finish getting ready for dinner. She caught the scent of his cologne and she sat up straight and took in his appearance. He was dressed in a bright red t-shirt, black ripped fitted jeans with black and white Jordan’s with red laces. Around his neck was his single gold Cuban link chain. Such a simple look that had YN’s thighs clenching.

She got up from her seat and approached him. Her fingers played with his chain as he looked down at her.

“You’re going to make me forget about the plans I had in mind for us tonight.” She whispered as her hands moved his groomed beard and played with it.

“Hmm.” Florian hummed as he bit into his bottom lip. “What did you have in mind?”

“Don’t worry about that baby boy. Mama’s got everything covered.”

“Now I’m intrigued.”

YN kept the smirk on her face as they finally left the set and travelled to the restaurant that Sammy had picked out for them to have dinner. As they sat for dinner, YN kept close to him. She sat beside him, instead of opposite him. One hand was on his lap as they ate their food and she did not go long without kissing his lips. YN was being needy and she did not care how it looked to the outside world and Florian himself did not seem to mind it either. He was being showered by her attention and he greatly welcomed it.

By the time, they got to dessert, YN was ready to go. When the waitress came back to the table to clear their main entree plates, YN turned to her.

“Can we get the chocolate cake in a to go box please?” She asked.

“Sure. Should I bring the bill?”

“Yes please.” When the waitress left, Florian turned to face her.

“I can see the gears in your head turning. What do you have planned?” He asked which caused YN to smile.

“Don't worry about it.”

.

.

And he tried not to and that was until they got back to his apartment. She blindfolded him and took the time to strip him out of his clothes. She got onto her knees in front of him and slowly pulled the fabric down his legs and let him step out of them. Her teeth grazed the flesh of his thighs as she got back to her feet. She placed a soft kiss onto the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you for trusting to take control tonight.” She mumbled softly as she led him to the bed and laid him down.

“Of course.” Florian mumbled his response as he softly gulped as YN took each of his limbs and tied him to the bed. Once he was secure, she tugged on them to make sure that he won’t be able to escape so easily.

“Can you move around?” She asked him.

He tried to sit up but was restricted securely to the mattress.

“No.”

“Hmm.” YN smirked as she moved away from the bed and left Florian alone in silence with only his loud thoughts to keep him company. Anticipation prickled at his skin as he thought about what YN was going to do to him. He was the more dominating figure in the relationship but there were times where Florian relinquished that control to YN and she would take the bull by the horns.

Whenever they explored the trading of places in the bedroom, YN was wild and it exhilarated him. He never needed to say it but whenever she took control, he always came the hardest. She catered to his needs in the best possible way and pushed his boundaries.

He felt her presence back inside of the room by the floral scent of her perfume. The bed dipped as she got onto the bed and straddled his lap to take off the blindfold. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lights of the room, YN stood up straight to let him take in the outfit that she wore for him.

“Fuck, baby.” He groaned as he felt his hardness press into the fabric of his boxers. The leather caged the most intimate parts of her along with the sleeve covering her arms. Leather belts with metal rings wrapped around her thighs and torso like a garter belt and then came up her chest into a choker.

YN smiled as she bit onto her bottom lip as she bent her knees and brought her body down until she was hovering above his cock. She could feel just how hard he was and it made her moan softly.

“Do you like it?” She asked and he nodded his head, unable to speak. His mouth salivated at the sight of her just rendering him speechless. YN pressed her hand into his neck and pushed his head backwards as she dragged her nails down his chest. He hissed as he jerked softly underneath her. She repeated the action again and then pinched his nipples.

“Oh fuck!” He groaned as the acute pain of the pinching of his sensitive nipples sent small jolts of electricity straight to his cock. YN giggled at his reaction and moved her hands away.

“I’m going to have fun playing with you tonight.” YN got off him again and moved to one of her suitcases and opened it. Florian could not see exactly what she was grabbing but he could make out that they were toys. She came back to the bed and dropped everything that she needed. She grabbed a pair of scissors and cut his boxers from her body and another giggle left her lips as Florian reacted to the way she roughly pulled the tarted garments away from his body.

She hungrily licked her lips as she watched his thickness bounce back and hit his abdomen. His tip was weeping with pre-cum and it was a shade of angry red. YN bent forward and held onto his base and brought his tip to her mouth. Her tongue darted out and licked the pre-cum that had seeped out. His hips jerked upwards in response and let out a breathy moan.

“Is this for me baby.”

“Yes.” His voice was strained and it was pleasing to hear. With her other hand, she grabbed a cock ring and attached it to his base before she sat on her hind legs and grabbed the bottle of lube. She popped open the cap and squeezed the contents onto the palm of her hand and wrapped it around his girth. Florian gasped and pulled on the bondage as he failed to stay still.

“Be a good boy for me and stay still. Let me make you feel good but I need you to be still.” YN’s voice was like sweet honey to his ears. He loved it when she used this voice on him. The innocent tone of her voice was a sharp contrast to the explicit words that left her mouth and it was addictive. So he tried to stay still. The muscles of his stomach clenched as he tried not to thrust into her hand to follow her rhythm and chase her pace.

YN could tell that his orgasm was quickly rising from the way his length was throbbing in her hand. As his head fell backwards and his deep moans continued to escape from his chest, YN reached for the small vibrator, quickly turning it on and pressing it onto his tip. Florian choked on his moans as his legs began to thrash about and could not still any longer.

“Mmm. I can feel you about to cum.”

“Please.” Florian managed to say as his orgasm bubbled within the pit of his stomach. He did not think that he could hold himself back any longer and just as he was about to erupt, YN pulled the vibrator and her hand away. Florian growled in displeasure and looked at her with dark eyes of raging frustration. The smirk on her face could not be stopped as her eyes fell onto his face. As menace swirled in the brown of her eyes, Florian knew that she was going to ruin him.

YN continued to edge and ruin his orgasm until his entire body was trembling the strong need to release the tension that was locked into his muscles. With lubed fingers, she pushed two digits into his forbidden hole causing him to let out a pathetic whimper. The couple both explored anal play once in a while, YN more than Florian but in the rare moments that he did, he enjoyed it more and more. The first days, he was uncomfortable and weary about it but YN helped him get comfortable with the idea. His first orgasm triggered by the stimulation of his prostate opened his eyes.

She stretched him open and attached her lips to his tip and sucked on it, bringing him to the edge yet again. Florian’s moans were as loud as ever as he softly thrusted into her mouth. He was continuing to break her rules but he did not care. The desperation of his cries made YN weep. It was so seducing and she wanted to hear all the sounds that he made but she stopped once again.

“YN, please.” Florian pleaded weakly. His voice was weak and worn out but she knew that he wanted more. YN put him out of his misery and took off the cock ring which gave him some relief. He let out a sigh as he relaxed into the bed as she got up and walked to her suitcase again. She made sure that the strap was properly secured before she got back onto the bed and positioned herself in between his parted thighs.

To any man not content with who he is, this would have been incredibly emasculating but not to Florian. He was so aroused, his pre-cum was leaking so much, that he drenched his cock in it.

YN rubbed his thighs up and down with one hand as she coated the dildo with lube. With the tip teasing his puckered hole, she hovered above him and pecked his lips and looked into his dazed hazel eyes.

“Happy Birthday.” She whispered before slowly beginning to push into him, breaking through his tight barrier. Her pussy clenched as she watched Florian’s eyes roll to the back of his head and a long drawn out groan.

When she saw that she had filled him to the brim, she thrusted softly, making sure that he was well adjusted and comfortable. YN loved hearing his cries as he withered beneath her.

“Talk to me baby.” She spoke as she increased the pace. Watching him struggle to speak and against the restraints gave her the greatest pleasure. No one but her would see Florian this vulnerable.

“It feels so good.” He choked out.

“Yeah? You love me stretching you out like this?”

“Yes.” He gasped as she nudged his spot. She wrapped her hand around his length and began stroking him as he throbbed in her palm. “FUCK!” He exclaimed as he began to tremble and his chest heave heavier as he tried to catch his breath. Instinctively his body began to move in accordance with hers as he chased for his orgasm.

“I know what you’re doing. You want to cum don’t you my sweet boy?”

“YN.” Her name left his lips like a prayer as his fingers pulled on the ropes.

“It’s okay. I got you. Cum for for me.” She kept stroking and caressing until Florian let out the loudest groan and erupted all over her hand and onto his stomach. YN sighed with content as she slowly pulled out of him and watched as the orgasm continued to riddle his body.

His eyes were closed as she cleaned him up and untied him. The bondage left his skin slightly irritated from the tugging but he would be okay. YN took off the strap and her ruined underwear before kneeling beside him and trailing kisses up his chest to his lips.

As their lips passionately moved against each other, her skilful fingers were once again wrapped around his semi-hard cock. He groaned into her mouth and jerked in response.

“You okay?” She sweetly asked.

“Mhm.” Was his response as she straddled and her wet core hovered above his hardened girth. YN slowly sank down onto his length and moaned as he filled her up inch by inch.

Florian was overly sensitive and he had to hold onto her hips to stop himself from coming quick. A giggle left YN’s mouth as she sat up and raised herself up and sank back down clenching tightly around him in a calculated pattern.

“Fuck, you’re tryna kill me.” Florian hissed as he moved his hips in tune with her.

YN smiled as she bit into her bottom lip and swirled her hips. “It wouldn’t be a bad way to go.” Her comment caused him to laugh. He raised up from the bed and grabbed her ass into his large hands and began bringing her down onto him at a pace he desired.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and captured his lips as she moaned into his mouth. Her orgasm was quickly rising as she moved faster and faster.

“Baby.” She whispered as she scrunched her eyes shut and her mouth fell open.

“I’m here. I got you.” Florian cradled her body into his chest as their moans got louder and bounced off the walls.

“I’m gonna come.” She breathlessly whispered as she pressed forehead against his.

“Me too.” Florian groaned as he swelled inside of her. The sound of their love making serenaded them to the finish line as they climaxed together.

Boneless, they collapsed back onto the bed. They did not move an inch as they tried collect their breath and tiredness slowly creeped in.

“You really went all out tonight.” Florian mumbled as he traced patterns onto her back.

“Only for you.” YN replied as she placed a kiss onto the side of his neck.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Florian Taglist:

@emjaywrites @cali-strong @minton131 @amirra88 @bernie-k @xxkissatmidnightxx

Permanent Taglist:

@my-rosegold-soul @gwenspacy @beautifullmelodyxx @royallyprincesslilly @queenshikongo3 @blackmissfrizzle @writerbee-ffs @fumbling-fanfics @lotusss-flowerbomb @blowmymbackout @savvy-ivvory @write-fromthe-start @melinda-january @brownsugarcoffy @amelatonin @smuttywriter @iwrite4poc @nina-skyee @toni9 @19jammmy @chaneajoyyy @bluestarego​ @groovyevrywhr @themyscxiras @michael-is-bae @damnitaa @daddys-baby-girl-t @abcdestinyyyy @anonymouslust @midnvght-lies @zejess93 @may114 @brwnsugababe @youlovetkay @complacentviawattpad @melinaasap1 @superestrella9 @this-glitter-pussay @tgigoldie @queenoftheworldisdead @bigsisbria @ladya4444 @bvssmob @vozit

[burnedbyshoto]

taoreta

— The world is in ruins, but there’s beauty in everything. Shouto is reminded of that when he crosses paths with a survivor who kisses him at the first meeting. —

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pairing: todoroki shouto x fem!reader

warnings: smut, 18+, apocalypse!au, cursing, violence, first time writing fight scenes, death, angst, fluff, blood, gore, vomit, & kinks (sexual frustration, hairpulling, biting, marking, scratching, desperation, breeding)

word count: 18,119

a/n: so the thing about apocalypse aus I found out is that the world building is so fucking fun that I forgot that this was an nsfw thing........ so I sincerely apologize if this feels rushed I tried to make this feel solid but like with enough world building to satisfy me. anyways, this is for the bnharem collab, you know the drill. this was not edited at all im so sorry.

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The world was in chaos.

Or well, it once was but still a hundred years after what could only be described as an apocalypse; well, there was still an apocalypse. 

Many years ago, well before Todoroki Shouto could remember, quite frankly well before he was alive there had been the introduction of something within the human genome. It was a mutation of sorts, a new gene that allowed individuals to unlock and evolve into these powerful beings that for years longer people used to write about.

People who could breathe fire, emit ice, and fly through the sky! For years it had been a glorious step forward for humankind, a hopeful promise that maybe things would be better — that all things would end better. If Shouto looked hard enough he could still see scattered newspapers in the abandoned streets; nearly destroyed papers from well before any of his parents or grandparents were born indicating the glory days of quirks.

But what was once thought to be a step forward in human evolution ended with a sickening twist. 

Those with quirks went on rampages the moment they turned twenty-five, slaughtering and killing everyone in their path. Their mind overtaken by their quirks with the single thought and decision to kill everyone who dared to stop them, who were weaker than them. It must have been terrifying back then, to be so meek, powerless, and afraid seeing people you had once cheered on in acceptance and grace kill off the population in the millions.

Humankind could never survive this.

Those gifted with such powerful feats were granted the ability to live on as immortals, that is until humanity decades later learned it was not true immortality. It was a mere obstruction that was solved when the quirk-given was killed by man. Other than that… they lived on, and on, and on. The false immortality yet another edge against humanity.

People with quirks — better known as the Taoreta today — were the modern-day zombies except there was no rise of the dead, no mass groups of people who craved your flesh and your blood.

No.

They were once users with quirks who appeared just like normal people, sure some of them had distinct quirk features, but for the most part, unless they were distinctly different you couldn’t tell until it was too late. 

Todoroki Shouto was different though.

He was apart of the few lasting survival groups in Japan, in the world. 

His group was called Yuuei, a collective group of nearly two hundred people who occupied a deserted boarding school entitled U.A. They were apart of the population that was considered to be quirkless, and well, no one had been born with a quirk within this base yet.

This boarding school, but what Shouto had been able to piece together after spending his entire livelihood in the confines of the barbed wired, specially scented gates they lived in. The Gladiolus flower was the worlds saving grace. 

By planting these flowers among bases and fragrancing them along borders and barriers, your area was both ignored by those with quirks or smelled so disgusting to those with quirks they would never dare cross. Of course, this wasn’t always true — Shouto had seen too many times the few outliers of this truth stumble towards the base. 

Eyes power-hungry, quirks blaring a kilometer away and that horrific silence before a battle. These monstrous onslaughts had decimated his entire bloodline, leaving him only by himself with his friends and chosen family. Everyone had still thought him lucky, he was born around the same time as twenty other babies. His entire life he had grown up in an environment where he always had someone to play with, to learn with, to practice with. 

Children were forced to grow up fast in this time and age, no longer was the world of coddling and gentle love. If you loved your children you would teach them how to be resourceful, teach them how to fight, how to kill. By the time you turned fifteen within Yuuei, you were expected to pitch in to survive. Formal classroom education continued on all the way until you were eighteen, but it was known that everyone needed to maintain some sort of educational standard so that Yuuei would never fall internally. 

Everyone had a part to play, a piece to do in order to keep things running smoothly.

There were the low-risk jobs within Yuuei starting with the janitors. They were in charge of making sure the school grounds and indoors remained safe and tidy. They applied the Gladiolus flower extract to the gates daily during the fall and winter as the flowers died out by then. It was an easier job, one that was given more to the young children and the elders who could no longer do much else.  

Then there were the chefs. They were in charge of the grand garden the community had created many decades ago. They harvested and cooked plenty of vegetables throughout the year, always managing to make just enough so that no one went hungry or starving for more than a day. As recently as thirty years ago, they had introduced their form of animal raising too. Mostly raising and killing deer that had stumbled within their main gates.

Then there was the government. The main part of the government consisted of three people — the president, the vice president, and the one training to one day become president. They took these jobs seriously, meeting every day to see what the community’s latest problems were, discussing to the hundreds of civilians working within this base to make sure civil conflict never broke out. There was also a council made of one member of each residing family member — Shouto remembers that it was his mother who was apart of the council when she was alive… he had assumed this role after she tragically passed, but it was not his only job.

Then there were the educators. These were the ones who dedicated their lives to learning and studying everything they could within their limited, never truly evolving standards so that each younger generation could have a solid foundation within this new world. Shouto remembered how Fuyumi had been so excited to finally reach the end of her second year as a teacher, her eyes delightfully hopeful, ever so clear and bright despite the life they lead. 

You could never forget the engineers and the mechanics here — after all, they held one if not the most important job. They were the reason why there was still energy and electricity running through the base, why running water was able to be used by members twice a month, why truly life on base hadn’t erupted into a complete dystopia, and of course, keeping the seekers and the medics alive.

Medics were a given. They were the true saving grace of the camp, Shouto thought so at least. They healed physical injuries, as there were always plenty of those, and they smoothed over mental trauma which was prevalent in every corner of this base. Without medics, they would have never survived this long. Shouto still frequents them aplenty, his trauma from the death of his family still weighing heavily on his chest, his lips always dry and cracked when he remembered how his older brother Natsuo had been ecstatic to join the medical line. He was so big and intimidating in size many had always questioned why he wasn’t a seeker, but Shouto knew his brother had the kindest heart, he wasn’t a fighter unless he had to be. 

And finally, there were the seekers. Seekers were by far the most pivotal, most dangerous, and least rewarding role within the base. Twice to three times a week, seekers were to leave the base and go out and search for survivors, resources, anything that may be useful. While for the past hundred years that people have resided in U.A. the local town had been their saving grace, always relying on the abandoned town for their needs, but they had cleared it years ago. Now seekers went out further to get items, all while still doing their basic patrols, and of course fighting off any Taoreta. When they weren’t out running around the country, they were doing patrols around the base to ensure they were always safe. This is the job Shouto has — a job that most of his friends held too. His father and Touya had also held this job long ago, but he had never been able to accomplish a successful run with them…

No… he had to block out that memory.

“Oi, Todoroki!” a voice clipped through his headspace, and Shouto looked away from the cabinet he was once rummaging through. “Get your head outta your ass and do something already, dammit.”

He turned to look at Bakugou who was as grimy and dirty as he was, only that his bag was full of crap and Shouto’s only had dust. Shouto nodded, an apology leaving his lips when his eyes returning back to the already pillaged cabinets and scoured what he could, collecting what he thought to be useful for the base.

It took fifteen minutes for Bakugou and Shouto to pillage all the abandoned homes on this street, they were a great duo together, often working together due to their abrasive and deadly styles and intellect on the field. They had a kill list of three Taoreta together, and an individual score of one on their own, it didn’t seem like much, but coming from people who held no power over these god-like humans, it was incredible. Most people never survived more than one attack from the Taoreta.

But it wasn’t anything to be relieved over, especially not when each survived victory landed them both in hospice care for months. 

“Sector five has been cleared,” Shouto spoke into his telecom the moment Bakugou and he emerged from the final house, his eyes glancing at the setting sun in worry. “How’s everyone else doing? Sun setting.”

“We’re all on the car already, waiting on you guys!” came Midoriya’s instant reply.

“This is all your fault,” Bakugou grumbled bitterly while the two of them turned on their heel and began running towards the car they had taken here. “Last as always!”

“We had the most houses to loot, Bakugou, it’s a given,” was Shouto’s easy response, not at all affected by the huffing annoyance of his friend while they reached the car.

Easy and grateful smiles were exchanged between the six seekers when Shouto and Bakugou rejoined the group, a whole day of running this block had left them with zero casualties. On top of all this, they all had full bags of taken items; Shouto considered it a tremendous victory. 

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“And what are we checking in today, Todoroki-kun?” Iida asked while Shouto dumped his bag onto the table.

“Toilet paper, paper rolls, canned peaches, flour, rice, medication formula for birth control, expired condoms, and some water,” Shouto listed off, pulling out the items one by one to the nodding Iida.

