#whose head is directly in front of one of my windows

[ringneckedpheasant]

can’t believe im saying this but im getting really tired of the giant skeletons in our yard

[flowerandblood]

The Price of Pride (4/?)

[ canon • Aemond x Royce • female ]

[ warnings: fingering & oral sex, a kind of triangle, smut, the angst, description of the effects of murder, sexual tension, imprisonment, abuse of power, manipulation, violence ]

[ description: Prince Aemond finds a solution to the disproportion in the number of dragons between Dragonstone and King's Landing: he decides to find dragon blood and, like his half-sister, train dragon riders. He takes as his target the daughter of Daemon Targaryen and Rhea Royce, whom he abducts and imprisons in the Red Keep. Slow burn, darkish, insolent, arrogant Aemond. I have combined several requests here: (dragon blood female & prisoner female). ]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

The boy's death had devastated her.

Even though it was a strange child to her, in addition from a family she despised, it was still small and innocent – she had seen Prince Jaehaerys accompanied by servants escorting him to his morning classes when she herself had gone out to meet his uncle, to practice on Vhagar the commands as she did every day.

Knowing that her father had done this made her feel a partial sense of guilt for what had happened, though she did not understand why.

Was it because she was born of his poisoned seed?

That a part of him lived inside her?

She knew it was revenge for Lucerys' death, but after all, the little prince had nothing to do with it.

The death of an innocent being always hurt the most.

She watched his funeral procession from outside the windows of the Red Keep, from her prison that was her small chamber, thinking of her one-eyed cousin.

Were you with that fucking old whore whose tits you like to cuddle up to?

With your second mummy?

She didn't know why his lowered head, his face and big eye filled with tears of shame made her feel sympathy towards him.

However, the death of King's son made her reflect on her own life and what she had experienced in it.

She realised that she had lived for years as if in lethargy, spending her time riding horses and hunting, even though in the midst of her family, in fact always remaining alone.

She realised that she had never even kissed a man.

She had never experienced a touch that was tender, that was pleasurable, that made her feel safe.

She bit her lower lip, pacing around her room, suddenly getting an idea that was extremely dangerous.

Her cousin was interested in women – this she knew for sure – and after being humiliated by his brother in front of everyone gathered he would certainly not return to the brothel to his lover, whoever she was.

From what she understood, this woman was older than him, giving him fulfilment not only physically, but also purely childlike.

She knew he was weak, but now she also had the certainty that he was miserable.

She couldn't try to seduce him directly, offer to spend the night in his bed – he would send her away immediately, furious, knowing what she wanted to do and how she hoped to achieve it.

She had to show him what he could have, while at the same time not offering it to him herself.

She had to make him desire whatever she was in his mind.

"I want to ask you something, cousin." She muttered, standing over him with a jug of wine, wondering what she was doing. "And I know you won't like it."

She saw him freeze, looking ahead.

"You like to take risks, don't you?" He sneered, taking a deep sip of wine from his goblet without even bestowing a single glance on her.

His vision was hazy, his mind dulled by the wine.

He was weak, vulnerable, heartbroken by what had happened to his nephew, sunk in guilt.

This was her chance.

"No, but you give me no choice. I will fly with you and the will of the gods will happen, as you desire. However, the chance of me dying in flames or being devoured is just as great as the chance of me succeeding." She said uncertainly, and he sighed heavily, impatient, setting his cup down on the table.

"What do you want?"

She licked her lower lip, feeling her heart pounding like mad in her chest, cold sweat trickling down her back.

He would fall into a fury or fuck her, there was no other option left.

"Servant. I want to choose one and take him to my bed. I don't want to die without having any idea of this sensations." She muttered.

She saw that he froze motionless, his healthy eye open wide in shock.

Oh gods.

"Aren't you ashamed to ask something like that out loud? What self-respecting Lord will want you after this?" He asked coldly, annoyed, however it was not as aggressive a response as she had expected.

He himself didn't know what he thought of it, she thought.

Good.

"I don't care what the lords will think of me. If I become a dragon rider, my maidenhood will be the least of their worries. I have no desire to become either a wife or a mother. I could try to hide it from you, but I stand here before you and ask your permission like a dog." She said with a certainty that surprised her, recognising that her directness was due to the fact that she was partly telling the truth.

He was silent for a long time, his lips pressed together in a thin line, his finger in some involuntary reflex began to tap against the table top.

"Knowing what you ask, my soul will have no peace unless I am assured that no man has taken you by force."

There it is.

"I'll let you watch if it will soothe your conscience." She said without stammering, his grin turned towards her making her feel an uncomfortable shiver.

"It will."

Finding a willing person turned out not to be too difficult: she simply lied to the man she found handsome that the prince liked to look at such things and that it was his idea.

What could he do to her for those words even if he found out about it?

Were they not partly true?

Her whole body quivered in excitement and disbelief as, lying beneath Tyland Lannister's servant, she heard his lazy footsteps, felt his gaze on them, the fiery, thirsty lips of her lover pressed against hers.

It was a surprisingly wet and slick experience, not as pleasurable as she had imagined, however, it was not all that bad.

She swallowed hard, hearing her cousin sit down in a chair in the distance, and flinched when the man's hand suddenly clamped down on her breast, causing an unpleasant chill to pass through her.

"– no –" She whispered, tightening her hand on his wrist. "– not yet –"

She exhaled quietly, closing her eyes as she felt him take his hand away, trailing it instead around her waist, trying to feel what she had felt when her cousin had leaned over her face after she had fainted.

Serve me well and I will reward you.

When the time comes.

She felt it, that wonderful pulsing between her thighs, and sighed, opening her eyelids, involuntarily glancing at him. Her breath froze in her throat, her womanhood swelled all over as she met his gaze, dark and hot, his legs crossed, his head cocked in curiosity.

She gasped, feeling a squeeze in her throat and a cold shudder when the boy's body suddenly pressed her against the bed, constricting her space, making her fingers tighten on the back of his tunic in terror.

Is this how it should be?

Should she be so afraid, feel so cornered?

"– slow down –" She heard his voice, deep and displeased – her lover looked at him, surprised, panting heavily.

"– Your Highness? –"

"– slow down, I said –" He repeated with a kind of threat in his voice from which her lips parted in disbelief, some sense of gratitude and warmth spread through her heart, a pleasant stickiness sweeping from between her thighs down her buttocks.

He was protecting her, she thought, feeling the situation begin to slip out of her control.

This was exactly what she wanted.

Make me feel safe, she thought pleadingly, but no words left her lips.

Shame overwhelmed her.

"– sink your fingers between her thighs – prepare her properly –" He instructed the boy, her eyes grew big as she stared at him in disbelief – his nostrils twitched in excited breath, the corner of his mouth lifted in a dangerous smirk.

A sigh left her throat as the servant lifted her skirt and smallclothes, her gaze fixed on her cousin's face as his hand found her leaking, fleshy womanhood.

She moaned.

However, after a moment she flinched and swallowed hard, closing her eyes as she felt his fingers touch a very tender, sensitive spot, giving her pleasure and pain at the same time, not knowing what she herself felt, tears burning under her eyelids.

Why did it feel like this?

Why couldn't she enjoy it, why was she losing focus?

"– step back, boy –" She heard his voice, and then noticed that he moved towards them, startling her and him – she rose up on her elbows, panting heavily as he pulled her forward, sitting behind her back, pulling her close, his legs on either side of her body.

His arms embraced her lightly, his hand tilting her head back, allowing her to spread out comfortably while not taking away her sense of security.

She swallowed hard, feeling something long and hard pulsate behind her, pressing against her buttocks.

Good gods.

She gasped as she felt him press his nose against her hot cheek, his thumb running over her jaw as his free hand forced her to bend her legs at the knees, exposing her bare thighs.

"– bend over and lick her –" He commanded, running his full lips over the skin of her face, making her feel a simultaneous shudder of pleasure and terror shake her, his hand trailing down the exposed skin of her thigh.

Lick her?

What did he mean by that?

What purpose did it serve?

"– what? –" She mumbled, terrified, involuntarily reaching back with her hand, clamping it over his long white hair, wanting to pull away, hitting his hard body again.

She had nowhere to run.

"– easy – let me take care of this –" He whispered in her ear, making her moan stuck in her throat, her nipples became hard at his words, her throbbing walls clenching around nothing.

Let me take care of this.

He knew.

He knew what she craved.

She stifled a breath as the man obediently leaned between her thighs, a terrified, pathetic, surprised moan escaping her throat when she felt something warm and sticky slip between her tight, swollen slit.

His tongue.

She clenched her hand harder in his white hair, feeling her cousin's hand slide down her leg, to the very spot her lover had touched earlier – this time, however, she didn't feel the unpleasant pain as his fingertips merely circled around her oversensitive little bud, causing her to leak, stimulated from the inside and outside.

"– ah – oh, gods, t-too much, too much –" She mewled in despair as she tried to pull away from him, never having experienced a similar sensation before, he, however, held her in an iron grip, his free hand sliding from her face under the material of her gown, to her breasts.

"– you wanted it yourself – go on –" He said matter-of-factly in a way that sent a shiver through her – she tilted her head back, feeling the servant's tongue accelerate, forcing its way again and again deep inside her hot, throbbing cunt.

In some subconscious, involuntary reflex, she sought refuge, not knowing what to do with the waves of tickling pleasure and tension that were rising in her body, so she turned her face towards him and he leaned in, letting their foreheads touch.

For some reason she wanted to cry.

He was so close.

The gentle touch of his hand between her thighs, his thumb teasing lazily her hard nipple, his hot breath on her face, his embrace was too familiar, too safe.

"– if only you were my little sister – I'd caress you like this every night – would you like it? –" He breathed out encouragingly, and she shuddered all over in his arms, feeling her lover's tongue hit the sweet spot inside her again and again, her and her cousin's hips beginning to rub against each other, his manhood unashamedly hard and swollen.

If only you were my little sister.

I want this, she thought.

I want to be what you want me to be.

"– what would your father say at the sight of this – hm? – do you think he would be proud? –" He whispered, sinking his fingers into the throbbing folds of her moist womanhood, weeping with desire, teasing with lazy, slow circles her little bud.

She felt tears under her eyelids as she shook her head.

She didn't know.

She didn't know what her father would say to this sight.

He wasn't there for her.

He hadn't protected her.

"– you like it, don't you? – I can feel you're close – come on his face –" He exhaled and she shook her head, moaning from exertion, feeling something approaching, the tingling tension between her thighs unbearable, her breath heavy and hitched, droplets of sweat running down her skin.

"– g-gods, stop –" She mumbled out with difficulty, feeling that she couldn't take it any longer, and then she was shaken by a pleasure foreign and overpowering, hot and sweet, flowing in waves through her whole body, her lips, her nipples, her fingertips, her silken walls clenching around nothing.

For a moment she heard or saw nothing, heard his soothing whisper, his warm breath enveloping her face, his hands closed over her womanhood and over her breasts just continued to press against her skin, allowing her to calm down.

"You may leave. If you tell anyone about this, I will cut your tongue out." She heard his cold voice, but knew it wasn't meant for her – the man lying between her thighs had risen and simply stepped off the bed, leaving them alone, and she sighed loudly, as if she had just accomplished some extraordinary, demanding feat.

She didn't know why she had sought refuge in his embrace, why she had turned in his arms and snuggled into his body, burying her face in his neck, why she had felt nothing but peace as one of his hands lay on her back while the other slowly stroked her hair.

One by one tears ran down her cheeks, shame, relief and sadness spilling over her heart, making her only able to lie down and breathe. She closed her eyes, concentrating on his scent, the warmth of his body that pulsed almost imperceptibly, his manhood pushing against her stomach, his hands trailing gently over her body.

She thought that he was certainly proud of himself, but she decided that it didn't matter.

She needed his arms, she needed to hide, to disappear, to melt into him as one, not to think, not to feel, not to exist.

She fell asleep.

When she awoke, it was late afternoon – there was no one in the chamber but her, however, she knew it was not a dream.

Her bedding was soaked with his scent.

She wasn't sure who had benefited from what had happened. She decided, however, surprised by this discovery, that she did not regret it and did not intend to think about it again.

It had never happened.

As he had ordered, she was already ready before dawn, waiting for him in the courtyard in her riding attire, his mother, clearly displeased with his idea, tried to stop him, to his apparent annoyance.

"You cannot leave the Red Keep without Vhagar. Who will protect us?" She asked, and her son rolled his eyes, impatient, licking his lower lip.

"I leave you in the care of Sunfyre and Dreamfyre. May my brother be of some use for once. With the help of the gods, we will return in about four days with a new dragon on our side." He said and stepped around her, mounting his horse and nodding at her to do the same.

When they reached Vhagar's lair, the dragoness raised lazily her large head, looking at them curiously – having seen her almost every day, she had already become accustomed to her presence and scent, remaining calm.

"Come." He said, and she moved to follow him, seeing that he had taken in his hands some of the bags his horse had been carrying on its back earlier.

She walked behind him, never coming this close to her, watching as the prince tied the grey bags to the ropes hanging from the saddle.

"What are you waiting for? Climb up." He said, glancing at her impatiently, and she nodded, surprised by his directness.

They both had no intention of showing that what had happened had affected them in any way.

Being with him meant a constant battle for dominance.

So be it, she thought and glanced up, sighing quietly.

She was afraid that Vhagar would not be happy that someone other than her rider was trying to climb onto her back, she, however, merely tilted her head towards her and watched her, not moving from her place.

"Lykirī, Vhagar. Lykirī." Her cousin reassured her as she, panting heavily, climbed with great difficulty over one of the ropes to her very back and sat down in the large leather saddle.

She blinked as her cousin appeared at her side shortly afterwards, as if covering the same distance hadn't caused him any trouble, and sat behind her, pulling the bags up, using the ropes so that they weren't hanging down.

She grunted, leaning forward, hugging the front of the saddle, feeling him all too clearly, his body pressed against her buttocks and back. She shuddered as he slipped his hands under her shoulders, grabbed a couple of the front ropes and called out loudly.

"Sōvēs!"

She squealed, terrified, hugging the saddle as the dragoness suddenly rose up on her paws, moving forward with a loud thump, and closed her eyes as she spread her great wings and flapped them, struggling to slowly lift herself into the air.

She had never experienced something so terrifying and liberating at the same time.

It wasn't until Vhagar had stabilised her flight and was gliding through the heavens that she dared to open her eyes – she froze in awe, seeing clouds all around her, doing what other people could only dream of.

Indeed, there was something wonderful about it, she thought with delight.

In the freedom that flight in the skies offered.

She leaned against the front of the saddle, simply looking ahead with a smile, watching the sun rise in the distance. She drew in a loud breath, feeling her heart beat harder as his cheek pressed against hers, apparently resting in this position.

She felt his erection pushing against her buttocks again, but neither of them spoke.

It was just a man's natural reaction to a woman's closeness, nothing more, she thought.