Iida was a member of the council, and also a seeker much like Shouto was. He was objectively the fastest seeker they had, often clearing out entire rows of houses in half the time it took everyone else. Iida was someone Shouto appreciated very much in this doomful life, a clear leader, and a promising candidate for the presidency one day.

“Oh! The canned peaches could make an excellent addition to Momo’s birthday coming up soon! Kirishima-kun and Sato-kun hit the jackpot with sugar yesterday! This would be a great celebration!” Iida announced, partitioning the different items into different baskets, each one placed into appropriate bins. Shouto remained silent, but he nodded his head, a tired sigh pushing through his lungs while Iida finished putting away his found items. “Momo will also be glad to finally have this formula in her hands, she’s been trying so hard at cracking the code for birth control! But alright! Now for checking in weapons, what do you have for me?”

Shouto’s hands immediately moved to the holsters strapped to his legs.

By being born into this madness, he was never given the right to using any of the guns they held. Guns and ammunition were scarce to come by, they were even more scarce than some of the items they were consistently running out of. When they turned eighteen, each member was given three bullets to attempt to sink it into a target 100 meters away, sink two bullets in, and you were given the right to carry a gun, miss and you wouldn’t.

Of Shouto’s graduating class of forty-one students, only three of them were granted that ability — and two of them weren’t even seekers.

Shouto handed over the knives he had strapped to his muscled thighs, the katana that was strapped to his back, and the brass knuckles that sat on his fists. He remained silent while handing over the fire and ice bombs he had managed to perfect under his parent’s original formulas. He never understood why he wasn’t allowed to keep those bombs, he was the only one who ever checked them out after all, but again, civil disputes could occur at any time, and if the seekers had weapons the rest of the base would be doomed.

“Everything’s accounted for, Iida?” Shouto asked watching while Iida placed everything away.

“Yes!” Iida confirmed, a smile on his face while his hands placed onto his hips with confidence. “Go and get dinner and take a shower!”

Shouto smiled softly. If there was one good thing about being a seeker that wasn’t just experiencing the outside world, it definitely was the fact that being a seeker meant you got to shower more regularly than everyone else.

Dinner was plain as always, a bowl of rice, a slice of deer meat, and an egg. There were a lot of hens here.

Shouto sat with his friends while he ate, quietly adding on to conversations, contradicting his friends whenever he could. It was the little things in life that kept him going honestly, and little things were having Bakugou trying to reach across the dining tables to strangle him while Midoriya and Kirishima intervened. It never failed to make him smile.

“What’s your new schedule for the week, Todoroki?” Kirishima asked, his head dodging Bakugou’s flying elbow with a sharklike grin.

Kirishima was an odd person within this base, he had sharp teeth that reminded everyone of a shark — most people had always assumed it was a side effect of a quirk that had been hidden for ages, but it turned out that while humans evolved quirks for the worse, they were evolving still. Shouto’s own naturally bicolored hair was a testament to that. 

“I go on runs Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday,” Shouto spoke with food chipmunked into his cheek. “Council meets on Tuesday, Thursday as always, so I have patrol at night those days. Weapon checkout and morning patrol Monday. Saturday’s my day off.”

“Oh, nice! Looks like all of us have Wednesday and Friday together!” Kirishima cheered, his arms finally letting go of Bakugou who had… calmed down. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a good stash and other sur— OW!”

Kirishima’s eyes narrowed onto Bakugou who had deliberately slammed an elbow into his ribcage, but his face softened at the thought of the word he was going to say. 

Shouto smiled softly, his head shaking despite it all and he stood up.

“I’m going to go and shower, one of the floors gave through today so I’m a bit exhausted,” Shouto explained, gathering the reusable plate, cup, and chopsticks he had assigned to him. He would scrap any residual food off it and wash it tomorrow — about twenty years ago the mechanics had managed to figure out a reusable and self-cleaning water system used to wash dishes. It was a game-changer for this community.

The echoing goodnights followed after Shouto while he left the dining hall, his hands fisted into his pockets while he climbed the ten flights of stairs to get to his room’s floor. 

U.A.’s building was very unique by the looks of it, even for its time when it was first built. It was created with four separate towers, each tower connected with a single walkway to its adjacent tower. From a ways back it looked like an H — at least to Shouto it did. It was to Shouto’s understanding that each tower was designated for different professions for the once Taoreta thriving society. One tower was for hero-in-training students, one tower for general students, one tower for support students, and one tower for business students — at least that was what was understood by the textbooks found in these old classrooms. Of the four towers, only the support student tower was uninhabited because there were always modifications and major systems running there and they needed all the room. 

Shouto, along with most of his friends, resided in the hero-in-training tower. Because he had once had such a large family his room — something that was greatly unappreciated by the other members of the community — Shouto had to climb all the way to the top of the building.

No one else resided on this floor with him, which was often nice because it had once meant he and his family could do whatever they wished. But with their passing, it was so lonely, so offputting that Shouto only returned to his room to sleep and that was it.

The shower was comforting tonight, the gentle smell of the soap drafting off his body along with thick suds eased him. His shower lasted only a whooping two minutes; they had been taught how to efficiently shower, wasted water was always a downfall. Even with the major technological advances they made, running water was still a problem they had yet to solve. His dirty grimy skin that hadn’t showered in three days sang in relief with the dirt gone; his last seek was that many days ago after all. 

With a towel around his waist, he walked back to his room, the suffocating darkness strangling him when he stepped into the room. Shouto paid no attention to the way his skin crawled in loneliness, his attention focused on placing the toothpaste pill on his tongue and grimacing at the sharp, minty taste. It seemed that Mei was messing around with the flavors again.

Finally satisfied with his clean-smelling breath, Shouto wasted no time in crawling into his bed, his eyes concentrated on his journal that read practically what was the same thing it always said every day he wrote an entry into it (the medics said that these entries were healthy for his mental wellbeing):

September 16, 2XX1

It’s been eight years since everyone died, and another day spent working. I’m not feeling any different from the day before, but I am looking forward to celebrating Yaoyorozu’s birthday this coming Saturday. It won’t be any different from last year, but it should be fun.

Signed, Todoroki Shouto

It took some time, but eventually sleep consumed Shouto, his mind restless despite his slumber.

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Shouto paused when the blood on the door handle easily transferred onto his fingers. He pressed his fingers to his palm, the padding on the fingerless glove shining dully with the slick of blood across the material. He could only make one conclusion from this: it was recent.

“I just made contact with fresh blood,” Shouto spoke into the radio system, his eyes concentrated on the door he was supposed to enter through. “I’m going in, if I don’t respond in five minutes, assume the worst and leave.”

“If it’s an injured Taoreta—” Bakugou warned, his voice the first to respond over the com system, but Shouto already knew what his best partner would say to this.

“Can’t have me having all the glory, I know. Besides, I don’t think it’s a Taoreta, there’s no major damage anywhere and well… if it’s injured there should be some fight scene.”

Shouto’s lips tugged into a small smile when Bakugou began to argue back about how he noticed there was no major destruction around this part of the block, and he dropped his scavenger bag onto the floor. If this was a survivor there was no saying if they were good or bad, and well, Shouto wasn’t about to fight a bad one with 10 kilograms on his back.

The door creaked loudly when he entered, his hand pulling out the hunting knife he had. The other day his typical go-to katana had been broken during a brief battle between a weak Taoreta and a veteran seeker. It had been a hard loss, Shouto wouldn’t lie, but it was manageable because his knives had been salvaged. 

He crept in silently, the soles of his combat boots nearly silent against the floor while he walked in, his concentrated on the scene around him, all senses on high alert due to the insane anxiety from this all. His eyes dragged across every crook and nanny of the entrance room, not quite sure what to expected from this until he saw something ruby red smudged on the floor.

With a small nod to himself, Shouto proceeded forward, following the light trail of blood until he stopped into a room where the trail ended and no one was. He frowned looking around the abandoned room, old and long faded drawings covered the walls, the bed hastily made, and crayons scattered on the floor. 

Maybe the person had already left, he thought glancing down at the crayons figuring that they would be good to take back. But the moment that he turned to face the door, was when he finally saw someone, and it was a good thing too because he ducked out of the way of a quick, most definitely life ending swing of a bat that held multiple nails in it.

Shouto’s eyes were wide while he dodged and weaved out of the way of the swinging bat, strong elbows bashing into his ribs, and the occasional nail tearing into his skin. He could barely focus on his attacker, his concentration heavy on the way that this person was tirelessly fighting for their life despite the exhaustion in their bones. 

He weaved and dodged the flying wood, cursing at the way it nicked his skin in multiple places, and how their foot slammed into his stomach. It knocked the wind out of Shouto as he fell onto the floor, the wild look in their eyes as the bat arched downward only to miss him, embedding into the floor. Shouto took that as an initiative to slam his foot onto the hilt of the bat, the weapon clanging onto the floor while he tackled his attacker onto the floor.

“Let go!” you shrieked, your eyes in a panic while you attempted to twist your body out from under Shouto. “I’m not going to let you fucking kill me, you stupid fucking Taoreta!”

Now that bothered Shouto.

“I’m not some damn Taoreta!” Shouto spat back, his eyes narrowing down onto how you were struggling against his hold. Blood was dried and matted onto your forehead, dirt, grime, and soot-covered every exposed millimeter of your body, and blood-soaked your arm. 

With that simple sentence, Shouto watched in almost confused annoyance when you snapped up to look at him. Your hair was matted, it was obvious that while you weren’t horrendously smelly, you hadn’t bathed in days. Your lips were cracked and pale, and your eyes looked so scared, lost, and still… excited? The tears that poured down your face highlighted the clearer skin that was covered by the dirt.

“Are you okay? You’re smiling pretty weir— mmph?!”

Shouto’s words were stolen from his tongue for you had reached upward in this desperate, frantic glee and kissed him firmly on the lips. It wasn’t often that Shouto froze, and honestly, he could count the number of times he had been frozen to the core, but with this desperate, longing kiss on his lips that exploded fire onto his cheeks, he was unable to move. He was only able to feel the wet streaks from your cheeks pressed onto his, focus on the heavy frantic breathing that passed through your nose.

His eyes blinked rapidly while you pulled away from him, a starstruck look on your face.

“It’s… it’s been a year since I’ve seen anyone who wasn’t a Taoreta,” you awe, fingers pressing onto his cheeks in an attempt to make sure this was actually real. “Are you real? You’re real right? Please don’t tell me you’re—”

“TODOROKI, ARE YOU ALIVE!” a voice bellowed, the door being kicked open, and both Shouto and you looked at the entrance of the room to see Bakugou standing there with his weapons drawn, teeth bared in a silent cry of war. 

Shouto didn’t know what to do, feeling as if the world’s gravity was crushing onto him while he gathered the confused, appalled look in Bakugou’s eyes while he looked down onto the interesting position he was in. You, on the other hand, felt more tears forming in your eyes at the sight of yet another survivor. 

“The fuck you playing hooky for?!” Bakugou yelled, his face contorted with disgust and something unreadable when staring at the position the two of you were in. “Who the fuck is this?!”

Shouto remained speechless, his mind still stuck on the fact that you had kissed him like separated lovers and not the strangers that you were. Worse off he was caught in an embarrassing position by Bakugou of all places who was quite frankly the meanest guard dog they had. You weren’t given a second to speak, to try to clarify who you were and why you were here because Bakugou clicked everything together far faster than you could defend yourself. 

“Don’t tell me this is a fucking Taoreta with a damn love quirk!” Bakugou snapped, grabbing Shouto by the collar and throwing him off you.

Your eyes widened in a panic, the sickening sound of unsheathing steel ringing venomously in your ears while Bakugou drew dual arming swords. You scrambled backward immediately, hands finding the hilt of your bat and spinning up to your feet in a readying position. Like hell you were going to be murdered. 

“Bakugou, stop!” Shouto yelled, pushing himself up onto his feet while the blond-haired man shot forward at you. 

He cursed annoyedly, unable to intercept or intervene Bakugou’s explosive fighting style with just his knives. But he also realized that you weren’t failing at keeping Bakugou away with just a bat in the small room. Swings of steel and wood whistled in the air while the two of you went at it, useless battle soaked insults being thrown left and right while Shouto could only watch as the swords embedded into the bat, and then into a wall.

Shouto acted quickly, his arms circling under Bakugou’s armpits, his hands locking around his head and yanking him away. 

“She’s not a damn Taoreta, she’s a survivor!” Shouto yelled again, both of them stumbling backward and landing on the floor while you remained frozen by the wall. Both the weapons stable in the wall despite the horror of what could have been the end of your life. 

“How the fuck would you know that?! She could be brainwashing you for all we know!” Bakugou yelled, his body twisting and turning, trying to get out the larger mans hold. “Slimy little shit got you didn’t she?!”

“I’m not a Taoreta!”

“She’s not a Taoreta!”

You and Shouto yelled in synch, your fingers thrusting up to your eyes. “Do you see my sclera?! They’re not fucking red!”

The two men froze in their struggles to get the other to obey their commands, both raising their attention to you, shocked by what you said.

“What do you mean?” Shouto asked, his arms still holding Bakugou in place, his eyes landing on you confused. 

You, on the other hand, froze. Your eyes blinked owlishly, fingers curling into a weak fist and placing onto your stomach, “Have you guys never noticed? Taoreta always has their scleras turn red and they grow darker with prolonged quirk use… that’s how you know how strong and how long they’ve been around. The stronger they are, the redder the sclera.”

“Get the fuck off me,” Bakugou growled, his body twisting against Shouto, but Shouto was too busy thinking about what you said, his mind sucked into his memories of that fateful night. “Bastard, I’m not gonna attack her! Let me fucking go already, dammit!”

Shouto let go immediately, watching as his friend rolled over onto his knees and stood up without a single hitch. Bakugou yanked his swords from the wall letting your bat fall onto the floor with a loud crash. His eyes burned into you, watching you with a borderline sneer until he walked away.

“Figure out what the fuck we’re doing with her, five minutes until we have to leave,” was the only thing Bakugou uttered before leaving the building.

“What to do with me?” you echoed, your fingers twitching down towards your bat. “Don’t tell me the first people I find in a year are cannibals!”

Shouto’s face twists while looking up at you, your hands once again grabbing your bat raising it up in an act of self-defense; agony and disbelief overflowing in your face. It was bleeding obvious now that you had been alone for ages, the already emotional polar ends of yourself revealed to Shouto even before he knew your name. 

“You need to calm down, we’re not cannibals, Bakugou literally walked away. If we were, you would have been dead already,” Shouto reasoned, his hands held up in a signal of surrender while he stood. His words were calm and steady, his “We’re a part of a surviving group, and we have a base up on the mountain north from here. You’re the tenth person we’ve found out here, and if you would like, we can offer you a place.”

“How can I trust you? You could be some cult group for all I know! Using me as some breeding whore to bring the second coming of the taoreta!” you panicked, your eyes wild with the fabricated lies you were drawing in your mind. “I don’t have the hips to have a child! I won’t bear your dumb cult a child!”

Shouto blinked, a low headache forming behind his eyes while he looked at your heaving form. He studied you closer now, your bat was frozen in place while you stared back. Your cheeks were sunken from lack of nutrients, your lips pale and cracked, and your eyes (once you ignored the savage glint to it) were like glass. You were not okay, even if you had managed to fight both Bakugou and him, there was no doubting that you hadn’t eaten in days.

Shouto sucked in his cheeks, by the looks of it you were running on pure adrenaline at this point — not actual energy.

“Meet back at the car in five,” Kirishima’s voice rang in the headset, and Shouto’s mouth pursed. 

“We’re not cannibals, or a cult, or whatever weird groups of people you’ve run into. We’re just… people trying to live to see the next day. Come with us, or not, I can’t convince you, but we have shelter... food, water, showers. If you want, we can be a place for you to stay, if you want.” Shouto speaks softly, his hands are lowered at his waist, trying to show that he wasn’t a threat to you. It didn’t matter to him if you went with them — you were just a stranger after all — but he wouldn’t feel right letting you go without trying to save you. 

You hesitate, your eyes looking down at your feet while you contemplate. He remains quiet, the voices of his friends ringing in his ears while they communicate on their way back to the car. But finally, he saw something that confirmed he would take you back by force. 

Blood dripped down your leg and fingertips, seeping into your clothes, staining the floor. 

“I don’t want to die,” you confess, your voice small and scared. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“I promise you won’t be alone; you won’t die on my watch… but you’re hurt,” Shouto reasoned, his body instinctually moving closer to you. You pressed against the back of the wall, the aggression in your body long having died out. “We can heal you, and if you don’t feel safe you’re welcome to leave—” his eyes hold yours, and he swears the world stills at this moment, he can hear nothing but your hammering heart and his own, “I promise you.”

You would later claim that you gave in because you were injured and exhausted, but your hand reached out with a tremble and took his steady one. It was weird, feeling his hand in yours, so calloused and worn. Even if all you felt were his fingers, this was the first time in forever since you had human contact. Despite everything going on, the own swinging egos in your mind that screamed at you to kill him or to kiss him more, sudden ease came over you. You didn’t trust him, you couldn’t — you weren’t that big of an idiot — but his dual colored eyes held yours steadily, warmly, safely and the only thing you could do was agree with him. Despite being brought up on one principle, one defining law, you broke it when it came down to this stranger before you.

No matter what happens, never trust anyone.

“I’m Todoroki Shouto, by the way,” Shouto finally introduced himself, his words breaking the silence that had fallen over the both of you while he guided you out of the house. “I’m apart of a surviving group called Yuuei, and we’ve been around for about a hundred years.”

“Y/l/n y/n,” you return with a grimace.

When was the last time you ever had to introduce yourself before? You had no memories of the last time you had to tell someone your name. His face lifted into a gentle smile, one that you couldn’t see as anything but being polite before he turned and began walking. His strides were long but quick, far outpacing you despite the obvious worry to your bleeding wounds.

You had been attacked earlier by some dying taoreta, and even with its dying breath, it was otherworldly powerful. The person who had nearly managed to slay the taoreta had been decapitated when you had accidentally stumbled on the screeching monster. Its fingers were blades made from its bones, and it had stabbed you before you could even fight back. The taoreta had destroyed the machete you had used as your main weapon, the splintering metal being what ended up killing the savage monster.

A ragged breath escaped you in the realization that you had survived that.

There was no stopping the onslaught of tears and sobs that ripped through your throat while Shouto pulled you after him. The stabbing blistering pain in your side and arm was throbbing while you tried to keep up. You had survived, the pain an undeniable testament to that, the bat dragging against the floor a reminder that you weren’t done just yet. Shouto’s eyes grazed over you, and you were grateful he didn’t say anything while you continued to cry, emotions, and relief washing over you.

Shouto’s face remained neutral if a little bit uncomfortable while he dragged you back to the car, his voice low and quiet while he informed the rest of his group that he wasn’t coming back alone. 

Still, it was to no surprise that the moment Shouto stopped in front of the car four of the five others were on edge, looking down at his crying companion. 

Midoriya, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Iida stood on the trunk of the car, their weapons were drawn towards you; hesitation and concern heavy in their eyes. Bakugou, who was driving the car, couldn’t even be bothered to look at you — after all, he had already okayed you. Well, Shouto thought he had okayed you, he wasn’t exactly clear on things like that. Besides, it wasn’t as if they came across many survivors to okay in the first place.

��Who is this?” Iida asked first, his eyes unwavering while you rubbed streaks of blood onto your face. “Is she dangerous?”

“I wouldn’t have brought her back if she was,” Shouto lifted an eyebrow, unamused with the stiffness in all their postures. “We disagreed earlier, but she thought I was a taoreta at first glance, it’s all good now.”

“And she’s okay now? She’s bleeding like a fuckton,” Kaminari squeaked, his fingers thrusting out to your blood-soaked clothes.

Honestly, it surprised Shouto just how weird his group of friends were. They were all unbelievably strong, each possessing the ability to have already successfully killed one taoreta, yet they were cowering in fear over you.

“Does she come from a group? Is she being followed?” Kirishima cautiously asked, his eyes leaving your body to scour the surrounding buildings. “Is she sick?”

Shouto looked behind him, his eyes taking in your paling and sullen form, you looked terrible. 

Pressing his hand to your forehead, he felt your temperature with both his left and right side. 

“No fever, but she’s bleeding obviously. I’m not sure if she obtained any injuries from fighting Bakugou or me,” Shouto explained clearly, only being able to answer one of those questions for you. “I can’t say if there’s a group around — or if she’s with one, but she said she’s been alone for a year.” His calculating gaze met the stubborn stares of his friends who could only stare at you, and a rush of annoyance flooded him while he ran a hand through his hair. “We don’t have time to argue though, the suns setting and we need to get back to base.”

“Put this on her,” Midoriya was the first to pull back, something that did not come as a surprise to Shouto, and he threw a bandana he typically wore around his wrist at Shouto. “If she’s not being followed, at the very least we can prevent her from relaying how she got to base.”

Shouto nodded, moving quickly to tie the green fabric around your eyes and piling you onto the trunk. Midoriya moved into the car with your new addition and sat next to Bakugou who floored the pedal and took off into the mountain. 

UA truly was a blessing of a fort, not only was is incredibly huge, but it had natural barriers to act in their favor. And Shouto relaxed on the bed of the truck, his head pressing against the cold plastic, a hand resting on the items he had recovered for the day, and the other one still holding onto yours. 

He tried to ignore the way they continued to stare at you in distrust despite having all your weapons inside the car so that he could sleep, but eventually, he gave up. His eyes continuing to glare back at his friends until they dropped their gaze on you. He knew you weren’t a threat, and like hell he was going to let them treat you like one.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

When the bandana-blindfold came off your eyes, your hand in Shouto’s began to sweat profusely. Your wounds had stopped bleeding thanks to the green-haired boy’s ministrations, but you definitely felt lethargic from the loss of blood.

Blinking rapidly, you looked around, freezing when you saw that the group of six men had expanded to much larger numbers of only men. Breeding cult, your mind hissed and you felt your hands twitch, a nervous thought to grab the weapons you no longer had.

“You’re scaring her!” a voice yelled, and your head snapped towards a voice you couldn’t see. “Who wants to wake up to a sea of scraggly, ugly men?”

Your jaw slacked when you saw a pink-skinned woman shove her way through the crowd to stand before you. No way in hell was she not a taoreta!

“Hi! My name is Ashido Mina, and I know what you’re thinking,” she spoke, her arms crossing against her chest while a prideful smirk spread across her face. “How is she so hot?”

Maybe if it had been a day where you weren’t half dead, lacking a needed amount of blood, and much more in control of your emotions, you wouldn’t have burst out in laughter. Your dirty fingers pressed onto your mouth while you tried to play off your peals of laughter to no success.

“Oh, I like this one already,” Mina grinned, her hands pressing onto the edge of the truck to look at you closer. “However, my skin is pink because of a dying accident gone wrong when I was a child. It was as permanent as permanent can get so… please don’t think I’m a taoreta!”

You nodded your head, your body wincing with the stabbing pain, and Shouto was quick to notice that you were still in pain.

“Mina, can we walk and talk?” Shouto asked, his hand pressing to your spine in order to get you to start moving, even without permission to do so. “Y/l/n has three wounds that need to be tended to; she already lost a lot of blood. You can do your welcoming thing and interrogation while she gets patched up by Shuzenji.”

Mina pouted; a sound of discontent with the arising situation, but she nodded. Shouto’s lips pressed into a thin-lipped smile, and with Mina’s help, they guided you off the car and onwards towards the infirmary.

“I’m not going to be killed, am I?” you ask, knowing it was far too late for your cold feet to be kicking in. “I never thought I’d be killed by humans.”

“God, no! Shuzenji is the best medic in the world, hands down. She’s gonna patch ya up, and I’ll talk with you while she does that, and then we’ll find out our best course of action afterward!” Mina exclaimed, her hand repositioning your weak arm around her shoulder. “I swear it won’t be that hard!”

True to her word, you were not killed.

In fact, the only scary thing you were met with was an angry, just woken up from her slumber, elder woman. After she had yelled at the crowd of men who had followed after you to leave you alone given that you were her patient, she had taken you inside with Mina. But you had panicked when she tried to get Shouto to step away, your hand which had not separated from his since the moment you had left the house unwilling to let go of him. So, he was permitted to stay.

You sat on an old infirmary bed, your pinky still touching Shouto’s while Shuzenji — nicknamed Recovery Girl by the surviving group — tended to your wounds. You answered a whole lot of questions from Mina while trying not to let your pain bleed into your voice.

You told them your birthday, your age, the last time you were sick, how long you’ve been alone (you couldn’t say why you were alone), and how you got those injuries of yours. 

They had been impressed with your confession that it was from killing a taoreta, even a critically injured one was monstrously powerful after all, and Shouto would argue the ones on the brink of death were stronger than when fully healed. Mina, however, was a great conversationalist and did exceptionally well at making you feel comfortable despite everything. 

They took your height, weight, blood type, and hell, Recovery Girl even tested your blood for infections you might have not known you had. She was a medical genius — a true benefit to being in this base. Despite her previous anger, she ended up being a very sweet woman, caring and charming while she fixed you up — cleaning and bandaging your wounds before leaving by giving you a homemade sweet and an orange to eat.

“Alrighty, y/n-chan,” Mina chirped, her hands pulling out a clipboard which seemed to come out from nowhere while she scribbled things down with a series of successive nods. “You have checked out perfectly in our first-day system, of course for you to be implemented in our system — should you want to do that — there will be voting on Thursday! Well, tomorrow really! In the meantime for tonight we would have to find you somewhere to sleep…” her voice trailed off while she contemplated your options. You continued to stare up at her with unknowing confused eyes, trying your best to keep the storming anxiety in your stomach at bay. “We have a few rooms that are open, but… no offense we can’t trust you yet, so we’ll have to put you somewhere with someone. I can ask Tsuyu?”

“She can stay with me,” Shouto spoke, his face expressionless, but his eyes soft. “I have one of the biggest rooms; it’s not that big a deal.”

Your anxiety lessened while you looked over at Shouto, unable to keep yourself from staring at him. Mina had no objections to this, a grateful smile falling over her features while she nodded, “Okay! I’ll send up a clean change of clothes if you need any? I have quite a lot.”

“That would be appreciated, thank you.”

“If she showers, you won’t be able to tonight. Mei destroyed a pipe by accident while trying to create a useable water source — it worked for two hours before breaking, so I think Yuuei will have constant running water by Momo’s birthday!” Mina chirped, her hands pressing the clipboard to her stomach. “But you’re good to go! Please still be mindful of any diseases though, just because you were cleared of the basic ones doesn’t mean you’re clean.”

You nodded watching as she too left you alone with Shouto. 

“My room is on the fourteenth floor, do you think you can handle walking up that many flights of stairs?” Shouto asked, his hand steadying you while you slid onto your feet. 

Despite everything, you were already feeling better. Your head while feeling a bit light was nothing compared to the groggy headache you had once had. 

“I might need some help, but I think… I think, for now, I should be okay,” you inform Shouto, and he nods in understanding.

So the two of you in a weird silence, eventually made your way up to his floor, your body shaking by the time you walked onto the floor, but your hand never leaving his. He showed you the room the two of you would be in, and true to his word, it was large. There were two tatami mats, one by a window, and the other by the door. Random items littered the walls and the floors, most of which were toys and things to pass time with, but it was so unnaturally domestic to you, you didn’t know how to react. It was now that he let go of your hand altogether (an action that made you realize just how touch-deprived you’d been), leaving you to take in the state of his room while he walked around.

“You… you don’t have to give up your shower for me,” you spoke while watching Shouto rummage through his things, procuring a dry and clean towel for you. “I haven’t showered in some time, and I don’t want to make you be in your dirt for longer than needed.”

Shouto looked at you, his head tilting slightly before he shook his head. He walked over to you with his shower things, handing over the shampoo, conditioner, and soap. “You need to clean up because you have wounds, I’m fine. Besides… you stink more than me anyway.”

The truth to his words made your cheeks burn, but there was no judgment in his eyes while he leaned against the wall. You stood there by him unable to think of anything to say until Mina’s fist knocked against the opened door.

“Here are your clothes! Some PJs and extra clothes! I didn’t know if you had any extra clean clothes or your size but with your measurements, I took a wild guess. I hope they fit! I took the liberty of bringing you what I could spare!”

“There are way more clothes than that,” Shouto commented, his eyes judging the pink-skinned girl.

“Sorry that I’m assigned to clothes and have to follow code!” Mina huffed, her cheeks brightening with embarrassment before she stuck out her tongue and ran away leaving both of you alone once again. With the clean set of clothes and the ability to finally fo what you must, you asked where the shower was, and Shouto brought you to where the shower was located on the floor.

You hated to admit it, but you were sincerely grateful he let you shower. Your fingers worked out the many day’s old dirt from your hair, the soap sudding against your skin while you scrubbed weeks old layers from your skin until it throbbed in its rawness. You left the shower with a wince from your now healing wounds, but feeling a sense of freshness you hadn’t known in a while. 

The PJs you were given were just a pair of sweatpants and a sweater, something you were grateful for, especially as the material was soft and warm against your cold skin. When you pushed into the room, you noticed that Shouto was sitting on the mat nearest to the door — leaving you with the one by the window. 

A small lamp was by Shouto, and you couldn’t tell what he was writing while you piled onto your tatami, your fingers immediately grabbing the blankets that sat at the end of the mat before pulling it over your body. You stared at Shouto in silence, unable to simply fall asleep, your thoughts much too fascinated with him. Why had he done this all? You had attacked him and his friend; yet here he was, doing much more than what you could have ever asked from him.

“Will I fit in?” you ask quietly, your eyes concentrating up onto the ceiling. “Will I be voted out?”

There was a prolonged silence, a bit too long for your own liking while serious doubts threaded into your pool of anxiety.

“You’ll fit in,” Shouto spoke, his words clear and confident. “I promised you’d be okay, didn’t I?”

Your head nods, although you are unsure whether or not he saw you doing so.

“So it’s always perfect in here? There isn’t… there isn’t any dangerous taoreta lurking around, is there?”

“No,” Shouto softly says, and you turn your head, your wet hair pressing onto your cheek while watching as he puts a journal down. “To both questions. We’re human, drama and issues always arise, but things always end up okay. UA is also on a mountain surrounded by woods, most taoreta don’t bother making their way up here, especially since we have traps up. But dangerous ones tend to appear during rainy days — especially during winter.”

“Why’s that?” you ask in a small, small voice. It was fall right now after all.

Shouto met your gaze, his eyes swimming with emotions you couldn’t read, but thoughts that screamed that he was unsure whether he should tell you. Was there a reason to make you worry right now?

“During the winter we don’t have any protection. We have Gladiolus flowers planted all around the mountain just to keep taoreta away, and while they die during the fall, they’re still not decayed entirely so… they’re still useful. We can only use Gladiolus oil on the barrier of UA during the winter, meaning that taoreta can climb the hill and find us if they’re lucky enough. But when it rains, the oils washed off, and with the Gladiolus all dead, we’re exposed.” he explains to you in earnest and you nod numbly, your heart already hammering away. 

You wished you had known that months ago…

“You okay?”

The tears in your eyes refused to stop falling down your face while horror consumed your bones. One year alone, countless nights spent in fear that someone would discover you while you were asleep, and hatred for the world burned in every cell of your body pouring over as bitter, useless tears while you gasped for air. 

“W-Will you… can you hold my hand?” you gasped, your body burning in your embarrassment and fear. “I can’t stop thinking that I’m… am I safe?”

You couldn’t see anything, the tears in your eyes blinding you completely. 

It had been such a hard, difficult, death-defying day and you were finally processing it all. 

A hand held onto yours mid muffled sob, and comfort washed over you slightly but not enough.

You would fall asleep shortly afterward, your body rattled with your hiccuping sobs, and your face puffy and swollen from your tears. Shouto could only stare at your slumbering form, the tension, and anxiety heavy on your face despite passing on to the land of dreams. With a soft ache in his heart for you, he turned off the light, his hand still in yours, his tatami mat pressed next to yours.

And as sleep consumed him too, his journal which was the most unique entry he’s written since his adolescence rang clearly in his head:

September 20, 2XX1

It’s been eight years since everyone died, and another day spent working. Today was different, something new happened today. I found a survivor who tried to kill me, her name is y/l/n y/n. I don’t know much about her, but she’s different. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I hope she’ll be happy.

Signed, Todoroki Shouto

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It was Momo’s birthday today. 

It was also the fourth day since you had entered the base, and with your entrance, things had become different around UA. During the first morning, people had hung on your every word, blatantly fascinated with you even if they were a bit apprehensive. The council also allowed you to stay, which had left you an emotional mess.

With you being new and injured, it was proclaimed that you could have a week to rest and adjust to the society found within the barriers of the old school. You were to be placed with the janitors the moment your allowed rest was over. You were given clothes, plates and utensils, and bathroom items, all of which you took with a watery smile.

As for your living situation, you were to stay with Shouto until he thought it was best that you left. It wasn’t something you were against at all — right now he was the only person you sincerely trusted and got along with. Shouto also did not mind, in fact he rather enjoyed having someone else fill the emptiness of his room.

Overall, it was going well, but the most important thing was happening today.

You would be put into a group of Shouto’s closest and best friends. 

He had briefly explained to you who they all were because you had asked the night before, your stomach twisting in thought that maybe they wouldn’t like you. 

But with Momo turning twenty, Shouto immediately warned you the type of party it was going to be. With the mass majority of their friends being seekers and therefore getting to claim first dibs on items, alcohol and weed were going to be used. 

So there you stood three hours into a pretty fun party, your nose twitching at the nasty but sweet smell of marijuana and the bittersweet smell of alcohol on all of their breaths. You stood by the group of girls watching as Momo bashfully chugged a bottle of wine with the dignity of an extremely classy person and not the trashiness that was actually true of this all.

Your hand waved in front of you, once again denying the joint that was being passed around and the bottle of liquor trying to be handed to you. Recovery Girl had appeared before you earlier today while you were exploring the campus only to warn you what would happen should you participate in these actions while healing still. To say the least you wouldn’t even tempt the idea.

“So how is Mr. Todoroki?” Mina asked, her arm slumping over your shoulder while she chugged her bottle of who knows what. “Didya know he was the only one no one could ever get to date!?”

Your brows furrowed while you continued to try to find Shouto yourself. He had sort of left you alone and your anxiety always bayed with him in sight. 

“We all dated around the circle of friends,” a girl with the palest skin you’ve ever seen before — Hagakure — explained. “The only one none of us could crack was Todoroki-kun, which lemme tell you seemed much more possible than Bakugou!”

You recognized and was able to put a face to the name Bakugou, but that information didn’t really surprise you. In your old group, it wasn’t that much different. There wasn’t anything to help you meet anyone, and so dating was something you did with everyone in your age group. But Shouto seemed very sweet, a genuinely good person that had you unbelieving of him never having dated.

“He’s still never had his first kiss!” Uraraka, a girl with a permanent blush on her face even without liquor in her blood, slurred with a wink. “Most girls just make him so nervous.”

Never… he’s never had his first kiss?! You took his first kiss?!

“Fucking shit!” you exclaimed, your hands pressing to your cheeks while you shook your head, your heart hammering away while you stepped away from the group of girls whose attention was captured by a frog impersonation by Tsuyu.

Shame and guilt sat heavy in your stomach and you walked away, the memory of you first meeting with Shouto replaying over and over in your head. You wanted to go sleep now, your heart hammering in your cheeks in past embarrassment for your actions. It had just been so long since you had seen a friendly face, and you had gotten overexcited. 

Shouto, who had been slowly sipping from his cup of sake, saw your retreating form and instantly downed the rest of his sweet liquor. He had been pleased you had gotten along with his group of friends, most especially the girls. Through the past four days he had tried to introduce you to them all so that this party wouldn’t overwhelm you, and seeing that you had managed to stay in a conversation with them without him being there seemed like a positive improvement to him. 

That is until you turned on your heel and walked away from the group, your eyes glass, and your steps quick. 

He followed you out of the gym which is where they had all been in, his hands shoving into his pockets while he waited for you to turn around. But it seemed that you were deep in thought because you didn’t even seem to detect his presence. So, he opened his mouth, his lips quirking upward in amusement. 

“Are you going back to the room?”

“Shit!” you jumped, your eyes wide and nearly crazed while you turned towards him, but a wave of regret his your face and Shouto knew you overexerted your injury. “Sorry, Shouto, I didn’t see… I didn’t hear you there.”

“Are you going back to the room?” he asked again, his head tilting in curiosity.

You nodded your head, your smile soft, “I was really tired, and I didn’t want to drag you away from your friend’s party. Don’t worry about me, you can stay, I’ll be fine!”

Shouto shook his head, moving so that he was standing right next to you, “It’s getting late and I’m seeking tomorrow. I have to rest, can’t do my job correctly while fighting a hangover.”

“It would really suck to know that you died on the job, I can’t imagine what I would do with all that space you would leave for me,” you tease, your smile small while he rolls his eyes. 

“We’ve known each other four days and you’re already trying to kill me off? That’s a bit cruel, isn’t it?” Shouto asks, his hand sticking out for you to hold on to should you want to, and you do without question. It was a habit the both of you had quickly formed within four days, but it wasn’t going to die anytime soon, not with the night terrors you had at least.

“It’s the perks of being my friend,” you insist, your head nodding in finality, and Shouto begins to walk. You follow him swiftly and surely, but the same thoughts that plagued your mind began to resurface in your temporary silence. “Was I your first kiss?”

Shouto looked down at you, his eyes unable to be read by you, but the slight perk in his mouth let you know that he was amused and not offended.

“Why do you want to know?”

You sigh, your thoughts falling onto the giggling group of girls before.

“Well, your friends said you were the only one who never…”

“Yes?”

“Never took their advances, and they all said they haven’t kissed you before!”

Shouto opens the door to the building, letting you in. “You were my first kiss.”

You shudder, the horror of a story that would be with him for the rest of his life. An injured lunatic laying one on him without a second thought. 

“Why was I your first kiss?” you ask, unsure as to why you were so curious about needing this information from Shouto.

“Because I never dated anyone before,” Shouto simply stated, his hands holding yours gently while you climbed the stairs that still winded you by the tenth flight. 

“But why?” you find yourself pestering for more, your thoughts unable to figure out why he wouldn’t. There was no denying that he was incredibly handsome, stupidly so — even you had to admit that from the first glance you had of him. The girls also saw that — it was very obvious, so what was missing?

He was silent for some time, and it was something that you had already grown used to. His pauses happened when he didn’t have a clear thought, and while it didn’t happen often, it was enough for you to have already picked up on. 

“During my school years I was more focused on other things,” Shouto confessed, pausing on a stair to allow you to gain your breath. “Something happened with my family and it took a lot of my time and energy away.”

While you knew that his family wasn’t in the picture anymore, you had no idea what had happened to them. You contemplated asking about it or not, your teeth tearing into your bottom lip while he stared down at you. The question was evident on your face though, most definitely screaming on top of your lungs despite you not uttering a single word.

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet, sorry,” Shouto confessed, and you nodded your head, you understood the feeling.

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you about my story too, one day we’ll both be ready, right?” you asked, your feet already making its way up the staircase even before he did. 