She knew he was playing with her – she knew he already understood what she wanted.

What she needed.

Tenderness.

Care.

Shelter.

This was why he nuzzled his nose into her cheek, why he persisted in this position: he wanted to break her, wanted her to love what he could be for her.

She felt tears under her eyelids, her eyebrows arching in pain knowing that it was all just a lie.

Her father would never come back for her, and even if he did, it would only be for the sake of the dragon, if she could tame it.

But not for her.

She was of no value to either of them.

As they landed with a thud on the ground in the middle of a wasteland full of hills, evening was approaching. It was only when she opened her eyes, horrified by how intense the landing itself had been, that she realised that her cousin had not chosen this place without reason.

He must have noticed from above what she could see clearly now – vast expanses of black, scorched earth with dozens of animal skeletons.

She shuddered as she heard her cousin untie the bags they had taken with them, letting them fall to the ground, and after a moment he slid down the rope to the bottom, landing lightly on the ground himself.

"Come here."

She made big eyes, feeling that this height terrified her. She swallowed hard, turning her back, grabbing the line and squealed as she suddenly slid down it with far too much speed, thinking she was just going to kill herself.

She gasped as she felt someone's arms soften her fall, supporting her, his impatient sigh told her it was not a graceful jump.

"Get yourself together. We're going to recon. It's fresh tracks, it must not be far." He said, and she nodded, feeling her legs grow all stiff from the long hours of travelling in the saddle.

Her cousin looked around, as if trying to remember this place and how they were supposed to get back here, then moved ahead quickly, making her have to almost run after him.

"When we find it. What should I do? Approach it right away?" She exhaled, following him step by step.

"Mmm. No, you'd better not do anything rash. No sudden movements. You can't make a mistake." He said coldly, and she swallowed hard, thinking in the back of her mind that it was easy for him to say.

However, despite all the absurdity of the situation, she felt excitement.

If she succeeded, she would return to King's Landing on the back of her own dragon.

They climbed one of the peaks, from which they could see clearly in the distance the lying silhouette of Vhagar, the fields, hills and valleys, but not a trace of the dragon. Her cousin pressed his lips together, frustrated.

He thought this would be easier, and the dragon would come to them on its own, she thought with a sneer, but she dared not provoke him, knowing that they were both tired.

"We must turn back. It will be dark soon. We will start tomorrow before sunrise, moving in the opposite direction." He ordered and she nodded, following obediently behind him, looking around at the familiar landscapes.

She had an advantage over him here, she thought.

She knew these places, she knew these people.

So why didn't she feel the need to run away?

When they returned to Vhagar's liege, darkness surrounded them. Her cousin had picked up a few long, thick branches on the way, and when they sat down on the grass he laid them down and lit a fire using a flint he had taken from one of his bags.

She did not ask his permission, which did not escape his notice as she untied one of them and began rummaging through it.

"What are you doing?" He asked matter-of-factly, adding wood to the fire, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"What did you take for us as nourishment?" She answered with a question to a question, causing him to merely turn his face away from her, trying to control himself for sure and not hurt her with his own hands.

"Bread and smoked meat." He said, and she sighed, pulling out a waterskin with spring water, drinking a few deep sips from it.

"If I had known that this would be our sustenance for the next few days, I would have asked you to bring a bow with us and I would have provided our meal myself." She said regretfully, and his face turned abruptly towards her.

"You don't need to eat. You will survive on water alone until our return to King's Landing." He hissed, meeting her tired, weary gaze.

"I have cooked many times while hunting with my uncle. It's a useful skill." She replied, pulling a woollen blanket from the pouch with which she covered herself.

Although Vhagar lay beside them, they were high between the hills where a strong, chilly wind was blowing.

She knew the night would be difficult.

Her cousin no longer spoke to her, gazing into the flames as if he could see something in them, his past or his future, his silhouette sitting on the Iron Throne or his fall from the heavens.

Finally, he lay down on the uncomfortably hard ground, placing one of his bags under his head, covering himself with the other blanket, and turned his back to her.

They couldn't sleep too close to Vhagar, for there was a risk that she would simply crush them by turning in her sleep. Therefore, they had to lie at a great distance from her, and their only source of heat was the fire.

She closed her eyes, trying not to think as her teeth began to chatter, her body trembling, her hands clenched into fists with each stronger gust of wind.

If this kept up, they'd both wake up with a fever.

"I'm cold." She said.

Silence.

A long one.

"I'm really cold. Aren't you?" She mumbled, guessing that he was suffering as much as she was, but would sooner die than admit it.

Targaryens and their fucking pride.

She stood up and walked a few steps with her blanket towards him, causing him to have exactly the reaction she wanted – he raised himself on his elbow and looked towards her, his jaw clenched in frustration.

"You have no shame."

"I don't care about shame. I'm supposed to die in dragon fire, not from the cold." She said and lay down beside him, slipping under his blanket, covering them with the other to create a thicker layer to protect them from the cold.

He slumped to the ground, letting the air out loudly, looking up at the stars as if he had given up. She embraced him, but not because she sought safety in his arms, but because he was a source of warmth that she wanted to cling to at all costs, hugging her face to his chest.

They stayed like that in silence, not moving – at first his whole body was tense, as if he thought that what she had done was just an excuse for her to slip her hand under his breeches and shamelessly try to seduce him – he relaxed, however, when he realised that all she really wanted was to lie in the warmth, and since he himself apparently felt better, also warmed by her presence, he said nothing more.

"What did you feel when you tamed Vhagar?" She whispered, looking ahead at the outline of the hills and mountains around them, feeling the cool breeze on her cheeks.

She was sure he wouldn't answer and felt herself begin to slowly fall asleep when she heard his quiet voice.

"Relief."

She blinked, surprised, not expecting him to put it this way.

Relief.

"Why?" She dared to ask further, still not looking at him, his heart hidden beneath the material of his tunic and cloak hit hard.

"I gave my family a reason to be proud." He explained, a note of bitterness in his words, as if something in that memory was painful to him.

She pressed her lips into a thin line, thinking with disappointment that she had never been anyone's pride.

Nothing she did mattered – not really.

She felt a single, lone tear run down her cheek onto the material of his leather coat and inhaled loudly, saying nothing more.

She shuddered, pulled out of her reverie when he slided his arm out from between their bodies – she froze when she felt him embrace her, cuddling her into his body, his fingers running through her soft hair as his cheek rested against her forehead.

She snuggled into him, into the merciless substitute of a protector he was to her, feeling the warmth in her chest as he let her face sink into his neck.

She knew that a part of him sympathised with her – she knew that, like her, he understood that in a day or two she might die for his cause, and so in some twisted definition of duty he tried to give her what she had craved all her life as a consolation prize for what she might lose.

It was so pathetic that she clenched her eyes shut and let heavy tears of shame run down her cheeks, her breath hitched and heavy, filled with pain.

She let him do this, let him take advantage of her desperation, the fact that she wanted so much to satisfy his vanity, because of how unavailable he reminded her of her father – by satisfying him, in her mind she was satisfying the man on whose lap she had sat as a small child, imagining that he had given her a second chance.

He created a lie for her to be able to endure what he was condemning her to.

"If you succeed. If you tame a dragon." He whispered, and she froze, feeling that he was about to reveal something vital to her, some secret he had never told anyone. "I will treat you like my little sister. I will care for you, and your place will always be by my side."

She shook her head, thinking how cruel he was, knowing exactly what to say, what to do to break her heart, to bend her to his will, to make sure she never betrayed him.

She cried out helplessly as he hugged her tighter to his body, as he cupped her cheek in his broad palm, rough from wielding his sword, and pressed his forehead against hers in a gesture that was too intimate, too tender, too sweet.

"I will protect you."

[patrollingboston]

141 Beach Episode // Cod x Reader

You know how in every good show there's a beach episode? Yeah this is theirs.

The 5 of you were sat in a truck with the aircon blasting. Price was dramatically fanning himself with his boonie hat. With one hand placed on the steering wheel. You had just finished a week-long mission and it left you all somewhere on the east coast with the sun beating down with no mercy. You were so uncomfortable, dressed head to toe in full gear practically sweltering in it.

“Not used to this bloody heat.”

  Soap sighed placing a hand to his forehead to relieve his brow of sweat.

“I’ve got the aircon.”

 Gaz smirked, of course he was fine he was sat in the front seat with cold air blasting directly onto him. You were squished between Ghost and Soap, plus he always wore a sunhat and sunglasses even in the rain.

“How ghost isn’t a puddle yet I have no clue.”

You stated, glancing over at ghost who was dressed in all black with his mask still pinned down onto his face yet he didn’t show a single sign of discomfort.

“Can you even breathe? Isn’t it like being trapped under a blanket?”

“I can breathe fine.”

He grunted not sounding amused by your questions.

“Look at tha’ ain’t it a pretty view.”

Soap said tapping on the truck window, everyone’s eyes glanced to meet where he was pointing. You were greeted with the sight of a gorgeous white sandy beach with the clearest sea water you had ever seen with families playing in the sand and surfers utilizing the waves.

“The things I would give to dive in those waves.”

 You said groaning, resting your head back in the seat knowing you had a hot and uncomfortable 6+ flight ahead of you to get back to base in England not to mention the drive to even get to the airport.

“Can’t we stop for a bit? The missions all done and dusted, surely, they don’t need us back that hastily.”

Gaz asked turning to face the captain with a cheesy grin plastered across his face.

“I could use a pint. I’m sweating like a fucking pig. We only have a few hours but I think we could all use a break.”

“Make that two.”

 Ghost’s gruff voice chimed in his mood perking up at the promise of a cold beer.

“I think everyone here wants a bloody pint.”

A few moments later the 5 of you were all stood on the beach boardwalk, you removed your boots and placed them by the railing before stepping onto the soft, warm sand.

“I have never ever stepped on sand so soft oh my-“

You wondered how long it had been before you stood barefoot on a beach. Probably not since you were a child on a day trip with your family.

“Shit the sands a bit hot ain’t it?”

Soap said as she stepped onto the sand beside you, shifting from foot to foot as he complained about the temperature once again.

“I’ll go grab us some drinks, find a spot I’ll come find you all.”

 Price said before stepping up the stairs and walking towards the crowded beach bar on the boardwalk.

Ghost, who was still dressed fully in his gear stomped behind you scouting the beach for a place to sit like it was the toughest decision he ever had to make.

“Here.”

He said pointing to a peaceful square of the beach, not too far from the shore.

You all placed your backpacks down and set a towel down for yourself. Ghost was wrestling with the beach umbrella to get it stood up.

“Whose going for a swim?”

Soap said with a huge smile on his face as he stripped off his t shirt leaving him in his cargo shorts.

“You go first mate, tell us how cold it is eh?”

Gaz joked, pushing soap slightly closer the seafront.

“Don’t be a pussy.”

“I’ll go!”

 You said, removing your jacket and vest leaving you in a tank top and some old cargo shorts dumping by your backpack them away from the shore so the waves didn’t steal them.

You jogged down to the water front stood beside Soap and Gaz.

“Whose going to make the first move then?”

You all stood in a line, hands on hips inspecting the water as it broke in front of you. As you spoke Soap dived headfirst into a wave like a goofy dolphin. He stuck his head up like an seal, running his hands through his mohawk and wiping the salty water off his face.

“Is it cold?”

 You shouted through the crashing waves.

“Nah, its refreshing.”

He shouted back before running through the water back onto the shore to stand beside the two of you.

“I don’t know if I’m that hot anymore you know-“

You said backing off after feeling the  ‘refreshing’ water splash over your feet and ankles sending little shockwaves through you.

With that statement Soap placed two hands on your waist and lifted you up into the air before placing you over his shoulder like a fireman would carrying someone out a burning building.

“DON’T YOU DARE SOAP, I MEAN IT.”

You screamed thumping his back in fear as he stepped into the freezing ocean once again. Gaz stood on the shore filming the entire situation laughing at your misfortune. Ghost sat watching from afar under a big shady umbrella pint in hand with Price sat beside him reading something, smoking one of his cigars as per usual.

“Ready?”

Soap teased as he began to hoist you up even further before throwing you into the sea with a huge splash. The cold water shocked you at first but after a few seconds, soap was right. It was kind of refreshing. You popped your head up out the water with a frown.

“I hate you asshole.”

“You weren’t going to get in I had no choice-“

You pushed a big wave of water his way aiming for his face secretly hoping the salt would burn his eyes.

“GAZ GET IN.”

Gaz stepped into the water with haste joining you and soap.

“We going play mermaids or what?”

You asked with a chuckle as the 3 of you treaded water in a circle.

“I would prefer to drown Soap.”

Gaz said before dunking soaps head back under the water.

About an hour later you sat on the beach wrapped in your towel, drying off in the sun.

“Been a while since I’ve been able to relax on a beach.”

Price spoke, he was leant back on a sun lounger his hat placed over his face shielding his eyes from the setting sun.

“Thought you were asleep old man.”

Ghost chuckled.

“Can we take a photo?”

You asked bringing out your super old digital camera you dragged around on every single mission.

The 5 of you gathered in closer. Gaz throwing up a peace sign. Soaps arm slung around ghost and a beer held loosely in the other. Captain Price sat up placing his hands on your shoulders. Your smiles were all wide (you would like to believe ghost’s was too) as the light of the setting sun glowed on your faces.

That day was a good day.

[lucrativesoul]

Divine Beings

summary: your new job at the town's old mansion-museum is a dream, but it's even more so to be working within its centuries old library. this building is fueled by the ancient lore of the undead walking the halls. it's all just tales, right? your archive master and new boss, Leon, knows all about those divine beings.

pairing: leon kennedy x female reader

word count: 13.0k

warnings: smut, borderline public sex (no voyeurism), blood ingestion

a/n: i can't begin to tell you guys how excited i am to be posting this. consider this my halloween gift, but we all know the darker genres are not just for the season! I had so much fun writing this. diving head first into this has really helped me through this rough time in my life situationships are hell and if no one got me at least leon got me :') (and u guys ofc) thank you so much for stopping by and reading, i really really hope you enjoy, and I promise to be back soon with another one. <3

“It won’t be too much of a challenge.” The soft voice coming from the woman in front of you bounced off the walls and high ceilings, making her even harder to decipher than she was in the first place. “All questions about the archive can be redirected to the master archivist, and I’m sure sooner or later you will be retaining all of that important information.”

You said nothing as you followed her down the hall, the click of your heels ever prominent amongst the deserted expanse. For a mansion built hundreds of years ago, they did well to keep it tidy and up to standard. You were impressed.

At the end of the long hall, yellow from the lamps glittering in intervals in the hall, you could see a grand set of large mahogany doors, intricately carved with inlays that you can only imagine must have taken just as long to complete as the residence itself. The initial nerves of the morning were gone, and now you were just more excited than anything to be able to enter one of the oldest libraries in a hundred mile radius, and now you work here. 