Shouto smiled just the tiniest bit broken, and he nodded his head, continuing up the stairs after you with a sense of relief rushing through him 

“Of course.”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“Oh my god, it’s freezing.”

“I told you it was going to be cold, its November!”

You pressed the winter coat to your body even tighter, somehow you wanted the threads to become even closer than a second skin. 

It had been two months since you had managed to find yourself in the same area as Todoroki Shouto, and so far, not a single day went by where you regretted it. Hell, even the wounds on your body had become purpling scars and eventually disappeared altogether. In two months the two of you had become quick and strikingly close friends, the both of you naturally growing closer due to sharing and living in the same quarters.  

All in all the relationship sprouted between the two of you was genuine and different from other relationships in the base. 

While most of each other’s past was still relatively unknown, both of your abilities to open up about what had happened in the past faulty and fell flat more often than not. It was honestly weird just how unable you both were able to talk about your past: the mile-long stare in your eyes, the tears, the anxiety-ridden dreams. Shouto had no idea that he still screamed for his family at night before you moved in, and you had no doubt that you would wake up shrieking.

Of course, these terrors had subsided by a landslide the second you both decided to try something new out: holding hands at night had become sleeping side by side. It was definitely a weird new inclusion by both of your standards. Most mornings you woke up utterly tangled in each other’s limbs, the person who woke up first being the one in charge of detangling and denying that they had become that entangled. But hey, that’s sort of what happened when both he and you were desperately trying to deny the softly burning embers of a beginning relationship. 

But how could you begin to forget that you had been integrated into the Yuuei community very quickly, and nicely at that? After Momo’s birthday, you managed to earn a spot in the girl group, most meals having them coming to find you and sit with you. That was something you appreciated especially on the days that Shouto wasn’t on base.  Even the guys who had once been wary of you entering their car had accepted you wholeheartedly. Although you hated being a janitor, you had to admit it was the only job you were capable of handling at the time. 

You weren’t handy with machines to be an engineer, the only first aid you knew wasn’t even good enough to land you as medical assistance, your education wasn’t anywhere near as thorough as the one implemented here, and your cooking skills were subpar. In all actuality, you longed to be a seeker, but the outdoors were still something you weren’t ready for. 

Shouto and you had learned that old habits died hard, and well, until you were ready to be a team player and no longer thought about your survival and your survival only, you would remain in your janitor position.

But you found yourself climbing onto the rooftop floor with Shouto for one reason and one reason only. 

Despite his lavish education growing up, he had stupidly asked you what the hell a constellation was.

While you hadn’t known that there was a difference between a meteoroid and an asteroid, you were pleasantly surprised and leagues excited at finally being an expert on something that he wasn’t. Stars and constellations had been your only guides and stories for quite a while after all. 

But with Shouto’s judgmental eyes on you, and the shifting of your weight to keep warm, you tilted your head back to look up at the painted night sky. 

“Not all of us are abnormally super-weirdo hot all the time,” you accused, the fur lining of the jacket pressing onto your cold lips. The jacket had been a gift from Shouto, a clothing item that had somehow survived being eaten by moths that he had presented to you on your first month anniversary of being on UA.

“That just sounds like you’re jealous,” Shouto countered, his body moving to stand next to yours. He was in a light sweater and regular clothes, you had no idea how he wasn’t cold at this point. But you chose to ignore it, your lips pouting while the both of you sank to the ground, the soft blanket beneath you doing little to cushion your head against the concrete roof. “So… which constellations are in the sky right now?”

“Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cetus, Hydrus, Phoenix, Pisces, Sculptor, and Tucana,” you listed without a hitch, the names meaning nothing to Shouto but didn’t stop the impressed look on his face. 

“Do they had stories behind them?” he asked, his warm breath misting in the air while you adjusted closer to his left side, your frozen hand held tightly by his warm one. He shifted his gaze back down to you, his eyes focused on your wandering ones that drank in the beautiful night sky. 

“Only the best stories,” you grinned, your attention shifting over to Shouto while a glint sparked in your eye. “They’re a bit western and a lot of years old if you want to hear them?”

Shouto nodded his head. There wasn’t anything more than he would like to do except be by your side and just listen to you talk and talk, especially if that meant you would forget what you were saying or your instructional material would become a sidetracked rant that he would listen to with clear fascination and teasing intrigue. 

“Okay, I guess I’ll start with Andromeda!” you nodded your head, your finger thrusting towards the masses of stars that Shouto had no ability to piece together to become the young woman who was sacrificed to the Cetus. 

Still, he pretended he could see the constellation because you wouldn’t begin any tale without making sure he could point them out. But there was no denying that he was baffled and in love with every part of your stories. It really wasn’t the fact that the stories were interesting to him, as a matter of fact, Shouto was rather bored with the dramatic Greecian tales for the constellations in the sky, but it was you that made it interesting. 

Even with your hand in his, your arms threw around animatedly as part of your dramatic reenactment of these tales and myths. Your passions being felt without mistake while you taught Shouto about the night sky. 

No matter how passionate you were about teaching Shouto about the constellations, the cold won out, in the end, sending the both of you back into the room before you could explain the story you knew about Tucana. 

“Did you learn anything new tonight?” you asked, your body curled up into the blankets of your tatami, waiting for Shouto to finish his journal to come and provide you extra warmth.

“I guess I did,” Shouto confirmed, his head nodding while he continued to scribble down his thoughts. But there was something to his tone that you found suspicious, your eyebrows narrowing when you saw the slight crease in his cheeks from the smile on his face. 

“Why you smiling like that for!” you whine, your cocooned legs thrashing in your childish tantrum. “Was there something on my face the entire time?”

“There was something on your face the entire time, but it wasn’t anything embarrassing,” Shouto promised, his hands gathering his journal, light, and pencil and putting them aside before coming to lay beside you, his body pressed behind yours, his warmth already sinking through your blankets.

“That’s what you said when I had a sticker on my forehead for an entire day,” you pout, your eyes already feeling heavy with his warmth pressed against you.  

“You were cute,” he admitted, his voice that was heavy with exhaustion tickling the exposed skin of your neck. He closed his eyes, allowing for sleep to consume him while he uttered his last words of the day. “I don’t care for stars and such… but if you’re gonna do stuff like that… who knows, maybe I’ll grow to love them.”

His words sank a hot stone in your stomach, and the goosebumps and butterflies that raised against your entire body refused to subside until you finally managed to fall asleep yourself, one final thought passing through your swollen bitten lips. “You can’t just stuff like that and expect me to not have feelings...”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

March was the first month of spring, and while you had survived a full winter without a taoreta attack at UA there was no denying that you felt like you had gotten away easy. The uneasy feeling in your stomach was heightened today before Shouto had left for his typical job as a seeker. You had barely managed to wake up that morning to see him off, but the moment he had left, you were unable to stay asleep, a pit of worry growing cancerously in your stomach.

You spent the rest of your morning tidying up the room, cleaning and organizing the “chaos” of the room because there wasn’t anything better you could do until on your day off. 

As a matter of fact, you went on to join Mina at her checkout position today. The pink-skinned girl had recently begun to wear a horned headband which really pulled together the taoreta vibe she already gave off, but she was nice to distract yourself with while a haunted feeling gloomed over you the entire day. She had talked through your fear, pinning your anxiety on your recently admitted to affections towards Shouto and noot wanting him to be injured while on his job. You had agreed it was most likely that but even as the day continued you couldn’t tear your gaze from the entrance. 

But as Mina was cleaning off a weapon that had been used yesterday she froze.

You looked up at her, your eyes studying the way that her hand pressed into the radio that was placed in her ear, relaying a message you only wished you could hear.

“How far away?!” Mina yelled into the system, her body moving to grab another radio set. “How many were hurt?!”

Just like that, a nausea heavy anxiety rocketed through your body, your limbs trembling while Mina seemed to keep her own panic under control.

“Medics,” MIna yelled into the com system, her voice projecting all over the school grounds. “Come in medics, this is Mina. Report to the main gates immediately. We have an incoming group of four hurt seekers from a taoreta attack. I repeat we have an incoming group of four hurt seekers. Three are minimal, one is critical. Ready blood type O immediately.”

Your skin crawled at that information, Shouto was the only one with blood type O going out today.

He wasn’t the critically hurt one, you thought, watching as a crowd of medics rushed to the gate, no doubt readying to take the critical patient to Recovery Girl the moment the car crashed through campus. But as the car you knew as the same one that brought you here slammed to a stop by the entrance, nausea hit you when you saw that it was Kirishima and Iida who were driving.

Three slightly bleeding friends of yours were pulled from the truck and you felt the world go silent when none of them were Shouto. The screams and shouts of medical instructions went unheard by you when you saw Shouto’s bloody, torn up body being transported onto a gurney, a bloodline immediately hooked as they ran away.

You couldn’t hear anything or see anything but the sunken dip in Shouto’s cheeks.

Was he going to live?

You weren’t even aware of your own hyperventilation until Mina shoved you onto the floor, her golden-yellow eyes wide with worry and distress for you, but her words remained deaf on your ears, unable to pierce the stress ringing in your ears.

Was he going to leave you too?

~

Shouto’s eyelids felt heavier than lead when he finally woke up.

The bright white light of the hospital room almost blinding him while he groaned. What had happened?

A fuzzy memory of running into a taoreta with savage storm powers replayed in his head. He had almost sacrificed himself to save the group, the damn monster had the strength of Hercules and slashing wind that he cut Shouto up on numerous occasions. He had sworn he had gone under multiple times, but each time it felt like there was something stopping him, keeping him from leaving.

He wouldn’t have minded leaving, there wasn’t much here, to begin with. At least not after the demise of his entire family. 

“So you’re finally away, Todoroki,” a gentle withered voice intercepted his thoughts, and Shouto turned his head with a pained grimace to see Recovery Girl checking his vitals. “I’m glad to see that you’re conscious of whats going on. You’ve woken up multiple times already but would seize before passing out.”

“Am I... am I alive?” Shouto asked, his tongue feeling like sandpaper in his mouth.

A folder of papers crashed against his already throbbing head, and Shouto cursed while Recovery Girl fumed. “Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m kicking the bucket any time soon!”

Despite the pain, Shouto smiled softly, his head nodding in understanding.

“Besides, if you died I would have personally prayed for your soul because it looked like y/n-chan would have appeared on death’s door herself to bring you back,” she mused, her gloved finger pointing at your passed out figure on the other side of the bed. 

Shouto’s eyes widened at the sight of you, something warm curling in his stomach seeing you there. But he frowned at the way your face was exhausted and thinner from the last time he had seen you.

“How long was I—?”

“A bit longer than two weeks.”

Holy shit that was a long time.

“We almost lost you a few times, but for some reason you always did better when she was holding your hand… it’s weird, but it worked — saved your life even. You owe that girl a big thank you, she’s done a lot.”

Shouto nodded numbly, his mind moving faster than he cared for while Recovery Girl finished her tendings to him before eventually leaving him alone. He had done better when you held his hand…

He looked down at his wrapped arms, now beyond grateful that they had been stockpiled on medical supplies because had they not they would have most likely decided saving him was a waste of resources. His hand moved to rest on your propped elbow, but the moment he touched your skin, your head popped up.

Shouto stared at you, and you stared back.

Bloodshot exhausted eyes meeting sullen ones, and Shouto barely had time to smile before tears sprung into your eyes.

“You almost died,” came a bitter hello, and it shocked Shouto. He hadn’t expected such a cold greeting from you. “Y-You promised you wouldn’t get hurt on these expeditions.”

You knew promises like that one were childish — it was a promise that couldn’t be kept in this society, but it was one he had still made to me.

“I promised I wouldn’t die,” Shouto countered, his hands pulling to rest on his lap, knowing that having contact with you was probably what wasn’t needed at the moment. “I didn’t, by the way.”

“You died three times while they were saving you!” you spat, angry heavy tears rolling down your cheeks. “You died and all I could do was watch! You l-lied!”

Shouto wasn’t sure how to react, on one hand he wanted to snap back at you, his own frustrations at you just not being happy to see him awake and functional made him upset because he was beyond relieved to see you here, but on the other hand, he wondered why you were so shaken at this “lie.”

“Why does it matter if I lied?” Shouto whispered, his attempt to keep his voice from showing any signs of anger passing. “It wasn’t something I did out of self-sacrifice, but because it’s what the group needed.”

You remained silent, your nostrils flaring with your uncovered emotions and thoughts, but Shouto wanted to know your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings. Despite the lengths the both of you had made in understanding each other, there was still so much hidden from both of your pasts, the thought of hurting so much more when being honest about them prohibiting the both of you from sharing.

“Y/n… come one, speak to me…”

“My parents said the exact same thing before they died,” you spoke with emotions tight in your throat. Your tongue passed your lips in an anxious matter, and you shook your head. “My group was murdered by taoreta a year before you met me. I had been sick at the time… the flu had gotten to me, so I was always left alone at our base while they all went out hunting. It was my family and twenty others… I had… I had a bad feeling the morning they died, but no one believed me because I was sick. I made them promise they’d come back alive, and they did! But while they always returned a bit after dusk, no one ever showed up.” Shouto’s stomach curled, already guessing the rest of your story, but there was no need to guess, you were finishing the tale that still haunted your life. “The next morning I was essentially fine, so I packed up my things and went to search for them. My group always left a rock trail to get back… I was going to follow the trail to find them. And I did find them… but… they were all dead. I saw my mom's torso here, my dad's head there. I couldn’t even recognize anyone's bodies, but the smell… I still smell it at night sometimes… rotting flesh and the whimpers of one of my friends who was still dying when I got there!”

The tears on your cheeks rolled down unashamedly, but your body shook with emotions, your breathing shallow and sparse, most definitely not intaking the needed amount of oxygen you needed. But with this insight, so many things made sense to Shouto. Weird personality traits of yours for the first time having reason for their rhyme. 

“I don’t want to be told you’ll be okay and find you dead one day… you were dead and I thought… it felt like I was back there again! I haven’t been there since January and… god, Shouto, I can’t have you dying like that!”

His heart hurt for you, and his eyes found yours again.

“I lost my family eight years ago,” Shouto confessed, his hand stretching out for you to take, and he relaxed when you accepted his offer. “My father and oldest brother had found a group of survivors who were harboring a taoreta who was only twenty-four at the time. We didn’t know they were a taoreta, and we didn’t know that they were turning twenty-five the next day. My family brought them back to base and took them into our room because we had the largest one. I was with… I was with Midoriya, Bakugou, and Kirishima that day, the four of us had decided that we were going to camp out on the track… I didn’t get to even say goodbye to anyone. The next morning there was an explosion in the cafeteria and my family along with the surviving group and taoreta had been killed. It was… horrible… and even though it was years ago, I still feel like it was yesterday. It could have been me there with them — and I felt… I felt like for the longest time that I should have died with them…”

“Shouto,” you whispered, your tears no longer angry but so sad for the man you had fallen for. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Shouto smiled painfully, his shoulders shrugging while he exhaled, tears trailing down his face while a weird sense of relief washed over him. “It’s okay. It’s hard and all, but it’s comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one fucked over by a taoreta.”

Your eyes softened and a snort left your nose while you shook your head, “I think we’ve all been fucked over by them, wouldn’t you agree?”

There was an agreeing noise that passed Shouto’s lips that died as quickly as it had started when your lips pressed to the corner of his mouth, not quite a kiss, but close enough to a kiss that had skyrocketed his heart rate.

“I’m glad you’re still alive though, Shouto,” you whisper, pulling away from him, your lips forever imprinted onto his skin. “I don’t think I would be able to live in that big old room all by myself.”

Shouto cleared his throat, his eyes glinting everso mischievously, “I definitely would had stuck around to haunt you.”

He wouldn’t confess to it at this moment, but his heart definitely skipped a beat at the sight of your glowing smile, and the laugh that escaped your lips.

“I’m sure you would’ve.”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

It was raining.

The chaos of the outside world had once again found its way into Yuuei’s safezone, and everything was going to shit. You had woken up to the sound of rain, your body curled onto Shouto’s and your mind not thinking much of the pittering rain that fell from the sky. You were content in his warm embrace, just grateful to have more time with the sleeping man. It had taken him five months to fully recover from his attack, and he had just recently resumed his job as a seeker two months ago. 

Right now it was December, it had been past a full year since your arrival here, and you definitely were content here.

Your relationship with Shouto has definitely become… muddied in the past few months. Kisses had been exchanged on multiple occasions, the both of you practically acting like a couple despite not having coined your relationship. Despite the both of you coming clean with your past, there was still hesitation to make things official, with both of you not wanting to hear that either one of you had died (you had become a seeker during his time of recovery just so you could get him more shower times, plus you missed scavenging in the outdoors). Secret kisses were exchanged between you like blackmarket deals, but still the hesitant riding heavy in both your bones prevented anything from happening.

But that was okay for now, as long as you were the only one Todoroki Shouto was kissing, you were okay with that. Burying your nose into his chest, you allowed for sleep to consume you into its clutches. Today was both your days off after all.

Seconds before sleep could reclaim you, a long three part bell was heard that instantly had both you and Shouto rocketing upward. A long bell was a part of the warning system, and each part meant something.

One long ring was a storm.

Two long rings was a group of survivors.

Three long rings was a taoreta.

Both you and Shouto scurried to your feet, throwing on the first set of clothes you could find, and desperately putting on your shoes while your heart hammered. You hadn’t fought a taoreta since the year before, and with the explosion outside you could only begin to imagine what this was going to mean for you all. 

“Y/n!” Shouto called for you while you pulled on your jacket. You looked at him, your hands mid-pulling your hair out of your face. “Come back alive.”

You didn’t say anything, his clothes and shoes already on; ready to go out and fight. But in a kiss akin to that of your first one, he pressed his lips against yours in a heated, fervor passion. An action that spoke of desperation between two lovers who longed to see the next day, and you heard it loud and clear.

Survive.

It was an order, it was a promise.

He left before you, and you soon followed after. The weight of the future falling heavily on your shoulders, but a personal fury to survive pushing you through.

It was a long and a hard battle. 

The taoreta had blade wings and mowed down everything in its path. Bodies littered the floor around you, your body in pain and sore while the taoreta lay twitching on the roof of one of the pillars of the campus building. In what was considered to be a lucky shot, you had managed to pierce a major artery of the taoreta with a gun you had taken from a fallen member and he was now bleeding out.

There were multiple cuts all over your body, the slices from the knives doing nothing but harm to your body while you collapsed on the roof, your breathing heavy and your body exhausted underneath the pittering rain. You overlooked the tower, down at the people below and gave a thumbs up, signaling he was dead.

A silent scream of victory came from the surviving members of Yuuei, no one able to actual muster a sound of victory because defeat still stung with every bleeding cut on their bodies. But this wasn’t your job anymore, a successive three short rings alerted the medics that it was their turn to work, and you hobbled down from the roof back to your room.

Your hair was plastered to your face, bloodied water dripping after you while you returned to the room, and you stood at the door unable to walk in until you saw Shouto.

It felt like you were standing there forever, your eyes focusing on the stairway in hopes of seeing the red and white haired boy emerge from a lower floor to you. And finally, finally he appeared. 

There was a cut on his face, a bandaid on his chest, and you realized that he had been treated before coming up. He stared at you from the distance, both your bodies frozen with adrenaline induced joy.

But it was over just as fast, Shouto ran towards you, and there was nothing for you to do except leap into his arms, and press your lips against his. Shouto’s words of gratitude for seeing you alive were stolen from his tongue for you had reached upward in this desperate, frantic glee and kissed him firmly on the lips. His tongue curled and moved against yours, his hands moving frantically against your back in this desperate, longing kiss that exploded fire onto his cheeks and loins. But unlike the first kiss ever exchanged between the two of you he was able to move. He was able to feel the wet streaks from your cheeks pressed onto his, focusing on the heavy frantic breathing that passed through your nose while he entered the room, the door slamming closed behind him.

His lips are passionate against yours, your jaw drops and your mind spins from the intensity he was returning into the kiss. Your gasping moans stir him on as his hands grasp your ass without fear, your body melting into his grasp while he continues to strive ahead, and your hips in their glee of both being alive and knowing what is happening ground against his crotch. Your breathing is uneven, your feelings and nerves overload as you put in the same amount of intensive passion into the kiss.

“Fuck,” he groans into your mouth, allowing for your tongue to invade into his mouth while your hands manage to pull his shirt from his body, throwing it who knows where. 

A low mewl escapes your mouth when your fingers trail down his rippling muscles, the curves of his muscles and the scars on his body making you shake with anticipation. While you busied yourself with memorizing his body with your hands, his hands trail down your legs, softly trailing the underside of your thighs. The sensation of his hot fingers against the wet jeans sent shivers down your spine as your hips swivel against his, a desperate attempt to feel more from him. You hummed in increasing excitement when he cursed your name, the growing bulge in his pants making you sing to the heavens.

Tongues once more crash in the middle, neither one of you entirely dominating the other in this passionate affair. Moans escape your mouth as he lowers to the ground, pressing your back against the tatami. Your fingers fisted into his hair, his hips grinding down into your heated, desperate core. Synchronized groans are exchanged in this slowly maddening exchange, his body very receptive to the hair-pulling.

His hands trailed down onto the swell of your breasts, squeezing firmly around your soft and tender flesh, and you arch into his hands. His tongue furthers into your mouth in your brief distraction, and he trails his tongue everywhere in your mouth, letting nothing go untouched until you were unable to do anything but expel hot, passionate breaths with just the slightest bit of a whine. Your increasingly satisfied moans make him chuckle. You watch with heavy lids as he pulls away, his face deliriously close to your own as you pant.

From this distance, you can see the fire burning in his eyes. A sight that makes you shiver with growing need, but the thought disappears when his mouth attaches onto your neck. His canines sink deeply into your skin catching you entirely off guard in this desperate claim, but you rewarded his actions by screaming his name, the feeling of his hot tongue soothing the burning flesh too sweet and wanton. It’s a new sensation and one that you rather liked seeing that your hips buck up against his; your body craving more friction.

His canines continue tracing against your skin, biting and marking you more and more with the increased vocal praises pouring from your lips. You wanted more, you needed more.

“Oh fuck!” you gasp while Shouto hastily removes your wet clothes from your overheating body, the cold air hitting you, but goes ignored because he presses back down against you, his mouth recapturing yours, and your nipples pebbling with his chest against yours.

The two of you are lost in the kiss, your lips pressing and pulling against the other in a desperate act, your fingers burying crescents into his skin all while your clothes still continue to be stripped from both of your bodies until theres nothing between you but a flimsy set of underwear.

Your nostrils flare as you pull away, a need for air too much for you to continue your kissing endeavors, but as he now remains in just his boxers, your breathing nearly stops while you take in his form to the maximum.

You really were fucking lucky…

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he teases you, and he captures your lips with his own again.

You gasp sharply at the feeling of his heated toned body pressing against your cold yet flushed skin. Your hands sliding down his muscular back were intoxicated with the way his body felt, an overwhelming need to get more from him was undeniable.

“I don’t need a picture of something that I can have every day,” you shudder as his fingers graze the pool of heat in your panties.

“Oh really? Everyday?”

“You think I — oh shit — you think I can’t?!”

You watch as he chuckles against your skin, his fingers trailing over the curves of your breast and into the valley between them before rutting his cock against the place you needed him most right now. “So you just want me for my dick? Nothing else?” he asks you, his cock rubbing against your panties applying a dizzying pressure against your pooling heat.

“I want you, all of you,” you confess, unable to even kid around with the need between your legs being as strong as it was while your hips pathetically grind into his fingers. He chuckles as he pushes your thighs up, and pulls the fabric of your panties to the side, his finger teasing your building heat.

“Such decisive words from a girl who just wanted to kiss me with no relationship in mind,” he mutters sinking two fingers into your unsuspecting heat.

The helpless and needy scream that pours from your mouth interrupts your denial makes him laugh.

“Tell me, y/n,” he says as his fingers slowly pump within you.

Slowly.

Teasingly.

“Do you want my dick in you?”

Your harsh pants keep you from speaking as Shouto increases his speed. His fingers curling within your walls stretching you out in a thigh shaking way. He doesn’t seem to care that you’re vastly affected by his intruding fingers, your body violently trembling with his curled appendages, your mind unable to form sentences because god how was he doing that with his fingers?!

“Yes, fuck, fuck, fuck, yes, oh my god Shouto!” you shriek as your hips slam against his fingers with every crashing movement.

“How about dating me? You think you’ll finally let me be your boyfriend?” he muses as his teeth come to bite against your exposed nipples, relishing in the way your head nods pathetically, so desperate for him to do moore. The neverending noises of approval expelling from your mouth only grow when his tongue flicks your nipple. Your fingers digging into his shoulders in wild approval. “Are you going to try and find someone else?”

“No! I just want you, Shouto! P-Please fuck me!” you beg as you try squirming away from his fingers. Your fingers scratching their way down his back, leaving bleeding marks on him in attempt to get him to do more to you. You watch in growing glee and excitement as he slips off your underwear, and his cock spreads completely against your dripping cunt.

A satisfied and slightly horrified moan escapes your mouth at the sight of him carding his cock between your folds. His fingers remove from your sopping wet cunt as he licks you clean from his fingers. “Maybe I’ll have some dessert later,” he wickedly grins as he slowly fists himself. “Now lay back and legs out.”

He accentuates every word, and you feel yourself heeding his command. Your hands quickly gather your thighs in your hand, and you stretch backward as you watch him draw near your spread legs. The tip of his hard cock teasing your entrance.

“Fuck me already!” you whine as he continues to only coat his cock with your juices, uncaring of both of your throbbing sexes.

He looks up at you, a smirk on his face as he shrugs.

“Sure.”

A shriek crashes through your mouth as he pushes his cock completely into your awaiting cunt without mercy. His girth stretching you out in an unimaginable way. Stretching you out in ways you were not prepared for, your back arching off the mat in your silent scream. Your walls rippled as they attempted to relax and grow used to his size. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” you cry, absurdly unprepared for his cock in you as your body trembles as Shouto leans forward.

His own head is buried within your neck, his breathing trying to reign back in.

“Shit, princess,” Shouto cockily rasps, but his words feel powerless as he is obviously affected by the tightness of you around him. “Fuck, you’re so fucking tight.”

You mewl as the painful throb in your pussy lulls and you writhe your hips against him, “Please do something, fuck me right. Please fuck me.”

Shouto smirks, small and knowing, and rightfully so as he adheres to your demand. His hips position to a better angle, his hand pressing against your thighs and you can only watch with your face buried into his neck he begins slamming into you. Your hips move in time with his. 

Both of you desperate under your nearing orgasms and this heightened state of pleasure brought by the desperation of this fuck. You had both survived the attack, something that the both of you had been so scared of eventually happening given your records, but you had lived. You had lived and became insanely horny at the first sight of Shouto. 

His hands gripped your hands while he pounded into you. His grip nearly cracks your hands as he slams his body faster against yours, stretching you out with every move, and by god does he know how to use his cock that dragged against your spongey puffy walls. His hands shift as they drag out under your ass, clenching your supple flesh as this difference stretches you out in unimaginable ways.

His hips crashing into yours is mind jolting, and your cries only fuel him on.

Your body feels as if it is turning into jelly as he shifts your two legs over his shoulders. His cock bottoming out into you making your back arch off the mattress as you wail out his name. Shouto’s heated fingers press against your throbbing clit. You suppress a wail as he rubs harsh and delicate figure-eights onto your puffy nerve. Your pussy is clamping down on his hammering cock, not at all slowing him down, and yet he still grunts and increases his speed and strength.

Your noises of pleasure silences as his cock hits the back of your walls, your legs thrashing around as he drilled into you the same way.

Over and over.

Again and again.

Harder and harder.

His cock smashing against your walls until he tilts his angle and crashes down hard against your g-spot.

“Shouto!!!” you scream as he continues pounding into your g-spot. His alias a prayer on your lips as he continues fucking your brains out.

You shoot up off the mattress, your screams muffled through a kiss as you wrap your arms around him. Even though your legs were on his shoulder, you held on. The angle allows Shouto to drive his cock against your g-spot over and over again. Your body bouncing with every single slam. His body is giving you exploding sensations, your tightness making Shouto moan and curse.

“I needa – fuuuuck, baby do that again – I needa come!” you squeak as your body rocks against his own.

“Come for me, princess.” Shouto sighs into your mouth. “Come around my cock.”

The built-up pleasure in your belly is profuse, it’s built up so fast, and your toes curl in electrifying pleasure. You can’t handle it anymore, the pleasure being too much.

Your orgasm slams through you, your vision nearly turning white as your jaw drops as your screams go silent. Shouto’s mouth continues to move against yours, kissing sloppily against your teeth as he chases his own orgasm. His teeth digging into your bottom lip as his jaw slacks.

His hips continue slamming into you. They’re brutal as they slam over and over again. He’s chanting your name as your stimulated cunt continues clenching around his length. His pace is making you grow numb in his arms, although your hips still continue to desperately roll against his. His breathing is heavy and tense. Panting as he struggles to keep himself composed.

“Come inside me…” You whine into his ear, desperate to feel his hot seed within you. “B-Breed me like the bitch I am, sir!” Your cry, wanting nothing more than his cock to bury all nine inches in you.

“Come for me one more time, and I’ll make sure to fill you until you’re dripping with my semen for an entire week,” Shouto promises, and his hips slam within you.

Your knees are buried within the mattress by your head, your feet curling and pressing against each other.  Shouto lays on top of you, the penetration deep, and his hands gripping yours. The weight of having him on you is exhilarating, and for the first time this night, his lips press hungrily against yours while deep within you.

His cock slams against the wall of your cervix repetitively while his lips overwhelm you. Each slam into you is massive and powerful. Powerful enough to have you sobbing into his mouth while he kisses you, his hands clutching your smaller ones in his.

Again and again, he slams into you. His thrusts knock the wind out of you until you release his hands and find yourself digging your fingers into his back, crying out his name desperately while his teeth find a home on your neck, sinking into flesh he had long ago broke. The powerful pounding of his cock makes you keen, your hips jerking up to meet his, but you’re useless against his downward thrusts.

“Impregnate me, sir,” you gasp, your eyes rolling back in pleasure, “breed me! Please fill me up!”

“You’ll be full of my fucking kids in no time,” he snaps, his cock throbbing within your pussy, and loud echoing slaps fill the room. Your nails claw into his back, marking him in multiple places with clean four bloody red lines.

You couldn’t take the feeling of how his body moved perfectly within you, the strength and power behind his every move were almost too natural as if this was an everyday thing. You let out noises reasonably similar to a purr, grinding your cunt against his conquesting cock and laughing breathlessly at his low groan.

“You like this, princess?” Shouto nips at your throat, his thrusts making you shriek out his name as he buries you further into the bed, your nails digging into his flesh. “You like the way my cock fills your pussy the same way it did that pretty little ass?” You nod rapidly, your eyes closed, your mouth open, your pants tumbling from your mouth. Your sanity was lying on a string, his actions the reasons for your downfall.

His leverage was small, but every thrust seemed to have his cock being pulled out of you nearly completely. Before he drilled back into your pussy. The noises of your connecting wet sex left loud echo with your squelching pussy around his hot throbbing cock. The muscles on his back seemed to flare dramatically under your fingernails, your screams turning silent due to your approval of this.

“You like the way I fuck your pussy? The way that Imma fill you with my seed for days to come?” he growls into your ear, his hips slamming inhumanly faster into you.

“I need you to breed me,” you sob, the fire in your face as bright and hot as the one between your legs. His sweaty forehead pressed against yours, and his lips recapture yours.

Your mind goes blank when a mighty crash goes through you. But Shouto must not have noticed the clamping of your inner walls as he continues drilling his hips into you, hitting your cervix, and pushing it further up with every slam. You sob against his mouth, your nails tearing into his shoulders as the feeling of your orgasm was too strong to deny, and he only continues to fuck you.

Your scream is silent, your eyes rolling to the back of your head, your fingers digging into his neck, and your toes curl. His hips are driving, persistent, and have a goal in mind. You can barely keep up with him, your long overstimulated body wanting to collapse at the seams, but he doesn’t stop.

“Cum, sir,” you beg, your hips wildly thrashing against his. “Please, fill me with your seed!”

His cock stretches you out in a new way as he presses your back onto the mattress again. The protruding veins on his cock creating insane friction against your walls. Shouto fucks you mercilessly, his fingers clenching your ass as you come apart for him. Shouto curses loudly as he finally loses himself within you. His hips drilling forward one last time as a heavy load shoots into your throbbing cunt.

Shaky breathing fills the air as he pulls out of you.

You whine at the lack of him within you, and your body relaxes as he falls beside you. You whimper as you feel your combine cum seeping from your clenching pussy.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, his hand moving to find yours again, and you can’t say anything but nod in agreement.

“Holy shit is right,” you chuckle and his snort makes you warm inside.

“So… we’re dating now, right?” you ask softly, moving to look at Shouto’s closed eyes.

“We’re about five months late on that, but yes, yes we are.”

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Of Monsters and Men

Chapter 9- Rare Species

Summary: You may be about four-hundred years old, so why not finally let your eyes behold the sight of a dragon?

Warning: blood, a bit of smut, angst, tad longer then usual because it gets spicy

Masterlist

You had left Jaskier down in the rocky valley with Roach, packs of supplies and valuables in her back, and two travel guides that lead the way to this dusty mountainous place as you and Geralt searched for some type of vicious lizard creature. You had already confirmed with yourself that those two guides were trouble and as usual your suspicions had been correct when your ears pricked with the sounds of scuffling and Jaskier's protests as you make your way back down the trail.

But by the time you made it round the jaggety rock formation does your crimson eyes find a shocked Jaskier, one dead guide, two beautiful warriors, and a grey bearded man with a tinge of enchantment about his aurora and peculiar scent. Honestly you kind of expected something randomly unexpected to happen at least once today, only to your small trio of course.

The fearful guide looks up wide eyed at your sudden presence, Geralt coming to a halt right behind you, a puzzled expression crossing his features as yours does about the same, "I believe those are mine." Mutters Geralt before the man quickly drops the items in the rocky dust, throwing you the small sack of coins he had stolen, then hastily turning around and booking it down the uneven path.

Jaskier looks to the two of you, pointing at the new strangers, "Ger-Geralt, Y/N...uh, This woman just killed a man with her bare hands for trying to steal your horse." The warrior stands unfazed at Jaskier's inquisition.

You snort, "Maybe she'll make a better travel companion, then." Geralt lowly chuckles at your comment, a smile upon the mystery mans face as Jaskier scoffs before turning to him.

"Uh, I'm sorry, who are you, exactly?" He wonders, something that's definitely in your mind, they seem harmless enough at the moment but you're not ready to just trust anyone.

The short greying man steps forward, a wise smile upon his face, "I am Borch Three Jackdaws. These are my companions, Téa and Véa." He reveals, tilting his head as his companions stand to either side of him protectively, "I've been looking for you two, Geralt of Rivia and Y/N of Alkatraz." You side eye Geralt, how and who the fuck is this guy?

——

After traveling down the mountain trail for a while, the old man has now lead you all into some bustling tavern, he takes the lead while exclaiming how meeting people of yours and Geralt's likeness is a first for him, he's rather quite excited to dine with you two as he boasts about how legendary your adventures are, thanks to Jaskier. Though with how lively his body language is, you can tell he's sought you out for something important, people like him don't just butter you up with compliments without meaning to get something out of it.

He finds a long table by the fireplace, directing the tavern barmaid to get him one of everything they have and to keep the ale coming, Geralt sits down as you go to do the same upon his left, Jaskier making himself comfortable on your immediate left. Your body sat in between them as the man, Borch, brings his own bottom onto his wooden seat as his companions seat themselves across from Jaskier.

Borch claps his hands together, "A short while ago, a green dragon landed across the border in King Niedamir's mountains." Your eyebrows raise in curiosity as Geralt's simply furrow in thought, Borch smiles knowingly, "I know what you're thinking. Impossible, dragons are so rare. But it's true." He takes a sip from his mug, the barmaid going around the table and filling each one of yours up with ease, "Locals spotted it and went after it in search of treasure. Of course, they succeeded only in wounding the creature and angering it so righteously that it swooped down from its lair and set half a hillside ablaze." Geralt scoffs, disinterested before taking a sip of his mug, "Dead sheep everywhere." Finishes the intriguing man.

You chuckle with a shake of your head, this may not quite be something that you'd like to get involved with if actual fire breathing dragons are concerned. Taking a sip from your shiny dented mug you listen as Jaskier tries to turn on his charm, "You have the most incredible neck. It's like a...a sexy goose." You snort into your ale as the faces of Téa and Véa appear to be less then impressed.

"Now, the King is in a bind." Continues Borch with his dragon story, "He's set to marry the princess of his rival kingdom, Malleore, which means it's bad timing to have a murderous pest lurking about in the mountains. He's commissioned a hunt to kill it. Four teams have signed on. The winner gets the dragons treasure hoard plus the title of lord over one of his new vassal states. That is...if he survives." Explains Borch thoroughly, it all sounds intriguing at best, but you could care less about treasure and a lordship over some needless state.

"Great overview of the details, but what does this have to do with us?" You ask, seriously you just got done with a weary monthlong hunt, you're not exactly chopping at the bit for another go around with a monster.

"I want you to join my team." Inquirers Borch with a small smile, you take another sip as Jaskier's face lights up.

"I can hear it now, a tale of two Zerrikanians and their valiant poet lover. Oh!" Chuckles the bard, "We're so doing this. We're in."

"You've wasted your breath, Borch. We don't kill dragons. Take my advice. No treasure is worth dying for." Mutters Geralt.

"Depends on the treasure." Answers Borch, "What I need is...a new adventure. One final first before I'm too old to do anything but die."

You think about his proposition, he is an odd little man with quite the wish, "You think killing a dragon will bring you that?" You wonder.

"All I know is there's one path up that mountain, and it's overrun with monsters."

"Oh in that case." You quip as he continues with his reasoning, "With you both on my team, a Witcher and dhampir princess, we'll be unstoppable." He confirms before suddenly a loud squabbling is heard behind Borch, a group of dwarves are being hassled by the other bar patrons. One of them screaming for the bartender to give his friend, and you quote "four fucking pints", apparently those imbeciles are one team. Tèa adding in another team called the Reavers, asking if you both have heard of them, of course you have. Nasty lot they are.

You turn away from those men to address Borch of your decision, telling him bluntly that the answer is no. He doesn't appear to be very fond of that reply, almost disappointed he leans in and tells that you're missing something, what could you possibly be missing?

"Sorry to interrupt this lovely moment...That's only three. Where's the...What's the fourth team?" Questions Jaskier as he leans over you to point at Borch, gently pushing him away, your ears prick at the sound of a door opening. Borch turns around in his seat to look, "Them." Comes from his lips as you look up from your mug, mouth going slightly agape, your eyes stare on in befuddlement at the titular individual standing across the tavern, a knight at her side.

Jaskier starts to laugh as you break out into an uneasy chuckle, he quickly declines the dragon hunt invitation as you suddenly feel compelled to join for some deeper unknown reason, "Thank you for the wine and such but we really can't get involved. Geralt, Y/N, shall we?" Says Jaskier with a friendly pat to your shoulder.