The smaller lady who was guiding you, whose name you have already forgotten, leaned all her weight on the doors and pushed both of them inward, the two slabs of wood swinging open revealing possibly your most anticipated sight of your life.

The entryway was one tiny landing, with large staircases birthing off the sides to your left and right, making a gentle curve to the main floor. The walls, well, simply put, there were no walls, rather everything that would have been a wall was lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves, each one packed with differing widths, heights, colors of books, paperback, leather, hardcover, fabric. In the middle of the room were more free standing shelves, still packed to the brim, and the occasional long wooden table with seats scattered about the room. Directly opposite the entryway was a large window, facing the front of the mansion, and it served as the main attractor to the building. Rectangular at the bottom, it shaped off at the top, nearly fifty feet high, in a gothic style pointed arch, nestled gently in between two, much skinnier, similarly shaped windows, which were fixed off at the top with stained glass, giving the brown room rays of color on the sunny days.

You stepped forward, and having seemingly expected this reaction, your guide didn’t say a word for a moment while you took in your grand view. You almost couldn’t speak. It was more than you were expecting. It was everything.

Though it was a sunny day, you already found yourself anticipating the oncoming bad weather, knowing the treacherous drive through the rain would be so worth it to be here on a rainy day.

“Let’s go down to the archive office.” The woman’s tone was gentle, knowing you most likely would not have moved from your spot if she didn’t push you along. You followed her down the left staircase.

There were a few stragglers in the grand room. The manion’s open hours were not near close yet, but you were surprised there weren’t more people here at this hour. You doubted that it had anything to do with the age old rumors about the estate, there was no way people truly kept away because of those tall tales. 

After coming off the staircase, you craned your neck up high, reveling in the surrounding papers and scrolls adorning the walls. You tried your best to keep up with the woman while also having your attention diverted, but had to fully look down when she ducked into a corridor below the main landing. 

This hallway was plain and simple, and you felt your resolve slowly crumble away as you remembered why you were here–a job. 

“The furthest of my knowledge is to bring you into the archive office and wait for the master archivist to meet you here. If you want to take a seat, he should be here shortly. Welcome to the museum crew.” She smiled at you, and after a thank you, you pulled out the seat in front of the desk and sat down. Alone in the room now, you turned your head to look at the surroundings, trying to gauge what type of environment this would be.

Despite your history in the field, you were still surprised when you got a call back wanting to have an interview, and when that went well and you were hired a week later, shock still warmed your body, paired with the growing excitement when you realized you would be working in the epicenter of your old town’s rich history museum and archive, and the home of all the town’s tall tales.

With all your years of studying classic literature spinning the yarn of mythical creatures, it was a no brainer when you saw this opportunity present itself. 

You jumped in your chair when your name was spoken in a low rasp. You turned around briskly.

“I’m sorry, you startled me.” You stood in an instant, extending your hand, ready to introduce yourself, but it appeared the stranger already knew who you were.

“It’s alright, many say I have that effect.” You sat down at his gesture to do so, and he walked around the opposite side of the bland, deep wooden desk. This man, instantly captivating, wore a simple white button down with a crisp black vest over top. He had a wiry pair of glasses tucked into the collar, where the top button lay opened. His hair was a dirty blonde, browning at the roots. The sharp contours of his face showed years of experience, and you caught no air of uncertainty from the way he presented himself. Intrigued would be an understatement.

“Did our lobby host introduce you well? I know one walk down the foyer isn’t nearly a fraction of the time needed to look around, but, maybe it gave a taste to what’s to come.”

You nodded gently, your eyes still trained on his face. “Oh, yes, she most definitely let me take it in for a moment. I can’t wait to know everything better.”

He nodded, shifting through a folder and some papers. You were almost embarrassed at how you couldn’t take your eyes away from him, not even for a second, hoping the staring would come second to whatever information he was about to share with you. 

“What drew you here? It’s quite tucked away.” He was still not looking at you, so you made no move to avert your own gaze.

“Well,” You began, taking a second to form a proper sentence. “I’ve always wanted to work in a grand archive like this one. It is just so full of new opportunities, new experiences. I’ve always loved this place.”

He nodded. “I felt the same as well. I wish I could tell you how swelled I was when I walked in here the first time, but it was so long ago, I barely remember it. Anyway,” He studied the paper intensely, then looked back up at you. You felt heated suddenly. “You had a pretty extensive background in literary culture, criticism, and classic studies. You were with a publishing branch for a few years?”

You nodded. “It didn’t pan out to my hopes, and I jumped at this chance when I saw they were on the hunt for a new archivist.”

He hummed. “I was. I was looking for someone new. Our last had left us suddenly, we had a vacancy.” You nodded again, the innate curiosity taking over about the ex-archivist. “So, you understand the majority of your job title, yes?” Nodded again, but said nothing so he could continue. “Basically, working side by side with me, the better half of our tasks will unfortunately be rearranging once the public comes through, they tend to leave things everywhere, I’m sure you know, and the other half is once our doors are closed, we do many of the repairs on the classics, restocking our souvenir books, and the tedious paperwork that comes along with the museum establishment.”

For a final time, you nodded. “I’m greatly looking forward to it.” 

Now, he looked into your eyes, and he tilted his head gently forward. “I’m greatly looking forward to you joining us. As of right now, it’s just me and one other, so now it’s three.”

You smiled, then it faltered a moment once you remembered something. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if you said your name.”

His lopsided grin painted a picture in your mind that you knew you would be seeing even when you closed your eyes. “Leon Kennedy. Master archivist.”

–

You hadn’t imagined you would live to see a day when you were looking forward to stepping into your place of work, but this had proven you wrong. You were motivated by the mere thought of being surrounded by all the books and pages, all the knowledge you could possibly dream about, learning something new every day.

But, you knew secretly since starting, you would be lying to yourself if you denied the effect that Leon had on your willingness to come in everyday. He greeted you with gentleness, and you couldn't help but always match his energy when you walked into the office in the morning hours. Always spotting the grin on his face at the sight of you as well. It grew to a blazing heat in your chest to see this reaction.

There was a routine you followed with great ease after only a week. It truly was the most of what Leon had said it would be, and to your own surprise, when curious visitors asked about the archive’s collections, you picked up on the correct answers faster than you had expected.

One of your favorite end of day tasks, oddly enough, was replacing the books that visitors had taken off the shelves to browse. It exposed you to so much literature and titles that you had or hadn’t heard of, and gave you a better idea of the archive itself, and its shelf locations. There was nothing more relaxing in your life than admiring the centuries of artform adoring these bookcases.

Here, you found yourself sliding leather bounds back into their places, reveling at every cover for as long as you could get away with, feeling the slick material slide under your fingers as you pushed them into their homes on the shelves. Taking two steps forward, looking down at the engraving in the cover, embossed in golden letters, you startle when you knock into something hard, grip hardening on the book so as not to drop or damage it.

“I’m so sorry, Leon. I didn’t even hear you coming. Very quiet.” He looked down at you, his deep black shirt sucking the color out of everything around him. An amused expression danced on his features.

“So people have told me. I was trying to find you earlier for a question, but you’ve eluded me for the last thirty minutes.”

You smiled gently, but had to avert your eyes down to the books you were still caressing, lest your eyes should wander over the fabric stretched thin over his upper arms. You did not need this mental image lasting with you for who knows how long.

“Sorry for that, but, here I am. What’s up?” 

Leon, so you have come to the conclusion, is much different than any overseer of a job you have had in the past. HIs gentle authoritative style pushed you in the correct direction he wanted you to take as an archive employee, but he never became harsh or strict with any of his guidelines. In fact, the way he approached conversation felt much more like a casual coworker rather than a boss. 

“I had an opportunity you may be interested in. Finish your tasks here, and come up to my office. We can discuss it, I think you’ll be intrigued.”

You nodded, but grabbed his attention quickly at the notice of a small piece of information. “Wait, Leon,” He turned around at the sound of his name. “Your office? I don’t know where that is, I don't think I have been there yet.”

He nodded slowly. “Of course, I forgot. I’ll wait over by the information desk for you to finish. Don’t rush.” 

You nodded, though he had already turned around. You took an extra second to trace his path with your gaze, wondering what this tight, breathless feeling in your chest was every time he was in your presence. 

With empty hands, you stalked over to the center of the room, finding Leon’s back to you, hands shuffling through a stack of folders. He disregarded them when he heard you approach.

“Follow me.” Then, with a small impressed gesture on his face, “Faster than I expected.”

You said nothing as you followed him through the library, watching his back intently as if something were going to happen any second. Surely he could feel the way you were staring, how could he not? If this were you, you would have felt someone looking all over you.

He presented you to a discreet door tucked into the back wall of the archive, a mere few feet away from the large windows, now letting the dying sunset light in to paint the room orange. He stepped aside to let you in first, but what you were expecting to see was nowhere in sight. Instead of an office, a room, even a closet with a desk, chair, and maybe even a computer, it was a staircase. A spiral staircase at that, and it looked like it went up at least thirty feet.

“Your office is up there?” You couldn't help but ponder out loud while staring listlessly, yet amazed, above. You heard him snicker behind you.

“It is. How could I not have taken that one when presented to me? Go on. They won’t get any shorter.”

You shook your head to snap yourself out of the sudden daze, and carefully took the steps. This location was painfully plain compared to the rest of the archive, and part of you understood why, but also wished you had something to look at on the way up.

The tall, dark, wooden door presented in front of you looked like an import from the homes of the finest wood slabs of ebony, intricate carvings on each of the inlays. Not even the doors of the archive looked like this, it seemed such a waste to be hidden up these stairs, guarding Leon's private office. Maybe he personally requested this door to be here. What an interesting design choice, if so.

You pushed it open, not waiting for further instruction as there would have been nothing else to do. This office held far more personality than the one you were used to seeing on the ground floor, and you were positive you could spend just as many hours dissecting the shelves in this little room as you could on the main exhibit.

It was clear this room was built out of what might have been a buttress back in the gothic ages, the ceiling was high, circular and pointed, raw wooden beams were exposed to support the cone roof above you. The shelves were rounded, contrasted with the straight edge ones below. Books that looked as old as the dawn of time were cluttered on these shelves, a thought that almost made you panic, the treatment of them would make their casings fall off their backs faster than usual.

Leon didn’t miss any of your observations. “These are from a collection that I couldn’t possibly put down on the main floor, obviously they have seen better days. They don’t need more of the public’s touch to wither them even further.”

You swallowed, and forced yourself to face him. He was taking a seat in a grand maroon velvet desk chair. Even that looked ornate. “Aren’t you worried handling them like this is even worse?”

He gestured at the seat in front of the desk, then shook his head. He spoke only when you sat down. “They have been with me for years, I know how they behave by now.”

You had nothing to say in return, so you simply affixed your gaze onto his, waiting to hear the reason he brought you up here.

“You’ve found a passion in this place, I can tell.” His voice was low, and it made you shiver. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone treat this place like a living entity.”

“It feels alive…” You started, but had no way to finish. He was drawing the words right from your mind. 

“I do believe so as well. What brought you here? Besides what you studied making this a readily available opportunity.”

You looked down for a moment. Truthfully, it was a little childish why you were here. You knew that much and you could at least admit that to yourself. But, could you admit that to Leon? It had turned out that you loved this place as much as you would love a home you had been in for years, this place never became a burden to walk into, and you doubted that it would ever become that. You didn’t know what kind of answer he was expecting to hear from you, but Leon could be trusted. You knew that well enough by this point. He expressed his gratitude to your presence to the archive many times and surely, don’t you owe him the truth for that?

“To be honest with you…” You started tentatively. His face showed no shift in expression. “I have loved this place since I was a child. Something about it, maybe the aura, drew me to it. That’s why I think I feel it… why it feels so alive to me.” He nodded, not interrupting your thoughts. “This town’s folklore is something I loved for all my life.”

This time, he closed his eyes and nodded slowly, as if finally understanding why you had come here. And, he did, as that once sentence, you knew, would explain to any local why you chose this mansion. This archive.

“Maybe that’s silly of me,” You shook your head at yourself slightly. “But I think I owe it to the child who directed my path in life.”

He smiled at you, no sense of mockery on his face. “Let me ask you this, though,” You sat still, waiting. “Do you believe?”

You did not need to think this time. “Yes. I do.”

Leon leaned back in his chair and let his forearms lay on the armrests by his sides. “I think you are wise for that. Many choose to stop believing in folklore once they hit such an age where they know stories from historical recounts, but, don’t you think the two meld together at some point?”

You nodded. “I have always believed in that. And as soon as I stepped in here… the minute I came here to get this job, and even as a child, when I saw this place, I knew the stories were true. There’s no way that this place doesn’t have its hidden secrets.”

“Hidden in plain sight. Everyone talks of the vampire roaming the halls.” Leon added.

You quirked a smile– you couldn't help it. “What’s not to believe about that? I can feel it when I'm here.”

Leon nodded, his smile not fading. After this conversation, you knew you made the right choice in choosing to trust Leon. How could you not?

“People are drawn here on the idea that they will spot him somewhere, but look far too closely. They think every staff member could be him in disguise. They look down every dark hallway wishing to see him slinking around the corner, trying to hide. They look in every window from the outside, thinking he is hiding from the sun. But, there comes the melding, and the separating of truth and fiction. Why should he be doing those things, because they believe it to be true, or because they were told to believe it?”

You had nothing to say to this at first. You knew Leon would be holding a plethora of information on the mansion-museum’s lore as being home to the city's resident vampire from centuries ago. You couldn’t consume enough information on the idea, and yet, Leon still stunned you with what he had to say about it, simply because he had been here to see the behavior of those who believe in him. You wished he would keep talking about it, but knew that the premonition of a mythical being lurking the hallways was probably not the reason he brought you up here to talk about in the first place.

“Your candor is appreciated here.” He held his smile, and his eyes were sincere along with his spoken words. The windows didn’t allow an incredible amount of light into the room, the lamp sitting by his side on the desk casting a yellow haze over the space, the red lampshade drenching everything above in a blood tint. Even through this distortion, you could see how blue his irises were. Icy. A tingle ran across the skin of your arms.

“Now, for what you are actually up here for.” He broke the gaze, and you involuntarily released a sigh of relief. Looking down at his desk, in nothing in particular, you noticed there was nothing of importance on its surface, he continued. “Every so often, for no reason other than to bring variety in, we have a few shelves in the center of the floor that we rearrange to bring in new displays, or to shift the attention to something else.” You nodded, and you were sure you knew he was going to ask for your assistance in moving everything. You didn't mind. “Right now the table has displays of books on the history of witchcraft and others of the sort, quite fitting for the upcoming season, but quite the insult to the monument they’ve decided to promote within.” He sighed. You couldn’t help but smile. “But, I think we can get even better.”

“I have ideas. I think I could help with this.”

Leon smiled wider. A gesture he doesn't often show to the general patronage. It made you feel warm. “That’s what I was hoping you would say. Now, though, an unfortunate part.” He sighed, and his smile disappeared. More shivers took place in your body of the heat. “I would prefer it to be done by the end of this week, and because the mighty institution is using the Halloween season to promote museum ticket sales,” Another sigh. “They’ve extended our opening hours. Now, we, as the archive, do have the liberty to close our area before they close the museum’s doors, but I've been strongly advised against doing so.”

You nodded again, listening. He shrugged, looking at you, as if waiting for an input you didn’t know you should give. You squeaked out an agreement.

“I would like to shift two days of your hours to overnight. Would that be a problem?”

“It’s not. This is my full time job now, so I'm at your expense.”

He chuckled softly at your words. “Not an expense, just… assistance.”

Nonetheless, even if Leon did agree to your words of expense, you would be agreeing. He told you the guidelines, don’t come in for the day shifts, just come in for the nighttime. He handed over a key, an old, brass one that he told you would unlock the large archive doors after hours. You agreed with no hesitation, of course.

You had discovered soon after this, that fear could exist in the same plane as excitement. Really, isn’t fear just an overwhelming excitement of something unknown? Standing in front of the mansion, you craned your neck as far back as your body would allow. The looming building was dark, save for a few spotlights, but other than that, it was as dead as the night around you. The suspicious lack of insect and animal life noises was eerie, but you swallowed that lump of nerves, and walked up to the front.

As Leon instructed you, flashing your badge to the night guards let you right through, and you followed the path you have come to know so well that led right to the archive doors. 

It was a strange aura that surrounded you, one that made you hesitate briefly before unlocking, and relocking yourself inside. The air was so still, and that life you felt pulsing through the corridors on a daily basis was missing now. There was nothing, no one, no noise to fill your ears, so the blood pumping through was your only solace now. Before you could sit on this any longer and unease yourself further, you moved on.

The lock slid cleanly into place, and the resounding click that was heard resonated throughout the hall. You pushed the door open, wanting to get away from any undead lurking eyes that may be watching you. 

Not turning to shut the door behind you, you stared out into the vast expanse of the dark archive. The shelves were still, though shadows flitted in between them as if dancing with the moonlight. Every time you blinked, dark figures appeared at the edge of your vision, teasing your brain, making a shudder do its rounds throughout your nervous system. Though you loved this place, the nighttime gave it a whole new personality you weren’t sure you were quite ready to uncover. 

Turning to your right, you flipped the first two lightswitches, casting a spotlight down onto the center of the floor, and one at the door where you stood. You nearly jumped out of your skin when you turned back around.

“Leon!” You cried out.

Said man was in the center of the floor, as if coming out to greet you like it was the middle of the day. He had on a white button down, the first two loose around his neck, and his hair falling lazily over the left side of his forehead. It took even longer for your breath to still.

“You’re here?” You gasped out.

“Yes, I was wondering when you would get here. I guess you are right on schedule, though.” You carefully fled down the stairs, not taking your eyes off Leon, curious if he would disappear again. 

“Here with all the lights off? How could you see?” He didn’t answer your question until you were now face to face with him, having placed your belongings on the staircase, figuring you would not be spending much time in the office.

He shrugged slowly. “You get used to it after a while. There’s something about this place at night, I don’t get many chances to enjoy it with only myself.” You said nothing to this, just trying to digest his logic. There was no point in arguing it.

“Well, we should probably get started then?” He smiled softly at your words and flung instructions at you, making the night go by as if you were asleep through it all. 

With half of the display moved, Leon had stalked away to the main office, and you cleaned up the floor to pass until he let the both of you out. Standing next to the tall shelves, facing the window, you almost started to understand what Leon had said earlier. There is something about the place at night.

You had never thought you would get to experience that, though, of course. What other chance would you be wandering throughout these aisles all alone at night, with all the lights off? You were curious now, and jealous that Leon had been the one to experience that, and you might not ever.

You walked slowly towards the window, the lights behind you fading the further you went from them. Your fingertips grazed the edges of the shelves you walked along, as if picking up all the information held on them in one little touch. The night looked cold from where you stood, and you almost felt the temperature on your skin in that instant. The moon was full and bright, and it lit up your skin like the lights now behind you. Though these walls were thick and with plenty of objects in the room to muffle the sound, it could not drown out the roaring chorus of crickets perched in every branch right outside the glass. The chirps matched the beating of your heart, and soon the rush of blood was replaced by the insects' whispers, a cacophony of life, your vessel was the audience.

You saw yourself in the glass. Your skin lit up by the moon's graces, the hollows of your face carved out in deep shadows, you became painted into the history within these mansion walls, and you looked as if you always belonged. Eternal.

“The moon is bright.” 

You gasped and startled again, turning swiftly to see Leon peering over your shoulder, looking at the same illusive mirror that you were. “You should stop doing that Leon, I’m going to have a heart attack one of these days.” You breathed out a laugh. 

“I thought I was obvious enough, but I suppose not.” He looked past you back into the window again. “The moonlight makes you look marvelous.”

Your stomach twisted. You felt a blush rise to your cheeks, and couldn't help but turn back around to look again, and dare you say, you agreed. Your airbrushed skin, even flawless in the reflection of the glass, a gentle chiaroscuro against the vast emptiness behind you. Except for–

“Full moon nights are when I feel the most company here. I think she wants to be alive here as well.” You turned again, seeing Leon having unmoved from directly behind you. The cool blue light sitting atop his cheekbones, highlighting strands of blonde hair, contrasting the blaze of his hazel eyes, which were unrelenting on you. He, too, was a relief sculpture under the coalescence of the moon and the shadows. Where was his portrait to be viewed next to yours?

“Yeah, I… I agree now.” Though you felt a shiver crawl through you, you couldn’t make yourself turn around again to look. Your body was preventing you from doing so. Simply, you could only walk past Leon, back onto the main floor.

The ride home along in your car proved no more solace than you were hoping. You could see the silhouette of the mansion grow smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, and it felt like departing from a friend who did nothing but tell all their troubles. It was hard to believe how quickly your image of the place shifted, though, you still felt so drawn, and so attracted to the premises. And, not to mention, the man within its walls.

What you saw puzzled you. Simply, it had been a trick of the light. You knew that there was no way the light from the moon was able to reach every point of the floor, so he was standing in the shadow. But, how had he approached so silently? Leon was always so silent. This wasn’t the first time the man has snuck up on you. A few others have said he gives them a fright as well, but it seems to happen to you much more often.

Leon was an enigma, in more ways than one. He spoke in riddles, or it felt like it. You read plenty of classics in your time studying literature, and it was as if he had taken his vocabulary straight from works published a century ago. With a borderline transatlantic accent, it always took you a moment to decipher his sentences. It wasn’t as if he read too many of the classics, it was like he came from one. 

As silly as the idea might sound to others, you believed it fully. It was just a tall tale from times past, warning people of a monster that didn’t exist. They kept the legend going to fuel tourism and sell museum tickets, but some still believed, and one of those some was you. You felt this answer in your heart fully and truly, and while it scared you to a degree, it awoke an excitement as never before felt in you. That almost scared you more.

There was no way that Leon wasn’t the vampire roaming the halls of the old mansion and archive.

His aura was one you had never felt in a person before. You have been attracted to people in the past, but you never felt someone so physically radiant that it was almost tangible. His gaze cut right through you like the sharpest knife, bringing a stinging trail along your skin as well as the burning desire to feel it again. It was undeniable, you had never felt such an insane attraction to someone you barely knew, yet, knowing that plus your newfound discovery, which you fully believed in, you wanted to dive headfirst into this unknown territory to explore. 

All day this weighed on your mind. You couldn’t rid Leon’s image from your thoughts. You couldn’t deny, even without the personality that occupied your thoughts, he was one of the most handsome men you had ever seen. He was picturesque in form, a painting made by the most skilled hands. You were ashamed to admit, only slightly, that you were dying to know more about the maps of his body. He always hid under button up shirts, but none that were ever too big that you couldn’t tell he had large biceps, most of the time the sleeves rolled up so the veins in his forearm protruded with movement. The sight always made your mouth dry.

You had to assume, only based on these facts, that he must have been fit, and if he was, which you had no doubt of, paired with his stunning profile, you weren’t sure how you made it so far into this job without making an attempt to pass out in his arms.

As expected, you could think of nothing else leading up to the hours you had to join him back for the second overnight shift. You honestly forgot the whole purpose of you going at this time, all of that having been pushed to the side in favor of thinking of the man in charge of the place. You were nervous, yet anticipated your arrival, hoping to gain more clues to back up your (unwavering, in your mind) hypothesis.

The guards let you in without the flash of your badge. You slinked quietly through the main hall, footsteps bouncing off of every surface. There wasn’t a soul in sight, yet you felt life all over your body. 

The key slid into the lock with ease, and the tell tale clink of the turn mechanism followed.

“Leon?” Your voice echoed through the archive as you shut the door behind you. The lights were off, once again.

You bound down the steps, dropping your belongings on the same stair as the previous night. This time, instead of heading right to the center of the floor to converge with Leon, you stood still on the last step.

“Leon?” You asked again after the man did not do his magical appearance trip at your entry. You felt a cold chill run over your skin. Now, you feel more alone than before. For the first time since becoming involved in the archive, the aisles and books were more sinister than inviting, and every dark corner had a spirit watching you.

You slowly left the stair you held solace on, and walked forward into the center of the room. It felt like every shelf and spine were staring at you with wide eyes, waiting for you to make a wrong move. You wanted to get to work, but you could barely will yourself back up the stairs to the lightswitch. You looked around again as if begging for help from a bystander who was not there.

There was a sudden shift in the air. You weren’t sure now if it was real or if you were hallucinating, but you felt a constricting sensation in your chest, and you felt not alone anymore. Leon was nowhere in sight, but you knew someone else was here.

Suddenly, you couldn’t take it anymore. The silence was enveloping you like a thick rope, and your breath was coming out sloppy. You had to leave.

You took one step backwards and hit a wall behind you. You yelped, not remembering stepping anywhere else besides the center of the room. You turned, and nearly jumped higher out of your body at the sight of what, or who, was behind you.

“You were down here with the lights off. Is something wrong or are you trying out my methods?”

Leon stood before you, in his usual uniform of a white button down shirt and black pants. His hair looked longer tonight, not pushed back with gel, but soft waves were falling across his face, pushed aside to let his sculpted face show through. Here, in the dark, he was much more brooding than he could have ever come across during your typical shifts. That gaze was not the friendly one you had seen in times past.

“No, no I just…” You swallowed, the words falling right out of your mouth. “I thought you would be here. Well, you are, now, but…” You gestured behind you, still feeling the presence of non-existent bodies. 

Leon slowly nodded at your words, not moving towards you, but you felt his presence getting closer. 

“I have been here. I was in the office.” He gestured behind him lazily, to the office you were used to frequenting as an employee. The door was closed.

You shook your head. “I didn’t hear you, though.” You looked again at the door, and when you looked back into his eyes, he knew what you were thinking. He was lying, and he knew you knew that. 

“You know I’m quiet.” His tone felt like a surge straight from your head to your feet, rooting you into place no matter how much you urged your brain to send movement to your limbs.

“Well…” You pushed words out of your throat. “I guess let’s finish this, then.” You broke eye contact and finally felt your body moving forward, but you knew he was still looking at you. You could feel it. 

The moon, if it were even possible, was even brighter this night. It’s full face projected into the windows like a spotlight, and once you were able to put your body into motion and further the project of moving book displays, you barely paid note of how Leon never turned the lights on for the both of you. Maybe he could see perfectly well.

It was nearing one in the morning at this point, and you had one last stack to move. You made gentle conversation with Leon throughout, refusing to put on a strange facade solely off of your own thoughts. He reverted back to his normal state, though normal is a generous word to use for a man like Leon. 

You walked back to the table being used to house books while they are moved, and picked up the last stack. Bram Stoker, Dracula.

This made you snap your head up. You were sure this hadn’t been on the list set to display, yet, here it was. You looked around, trying to search out Leon to question him about this last minute addition. But, as expected, you realized, he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, you don't remember what he was doing last.

“Leon?” You looked back over to the office door, still closed. You would have heard if he went in there and closed it behind him. You put the stack of books down and walked (slowly, you now felt that desolate aloneness again) over to the back right corner, towards Leon’s private office.

You could not make yourself walk any quicker than the snail pace you currently set. It was odd, and you knew if you were afraid you should be walking faster, but for some reason, surrounded by these books and shelves, you felt as if the faster you moved, the quicker you would be caught. Caught by what? You couldn’t answer that question, yet the word suddenly appeared in your head to describe the situation.

You were distracted on the way to the back. You thought, again, you saw a drift of black smoke waft by as if it were another hallucination. You stopped in your tracks, heart in your throat. You shifted paths, only momentarily, you were now desperate to be back in the company of Leon, your supposed vampire master archivist.

The carpet below you muffled your footsteps, but still, you noticed they were loud enough to be heard, unlike how Leon had been appearing from behind you out of thin air. You almost had to squint as you walked by the windows, the moonlight a sudden burst of fireworks in contrast to the dim workspace you had been habiting. As expected, after leering around the corners, hoping to sneak up on the entity, there was nothing but empty space.

There was a light pattering at the window, and you turned your head to see the sky spitting down on you. The window, slowly becoming stained with raindrops, still held that brush stroked image of you, forever intertwined within the archive. It was a hypnotizing image, as if you no longer recognized yourself the more the rain came down. It was a comforting sound, the taps of the drops on the glass filling the void. It felt like another presence, and it calmed you down to a degree, as calm as you could allow yourself to get.

There was a creak from behind you, as if someone had opened a door, or stepped on a stair. You whipped back around, hoping to see Leon at this point, but still, he was nowhere to be seen. The room was still, everything untouched, but your eyes still scanned every crevice, convinced you were going to miss something if you weren’t careful. 

The rain was still sounding off behind you, and you could see the bending of the light as it cast onto the floor. It was the only thing moving. You were far too on edge now.

You turned back to the window…

“Leon!” You took a step back, now more afraid than surprised at his sudden appearance. “Where did you come from? I’ve been looking for you.” You took a huff, trying to catch your breath from his genuinely scaring you. He was standing in front of the window, the moon behind him casting into a deep silhouette, face barely available. 

“I’ve been here the whole time.” His voice was lower than before now, and you could barely piece together thoughts. He turned his head to the side, as if surveying the room that you were just inspecting. His eyes caught a glimpse of the light, and you saw the deep yellow in them. It sent a sudden pit to your stomach, and a memory to flash in front of your eyes.

The day he had taken you up to his office, and you spoke about the legends of the vampire, and why you were drawn to the house. You remember the look he gave you when he had said he appreciated your honesty. 

Leon had blue eyes that day. That color was nowhere to be seen now.