Your eyes never leave the infamous mage as she locks eyes with you before reverting her gaze towards the knight, "We're in."

Jaskier mumbles a swear as Geralt nods in agreement, whatever you say goes in his book. No matter the crazy witch you happen to be old friends with.

Borch smiles kindly, "The hunt begins at sunrise." He exclaims excitedly as you take another sip of your ale. Well things just got a hell of a lot more interesting with the unexpected appearance of your longtime troublesome friend, let's find a fucking green dragon!

——

Just as agreed you and your boys had made it to the forest grounds where the other teams are, all preparing for the journey ahead as they tie their horses down since the terrain is too dangerous for the hooved beasts, including Roach.

You walk past an angry dwarf who's mad that his pack has been stolen, without two fucks to give you continue onward and over to Geralt and Roach as Jaskier introduces himself to the small man. They have a modest conversation before the dwarf departs, his other shorter companions following him as they ask if Roach is for sale as they scamper on past, "Charming how everyone wants to get their hands on Roach these days, isn't it?" Points out the bard as he walks over near you with his lute in its case hanging from his hand.

"He means we won't make it out alive." Mutters Geralt as he pets the mare's flowy mane.

Jaskier's face contorts in surprised concern, "Wait, what? No one mentioned anything about impending death!" He worries as you pet Roach's soft nose, a small snicker leaving your nostrils in quick short bursts of air, his face looking even more troubled at your amusement.

Roach nudges her snout into the opened palm of your hand, wordlessly greeting you in her own way before you must leave the kind mare behind. Thump. Thump. Thump. You purse your lips together at the approaching heartbeat of a certain mage coming your way.

When she's close to your little group, you don't care much to turn around for the time being. "How is it that I've walked this earth for decades without coming across a Witcher, and then the first one I meet, I can't get rid of?" She presses, Geralt makes quick eye contact with you as he ignores her.

"I'd say something strange was afoot, but then again, Witcher's are bound to bump into monsters eventually, with the exception of our dear Y/N here, obviously." Jests Jaskier as Yennefer hums in fake amusement.

"Jaskier."

"Yennefer."

"The crow's feet are new." She muses with a tilt of her head.

Jaskier frowns, "Yeah, well, your jokes are...old." Scoffs the bard as he turns to walk away down the trail as more of the teams begin their trek for the mountain.

You watch as he leaves before turning around and suspiciously eyeing up your mysterious old friend, "What brings you from causing unnecessary chaos to hunting for a dragon, Yenn?"

A small smile forms onto her lips, "I'm here with my escort. Noble Sir Eyck Denesle." She nods towards the kneeling knight as he prays for safe travels, "To assist him in killing the dragon." For kingdom and glory shouts the knight as he sheaths his sword, she smiles almost adoringly at him before turning to you again, "Till we meet again, Y/N. Geralt." She turns to walk away towards her knight as Geralt says goodbye to Roach.

You can't help but feel incredibly apprehensive of her true intentions for making this tiresome hike to the lair of a dragon of all things. Deciding to abandon your wondering troubles, with a shrug do you turn around and follow the other travelers up the trail as Geralt falls into pace behind you.

For hours do you walk up the mountain path over rocks and rubble, fallen sticks and trees, and Jaskier's constant voice as he fruitlessly attempts to talk to Téa and Véa about whatever happens to pop into his head at the moment. You're honestly one more sentence away from smacking him upside the head when he suddenly expresses to the two warriors that he'll go into the brush and find them something to eat.

How chivalrous of him.

The group stands upon a flat section of the mountain as Jaskier walks off the path and into some bushes on the hunt for something edible. You're not tired in the slightest due to your inherited abilities so lack of rest and food at the moment feels like nothing. You suddenly raise your head to sniff the air as the scent of some furry malnourished creature catches your nostrils, it smells almost like that of wet dog and garlic, its got to be sick. Not a pleasant scent by any means.

A second later your observations are confirmed as Jaskier claims to be looking at something in the brush. His heartbeat suddenly spikes as he jumps back and races out off the mountainside greenery. He stumbles back onto the trail, "Y/N it's one of your friends again." He rushes before jogging over behind you, ever so slightly pushing you in front of him as he cowers back wide eyed at the lanky werewolf looking bastard growling near the edge of the trail.

"What in the name of Bloemenmagde is that?" Exclaims a fearful bald dwarf.

"It's a hitikka." Answers your Witcher as the others bare their silver, "It's probably starving. Sheath your weapons." Advises Geralt as Yennefer's knight does exactly the opposite, he pushes past a dwarf before hacking away at the hungry scared beast. His sword slicing off its arm as it screams in pain, another slice to its stomach before the sword cuts its head clean off, the knight hacking at it in a frenzy as blood spurts forth. Everyone looks on in disgust as he really lets into it, he finally stops, breathing heavily as he looks down at his work.

Snorting you fold your arms, "I think you got it." Jaskier lets out an amused huff of air as the knight ignores you, shouting "for kingdom and glory!" blood still dripping off of his face.

"Sir Eyck!" Shouts Yennefer worriedly as she races to his side, touching his face affectionately as he looks into her lavender irises, "You could have been killed." Turning your head away from the sappy interaction you pick up your pack before slinging it over your shoulder, "We should have just fed Sir Eyck to the scrawny fucker and save my nostrils the disturbed scent emitting from that heap of guts." You muse as the knight glares at you, a smirk upon your lips as you turn to continue up the trail.

Another hour is spent hiking before camp is set, a decent fire aflame as Sir Eyck cooks the hitikka over the spit, he picks off a chunk of the diseased meat and eats it with a smile, proud of his kill and the meal it produced. You watch the idiot consume the infected meat, a brow raised at his ability to feast without a single concern, "Not that I give a shit about your valiant life as a knight of whoever the fuck, but I wouldn't eat that." He keeps chewing as his irritated blue eyes find your crimson ones, you can tell your presence puts him off.

Nonetheless he answers you, "Knights never waste a kill." He coughs, "It's precisely why I'll make a great lord to Niedamir's vassal state. A great knight must lead by example. For..."

"Kingdom and glory. We know." Adds Téa with a truthful jest of annoyance for the irritable knight as you and Jaskier let out a small chuckle.

"My subjects will be the luckiest serfs in all the lands." He turns to Yennefer fondly who's seated by his side, "Especially with the beautiful Yennefer as my mage."

She smiles, her eyes never leaving his, "I cannot wait to serve you, My Lord." She speaks softly, Sir Eyck studies her face affectionately as one of the Reavers walks to the fire, undoubtedly about to disturb the peace.

"How would you like to serve me tonight...witch?" He boldly asks while reaching down to tear off a chunk of meat, if not for the fact that this dragon hunt has multiple teams working together you'd without a doubt suffocate him in his sleep.

Instead you bite the inside of your cheek at his godawful scent, "Careful, Boholt." You challenge darkly, he stands up with a piece of meat in his hand as he turns to Yennefer.

"So, the lady dhampir wants to play knight too, hmm? That is interesting, I wouldn't mind you both visiting me in my tent this night if..."

"If I was to seek you out in the dead of night, I assure you, you would not be alive at dawn." He scoffs as his eyes trail over you, you stare at him unflinching from his lustful gaze, "Besides, she's plenty able of murdering you herself, better yet...maybe I'd make a pretty necklace out of your vertebrae." The dirty man smirks, laughing lowly at your threatening presence. Just by looking at him you can you can tell he's more nervous of your existence among this group then of anyone else. Apparently old wives tales of vampires runs deep in this one no matter how bold he displays himself.

The bald dwarf insults him once again before the Reaver makes a crack at Geralt about if the Reaver will either kill the monster or monster hunter first, leaving the circle in peace as you listen to the grumbling of Sir Eyck's upset stomach, "Uh..I'm afraid I must take my leave." Says the knight as he stands, his face growing pale, "Lady Yennefer, may I escort you to your tent?"

She tugs on his hanging attire, "Will you be joining me?" A smile coating his features as he stutters, "Uh...My Lady, I would...never degrade your honor in such a way." You simply roll your scarlet eyes at his annoying chivalry, Yennefer picked this one of all people to fuck around with?

Jaskier snorts, "I hate to break it to you, but that ship has sailed, wrecked and sunk to the bottom of the ocean." He flinches back as you smack his arm, though it was indeed humorous there was a more intimate reason for her actions a while ago that goes deeper then just a friendly jest in your personal opinion.

But yes, it was quite funny.

Holding his stomach while he fumbles off towards the bushes to relieve his bowls. The rest of you laugh at his expense, the bald dwarf suddenly intervenes with his own bit of knowledge about how there will be no state to rule with the quickening approach of Nilfgaard on the rise. His words do trouble you for the close by innocents that will no doubt suffer from their forces soon enough.

War is war.

Not long after does Yennefer excuse herself from your campsite lot of unruly characters, the dwarves following after for their own rest; leaving you, Jaskier, Geralt, the two warriors, and Borch at the fire to converse about the existence of dragons and how creatures with mutations always fight the hardest to survive. Ending the conversation with a jab at Sir Eyck, who's quite literally the shittist knight of all the knights anyone has ever seen.

What. An. Idiot.

——

After a restful slumber wrapped up in your Witcher's strong arms, do you wake and walk outside into the fresh forest air before the scent of shit and someone's decaying body wafts into your sensitive nostrils, you grimace as Yennefer walks past you, appearing to be in search of that flashy knight. She asks around if anyone has seen Sir Eyck recently, oh shit, you turn and casually walk yourself away from her and Geralt, who's just gathered his belongings. You follow the gnarly smell until you reach the edge of a small cliff, where down below lays the dead body of Sir Eyck.

How can not a single person smell this. Oh right.

You travel down to where he lays; his pants remain around his ankles, only the length of his tunic covering his bare arse from the world. A small pile of dung rests nearby from when he was relieving himself earlier, blood noticeably seeping out from his throat. You crouch down and inspect it better, it is indeed fresh, "Yennefer! I found your knight...I don't think he'll be joining us further!" You shout as the others run over to the small cliffs edge to get a look for themselves, their faces all showing obvious variations of discontent and nervousness.

"Who slits a man's throat while he's relieving his bowls? Is nothing sacred anymore?" Worries Jaskier as he stares in revulsion, hugging his side with a look of distain.

"Fuck." Blurts out Yennefer in frustration as she abruptly turns around, walking away as you make your way back up to where everyone is standing.

The journey continues on as it has before, a couple hours going by before the bald dwarf delves into the promising fact that there is a shortcut nearby that miners would use to travel faster, your team agrees as Yennefer wanders onward, seemly disinterested in the news. Rolling your eyes at her insistent moodiness, you turn to Geralt and ask for him to keep going as you'll get her to follow. You can't help but feel compelled to have her in your company, and as far away from those untrustworthy group of Reavers who smell of ill intent, no matter how irritating she can become.

He nods and leaves you to it, not questioning your capabilities for a second as he follows the rest of the group. You turn to find Yennefer a good distance away from you walking down the gravely mountainside landscape, so to catch her before she's out of sight you race to her in a blur, stopping directly in front of her with a windy woosh of air in her face. You smirk as she frowns at you, no doubt about to say something witty, "I didn't kill Eyck if that was your question Y/N."

You chuckle as she rests a hand on her hip, "Of course you didn't, the bastard's scent was one of the Reavers, that fucker Boholt." You confirm, "And all before you could accomplish what you've actually come here for."

She scoffs, "And what could that be, hmm. I'm here for the dragon." You raise a brow at her shitty explanation as she scoffs, "God I hate you sometimes...I'm here because...there are certain healing properties it's rumored to possess." Your brows furrow in thought, thinking back to the djinn and the wishes and all that shit. And everything before that.

"I thought your transformation healed all physical problems?"

She looks down, avoiding your gaze, "At the cost of others yes." Oh right, the participant will always lose their ability to produce a child of their own. Male or Female.

Suddenly your mind clicks in realization, you tilt your head with a knowing smirk, "You've traveled all this way for made-up fertility cures using fresh dragon hearts?" You muse.

She simply glares, "They're not made up!"

"They are," You argue, "once some things are bound by deep powerful magic they cannot be undone. There is always a balance to everything we do that deals with magical properties, you of all people should know that." Her face falls as you continue, a tinge of humor in your voice now, "And honestly, call me an asshole but come on. You, a mother?"

"You think I'd make a bad one?" She challenges, half offended as you shrug.

"Well, you'd be fun. At least." She turns away from you, not content with that lackluster reply, "I don't really know what you'd want with a child..."

She snaps around, "They took my choice. I want it back. Not that I'd expect you to understand." She smirks, proud of her little jab at your more sinister origins.

You let out an annoyed huff, "I didn't choose my parents, or what unholy abomination they made of me through their lust. But listen, the ones who pieced us together, there's probably a valuable reason why they made us sterile...maybe it's a blessing. This lifestyle isn't exactly suited for a child, but if you really wanted you could fuck around with feeble idiot kings in their court in between naps and feedings..." she turns and walks away, anger in her heart as you follow.

"Do not patronize me!" She snaps as she continues to stomp in the opposite direction, "You know nothing of how I feel."

You're standing in front of her in an angry blur as she turns away from you, "You don't think I haven't thought about it either! I have Geralt, whom I love more then the very earth I walk on or the stars in the sky, but I'll never have a child with him, ever. And I'd rather feed this fucking Child Surprise to a harpy then..." She turns her head to face you, immediately stopping your protests.

"What'd you just say?" She wonders as you purse your lips, looking away from her now that you've let slip some secret information.

"Uh...fuck."

She chuckles, "Isn't that rich. You lecture me on made-up cures for having a child, meanwhile you cheat with destiny to steal one." Presses Yennefer as you scowl down at her.

"It's not like I wanted this! Fuck." You grumble as she studies your troubled face, "It's not even mine but like that matters, the little shit will be in my life whether I want it or not." You pause for a moment before coming back to why you actually stopped her, "Uh, listen Yenn. The others are taking a shortcut, come with us and avoid getting something rather unpleasant creeping into your tent at night. It'll be enjoyable." She rolls her eyes at your dark humored implications of the other travelers.

"Fine."

——

Your band of merry adventurers finally reache the shortcut, it's a pass on the side of the mountain that's held up by wooden planks and metal bars thrust into the rock. You look over the edge as the dwarves give the rest of your company a hard time about crossing since this path is quite literally made for just a dwarf. The small men walk out first as Jaskier gives you a wary glance, a swift breeze blowing your hair about as you smile at him, "Y/N don't you dare think of leaving us, I swear to god." He mutters as you break out into a mischievous grin.

Oh he knows you too well.

"See you on the other side my loves." You blow him a kiss before free falling backwards off the steep rocky ledge, you hear the worried shouts of the warriors, Borch, and Yennefer as they call out for you. The wind whips past your face while you watch them grow smaller and smaller until you shift yourself into a cluster of black bats that all catch on the wind current. You race up to the edge once more before screeching past them on the mountainside, a smile forming onto many of your furry faces as you hear their swears and jabs at you.

"Fookin' vamps." Grumbles one of the dwarves.

Not caring to stick around for however long it may take them to cross, you swiftly glide on the wind as you take in the mountain air and all the wild she has to offer you on this fine day. Your fun feels short lived as soon enough the dwarves make it to the end of the cliff path and onto safer ground.

You shift back into your normal self and wait for your more familiar companions to arrive, after forty-five long boring minutes do they make it round the corner. A melancholy dreariness about them, your face falls as soon as you see Geralt reach the firm rocky ground without Borch, Téa and Véa behind them like they should be.

You know they didn't make it.

Geralt, Jaskier, and Yennefer walk to the campsite without a word as the dwarves start a fire and set up their tents. You throw yours and Geralt's tent together as he walks over to a nearby rock to sit and think about whatever terrible thing must have happened to the others. Jaskier catches your eye and nods for you to follow, standing to your full height do you turn to trail behind him. Seating yourself on the left of Geralt, Jaskier on his right as the three of you look out into the great valley beyond.

"You did your best." Begins Jaskier softly, "There's nothing else you could have done. Look, why don't we leave tomorrow. That is, if you'll both give me another chance to prove myself a worthy travel companion." Solemnly laughs the bard as Geralt hums, a small smile upon your face as you listen, "We could head to the coast. Get away for awhile. Sounds like something Borch would say, doesn't it? Life is too short. Do what pleases you.....while you can." He ends with a tired sign.

"Composing your next song?" Jaskier smiles at your comment.

"No, I'm just, uh....Just trying to work out what pleases me." You smile softly at the dusky mountainside, Geralt's golden irises glance over you with the tiniest of content grins lays upon his handsome features. Jaskier says his good nights before patting Geralt on the shoulder and walking towards a half made stick tent, his prized lute by his side.

A soft cool breeze fans your face as Geralt ever so subtly opens up his palm that's placed atop his thigh, without a second thought does your own hand fall into place with his larger one. A grin on either of your faces as you scoot closer to him so that you can rest your head against his broad shoulder.

A soft joyful sigh leaves your parted lips, "We should go to the ocean. Get away from all this nonsense and danger...more so for Jaskier's sake then mine, but uh...I'd love to feel the salty breeze upon my skin once again. See the great blue waters, feel the sand on my bare feet." He hums in reply, pressing the lightest of kisses upon your head, "You ever been to the ocean, my love?"

"No." His voice is soft and gentle.

You lightly squeeze his hand, "Well, you'd love how peaceful it is...the sounds of the waves are just something else. I never feel as small as when I'm standing on the edge of the world, a vast mystery of water stretching like a grand crinkly blanket. I can't wait for you to see it." A yawn escapes as you bury your face into the crook of his neck, a smile breaking out upon his lips at your adorable actions.

"We should catch some sleep if we're to travel for the ocean tomorrow, after finding that dragon and all." Mutters Geralt, you nod before standing up, slowly unlacing your fingers as he stands to his full height as well.

"Alright, to bed it is."

You turn to walk back to your tent as he picks up his belongings to follow you there, your tent is dirty white and appears rather unsuspecting from first glance, although when you walk in, the volume of the space triples to a large comfortable room. A king sized bed pressed against the center of the right wall, a table to the left and a couple lanterns placed perfectly on a few of the wooden tables for a cozy warm feel to the billowy room, or tent in other words.

You walk in and immediately take off your dark leather armor adorning your torso, your hard leathered gauntlets next as you set everything onto the nearby table. You listen as your Witcher sets his things down next to the edge of the bed, his slow heartbeat picking up ever so slightly as he walks up behind you, a smirk creeps out over your face as he snakes his large muscular arms over your body with ease.

His head leans into the side of your neck as he places a gentle feather light kiss to your temple, you hum in content, "What do I owe this pleasure?" You muse as he kisses the side of your cheek, his left hand feeling underneath your shirt as he gently caresses your hot skin.

"The pleasure is all mine." Mumbles Geralt into your exposed neck as you fight back a moan when he begins to press butterfly kisses all over your skin. One hand resting upon your breast as the other one trails up your torso from underneath your clothing.

A low moan escapes you as he nips carefully at your jawline, his hands continuing to explore your body, a slow warmness forming from deep within you as he shows you more and more love to your heated vessel. You suddenly bite your lip as the feeling of something hard pressing against your bottom, with a smirk gracing your beautiful features do you reach an arm around to slyly palm his hardening member. Just as you'd intended does he grunt at the feeling of your hand squeezing him.

Letting him be, you break away from his grasp to turn yourself around to face him, "Will you make love to me this night?" You whisper as he kisses your soft wanting lips in reply.

Slowly pulling away he rests his head against yours, "Of course." Is all he's able to say before he's captured your lips with his once again.