You swallowed, trying to moisten your mouth in order to speak. “No… no you weren’t. I looked for you. You disappeared. And you just came out of nowhere. What is going on with you, Leon?” As hard as you tried to suppress it, you heard the trembling sounds that came out of your mouth. It was audible that you were panicking, and he knew it. 

He stared at you for another moment. His arms were clasped behind his back. “What are you afraid of?”

The rumbling of his voice shot straight through you, to your dismay, and you forced all your composure together to face him without folding.

You gave him a once over, trying to find… something, that might give him away. What you were looking for exactly, you couldn’t say, but you couldn’t stare into his eyes any longer, especially having realized they were not the same eyes you saw a few days ago.

“You’re just… being odd, Leon.” You looked back into his eyes, or what you could see of them from underneath the shadows. Being this close to him, you felt like you were suffocating, and you needed air. “I would like to finish this now.”

You slowly side stepped him, Leon still unmoving in his position against the window. You sighed and turned your head, catching your rain-distorted reflection once again. It was you, a mirror image of someone suffering the same mystifying scenarios as you were in the present moment, standing ever alone against the bookshelves, not offering the comfort they usually do. 

You stopped short in your tracks and did a double take. Now your body was fully turned toward the window. 

Your reflection stared at you, looking just as perplexed as you did. Without shifting your eyes to the side, you saw the equally distorted reflection of the wooden shelves, illuminated under the lunar glow. You saw your empty hands, you saw the dark hallway behind you, and out of your peripheral vision you saw that Leon had not moved from his spot yet… yet you could not see him.

Leon was not present in the reflection. 

You could do nothing but stare in shock and slight horror as you watched the whole scene unfold. A part of you was now realizing, though you had put two and two together in the comfort and safety of your own home, now in the presence of the man and seeing the evidence with your own two eyes, your veins ran cold, and you could not will yourself to move. Not until Leon did.

He shifted, you couldn’t even turn your head to watch. Now he was out of any point of view you had, but you felt his presence press himself against your back, staring into the same image you were. It was the most disorienting experience, feeling Leon’s body behind you, yet not seeing him peering over your shoulder. It didn’t take an expert for him to know how you were feeling in this moment, and you were also sure he knew exactly what conclusion you had just come to.

“What are you thinking?” His deep voice presented itself directly in your ear, and you felt the featherlight graze of his lips on the shell. You could feel the strands of his hanging blonde waves hit your cheek, and while your eyes stung like you wanted to cry, a blaze set itself alight within your body at his proximity.

You could only shake your head slowly at first. “You…” You fumbled over your words, unable to take your eyes off of the glass. The mysterious image of only you and not the person directly behind you will forever be burned into memory. “What are you?”

You heard him inhale slowly. You felt the heat from his face lift away from yours, but it only moved up a fraction, his mouth now pressing closely into your hairline. 

“Don’t you know already? You’re a smart girl.” He was condescending with his words, most surely using what you had told him a few days ago against you now. All that talk you did about you believing the legend of the mansion’s vampire, yet here you were, standing right in front of him and refusing to say it out loud.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Your voice was barely louder than a tremble. “You let me run my mouth like a fool in your office, and you didn’t even tell me that I was right this whole time.” Your tongue was so dry, speaking became a task. Your fingers were growing numb, but you still found it hard to move.

He snickered, and you felt the air from his breath fan your face. “And ruin the surprise? I’d much rather see the look on your face after you put it together yourself than having told you right then and there. There’s nothing I love more than when I see someone realize the reality of their convictions. Quite especially someone like you.”

You closed your eyes. It was all you could stand to do at this moment. You shot them back open, however, when you felt his broad hand at your back, pushing you forward, closer to the glass. 

Walking closer to the window with the rain now coming down steadily against it, he released where he had put his hand, but did not remove himself from your closeness. 

“What do you see?” 

He said nothing more, waiting for you to find the composure to be able to speak properly again. As hard as you tried to look past your bleary visage to the outside world, it was nearly impossible. It was dark as ever out there, the moon unrelenting in her radiance. 

After a few more seconds, “Myself.” You heard Leon hum from behind you. 

“And?” He egged you on.

You shook your head. “That’s it. I can see the moon. The rain.” Your voice grew softer, body relaxing slowly, but for what cause, you weren’t able to find. You involuntarily let out a low sigh when you felt the tips of his fingers crawl up the right side of your neck, settling on your jaw. He pushed your head to the side, enough to expose the canvas of flesh in the reflection.

“Curious… Don’t you think?” His hand flitted lower, raising a trail of goosebumps along the tender skin. A finger pressed inward, right underneath the crook of your jaw, feeling the pulse of your bloodstream. “How much of yourself you can see, the first thing you always notice, for the living must look and be vain.”

Chills spread quickly throughout your body. His hand felt shockingly warm, the opposite of what you would have expected from the typical vampirical lore. 

“You… you don’t know what you look like?” You whispered.

“How should I? I’m not able to unless someone lets me know, but even then, do I want to?”

You said nothing for a moment, trying to breathe through the weakness in your abdomen at his touch, which was still laid over the tender place on your throat.

“I’d like to think you still look the same as the day you stopped aging.” He hummed again at your words. Despite his remark of not knowing if he would like anyone to tell him what he looked like, he let you continue in your description. “You’re like a sculpture. Rough around the edges but so blended out, only made by hands whom the gods approved of.” His hand left your pulse, settling on the crook of your neck and shoulder, slightly squeezing. You couldn’t see, of course, but you felt that he still held his face close to yours. “You’d almost be better fitted walking the main halls as a work of art than hiding in these books.”

“That is very affirming to hear from a woman like you.” A breath of silence, then he continued. “You’ve always known, you always believed, and you know what I am. I’m quite drawn to you, I am long familiar with the feeling of someone who is covered in fear, it’s nowhere present on you.” He brought his lips down back to your ear, and you felt his left hand sneak around your waist. Your knees almost buckled. “You’re captivating… I cannot bring myself to keep things professional at all times.”

You were now, truly, at a loss for words, however he did not take your silence as resilience. The hand that was not around your waist was now pushing down the shoulder of your top, revealing the smooth skin. You shuddered again, letting your eyes close once more, and you gave in to the physical feelings over trying to rationalize anything verbally. 

“I can’t stand here and deny myself from trying to get to you any longer. I have to know… I must know…” His voice was a borderline growl in your ear now, and you shocked yourself with the smallest whimper that poured over your lips. It only fueled him. 

You were pushed forward by a sudden force from Leon, both hands coming up to brace yourself against the window. You were glad no one had ever turned the lights on, if any of the guards decided to walk the perimeter, surely you would have been seen.

Interestingly enough to you, despite being in the current position you were, you no longer felt any anxiety from being in the presence of your manifested form of Leon the vampire. Though he did stand there and confirm it all to you, no part of you felt like you needed to run away any longer. In fact, the contrast between the cold window and his warm body was all the convincing you needed to stay.

“I would never do this on an ordinary day, if it were anyone else I would fight these urges, but with you… I just find myself succumbing to something I wanted so suddenly.” His mouth moved against the skin of your neck, and you arched back into his body behind you. “I will not continue unless you tell me not to, but you should know I need more than just the one thing from you right now…” 

The deep octaves of his voice had your thoughts swimming, and any rational mind had flown far out the window. There was nothing to argue with when there was nothing you felt the need to refuse. 

“I…” A gasp from you, collecting breath you had not known you were holding. “I can’t let you do this then let you loose. This is too far beyond simplicity now.” Your breath fogged the window, and you couldn't help but notice once more how you could only see your bare shoulder in the glass, and not his large hand around the bone.

“I would never,” His lips were tucked up under your jawline, the vibrations from his voice being felt all over your body. A kiss would be less intimate. “You’re mine.”

At once, his hand on your waist tightened and he opened his mouth, his sharp fangs pierced the flesh right underneath your pulse and you gasped loudly, the pinch making you stiffen at first, then making your legs lose balance.

Leon’s hot mouth on your throat was like a painkiller compared to his teeth sunk into you, and his hand held you steady as you slowly felt the need to fall to your knees. He removed his right hand from your shoulder and wrapped it underneath your right arm, crossing over your chest to hold you steady against him, and the more you gasped and writhed at him feeding, the closer he pulled you into him.

He was groaning into your neck, his tongue swiping over the stinging wounds after he had retracted his fangs, and every time more blood pulsed out of the surface, he rocked his hips into you, and you could tell he was enjoying this in more ways than just the one. And, something you never would have believed you would get to admit, you were growing more excited with every passing second as well.

“Leon…” You whispered, unable to find strength to raise to your full voice. You clenched your eyelids shut, a burst of white filtering through the darkness. Your limbs started trembling. “Please…”

With a gasp from the man, he pulled his mouth off of your neck, the cold air stinging the once warm location. He pulled you close into his body. He was breathing heavily.

With his still low and raspy voice, he spoke again, his body twitching against yours from the rush of adrenaline. “With one taste now, I’m not sure I will ever be able to stay satiated without your blood again,” You tilted your head back, resting it on his. He held you up. “You remind me of a time when being alive meant something greater than just a state of being to me. For as long as I can…” He adjusted his head, and you felt the tip of his nose grace your jaw. It made you jump at first, afraid to feel those piercing teeth again, but he let you revel in the soft touch. “I cannot let another claim you to be theirs.”

Leon brought his left hand back upward on your body, caressing your face and directing it sideways to look at him. His eyes were burning bright with gold, and your hazy vision locked onto it like a target. 

“Tell me yes,” He whispered now, his mouth grazing yours. You were barely hanging on, the blood loss creating more of a haziness than you were expecting, but you would have been able to say this answer even if you could barely speak. You had made your mind up about this with Leon a long time ago. 

“Yes, Leon,” You breathily replied, and the grip on both of his hands intensified, capturing your body even closer to his if it was possible, and came down onto you in a heated kiss.

He held the side of your face to keep you upright, and it only made you melt further. His strong hands and arms were the sole reason you hadn't fallen to the floor by now, your mind was swimming and all of your nerves were aflame. You were barely paying any attention to the dull throbbing coming from the two pinpricks in your neck. 

Leon, you could tell immediately, was a passionate lover. He made sure to keep you close to him at all times, afraid at any moment you could run away, from him, from this archive, from this experience. You knew you could never do that, not after such a bond had already been created by letting him feed off of you. His arms were solace in this moment, and his mouth a lifesaver, ironically.

He gently bit at your lips, and when he pulled away for you to catch your breath, you could taste blood. It was your own, you knew, but some sick inner part of you loved the thrill it sent through you. You wanted more.

His mouth was back on your skin in an instant, this time by your cheek, ear, down to your jaw and neck. You flinched when he landed on the bite mark, but he only trailed over it with a light kiss, he didn’t intend on reopening them. One of your hands came down off of the cold glass, now fogged from the heat from the two of you, to wrap around his wrist. You could barely stand, and wanted to stay in his embrace, but needed to look at him.

At your touch, he slowly let you go, and when there was enough space for movement, you turned carefully, purposefully not leaving his contact.

You shuddered at the cold window on your back, but felt heat flood your senses again when you looked into his eyes. Leon loomed over you, gaze full of lust, chest heaving with having spent energy on you, but you knew he had more to give. And you had more you could take.

You grabbed the front of his shirt by the middle and pulled him closer to you. He wasted no time in coming where you had beckoned him, hand slithering around your waist to draw you in again. 

After a breath, you spoke, “I can’t… I don’t think I can stand for long,” Your eyes fluttered shut for a few seconds at a time, and you couldn’t help but to let them. 

The other hand that hadn’t worked its way around your waist trailed down your side, over the curve of your hips and thighs, and took solace underneath.

“Don’t worry about that,” It took only a second at most for him to lift you, settling himself in between your legs, back still pressed against the window. Leon’s hand was gripping your thigh, and the other was still behind you. Your own arms wrapped around his neck suddenly, and it brought you face to face with him once again. “I’ve got you. I won’t drop you.”

You sighed at his words, thankful he was now holding you, as that surely would have been the breaking point, and you would have been in a puddle on the floor by now. You let your head roll back, hitting the window with a dull thud, but any pain that might have happened due to it was nowhere to be felt, with other sensations at the forefront of your nerve system.

Leon had pressed himself against you again, the hardness of his cock through his pants pressing incessantly against your heat, he reattached his lips to your throat, nipping and sucking at the soft skin, eliciting mewls from your mouth at his touch.

Your hands explored ceaselessly along his strong arms, his biceps flexing from holding you, from the excitement coursing through his own body, and you couldn’t help but arch back into him, trying to get even closer than possibly allowed. You felt him pull away again, and you wrapped one hair through his soft blonde locks and pulled him back, connecting your lips in fervor, kissing him like your life source was dependent on you staying alive.

HIs lips were soft and hot, you were addicted to the taste. The tang of your blood mixed on his tongue danced with the shared saliva between you, and with every kiss you wished you could get even closer to him. You tugged on his hair, but it was as if he couldn’t even feel it, he was too wrapped up in you.

His tongue roamed your mouth, both soon becoming slick with spit and sweat between your bodies, and you couldn’t take the heat anymore. 

You pulled away, only by an inch but with enough space to whine out, “Leon, please,”

No more communication was needed, he understood your words. Maybe if you let it go on any longer, he would now just by whatever your body was telling him.

The arm he had around your waist snaked back to your side, and dipped down in between the two of you. Leon kissed your neck once, your head still relaxed against the window, unable to conjure the energy to move. You shivered with his touch along your thigh, the casual sweater dress you had on now becoming a good idea. You thanked your past self.

“If I continue will you let me,” He spoke into your neck, close enough to your ear for you to hear the low rumble of his voice. “I got a taste of you, but I know it won’t be enough.” His hand was already caressing the tender skin of your inner thigh, causing waves of chills and heat though your body and straight to your core. He was mere inches away from pulling aside your panties and running his fingers along your wetness, and you didn’t know if you could wait for that any longer.

“I need you Leon,” You whispered, and tried to turn your head to face him as best as you could. “I’ll let you forever.” 

He sighed, but it was closer to a growl. He thrust his hips forward, creating a delicious friction in between the two of you, and you couldn't stop the moan that escaped. Your hand was still laced in his hair, and he inhaled sharply, in pleasure rather than pain, every time you pulled hard. 

You whined out loud when he withdrew the hand that was so close to putting fingers inside of you, but you quickly quieted down when he utilized it instead to work apart the clasp of his belt and button of his pants. He had no intentions of wasting time, though this was a man that had all in the world. 

You lifted your head with the surge of energy you found at the sound of this and attempted to look down, needing to feed your eyes before he fed your pussy. He caught you before you could make the move, smashing your lips together once again, but you didn’t mind the distraction, it was a better way to pass the time rather than have your mouth empty. 

Leon wrigled himself around for a moment, attempting to pull himself out with one hand. He sighed after he accomplished this, pulling away from your mouth, but instantly was back on your neck. This time, he gave you what you wanted.

With his other hand still supporting your thigh, and showing no signs of getting tired of this action, he replaced his hand back inside your dress skirt, but skipping right over its previous position. Instead, he placed the pad of his thumb right onto the gusset of your panties, pressing with enough force to give you the friction you were desperate for. You gasped out loud, and he only continued this action to make you writhe against him.

The hand that was not tangled in his hair traveled down his chest, feeling the hard ridges of his muscles and bones, toying with the buttons of his shirt to pull them apart. When he felt your hand touch his bare chest, you could feel the muscles flex for a second. 

He decided he had had enough of the teasing, though he was the one doing it to you. He roughly pulled aside your panties, and your mouth dried up at the action. Your breath hitched, and you knew what was coming.

He pulled away from your skin for a second to look into your eyes. You could feel yourself slowly slipping away, the dizziness from the blood loss slowly fading, but that strength was whisked away instantly by the arousal pooling in every crevice of your body. Leon’s eyes were half lidded, pupils blown, mouth slightly parted. You could tell just by looking at him that he barely had anything else on his mind. Just the few sips of your elixir gave him enough energy to last the whole night, most likely.

“I’m sorry if I get rough,” You felt the vibrations of his words through his chest, which you still had one hand firmly planted on. “Everything is heightened now and…” He swiped through your clothed pussy again, making you buck your hips forward. “You are irresistible, and it’s doing something to me… That I haven’t felt in a long time.”

You said nothing, or rather, didn’t have the time to, as after he concluded speaking, his fingers breached the threshold of your panties and he slipped a finger through your wet folds, making you inhale sharply and press yourself further against him. He leaned forward, pinning you fully against himself and the window, using his teeth to gently bite at your neck again. 

He proceeded to stay buried in your neck for the next minute or so, his fingers going back and forth from teasing your entrance to applying pressure on your clit, making you whine and wiggle around in his hold. Every time you moaned breathily right next to his ear, he growled lowly.

The rain continued to pound on the window behind you, mirroring the feeling of your dripping heat, tightening around nothing as Leon continued to tease you, the feeling of his twitching head would occasionally press against you, and you desperately tried to rut forward to put it in, but he held you in place. 

Finally, when he did decide to show mercy on your state, you whined so sharply your voice cut in and out of audibility, his thick fingers stretching you in a way that felt like bliss, no matter if any pain occurred. He thumbed your clit while slowly pumping his fingers in and out of you, feeling yourself grow slicker with every stroke, the movement becoming less and less resistant as he worked you open.

Surely he was able to feel your thighs trembling in his hand, your legs twitching with the feeling of his fingers, paired with the tongue against your pulse, the non-bitten side, you were almost at the edge without anything major happening.

He pulled away, putting himself once again in front of your face, searching you for signs that he shouldn’t continue. Tears were brimming on your lower lash line, though not from pain, but from the lack of pleasure. He saw this as it was, knowing what you were feeling in this moment, knowing you needed more, needed him. 

Leon held one second of eye contact, then dipped into your mouth to kiss you chastely, and at the same time, sheathed himself inside of you. You gasped into the kiss, deepening it as you tried to thrust yourself forward to take more and more of him in. He held your hips firmly in place, not letting you take any of the control. Your fingers were tugging so harshly at his hair now, you would be surprised if you pulled away with no strands stuck between your fingers. He welcomed the sting of it though, pushing himself forward into you until he completely bottomed out, the feeling of his twitching cock in your walls made your whole body shiver, and you felt yourself pulsing around him, begging for some action to relieve your aching.

Your breath was stuck in your throat at this. The fullness you were experiencing made it difficult to inhale anything, and with Leon not only filling your insides, but still keeping his mouth connected to your neck, everything was making your head spin.

“Leon…” You breathed out, and you received a grunt in return. He pistoned his hips forward again, making you whine sharply, before pulling himself out and repeating the action. You quickly became loud.

There was nothing rough about the action. He was slow and thoughtful with every stroke, hands gripping your ass where he held you up, pushing bruises into the skin where his fingers made contact. He groaned with every other thrust, enjoying the feeling of you around him as you were of him inside of you. 

You could barely make any more noise at this point, just heavy breathing was coming from the both of you, a whine occasionally making its way out from your throat, but too many sensations were happening at once, it was all so overstimulating.

Your hands were roaming, trying to find any surface on him possible to steady yourself. You were clawing at him desperately, feeling a little sorry for the marks you were creating along his chest, but every line of pain was being pushed into his performance, and he was not relenting on his power.

“Fuck,” Leon moaned into your ear, and he took one second to collect himself before resuming his pace. You could feel how wet the both of you had become, as well as hear it. “You feel amazing…” Your head rolled back once more and thudded against the rain stricken window, but it was not loud enough to drown out the incessant squelching happening. Leon began to pick his pace up slightly, most likely your sign that he was getting close.

He thrust hard and stayed seated inside of you, making your legs tense up, and pleasure shoot throughout your entire body. Your hand had finally let go of his hair at this, squeezing with as much strength as you could muster up in your body on his thick shoulder, where you could feel every muscle as he struggled to hold you up and keep himself together.

“You’re too much for me,” He gasped into your ear, “I can’t hold on much longer,” 

You lifted your head off of the window and leaned down, he met you halfway and sealed his words with a deep kiss. Moving away from other spots on his body, your hands traveled back up and cupped both sides of his face, kissing him with passion as he tried to split focus between kissing you and fucking you.

You could feel his breath on your face as he began stuttering, and his sounds made your stomach tighten, and you clenched your walls around him, making it even harder for him to continue.

He pulled away by a mere centimeter, saliva stuck between you two in a string, the look in his eyes soft yet strong, he admired you in a way that made you forget he had seen a thousand other beautiful things in his lifetime. It made you feel like you topped the list. Sweat was beading on his forehead, it was catching the moonlight behind you, making his skin shine like silver. His eyes were blue again.

He furrowed his brow together, his hips losing its steady rhythm. “I–I can’t,” He almost whimpered, and you took pity on his state. It was arousing to see this man fall apart under you.

You tried your best to speak, voice cutting in between heavy breaths. “So don’t.” These words elicited a sob-like sound from the man in front of you. His mouth dropped open, eyelids scrunching together, letting the last of himself loose that he had been holding together barely at all. 

With broken gasps and groans, you felt Leon push himself for just a moment more, the pleasure on his face driving you right to your orgasm, and the knot inside of you came loose. Solace was found on his chest again, and your nails dug into him as you rode it out, knowing the feeling was going to push Leon over as well.

You felt it before you saw it on his face. You felt the throb of his thick cock inside of you, his hips unable to do anything steadily at this point, and he let himself go inside of you.

He was looking down between the two of you, though you were sure his eyes were closed as you were still pressed together. He groaned once, twice, and when he eventually looked up, in between his panting lips and huffs for air, you saw his shining fangs that had come out to play again.

You almost invited him to bite you again. Surely it would have allowed him to continue.

You blinked and they were gone. His facial features softened as he looked at you, your skin was on fire from the warm air settling in around you two, and your lungs wouldn’t fill efficiently enough.

He gulped, trying to wet his mouth. You were experiencing the same. “Are you alright to stand?”

You removed your hands from his chest and placed them on one of the panes of the window. “I think I will be, maybe… eventually.”

He huffed a laugh. He gently maneuvered his hands to let your feet plant back onto the ground. After being held up for so long, your knees felt like jelly. You stumbled.

He still loomed over you after you had regained your balance. He discreetly put himself away while you were busy controlling the rush of blood back to your head, and now he was keeping a watchful eye, scared, like you were fragile.

“I’m just unsteady. I won’t break.” You remarked. You pulled the hem of your dress down.

Leon smiled. It warmed you. “Of course I know that. I just…” He looked away for a moment, as if ashamed. “I drank a lot more than I should have. And then proceeded to heighten your heart rate, which was not my best course of action, but at times, I tend to get ahead of myself.” You stared at him as he talked. You felt endeared by his worries. 

“I feel fine, right now. But I was hazy. But…” You bit your lip, wondering if you should continue your train of thought. Why not, you concluded, the most intimate act was already water under the bridge. “I liked how it felt.”

You couldn’t help but smile, a slight difference to the tone of the moment, but you noticed his hair, which he hadn’t yet patted down from your fingers running wild in them. It made him look rugged, playful. Human.

“I…” Leon said nothing else for a few more seconds. You observed each other. Reveling in the events that just transpired, and exactly what this means moving forward. There was no more strictly professional relationship. You could feign it to the public, but you will always want him. He will always crave you.

He continued. “I meant what I said. I had a little too much just for a first taste, and it heightened every nerve ending in my body, you allowed me to continue, and I fear… Well, now I need to see where this takes our relations. I would like…” Another pause for humility. “I would like you to stay. Stay here, not for the building, but with me.”

You were the one to gulp this time. Even just his words had a sweeping effect like a wave, and you were desperately trying to breathe through the undertow. 

You walked forward, grabbing his shirt by the half undone buttons and pulled him into a kiss. You let the passion take over in place for the lust a few minutes prior, and you could feel the difference all over your body. You knew your answer.

You pulled away, both of you slightly dazed. You whispered into his lips, “That was already my plan.” 

The moonlight hugged you both goodnight.

[queenofbaws]

Hello fellow chilly queen!! I’m sorry I’ve been MIA, have been recovering from surgery (wisdom teeth). Doooo you think I could get some jossam, anything of your choice 👀👀👀? I hope you’re doing well and this week was better for you than it was me lol <3

catch me catching up on some prompts! ;)c

She could still hear the party going on. Doors closed, windows shut, the breeze in her ears, and...yeah. Yup. Mhm. That was definitely the bassline of Mike's (questionable) music choices making the hum under her butt. The whole point of slipping out for a little fresh air had been to, well, get away, but even so, Sam had to smile. Shake her head.

As long as everyone was having fun, what was the harm, right?

It was always cold up on the mountain - freezing, more often than not - but tonight, bundled up as she was, the chill barely bothered her. In fact, she shut her eyes, tipped her head back, and took in the deepest, deepest breath she could, filling her lungs with the crisp scent of pine. Not the artificial stuff either, the real deal, baby, roots and all. In her mind's eye, she saw her exhale plume out in front of her, a cloud of her worries pushed out of her and carried up, up, and away to join the ones in the sky, and when she opened her eyes for real, she...

Actually screamed.

"Wow," Josh snorted, deftly rocking to one side to avoid any punches she might've considered throwing. "A 'hello' would've sufficed."

When her fight-or-flight registered he was not, in fact, some crazed mountain man come to chop her into a billion little pieces, Sam fell flat onto her back, pressing her hands to her heart in an attempt to calm it down. "That...was incredibly mean, what you just did."

Because he'd sat himself beside her, she had the perfect vantage point to watch his face contort. No regret, she noted, not even a teeny-tiny sliver. Plenty of self-satisfaction, though. Lots of pretending like he wasn't laughing his ass off, inside his head. "Sitting on my own deck, huh? Punishable offense now, I guess."

"The sneaking, Josh."

"Who said I was sneaking, Sam?"

"Me. I do. The one whose eyes were closed."

"Have you ever considered...not dropping your guard while in a big, scary cabin in the middle of the dark, spooky woods?" He glanced down to meet her eyes, then raised his beer in a silent toast before taking a drink. "The killer always goes for the ones who split off from the rest of the group, Giddings. C'mon, you know this."

"The killer," she began, pushing herself up with her elbows, waving his hand away when he offered to help, "can try. I might not look like it, but I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, I've caught on to that," he nodded. For a second she thought he might say something else...but then he simply looked out towards the woods and nodded, taking another drink. "I've caught on."

Her pulse dropped back to its usual resting beat, and so she resumed her earlier position, legs crisscrossed and hands at her sides, her mittened palms flush against the deck itself. She tried not to look at him directly (not right away), instead rolling her eyes at the faint snow-angel she'd left in her panic. Snow-amoeba, really. There hadn't been a lot of snowfall since she'd gone out, only enough to barely dust the deck, but if the clouds on the horizon were any sign, they'd be getting more any minute now.

The song inside the lodge ended. A new one began. Beneath them, a different bassline began to thump. One of the windows rattled in its frame.

"You're not being a very good host," she said after a while, shooting him a sidelong look. Despite the scare he'd given her, she couldn't help smirking when their eyes met. He was good at that, Josh - making her forget things like that, smoothing them over without doing anything at all. It was a dangerous skill to have.

"Or I'm the best host," he argued, "rushing out into the night to make sure all my guests are having a good time."

She heard the unspoken question in it, figured maybe that was what she was good at - cutting through his crap. Another dangerous skill, that, just...in a different direction. "I'm having a good time."

"Mmm. Glad to hear it."

"Yup."

It was funny, really, how well she knew him. Maybe not funny in the laugh-out-loud kind of way, maybe funny more in the whacking-your-elbow kind of way, but funny all the same. In her head, Sam counted one, two, three...and then he turned to her again, keeping his bottle close to his mouth the way he did when he was trying to seem unbothered.

"Let's say, hypothetically of course, that you weren't having a good time. You'd tell me, right?"

She turned to him. Nodded. "I would tell you."

"And if, still entirely hypothetically, someone had said or done something to piss you off to such a degree that you had to flee the party..."

Her eyes rolled so hard that they brought the rest of her body with them. "Josh," she said, scooting so she was fully facing him, "I'm fine. Seriously. Things just got a little loud in there, that's all. A little crazy. I know you don't get this, but sometimes I like to just sit out in nature - " she spread her arms wide, gesturing to the mountain and its snowy trees, the stars above, the shimmering ribbon of aurora in the sky, " - so I can think my thoughts to myself. My quiet thoughts. Just so happens that I've...got a few of those, tonight. That's all."

After another drink, he set his beer down on the deck, copying her so they were facing each other, their postures mirrored. He wasn't wearing mittens, though, so she had to figure his hands were freezing. If they were, he didn't seem to care.

"Anything you want to share with the class?" he asked, and again the word appeared in her head: dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

What she needed to say was no, that there wasn't anything in particular on her mind, that she'd simply wanted a moment to herself. That would've been the smart thing to do, the safe thing to do, but...well. Those warning sirens in her head, they weren't just for his actions, now, were they?

She sniffed from the cold, giving her nose a numb little wiggle, then did something significantly more dangerous than splitting off from the rest of the group, something more dangerous than sitting with her eyes shut and her guard down in the middle of nowhere, something that, as Josh had pointed out himself, she knew better than to do.

She told him the truth.

"Just thinking about how absolutely furious Hannah and Beth would be if I told them I think I have a crush on their brother," she said, measuring her words carefully, watching his face more carefully still. "Between you and me? I kinda feel like they might eat me alive."