You move in sync as his hands trail all over your clothed sides, you lean into his hardness as he gently squeezes your bum. Your lips keep locked onto one another as he begins to unbutton your trousers, your nimble fingers working on his own buttoned pants. Your hands become a quick tangled mess as finally your bottoms are loose enough to pull down. You both keep your tight embrace as he tugs at your pants, pulling them down to your ankles for you to step out of. He pulls away to get rid of his own ones, a lustful smile dancing across his features as he tugs off his shirt to expose his blessed muscular body.

Smiling cheekily at him, you raise your arms up for him to pull off your top, he does so a second later. The fabric long forgotten on the carpeted floor as you reach around to unlace your bra and finally rid yourself of the tight constraint with a blissful sigh. Geralt fearlessly eyes them up as you chuckle, your breasts bouncing with your heaving chest, sending Geralt wild. In an instant he's on you again, his hands exploring all over your exposed skin as you trail your nails down his bare back. He kisses you feverishly as one hand plays with your breast and the other rubs at your wet womanhood, sending you into a heated lust that's slowly overtaking your wanting body.

In a blur do you have him naked as his name day, laying dazed on the soft mattress, his white hair tousled as you shimmy out of your undergarments and give him a playful smile, your fangs showing in your joyous state as he awaits your next move. Reaching your hands out do you push his parted legs farther apart, his member bouncing deliciously as you do so. Your next action a slow and meticulous one as you crawl over him, your naked vessel hovering over his as you lean down to capture his lips with yours in a heated embrace. Just as quickly as you started do you pull back to hover your dripping entrance over his erect manhood, you hold it in place before gently placing it right in line with your folds.

He grips your exposed thighs as you lower yourself onto his hard cock, a breathy gasp leaving your lips as he slides into you, your face shifting from discomfort to pure bliss as you adjust to his largeness, he lets out a groan when you starts to rock back and forth in a quick calculated motion. He feels like a hot dream as he writhes and bucks into you while you pin his hands to the soft blankets in your lust. You can tell that he desperately wants to kiss you, but you're taking this orgasm before he gets the privilege to claim your lips. With a smile upon your sweaty face do you rock him into the bed, a swift warmness building in your womanhood as the blessed friction continues to drive the both of you to the edge.

Another blessed roll of your hips has you undoubtedly cuming all over his member as you ride out your high, Geralt releasing his load into you as his eyes close in pleasure, a moan leaving his parted lips as he tightly grips onto your bare hips for support. You ride him some more as he squirms underneath your touch, a pleased grin upon your face at how easily you're able to bend him to your will just by taking the lead and thrusting your hips against his while for the fun of it do you swirl your hips around his throbbing cock. He moans once again at the contact until suddenly he flips you onto your back in a flash, his lips connecting with yours as you gasp in surprise. Geralt taking this generous opportunity to stick his tongue into your mouth, his whole body leaning into you as he parts your legs even further.

Your hands quickly claw at his muscular back as he pumps into you vigorously over and over again, sending you into a moaning mess underneath him as he grunts into the quiet night air. The sweet sounds of skin on skin contact singing beautifully into your ears with each new thrust into your slick entrance. He pounds you into the mattress as you bite back a scream, deciding to mark up his back instead of giving him the satisfaction of hearing your pleasure. Though you're not so sure how much longer you can hold on before you let loose a loud howl from his deep strokes into your wetness.

He continues to relentlessly pound into you before a cry emits from your throat at the sheer pleasure he's handing you so freely. Another moan leaving your mouth as he shuts you up with a kiss before your body shakes in ecstasy all around him, he kisses your neck as you cum for the second time tonight like a little puddle of bliss underneath his stone body. Another kiss against your cheek as he releases himself into you with a grunt, his ending thrusts turning sloppier and sloppier as he gives what's left of himself to you before he's truly spent.

Humming in content at his last fruitful efforts to pleasure you, you pull his head down to capture his lips with yours in an act of silent appreciation for his never disappointing love making skills.

Geralt's lips leave yours as he kisses your forehead before pulling out of you completely and falling into a tired heap of Witcher by your side. You smile as he closes his eyes, the both of you breathing heavily as you feel is seed seeping out of your entrance and onto your legs and bed as you stare up at the cloth ceiling. Not caring for the mess in between your throbbing legs, you turn yourself onto your side as you nuzzle into your soft pillow, your body falling into a blissful slumber as you fall asleep to the sounds of Geralt's breathing. No words need said, everything you've both needed to say was just done and that's good enough for you.

When you wake the tent is basked in the light from the morning sunrise, illuminating the room in a dull grey hue as you open your crimson eyes to find Geralt's golden ones watching you adoringly. A shy smile pulls at the corners of your lips as you become aware of the thin sheet of fabric hiding you from the world, "Did anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare at a naked woman?" You muse with a light chuckle.

He averts his gaze as a smirk appears onto his lips, "My dear Y/N, I have seen you in a much more compromising position then laying in the nude by my side." You gasp before smacking his arm.

"I'm royalty my loyal Witcher, I could have your head for speaking like that." Instead does he reach his muscular arm over to your side, pulling you closer to him. The two of you flush against one another, your blanket leaving your bottom bare from the quick movement.

You kiss his cheek, a smile forming onto both of your lips, "Though perhaps you could show me how you're planning on making up for it." Geralt kisses you in reply, his hands trailing down your bare sides as he holds you close for a heated embrace.

——

After making love to your Witcher in the early morning light, not caring if anyone heard your time together, you walk out of the dirty white tent, dressed accordingly and ready to slay a dragon. Although when you step closer to where everyone should be, the dwarves have gone missing, their scent leading away down the trail. With a low growl do you begin your hunt, Yennefer and Geralt close behind as you all make haste for the unknown whereabouts of the small men.

Your hike lasts about fifteen minutes before the scent of the dwarves becomes stronger and stronger the farther down the trail that you all go. Once you turn a rocky corner do you spot all four of them, Yennefer shouts some paralyzing enchantment upon them before you're able to quite literally rip them a new one. She quickly races past you and the dwarves, you easily follow in step behind her as she makes it to the large vine covered mouth of the dragons lair.

The both of you walk in, your eyes adjusting to the darker atmosphere as Yennefer's eyes widen in bewilderment. You quickly find the source of her shock as your sights land on the huge shimmering body of a dead green dragon, a small egg near her head. You frown before both Téa and Véa make an angry appearance, they demand for the two of you to halt, their swords out and ready to defend.

Aren't they supposed to be dead?

Yennefer steps forward with her shiny dagger, ready to get what she came for before Geralt races into the cave, shouting for everyone to stop. A second later does a golden dragon screech as it comes out from its hiding spot in an opening in the rocky ceiling. The dragon greets all three of you; Téa and Véa explaining along with Borch in his dragon form why this female dragon was laying carnage against the nearby kingdom, she was protecting her egg so it would not die.

Right, of course, and this man is now a dragon.

Taking in all the hectic information with a grain of salt perhaps; a moment later your ears prick to the thumping of multiple erratic heartbeats nearing the caves entrance, you quickly turn to find the team of Reavers hastily stalking their way into view. Shit.

"Looks like we get to fuck up the whole family." States their leader, Boholt, "Slay that dragon!" He shouts before his men charge at you all.

Shifting into a defensive pose you ready yourself as the bastards ascend, "Oh fuck." Slips from your tongue as one of them lunges for your head, his spear making a swooshing noise as it whips in the air readying for its intended mark. Clearly anticipating his advances you twirl to the side, his staff missing you by inches as you rip it out of his grasp and thrust it into the neck of his friend nearby.

Snapping your attention back to the first man, his eyes widen as you roughly clamp your hand around his bicep, he groans in pain before you thrust his lanky body into the air where he cracks open his skull against a ragged stony edge. Lifting your eyes to find the state of your friends, you race to the aid of Yennefer as multiple men advance closely upon her. She finds your determined gaze before using magic to create a sort of sticky quicksand at the feet of the four men. It sucks in their legs until the ground reaches almost to their knees, they shout their protests and obscenities before you unsheathe your silver dagger and in a blur race past them.

When you reach the last one, you turn around to the fresh scent of blood as a thin waterfall of red bursts forth from each of their exposed necks as you listen to their gargled screams. You find Yennefer's eyes as she gives you a hasty nod of approval just as she turns to quickly use her magic once more, throwing about five men into the dirt with a thrust of her hand into the air, the men hit the ground with a hard thud as they struggle to get up. With a smirk do you swagger over to them in their dazed states before driving your dagger into their soft flesh before they have a chance to even register what's going on.

You hear a scream and look up to watch as Geralt slays one last man before you all notice more at the caves entrance, in a hasty blur do you race out of the mouth of darkness and into the sunlight, picking them off one by one as your two companions run to your aid.

They stop at the opening wide eyed as you break the neck of the last Reaver, he falls to the dirt as you turn towards them, blood and dust coating your face. "Nice of you two to finally show up. Gotta do everything myself." You jest, breathing heavily from the whole ordeal. Geralt smirks as Yennefer shakes her head, a small smile upon her lips.

Jaskier suddenly makes it to the top of the moutain, he stops, eyes trailing over the dead and your roughed up appearance, "What I miss?"

——

Once Borch gave some prized dragon teeth to the grumpy dwarves did the mountainside finally calm. They left with huge smiles pulling at their faces as the rest of you found company on some nearby rocks, the lot of you resting for the time being. All three of you somewhat worn out from the whole entirety of the trek to this place and the battle that just ensued.

Jaskier sits off on his own part of the giant flat rock as he listens to Borch speak, "This is my final first. A child. This treasure, this legacy must endure. There is no other reason to go on. Thank you for protecting it." Nods Borch as he looks to the three of you sitting next to one another, "You, Yennefer of Vengerberg, and Y/N of Alkatraz...I can tell why Geralt did not want you two separated, you are both a powerful force of nature when in each others company." He smiles knowingly, eyes squinting in the sun as your brows furrow in confusion, how strange of him to word that sentence.

How strange indeed.

Yennefer's face shifts in puzzlement, "What does that mean?" You both turn your questioning gazes to Geralt, he takes a long pause before he glances warily between the two of you, nervousness radiating from his tense body.

He sighs, "In Rinde. The djinn." Another agonizing pause as your mind turns with troubled thoughts and apprehension for what he's done, he wouldn't, certainly not.

Right?

An uneasiness practically consumes the atmosphere as you connect the dots, the djinn and the wish he must have made that you never asked him about, because certainly he would have used it for himself, on himself? But just looking at him, the way he won't meet your eyes or how his heartbeat picks up with the prick of his nerves, you know. He used magic on you.

You frown as your eyes lock with his, your voice is almost a whisper, "That's why I feel so drawn to Yennefer...why I feel almost responsible for her, so protective...." You trail off, sadness growing in your heart.

"Why I feel this way inside too." Inquires Yennefer while you turn to look at her as she continues, "I haven't seen you in decades, haven't cared about your existence for so long, then the djinn and I suddenly feel incredibly drawn to you like how I felt as a young pathetic mage in Aretuza." She scoffs as a sick feeling forms in the pit of your stomach.

Your fingers crack the rock as you grip it tight in your heated irritation, "Geralt what did you fucking do?" You growl as he slowly blinks, the knot in your stomach growing with each passing second.

He takes a cautious breath as you and Yennefer await the truth, "I wished that...for you and Yennefer to always have each other." Her face falls as you release the rock, quickly standing up as you take a step back, your pained eyes boring into Geralt's the whole time.

You shake your head, trying not to believe it, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" You plead with sad eyes, already knowing exactly what he did, you just need to hear him say it.

"I just wanted...ah fuck....I just meant for." His eyes are sad as he studies your face, "When I die you'll live on, much longer then I ever could or ever will....and I, I love you too much to let you suffer the rest of your existence alone." Geralt pauses for a moment as he looks from you to Yennefer and back to you again, "I bound you and Yennefer together, so you'd have one another when everyone you know is long gone." Your breath catches in your throat as you turn your head away from him. Your face looking out at the vast sky ahead as your body swirls with mixed emotions, but most of all, betrayal.

"Why would you..." Whispers Yennefer as she looks to you for help with this heavy information, blinking you turn around to face them again. Your heart twists with how broken your Witcher looks.

Geralt reaches a hand out to touch your arm, instead you take another step back, anger in your voice, "You could have wished for anything Geralt, anything you fucking wanted!" His face falls as you continue, "Why couldn't you have given Yenn a chance...I thought that would have been your wish, it would only have made sense. Fuck Geralt, I can't ever have a child because of what I am! Not even a djinn would permit the offspring of a Witcher dhampir hybrid upon the continent, its an abomination even in their eyes, a demon infant." Your voice is shaking, "I was lucky to be born and not slaughtered on the spot once I came forth into this world." A frustrated lump forms in the back of your throat as you fight for your words, "It could have worked if you'd let it dammit, now we're bound to one another for eternity instead. You...you..promised me....Geralt....a long time ago to never use magic against me, to never let dark powers like that manipulate my inner feelings, or body...you know why I hate it so much!" He flinches back at your words.

"I could have had a child." Whispers Yennefer, solemn expression looking elsewhere.

Tears slowly begin forming in your eyes, "I've never truly given a shit about anyone but you, Geralt. Then I find Yennefer again and I can't help but feel compelled to help her in her search for a cure....I feel like I can fully trust her, I hate mages, I haven't even seen Yennefer for such a long time. But what you did, this is wrong!" You scream in fury, "No one gets to make decisions for me! Especially when goddamn magic is concerned!"

He flinches back, "Your story in the bathhouse, you seemed very found of one another...and I, I thought that if you were bound to one another then you'd never feel completely lost once I'm gone."

My love, this is not the way.

You shake your head with a pained laugh, "That doesn't give you the right." You look into his sad golden eyes, "I tolerated the idiot novice mages the best I could and their fucking incompetent adversaries! I had a roof over my head and comforts of a room for free, that doesn't mean I gave a shit about anyone else there! And that defiantly doesn't mean you should bind my soul to another."

Yennefer turns to you then to Geralt, her voice that of a whisper, "You had one wish, just one. It could have been anything, I could have finally had a baby."

"I didn't realize." Inquirers Geralt softly, "I didn't mean for..."

"No." Snaps Yennefer coldly, "No you didn't! And here we are, on the fucking mountainside...if I'm lucky I'll never see you again." Growls Yennefer before her harsh glare finds yours, "and if the gods give a shit, we'll never cross paths in this lifetime." Her voice heavy with emotion before whipping around and stalking off down the trail.

Another lump forms in your throat as you glare at the dirt, a few stray tears falling down the sides of your cheeks as you find his pained gaze once again, "You said...you promised...to never use magic on me...not once, not ever." He opens his mouth to say something but you cut him off, "How dare you bound me to a goddamn insane fucking witch of all people! I have always been free of any ties to anyone without my own will to keep me bound, like I have with you and Jaskier....but this...this is just..." You quickly bite your lip to keep from losing it altogether as you lock eyes with Geralt, "you've lost me. I can't....I just, I need time." Your voice a soft whisper as Geralt bolts to his feet, sheer panic in his eyes.

"Y/N no..." He pleads as Jaskier and Boholt watch soundlessly from the sidelines.

You blink a couple more tears away, your body moving a step back, ever so closer to the ledge, "You've linked me to someone...bound me to them so that even when I shouldn't care to help them or give a shit about their life....I do. Even now I want to find Yennefer and join her so she's not alone walking back to wherever the fuck she's going! I shouldn't feel that way, I never have! I shouldn't fucking care!"

"Y/N please..."

You take another step back as his golden eyes frown, "Goodbye Geralt." More tears fall down your face as this hurtful feeling of betrayal consumes you, "Don't try and stop me, I just...I need time." You turn away from him and take a step towards the ledge as he takes a cautious step closer.

"Y/N I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to go this way, I just thought..."

You don't even bother looking at him, "I understand your intentions. Truly. But right now I can't forgive what you've done....if I even dare look at you I might lose control and break your fucking jaw." You seethe through clenched teeth before taking another step forward as he hits his fist against a jutted out rock next to Borch in hopeless frustration.

"Don't look for me, I'll find you when I'm ready."

"Y/N!" Cries Geralt, as you grimace almost in pain. So much anger, hate, and deep sadness coursing through your heart.

You can hear him take more rushed steps in your direction before you leap off the cliff, tears slide down your cheeks as you free fall in dreary bliss before shifting into a wild chaotic pack of screeching bats. Your heart hurts with anger and sorrow as you force yourself to keep flying away from both Geralt and Yennefer.

Away from the mountain. Away from the pain. You are a storm.

-

Tagged:  @notahappytree​ @ashleyforeverareject​ @sokkasdarling​ @kmuir1​​@haleypearce @diegos-butt​ (@auds24 sorry idk why ur name won’t work)

[boognish-worshipper]

ok so like i had this idea for a while n it took me MONTHS to finish bc i was nvr content w/ my writing n whatnot yadda yadda yadda anyway,, this is basically a what if thing about the triads shooting trevor in ludendorff n michael realizing how dumb he is

(my apologies that it’s so fuckin looooooong but I didn’t wanna leave it on a short note that felt incomplete. hope y’all like it !!!!! sorry for any grammatical errors or if the formatting’s funky)

//

Why didn’t he realize it sooner? Was he stupid? No, no. He was just blind. Blind for the past 10 years. Who knows. Maybe even longer than that. Fucking Michael. It always came back to that venomous shithead, constantly ruining everything for him. Did he just... forget? Was he so focused on that bloodsucker when he was “dying” in front of him he completely forgot Brad got shot first? That Brad died first? He didn’t even really think about him when shit went down. Or care much about Brad in general for that matter. The guy was a dick who just worked with other dicks back in the day, eventually joining their motley crew. A fading memory more than anything. His primary focus had always been Michael, who he thought was his right hand man. Trevor always knew that there was something different about him. As frustrating as Michael could be, it still didn’t change how he felt deep down. Michael wasn’t like the others. Or at least, that’s what he had thought. The night he found out that Michael’s lie ran deeper than he led on was one he wouldn’t forget.

He arrived at Michael’s house in a short amount of time. Hopping up the steps he made his presence known, standing in the entrance of the living room. He plopped down next to Michael, who scooted away from him slightly, still not ready for close contact from Trevor.

“Family ain’t back yet, huh?”

“Nope.”

“She’s a Goddamn fool, man.”

Trevor was never one to hide his jealousy towards Amanda. The two had been going at it for years, and it was always regarding Michael. Catty behavior between two people who had complicated relationships with the man, in their own unique ways. Amanda was scared of Trevor, but was never afraid of talking shit to his face. It was never any serious threats whenever they shot petty quips at one another anyway. She knew Trevor would never kill or harm her, all thanks to Michael, who spoke up again.

“Despite all the chaos of these last few weeks, I think I finally figured it out… I know, it sounds ridiculous-“

To Trevor, the thought wasn’t ridiculous. He knew Michael would never change. He would always be a killer, a man of action through and through. He was wasting away on a couch, rewatching classic Vinewood every night. To him, it only seemed right for Michael to keep taking scores.

“You’re back man!” He proclaimed, emphasizing his next line, “We are back!”

With excitement in his eyes, Trevor went on to boast about the little clique they had formed, and how they only needed to bust Brad out to fully reunite. Michael looked solemn, shaking his head slightly.

“That’s not it. I got money, it just makes you miserable-“ Now it was his turn to have excitement shine in his eyes.

“I wanna make movies.”

“Great. That’s great… and uh, so where exactly does this leave me in the second act of your life?”

He felt his stomach sink somewhat, regretting having asked that question. Michael would always tiptoe around it, avoiding the inevitable. But he couldn’t run from the past anymore. It would always catch up to him.

“This is not a game to me! Alright? This is a fuckin’ way of life.”

“I got a fuckin’ family!”

“Yeah, well, I got nothin’! No one gives a fuck about me!”

There was a pause. A hesitation. Amber eyes looked sorrowfully yet savagely into pale blue ones.

“I do.”