[vivalas-vega]

new perspectives / jake ‘hangman’ seresin x reader / part two

another painful chapter. I’m very very sorry... kinda :/ 

as always pls lmk what you think and if you want to be added to the tag list!!!

new perspectives / jake ‘hangman’ sersesin x reader / part two

add yourself to my taglist

prologue - part one

word count: 4.2k

warnings: language, drinking, mentions of surgery, medical inaccuracies (all of my medical knowledge comes from grey’s anatomy) angst :(

Semesters came and went, Christmases and Thanksgivings, late night parties and commendation ceremonies. Time was moving quicker than you maybe wanted it to, suddenly you blinked and undergrad was over… you blinked again and you were flying through medical school. That boy from molecular biology turned into your boyfriend and Matt was fine… he really was, you couldn’t find anything wrong with him no matter how hard you tried. Sure, he was a little self-centered but as you had found out there was only one man who wasn’t intimidated by your drive, there was only one man who celebrated you when you were off to medical school before anyone else, and there was only one man whose opinion you actually gave a damn about… which is why standing there in your apartment holding a letter accepting you into Massachusetts General’s residency program there was only one person you wanted to talk to.

“Hey, J, what’s up?” Jake answered as you propped your phone against your water bottle on your kitchen counter… you didn’t say anything, you only stood staring at the paper in your hands as he watched you through the screen, “what is that?”

“Jake…” you started, emotions clouding your voice and your hands shaking.

“No way,” he said and you heard clattering on his end, him telling people to shut up. “Tell me that’s what I think it is.”

“Mass Gen, Jake. I’m going to be a resident at Mass Gen,” you said, giggling as you held the paper up for him to see and he cheered on the other end, his smile illuminating your whole phone screen. “I’m moving to Boston.”

“You’re moving to Boston! What did Matt say?” he asked and you set the paper aside as you slid into a bar stool.

“Haven’t told him,” you replied and Jake gave you a look.

“You told me first?” He ran a hand through his hair, “well, I’m flattered but I’m not the first person you should have told.”

“He’s in class… and he’s going to tell me not to take it,” you sighed.

“Why on earth would he do that?”

“Because it’s the hardest residency program there is, it’s going to bruise his little baby ego,” you said with a laugh and Jake just shook his head. “I’m breaking up with him… there’s no point anymore.”

“You sure that’s what you want?” he asked, though he was certain it was what he wanted… he didn’t like Matt, never did. Where you cut him slack for his insecurities, Jake didn’t. Sly comments under his breath at your undergrad graduation and eye rolls when Jake came to town went overlooked by you, but not by Jake and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been hoping and praying for your relationship’s demise… not because he wanted your relationship to fail, not at all, but if you were going to be with anyone other than him than they needed to be great. Supportive, encouraging, secure enough in themselves to not get butthurt at your every accomplishment and Matt just wasn’t those things. He wasn’t good enough for you and everyone knew it. And so you broke up with Matt, packed up your shared apartment and met Jake in Boston who took a short leave to help you get settled into your new place. 

“Hell of a view, Jupiter,” he said, standing in front of your bedroom window that directly overlooked the hospital.

You beamed, “I know,” but when you met his eyes you realized he was joking and your face fell, “oh. Well, this is my dream view. The next year of my life is going to be hell but at least being a minute away from the hospital means I’ll always be the first to answer a page which hopefully means cool surgeries.”

“You’re such a weirdo,” he chuckled, crossing the empty room to wrap you in a hug, “but you’re my weirdo and I’m so proud of you.” This was all you had ever wanted and Jake thought back to the day the two of you made the hardest decision to enter the next phases of your lives unattached, the way you’d scolded him for not assuming you’d end up here in Boston. He knew you would, you were a lot of things and true to your word was one of them… if you said you were going to do something, well that was that. 

And it was hell, your intern year all but chewed you up and spit you out. You spent countless hours running around the hospital trying to keep up with all of the residents and attendings, anticipating their moves and trying to impress them and stay on their good side… which was nearly impossible because interns were the rats of the hospital. And that was okay with you, you were learning so much it felt like your brain was simply going to explode with all the new information being crammed in on a daily basis. It didn’t matter if the attendings were annoyed with you, despite what they said or how they treated you, you were the favorite. Nobody knew the surgical floor like you did, not even the nurses and that meant you logged more OR hours than any other intern. 

“I literally don’t understand how you do it,” Holly said from beside you at the bar, “the attendings love you, did I tell you Dr. Adams kicked me out of his OR today because I wasn’t you?” 

You chuckled, “yeah, I got that page.” 

“And he got mad at me because you didn’t show up.” she grumbled.

“I had another surgery!” you protested and she shot you a glare.

“Again, I literally don’t understand how you do it.”

“Look, it’s not your fault… this is what, the first time I’ve been at the bar in weeks? You guys are here after every shift, sleeping around, making first-day mistakes a year in… oh wait, it is your fault,” you smirked, sipping your beer and she just softly hit your shoulder. “You gotta buck up, you can’t just stand around meekly after rounds waiting to get assigned to a case. That surgery I was in today? Removing a tumor we honestly had no business removing from someone’s brain, and I sure as hell didn’t get it twiddling my thumbs waiting for Dr. Harris to pick me.”

“What the fuck,” she sighed. “All I was doing with Adams was an appy.”

“You were assisting on an appy?” you asked and she nodded, “this is what I mean, Hol, I’ve done appys, that’s probably why Adams wanted me so he could fuck around and read the paper. You heard what the chief said on our first day. Don’t be the intern that washes out, it’s bad for my brand,” you teased. Your phone started ringing in your pocket and you pulled it out to see an incoming facetime from Jake and you propped him up on the bar as you answered.

“Jupiter! Are you in a bar?” he asked and you nodded, “same!” he said, twisting his phone around to show you some of his pilot friends and you chuckled.

“What are you doing calling me when you’re out and about?”

“Coyote missed you,” he said, panning the camera towards him and you beamed.

“I miss you too, Coyote, Jake lies to me so how was the mission?” 

“All good, nothing to report,” he said and you narrowed your eyes.

“Yeah, you lie too, that’s exactly what he told me. Give me back to Jake.”

“Right here, angel,” he said and you flushed.

“Guess what I scrubbed in on today?” 

“Hmm… something really cool that’s going to make me nauseous?” he replied and you chuckled.

“A massive brain tumor, Jake!” Holly exclaimed from beside you, “fucking brain tumor, I hate you,” she grumbled, getting up and joining everyone else at the dartboard while you just laughed. 

“She’s cranky, all she did today was assist on an appy,” you explained.

“How big was it?” he asked and you held your hand up to gesture about the size of a golf ball. “Disgusting,” he muttered.

“God, it was huge, you don’t think of something that big being able to exist in someone’s brain! And it was smart, Jake, like truly brilliant. It was a pain in the ass to remove, I honestly thought it was a hopeless case, thought at the very least we were going to leave her blind or mute or paralyzed but we didn’t.” This is how your days usually went, you’d facetime Jake when you had a spare moment and traumatize him with the gory details of the latest surgery you’d seen, or catch him up on hospital drama while he told you all about the newest flight maneuvers he was learning or which person on his squad was the dud. You’d never forget the day he called while you were in the gallery, observing surgery and studying, and when you flipped the phone around to show him the exposed heart he grew pale and threw up into a trash can.

Coyote told you that you needed to call more, said Jake (or Hangman as he called him) was in a much better mood when you did and you promised you would but… it was hard, your schedules never aligned. You were always in surgery, or prepping for surgery, or studying for the intern exam, or passed out in an on-call room somewhere and he was usually halfway around the globe in a cockpit, or on some base across the country training. These moments were rare, the moments where one of you called and it didn’t go unanswered, every time you saw him on your tiny screen you felt like Jake looked different, and he felt the same. Stress had worn you both down, your careers had hardened you and it showed.

Life only got harder after your intern year, you had your own interns to babysit and more responsibilities and Jake was quickly becoming the best pilot in the Navy which meant more deployments and longer deployments. Each year passed with new patients and new places for Jake to ship out to. Your parents had come to visit you for Thanksgiving and you’d ended up sneaking them into the gallery to watch you assist in removing a turkey carver that was lodged in someone’s arm… Christmas was a no-go with the amount of fall injuries and ornaments in places ornaments shouldn’t be and it was the same for Jake. He’d tried time and time again to come see you, he’d promised you the gallery facetime was a one-off, he just hadn’t been prepared to see a heart like that, he wanted you to sneak him in so he could see his best friend in action but it just never worked out. A deployment always came up, and you were always so busy you rarely responded to the text until a full forty-eight hours later.

“What do we got?” you asked as you entered the trauma bay, taking the chart from a nurse and reading it over.

“25 year old GSW to the chest, immediate return of 860 cc’s of blood, losing more by the second.” 

“Chest films?” you asked, taking the scans and holding them up to the light, “damn it,” you motioned one of your interns over, “what do you see?” you asked.

“It’s pressing against his heart,” they answered and you nodded. The on-call trauma surgeon entered the bay and you gave him a verbal assessment of the patient and he nodded as he handed the films back. 

“Run point, page me if you need me,” he said as he moved to leave.

“Wait, sir- run point? I’ve never run a trauma-”

“In three hours you won’t be able to say that anymore,” he answered, “you’ve got this, Jupiter. Page if you need anything,” he replied as he left the room. 

You looked to the nurse beside you, “did that just…?” she nodded. “Okay, uh… we’ve gotta move. Call up to OR four, tell them we’re coming and to load up on O-neg, page cardio, have them meet us there. Let’s move people, and carefully, that bullet is one jostle away from tearing his heart apart.” you ordered as your intern looked at you with wide eyes.

“There are no cardio surgeons on call, Williams is in surgery for the next few hours,” he said and you looked at him expectantly.

“Okay, so what are you going to do?” you asked, gesturing for the team to take him to the OR and prep him, and the intern looked at you like a deer caught in the headlights as he looked side to side over the ER as if he was looking for a lifeline. “Dr. Samuels, I am asking you what are you going to do for your patient?” you asked again.

“I don’t uh- can we wait? We can-” 

“Can we wait? There is a bullet lodged in that man's chest and you want to wait for Dr. Williams?” you raised your voice now, looking at him incredulously. You sighed when he realized he wasn’t going to get it, “get Dr. Kerr on the phone now. Give him the patient history and tell him we need cardio, I will page trauma and we’ll get him opened up. He needs to hit the ground running when he gets here.” you said and he nodded as he stood there. “What part of now do you not understand? Go!” you said, sighing forcefully as he scurried away and you ran a hand over your forehead as you felt a hand tug on your elbow and you turned to meet those green eyes you loved so much. 

“Hey, rockstar,” he said with a bright smile and your eyes widened as you wrapped your arms around him, careful not to let your gloves touch him, and you pulled them away and discarded them as he let you go.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, motioning for him to move with you as you headed for the elevators. 

“Finished my mission, got some last minute leave and thought I’d come see you. You are a hardass, Jupiter,” he chuckled.

“You saw that?” you asked sheepishly as you hit the buttons for the OR floor and the gallery floor. “I want nothing more than to leave with you right now but, I…” you trailed off and he just nodded.

“You’re saving lives, I knew you’d be busy, I just wanted you to know I was here.” he said and you smiled up at him as the doors opened.

“Okay, uh… I can’t go with you, I need to be scrubbed like twenty minutes ago, follow this hallway, find the gallery for OR four, if anyone asks you’re a med student from Baylor.” you directed, kissing his cheek as you pushed him out of the elevator and frantically pressed the close button. You bounced from foot to foot as you scrubbed, truly only thinking about the moment you could leave this hospital and finally spend some time with Jake.

“Dr. Jupiter, good call on paging Dr. Kerr, knew you could handle running point, he’ll be here shortly,” the trauma surgeon said as you entered the OR and smiled beneath your mask at the scrub nurse who held out gloves for you.

“You do know that’s not actually my name, right sir?” you asked, stepping up to the patient.

“It’s got a good ring to it…” he said with a chuckle and really you didn’t mind… truthfully you didn’t care what people called you as long as it had doctor in front of it. The surgery was seamless, well about as seamless as removing a bullet from someone's chest could be, and when Dr. Kerr scrubbed in he even let you pull it out.

“Have you given any thought to a specialty?” he asked as he instructed you to close the patient. 

“Yes sir, I’m starting my applications for trauma fellowships,” you answered and he nodded.

“Good. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to steal you as my cardio fellow when the time comes, you’re great with hearts but you’ve got a knack for handling stressful situations. We can teach you how to throw a whip stitch and remove tumors but we can’t teach you how to stay calm.” 

“Thank you, sir.” you replied as you smiled under your mask.

“I’ll monitor the patient post op, you go ahead and get out of here,” he said and you started to shake your head.

“That’s okay, Dr. Kerr… you weren’t even on call, I don’t mind.” 

“Go get that boy from the gallery and enjoy your night… there will be plenty of time to make up for it when you’re my age.” he replied.

“Sir, I- I’m sorry-” you started but he just chuckled.

“Your secret is safe with me… snuck my wife in several times during residency. Now go,” he repeated and you nodded as you stepped back and began removing your gown and gloves. 

You motioned up to Jake as you exited the room and met him on the gallery floor where he all but tackled you in a hug, “holy shit, Jupiter, that was insane.” he said and you giggled as he lifted you from the floor. When he set you down you tugged his arm to follow you as you made your way to the residents lounge to change out of your scrubs and grab your belongings, answering every one of his excited questions about the surgery as you went.

“So, what would you have done if the bullet actually punctured his heart?” he asked and you chuckled as your friends all looked at you questioningly.

“Well, in that case we would have relied on the films to tell us how far it had gone and what exactly was compromised but other than that we would just have to figure it out as we go… GSW’s are all unique and there’s no real way to prepare for them, you just gotta deal with what comes up.”

“Is this one of the med students from Baylor?” Jordan asked, another third-year like you.

You shook your head with a laugh, “no, this is Jake, my best friend.” you introduced and Jake extended his hand.

“The infamous Jake, I guess you’re who we have to thank for everyone calling this one Dr. Jupiter,” he said and Jake looked at you, chest swelling with pride.

“Do they really call you that?”

“They sure do, I meant it when I told you that nickname really stuck.” 

“We’re all headed out for a drink, do you guys want to join?” Jordan asked and you shook your head.

“Maybe tomorrow night, if you’ll be here?” you asked, smiling when Jake nodded. “No offense but I spent eighty hours a week with you and I haven’t seen this one outside of a screen in too long.” You felt like you had floated the entire way home, laughing with Jake like it was old times except it wasn’t… he had just watched you in surgery and surprised you with a visit on his first time stateside in months. He’d kissed your cheek before you jumped in the shower and ordered pizza the same way he always did back home, but when you got out he’d shown you photos of his F/18 and a video he took from the air. Looking at him now he was all grown up, his muscles had filled out and there was an edge to him he never had before… and as he looked at you he thought the same thing. You’d grown into yourself, and he could tell just by looking at you that you’ve seen a lot in your short time as a resident. You’d gone on a giggly late night beer run but instead of sneaking into his parents garage you were walking the streets of Boston and pointing out all of the sights as you went, taking him the long way instead of to the convenience store just down the block.