Something in Trevor snapped hearing those words. He couldn’t stand the audacity of Michael saying that to him. Because to him, Michael didn’t seem to give a fuck about what happened to Trevor. No matter how many times he lamented to him about everything he went through.

“Oh… Fuck you.”

Trevor rose from his seat, beginning to pace around the room, stabbing a finger in Michael’s direction. He did nothing but stare between his feet, not bothering to look up at Trevor.

“I saw your grave. I mourned you. And then it turns out that everything I fucking thought about you was wrong. Everything! You’re not dead, and you’re not a man.”

Michael shot up from his seat, cool demeanor abandoned in a fit of anger.

“Well, what the fuck are you?”

“I’m your fucking nightmare!”

“Yeah, enough with your Goddamn threats!”

Trevor did nothing but scoff at him, backing away like he was about to leave the room. Instead, some kind of alarm went off in his head, urging him to stay and ask the question he pushed far into the back of his mind. The inevitable was happening, and he couldn’t ignore the need to ask anymore. If Michael himself stood before him alive as ever, then who the fuck was in Michael Townley’s grave? Then suddenly, and ultimately, it clicked for him. Fucking Brad.

“You treacherous piece of shit! You’re fuckin’ dead! You’re fucking dead!”

As it clicked for Trevor, it clicked for Michael.

“Oh, fuck! Trevor! Hey, T!”

He peeled out of the driveway in Michael’s car. God, it smelled just like that fucking prick. It made him want to cry.

“Fuck!” He screamed out to no one in particular.

He slammed on the gas and wiped away any forming tears. His phone began to ring and he saw an all too familiar photo appear. Michael. What the fuck could he possibly say or want right now?

“Fuck you.” He spat out.

“Hey, come on. Where you going?”

“You know where I’m going, fuck you!”

The fucking nerve of him to ask that. What was wrong with him? The rest of the conversation wasn’t any better. It sounded like some stupid break up between two teens, as if Michael had cheated on him with some hooker instead of lying about the past decade or so.

“Trevor, come on!”

“Fuck you Michael! Soon enough, I will.”

He was on his way to the air field, and dialed up Ron as soon as he could. He needed to get out of here before Michael could stop him.

“Trevor? It’s great to uh..”

“Is there a plane I can use? Get me across country?”

“Sure! Sure. We got one fueled up for a trip south of the border.”

“I’m taking it.”

“Is everything okay, man?”

“Everything is not okay. Nothing has ever been okay but I’m going up there to see it for myself. I’m going to see an old friend alright? If you’re where I think you are buddy...”

Trevor gripped the steering wheel harder until his knuckles turned white. Tears stung his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to let it out.

“I don’t know why I didn’t see it. I guess.. I guess I didn’t want to. Fuck!”

He clutched his phone tightly as he spoke, cracking the already shattered screen more. His voice was faltering, and it became harder to speak clearly.

“Maybe I knew all along. I’m gonna find out for sure and I’m gonna... do something about it! God there was always something wrong with that job, what went down after I guess I-“

The tears made their way down his face. His voice trembled and threatened to crack.

“I guess I wanted to believe- Fucking.. Fucking flea circus!”

He couldn’t hold it in any longer. Too many things began to resurface. Seeing red, he just cried out to Ron, still on the phone patiently listening to him rant.

“Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!”

“I’m sorry Trevor...”

He slammed on the gas as he approached the airfield. Running over to the plane, he hopped in and began his journey to Ludendorff. As he left, storm clouds poured in and darkened the sky. A thick rain accompanied by the thunder and lighting combo shook the small plane he was in. He braced himself for the rest of the trip there and kept going.

Ludendorff was just like he remembered. Cold, empty, and super fucking depressing. Why was the midwest like this all the time? Sure, living it up in Sandy Shores wasn’t the most ideal but for fucks sake, at least it was warm. He pulled up to the cemetery shortly after landing, and hurried off to find that God forsaken grave. After glancing at each passing gravestone, there it was. The late great Michael Townley’s place of burial.

“Who you got in here..?”

He scoffed, knowing his answer.

“As if I need to ask...”

It took forever to reach the coffin. The wood was brittle, which meant it would be easy enough to pry open and see who was actually in Michael’s place. He had been so caught up in his digging he didn’t notice a set of steps coming at him.

“You’re wasting your time.”

Trevor was wasting his time? No, he was making perfectly good use of it. Michael was wasting his if anything. Flying all the way out here for what? No, don’t say it... Was it finally gonna happen? Was Michael waiting for the opportunity to finally take a pop at him and leave his carcass for good? To toss him right into the grave with Brad? He didn’t want to believe so but hey, it’s Michael. Who knows what he’ll do. He couldn’t bear to listen to another word that came out of his mouth, and knew he needed to get the jump on him.

“You reptilian motherfucker!”

How did it end up here? Why was he pointing a gun at Michael? What the fuck was he doing? He didn’t want to kill him. He never did, even if he had a million justifiable reasons to.

“I didn’t want it to have to come to this.”

There it was again. The fucking lying. That same exact fucking lying that got them here to begin with.

“Yes you did! You just don’t have the fucking balls to do it! But I do!”

But Trevor was also a hypocrite. He didn’t have it in him to ever go through with killing Michael. No matter what the son of a bitch did to him, he meant too much to Trevor for him to ever consider killing the man himself. He didn’t want to think about being the cause of him dying for good.

“I’ve got more to lose than you!”

“Never a truer word has been spoken, brother.”

He said that with as much malice as he could muster. Michael was the farthest fucking thing from being a brother. This was a man he had loved. Hell, still loved, despite it feeling more and more like a stranger before him with each encounter they had.

“Now.. pull the fucking trigger.”

The air was too still. It was choking him, making him feel frozen. Sure, weather played a part in the feeling but this... was different. His blood felt like ice. He couldn’t do it.

“You ain’t got the guts.”

Neither of them could do it. Even if he fired he knew he’d miss. Michael had the upper hand here.

“Take the fucking shot!”

Wait. Was Michael... crying? No. No way the great Michael fucking Townley was actually crying over this. That motherfucker. He’s such a fucking fraud. A coward. Always running. Running from Trevor, his past, his problems, his family and his fucking emotions.

His train of thought had been interrupted when he heard snow faintly crunching not too far from them.

“What was that?-“

A noise shot through the tense air that surrounded them. Woosh. Fuck. No. It couldn’t be- Ow. No. No fucking way. He looked down in awe and there it was, a distinct bullet hole, pierced through his torso. It nearly missed his heart, but was most certainly in a spot to do enough damage to him. He looked back up at Michael, mouth slightly agape leaking with the blood that began to pool in his mouth. Peaking behind him, he saw two figures lingering far behind. The fucking Triads. Of course, how could he forget? It’s not everyday you slam the head of a Chinese mobster’s son into a post. Fucking shit. If only he hadn’t messed with Tao…

He was fucked, and he didn’t know what to do. All he knew was that he felt himself wanting to collapse on the ground. Michael looked at him in pure disbelief, eyes wide enough to pop from his head. Normally Trevor would giggle at the sight, but any noise from him would be a gurgle of blood in place of it.

“…Trevor?”

That was enough to knock him to the ground.

“Mr. Phillips! Mr. Cheng wants a word with you!”

Michael whipped his head back, and began dragging the two of them to cover. Was that supposed to be a fucking warning shot?? The one who shot Trevor spoke in Chinese to the other gunman, then spoke in English to the duo.

“Phillips! You and your boyfriend cannot hide from us!”

Michael grabbed his gun and started firing back, clipping the two in the front instantly.

“Trevor… what the fuck did you get into?! What are they on about? I… I’m not…”

Trevor couldn’t speak. He could only murmur at the man beside him.

“Trevor, seriously, you better answer me because I’m pretty fucking lost here-“

He angrily turned his head back to find Trevor on the verge of slipping out of consciousness, his face dropping at what was before him.

“Ah, Trevor! Shit!”

Before Michael could help him out, a van burst through the gate to the left, and more yelling ensued.

“Get out the van! Go find them!”

Michael panicked, pushing his gun into Trevor’s limp hands so he could grab the dead Triad henchman’s sturdier gun. He fired and clipped a few more men, trying his best to keep an eye on Trevor. His breathing was shallow, and he attempted to prop himself up so he could fire at them too.

“Trevor, what the fuck is going on? Who are these guys?”

“It’s the fucking,” He winced, pushing himself onto his knees so he could grab the side of the grave they hid behind. He spit out some blood that leaked from his mouth, staining the snow beneath them.

“The God damn Chinese, sugar tits.”

“Why are they-“

“Ask questions later, I’m fucking bleeding out here.”

Trevor forced himself to fully stand, his legs wobbling slightly. He fired a few more rounds, face contorted in pain. Another bullet flew by him, grazing his side.

“Fuck! Ow!” He growled.

“T, what in the hell are you doing?! Get down!”

“Fuck off you fucking leech! I can-“ He spit out more blood.

“I can handle this myself!”

He groaned, keeping his aim as still as he possibly could, which wasn’t very still at all. Stubborn as ever, Trevor went in guns blazing. He used not only the gun Michael had forced into his hands, but also the one he had brought with him. Several more shots fired at him until he felt a hand yank him back to the ground. He fell with a slight thump, and pain jolted through him again.

“You crazy bastard! We’re getting the fuck out of here, but that can’t exactly be accomplished if you’re dead!”

“Oh please! You already want me dead you fat fucking snake!” He wheezed out.

“Jesus Christ- Trevor. I already told you-“

“Shit, Mikey-”

Before either one could do anything about it, a Triad that had snuck up on them pistol whipped Michael in the back of the head. Trevor scrambled backwards and attempted to get on his feet, but to no avail. In a last minute effort, he lifted Michael’s gun and fired. For someone who was labeled a lousy shot by his partner, he felt that Michael would’ve been proud of his aim at that moment in time. A clean shot, right between the fucker’s eyes. He grinned slightly, adrenaline still coursing through him. He barked out a laugh, forgetting how much of a chore it was to allow any noise to escape him. It caused him to break into a coughing fit, spitting up more blood onto the snow. He looked from the small circle of blood that formed in front of him, back to Michael’s limp body. He shoved him slightly, trying to nudge him back into consciousness.

“Mikey. Michael. Get up. We gotta go like you said-“

He heard another van pull up. Then another. Fuck.

“You gotta be shitting me..”

Trevor, disregarding his wounds weakening him to the point his vision grew spotty, swapped his handgun for the gun Michael grabbed. He tried his best to prop the other man up against a grave, well out of the Triad’s line of sight. He pushed through any pain he felt, still riding his adrenaline high, wiping the rest of them out one by one. He rushed back over to Michael, who was stirring awake.

“Michael, for fucks sake get up already! Jesus I’m still fucking bleeding and I have to save your ass right now? Come on!”

He was finally able to stand, and Trevor slung Michael’s arm around his shoulder, helping him regain his balance. They helped one another walk through the mess of snow, blood, and bodies to get to the rental car, which surprisingly was still in alright shape. Across the train tracks, one more van started to pull up, right before the nightly train passed through town.

“Haha! Thank you train for being useful this time!”

He forgot how much it hurt to laugh, clutching his side and muttering curses under his breath as the two raced over to the car. Michael hopped in the driver’s seat after placing Trevor in the passenger’s side. Trevor’s adrenaline rush began to die down along with the rest of him. Michael raced out of the cemetery, narrowly escaping the left over henchmen. Glancing over at Trevor, he realized how shit of a shape he was in. Despite not living in North Yankton in close to 10 years, he still remembered where all the nearby hospitals were. It wasn’t ideal, considering what they were doing up there and who they were and what not, but it was better than having Trevor die on the spot.

“Hey, don’t you fucking die on me right now buddy. There’s no way you ain’t surviving the shit show we just went through, which only happened thanks to you.”

Trevor asked himself why Michael was still giving him snide remarks about his unruliness. He figured now wasn’t the time to really argue, but still tried nonetheless.

“You… fuckin’ snake.. you think you’re so..”

“I’m so what Trevor? No you know what- Don’t speak right now, but try to stay awake, please?”

“Mmph..”

The ride out of Ludendorff was quiet. The radio was off, and neither one chose to speak. Michael of course was driven mad by the silence.

“…Look. Trevor I- I fucked up. There’s nothing I can do now to fix it, no matter how many times I apologize. But you do- You do know that I cared about you then, and I care about you now…”

Trevor did nothing but grunt in response, eyelids heavy. Michael sighed.

“We’re almost to a hospital. They’ll fix you up good, and- and you’re gonna be fine. You ain’t dying on me yet. I mean- you’ve survived worse? You.. I…”

He huffed out a breath, gripping the steering wheel tight. The rest of the ride was silent, save for Michael making sure Trevor was still alive and conscious. They made it to the hospital, with Michael carrying him fireman style, seeing as Trevor was very lanky compared to him. He called out for someone to help, using his gift of lying to say that Trevor was just shot by a random mugger, so the report back wouldn’t seem too suspicious. He patiently waited for word back from a doctor, eventually seeing someone come to him with a clip board.

“Are you… Franklin?”

Michael had been smart enough to give them both fake names, but he just blurted out the first two names that came to mind. Right now, he went by Franklin, and for all they knew Trevor was Lamar.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Your friend is in critical condition, but you got him here just in time. Any later and he wouldn’t have made it.”

The last sentence caused Michael’s ears to ring.

“He’s going to be out of surgery soon, the bullet wound was pretty deep.” The doctor narrowed their eyes slightly, getting ready to write the report down.

“You said that he was mugged?”

“Yeah. The guy fired at him and ran off. Didn’t get a good look at his face.”

“Hmm… well alright. I’ll let you know when your friend is ready for visitors.”

The rest of the night was painfully slow. By the time Trevor was out of surgery, he was still hopped up on morphine, allowing him to rest properly for the first time in forever. Michael sheepishly walked in, careful not to be too loud. He made his way over to Trevor’s side, sitting in the seat next to his bed. He hadn’t seen Trevor look so content like that in so long. Not since... those days. He spoke to himself, seeing as Trevor was fast asleep.

“You worry me so much you dumbfuck… why do you pull the shit you pull? I mean.. shit. I… I love you, man. I do. But what if you died without ever hearing that from me again? Is that the reason why you get like this? Shit. Right. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

Besides everything about Ludendorff, it angered Trevor to his core that Michael could never admit he loved Trevor unless he was drunk or alone. In this instance, he technically was. Trevor was peacefully dreaming, while Michael felt restless. He proceeded to fumble around for his cellphone to reach out to Franklin, who had been wondering what happened to them. He knew Franklin would probably be up anyway.

Yo Mike, where u at? Trevor too, Lamar n I gotta do one last job wit him.

F

Currently in North Yankton kid. Trev found out about Brad. Some Chinese gangsters rolled on us, T got shot. Be home soon hopefully.

M

Oh shit. Stay safe out there homie. See u soon ig.

F

Michael let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, looking back up at Trevor. He tried to think about what he would do next. Knowing that visiting hours were limited, he felt a twinge of guilt knowing he’d have to leave Trevor alone for a night after what happened. But it was late, and he couldn’t stay there overnight. He figured he’d have to bunk in some cheap motel for the time being. Just until Trevor and him were ready to leave North Yankton. He spoke to the doctor from before to let them know he would come back the next morning. When he arrived at the nearest shit motel, he still couldn’t find it in him to sleep. He was tired, sure, but his mind wouldn’t allow him to drift off. Even if he did, he would find himself jolting awake, the scene of Trevor getting shot playing over and over in his head. He’d almost been responsible for Trevor’s death once, he couldn’t let it happen for real. What would he do anyway if he did die? He quickly brushed the thought off, not wanting to consider the possibilities.

He returned to the hospital the next morning, half awake from the lack of sleep. Visiting hours were early, and he wanted to get them both out of here as fast as he could. Walking to Trevor’s room, he saw the man sitting upright looking out the window. North Yankton may have been cold as a bitch, but from time to time it had real pretty sunrises. He knocked lightly on the door, and Trevor turned to face him.

“Hey, T…”

He couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“I thought you left.”

“Visiting hours are limited, T. You should know that by now.”

He didn’t say anything in response, facing back towards the window instead. Michael sat down in one of the chairs across from him.

“You.. you worried me. I thought-“

“You thought what, cupcake? That I’d just die on the spot, and you could just leave my dead body there-“

“Trevor! For the last time that wasn’t my fucking plan!”

Their voices steadily increased above the normal level it should’ve been for a hospital setting.

“Then why did you have a fucking gun, huh Mikey?”

“I could ask the same for you!”

“Oh of course, turn the situation onto me again-“

“You brought a gun for what, Trevor?!”

“That’s not the issue at hand here!”

“Yes it is!”

A voice chimed into their argument.

“Excuse me. You,” A nurse who walked in pointed at Trevor.

“You need to rest. And sir, I’m not sure who you are, but if you want to stay as a visitor I suggest you lower your voice and behave.”

The two men looked at each other angrily before sitting back down. The nurse exited, most likely wanting to return later so Michael could discuss discharging him. Silence filled the room briefly.

“T… I meant what I said.” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

Trevor didn’t look him in the eye. His arms were crossed, and he just looked out the window.

“I could’ve lost you.”

The other man still said nothing.

“I could’ve lost you and you would’ve died not knowing I..” He trailed off.

Trevor turned back to look at Michael while speaking.

“Knowing what? You hiding something else from me, porkchop?”

“I…”

“Spit it the fuck out Mikey or I swear to God-“

“I love you.”

His felt his stomach twist uncomfortably, and his hands became clammy. He finally forced the words out, sober.

“I love you.” He repeated, shutting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Trevor while saying it. He chose to look at his feet instead.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. And I just.. kept thinking that you could’ve died not hearing that from me ever again.”

He didn’t notice it at first, but tears brimmed his eyes. Trevor’s scowl fell and his face softened.

“What?” Was all he could choke out.

“Don’t.. don’t make me say it again.” He said, face flushing red.

“You..” Trevor didn’t finish his sentence. He shuddered in his seat, ready to cry himself. He buried his face in his hands, muffling something incoherent.

“What?”

He lifted his head up, tears streaking his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Michael.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For.. being like this.”

Trevor was a lot of things. You couldn’t just describe him in only one word. Michael tried sifting through the options of what he meant.

“I pushed you so hard back then I.. I thought I was losing you. I didn’t want to. All it did was make you want to leave even more.” Trevor kept sniffling.

“Trev…”

“Why Michael? Why do you do this to me?”

He wanted to ask him “Do what?”, but they both knew the answer. Michael never let his feelings be more than surface level. He was repressed and Trevor hated it. Trevor continued to cry, and the tears that Michael held in spilled.

“Hey.. don’t… don’t apologize, T. Please.”

“I..” He hiccuped.

“I’ve loved you for so long. Why couldn’t you have done the same?”

Michael kept his head down. He didn’t want to see the heartbroken expression on Trevor’s face. It only made him feel worse.

“You left me.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“But you still did. Telling me that doesn’t change anything. You became another person in my life that I loved and then you left. Same as always for me.”

Everything Trevor loved was always out of his reach. Flying, his mother, Michael, Patricia… He could go on. Nothing was ever gonna be permanent for him.

“But I’m here for you now, T. I’m not going anywhere.”

He finally looked up to see Trevor’s sad eyes burning a hole right through him. His silence told him it’d be a long while before he could believe his words.

“Now.. uh. Let’s get the fuck outta this place.”

It didn’t take long for Trevor to be discharged. The doctors had told him he should stay for another day or so, but only got an irritated response from Trevor. Figuring the duo wouldn’t budge on wanting to leave, he was signed off for clearance. They eventually found the plane Trevor flew in on, and made their way out of the state. Neither one knew if this would change anything between them, but Trevor felt more at ease around him. It would still take time and effort for any left over wounds to heal, but for right now, Trevor was content.