“So, I’m starting to apply for fellowships for next year,” you said as you sipped your beer next to him on the couch. 

“Anywhere cool?” he asked and you nodded.

“Baylor is an option, they’ve got an amazing facility but I don’t know how I feel about going back to Texas,” you chuckled, “right now San Diego is at the top of my list.” 

He smiled softly, “we keep just missing each other,” he said and you cocked your head in confusion. “When I leave here in a few days I’m headed back to Top Gun.”

“Top Gun? What, did they realize you failed the first time?” you teased and he shook his head.

“Something about a top secret mission, I don’t know anything yet but it’s probably pretty serious if they’re sending me back there for new training,” he said and you nodded in understanding.

“You know… I’m really good at college applications, it’s not too late to be a doctor in a safe hospital, I promise it’s just as exhilarating as flying a plane.” you tried and he laughed at your effort.

“Sweetheart, don’t get me wrong… I loved watching you in action today but I was so close to throwing up several times, I mean his heart was just… out there in the open, and you were touching it with your bare hands.”

“I was gloved,” you interjected.

“Same difference,” he replied, “besides, you can’t speak to the exhilaration of flying a plane until you’ve done it.”

“That’ll be the day,” you laughed, finishing your beer and setting it on the coffee table. “No more work stuff… how are things on the personal front?” you asked, but it was clear what you were really asking.

“That was subtle,” he chuckled and you just shrugged. “Dating isn’t exactly easy with what I do… no one sticks around past their first deployment… and I get it, it’s a lot to ask of someone,” he said and you nodded. 

“Hangman, the notorious ladies man,” you said and he narrowed his eyes at you.

“You’ve been talking to Coyote,” he accused and you laughed.

“Worried I’m going to steal your second best friend?”

“Incredibly worried, if it’s a competition I’m sure as hell not winning,” he said and you laughed again.

“From what I hear Hangman would never admit to being incapable of winning something…” he just shook his head at you.

“You know, I kinda like hearing you use my callsign…”

“Is that so?” he nodded, “well don’t get used to it, I think it’s silly… and I can’t wrap my head around it, you leaving people hanging? Just seems so unlike you.”

“It’s a different world,” he shrugged, but you knew there was more to it he wasn’t sharing. You weren’t going to press.

“Is Jupiter like, my callsign?” you asked and he nodded again. “Look at me, like a cool pilot with a callsign.” you picked up your phone as it dinged on the coffee table and squealed in delight, “guess who got their shift covered tomorrow?” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he sighed and you shook your head.

“I see you, what, twice a year? Maybe three times if we’re lucky? There are a lot of people who owe me for covered shifts and I’m just cashing in. Besides, what would you have done? Wander around Boston all sad and lonely, or even worse wander around the hospital all sad and lonely?”

“Why in both scenarios am I sad and lonely?” 

You ignored the question, “come on, off to bed. You need your beauty rest for all the fun we’re going to get up to tomorrow.” you said, standing and tugging him from the couch. As you melted into him beneath the covers you felt your heart ache… you missed this. The two of you hadn’t been intimate together since that hotel room in Annapolis, you’d decided it would be for the best if you didn’t after a breakdown on your part at the airport and it was the right call. It made each departure just the slightest bit easier but you missed him in every sense. You missed the way his arms wrapped around you, encasing you in warmth and safety, and you missed the way his breath fanned over your face.

“Do you ever wish we weren’t so ambitious?” he asked and you opened your eyes to look up at him.

“All the time.” 

“Life’s easier when you’re not… I look at my sisters and I wonder how they’re content to live the life they do but I realized it’s not about the job or the success for them, they built families and that’s why they’re happy.” 

“I don’t think we would be though.” you replied, and as much as it hurt you to admit, you truly believed that.

“No?” 

You shook your head before laying back down on his chest, “no. I’ve thought about it, quite a lot actually… one of us following a less demanding career path, and in every scenario the one who did ends up resenting the one who didn’t.” 

“You’re probably right,” he mused. “Do you think we’ll ever get our moment again?”

You sighed softly, “I don’t know… I hope we do.”

“Me too, sweetheart… me too.”

previous part / next part

taglist: @mamaskillerqueen​ @clancycucumber230​ @the-romanian-is-bae​ @dempy​ @alldaysdreamers @zzsloth @emma8895eb​ @novagreen04 @classyunknownlover​

[stxrvel]

two strangers (1)

summary: when bucky rescues you, you didn't think there could be a more indecent person. but as the days go by, you realize he may have a chicken heart.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: +6k

warnings: a lot of bad words and mentions of wounds and blood.

read this for some context! so fyi this is set in an alternate universe where mercenaries exist, but like a society, like john wick, and the avengers rescued bucky from hydra's control and all that, but he decided to keep his life in the mercenary side, taking missions to get rid of really bad people, and even though he isn't part of the society per se, he's very known by it but he doesn't care to join them.

note: hi guys! i decided to publish this in different parts, seeing that my inspiration had a big strike and yesterday i just couldn't stop writing. i think the updates will be weekly, but you'll know the exact date in the masterlist page. so i hope you like it! and know feedback is always appreciated! love you all 💜

Bucky never thought the rescue would be difficult. It was a huge house, three floors, a hundred windows and doors, with a garden that directly overlooked a wooded area. The walk to the entrance was not at all dissimilar to the ambiance of the whole area, as it was at least a forty minute walk through trees and bushes. There were about fifty people guarding each entrance and access, but Bucky knew that there would be a shift change at ten o'clock at night, at which time there would be about 25 people that he would have to face in less than 10 minutes to reach the target, and after that he would have just under two minutes to get at least ten kilometers away from the house and avoid being followed.

Except that Bucky wasn't riding the bike back to town and had a piece of a shirt pressed against the side of his abdomen from which blood was pouring out, while a couple of other bikes were following behind them and they could barely dodge the bullets.

Bucky knew he couldn't play with words again.

“Drive faster,” Bucky mumbled over the sound of the wind and bullets, barely able to hold onto the abdomen of the woman behind the wheel, whose name he couldn't remember.

“Fucking hell, I'm doing everything I can!”

Bucky peered over the woman's shoulder watching as the needle pointed to one hundred and ten kilometers per hour and raised his eyebrows. How that tiny woman was able to keep her balance and zigzag through the trees at that speed was a complete mystery.

While it was true that the bike had more speed, it was quite dangerous to increase it seeing the wooded road full of natural obstacles in front of them. So Bucky just pulled out of his right side the gun he always carried with him and started shooting at whatever he could aim at. Maybe that way he could get some leverage.

After a few minutes, Bucky began to make out the lighted streets of the city and was minimally glad that the rescue had not been a failure.

“When you take the road, turn right and then left, there you go straight ahead and increase your speed as much as you can.”

The woman barely nodded toward Bucky's words as she maneuvered through the branches and downhill slopes until she made it to the asphalt, and it was like falling off the end of a roller coaster. Bucky thought he had flown off the bike.

When the woman made the turn Bucky indicated and found a track that stretched along without a possible end, she accelerated so much that she was sure that, had she not had a helmet, she would have been out of eyelashes in seconds.

It didn't take them too long to lose the criminals following them and find the safe house where they would spend the night. Bucky felt his body still vibrating with the bike as the woman parked it in the subway parking lot. The walk to the stairs and what he rode inside the house was one big blurry moment inside his head as the adrenaline began to wear off and the pain throughout his body became more and more noticeable.

He barely remembered lying on the white couch, staining it entirely with blood and mud, and the woman in front of him trying to stop his bleeding.

-

You did everything in your power to stop the bleeding in the man's side. It was difficult, but you managed to get a halfway decent stitch and tried to disinfect it with what you found in the first aid kit in the house. You wrapped his abdomen with gauze and bandages as best you could and finally left him alone. He had fainted the moment you put alcohol on the wound with gauze, and you didn't know if it was because of the pain or the lack of blood. It was probably the latter, he looked like a strong guy.

A strong guy who had definitely underestimated his mission. Strong but his arrogance was a major flaw.

You had tried to arrange the whole room as you had found it, because you'd made a big mess carrying that man who weighed twice as much as he looked to the couch. In the end, cleaning up the blood was the most complicated thing.

You went to bed at dawn, after an exhaustive session in the shower. You washed your clothes by hand three times and then soaked them for at least an hour until you washed them again. You got clean clothes and changed when the first traces of azure blue began to adorn the sky.

But you stared at the ceiling for a while. Memories of what had happened in the last few days and years flooded your head and kept you moving your hands under the sheet. Restlessness, new friend. Reminiscing about it, the sound of bullets, the adrenaline rush and the blood of the man in the room almost kept you awake. But, at some point, out of exhaustion or pity, your eyes finally closed.

-

Bucky cursed, moving around the room. Trying to walk to the bathroom, he had dropped everything his hands had touched. And the pain in his side didn't make things any easier. He didn't know what the woman sleeping peacefully on the second floor had done, but it seemed the pain was sharper than yesterday.

As his body moved closer to the bathroom, he heard footsteps coming from the stairs. The silhouette of the woman materialized in front of him, who was trying to climb the five steps that separated him from the bathroom.

“What are you doing? You opened your wound,” Bucky observed the woman's scowl with hair standing on end like a cat in the face of an imminent threat.

He watched her in slow motion and infrared as she tried to move closer to him, decreasing the distance between them and making it difficult for him to walk to the bathroom.

The woman raised her arms to touch him, but before she could do anything, Bucky threw a swipe. She staggered, and without a second's hesitation stepped away from him.

Bucky thought he saw a hint of fear in her eyes, but it had to have been a figment of his imagination, because the next moment she was only looking at him with annoyance.

“How surly.”

“Don't get in my way.”

“I was trying to help you.”

“Standing in my way doesn't help me at all.”

“"You're bleeding again…”

“Fuck, I need to use the bathroom.”

The woman silently moved to the side. And Bucky barely glanced at her as he passed her and finally climbed the fifth step that separated him from his destination.

That was why he had stopped accepting missions like that. It was so much easier to just show up at a place to shoot someone in the forehead and then run away, he didn't have to spend days and days waiting to finish the mission. He could even do more than three in a single day, when the targets knew each other or were in the same place.

But, yes, even if it didn't seem like it, so much death at his heels was also a bit overwhelming if he was honest. He'd heard from other mercenaries, the ones who weren't so sadistic, that rescue missions were sometimes a respite to get back into the action again. Bucky had done it before, but there was always something that went wrong. And this time was no exception. Maybe he wasn't cut out to rescue people, to save them…

When he came out of the bathroom and made his way with great effort into the living room, the smell of bacon and eggs filled the room. Scattered on the dining room table were all the items he could find inside a first aid kit and there was also a bag with what appeared to be bloody gauze.

“I thought the bath swallowed you up.”

Bucky noticed when the woman came out of the kitchen wiping her hands with a white cloth. She was wearing different clothes than yesterday, white and neat, totally in contrast to the stained and dirty clothes he was wearing.

“Sit down. I need to check you over.”

“I'm fine.”

“Don't be foolish.”

Bucky shifted, willing himself to lie back down on the couch he'd woken up in. He vaguely noticed that on one side of the furniture was a bucket of water and bubbles and some sponges, one submerged and one over an edge of the couch that was bathed in blood.

“You do know there are people who clean these places?” Bucky spoke as he tried to find a way to sit down without having to bend over or exert too much force by bending his legs.

“No.”

“Well, now you know. Don't spend time cleaning these things.”

“It looks bad.”

“It's just blood… argh.”

Bucky arched as he made a very bad move and rested one of his hands on the back of the couch. He barely heard the woman sigh and then her footsteps approaching.

“No, no… I can.”

“God, what a stupid man.”

“What the fuck did you just-? Ah, ah, ahhhhh.”

The man hadn't even noticed when you came up behind him and pushed him to move before his head could process it. He fell noisily onto the couch and bit his lips to keep from moaning in pain.

“I like you better when you're quiet.”

Giving up the fight, Bucky let his body fall against the backrest and dropped his limp hands on either side of his legs. With his eyes closed, he heard a flutter of things on one side of him and guessed that the woman was digging through the things she had placed on the table. He barely had any memories of the night before when they arrived and most of them included a terrible pain that drove him into unconsciousness.

"Well, let's see…" the woman mumbled to herself and Bucky soon felt her hands moving over his bandaged abdomen.

It was instinct and he couldn't stop his left hand, metallic and dulled by the bloodstains that spread over his body, from clinging with superhuman strength to the wrists of the woman who had only intended to tend to him.

Even with his eyes closed, he heard her gasp in surprise and felt her tense in front of him. Her small hands, which had not the slightest chance before his exorbitant strength, stirred under his grip in slight movements. Without seeing her, he could tell she was so frightened she didn't know if she should keep shaking or stay still.

Bucky opened his eyes to realize that his instinct was right. The woman was pale with fright.

Sighing, the man loosened his grip until finally releasing her.

The woman fell backwards on the floor trying to get away from him.

That was the look he was used to seeing on all his victims.

Turning his head away, Bucky cleared his throat.

“Ask first next time.”

It was several seconds before the woman moved again. She had stood there, still and tense, watching him, waiting for any sudden movement to bolt. She moved closer to him on her knees, but not as close as she had been a few minutes ago. Her breathing was just beginning to become more leisurely until she finally seemed to have calmed down.

Bucky kept his gaze anywhere but on the small woman in front of him, who seemed to fear she would be swallowed alive.

“I'm going to-”

“Yes.”

That time, when the woman moved her hands back to the bandage around his abdomen, Bucky tensed, but kept his instincts to himself. He knew the woman had sensed that moment of hesitation, because she almost moved her hands away, but came closer again when nothing happened.

Thus Bucky allowed himself to be attended to, until he fell back asleep on the couch.

-

When the man woke up again, you had already eaten breakfast and finished washing the couch, except for the place where he was lying. You had also cleaned up the trail of blood he had left on the floor from the bathroom all the way back to the living room. You had tried to make everything in your reach neat, free of any mud or blood stains. And when you were done in the living room, you went to fix what was needed in the kitchen.

You were halfway through going to get your clothes when you heard him.

“Fuck, how the hell did you make it hurt more than it did before?”

You turned on your feet at the top of the stairs to see him as he leaned forward with a grimace.

“Maybe I wouldn't have had to double stitch you if you weren't such a moron.”

“Double stitch? Does that exist?”

“I don't know!”

“You double stitched me?”

You shrugged. “Just in case!”

“Argh… No fucking way.”

Dropping his head on the back of the couch, the man brought his right hand over his forehead in a weary gesture.

“Whatever. I left you some hot water in the shower and a rag. Try not to get your wound wet.”

He lowered his head to look at you, but you hurried on walking to the cleaning room.

That man was scary. And it was much scarier that you were in an almost-abandoned house in a ghost neighborhood alone with him. The chances were that if you shouted, no one would hear you; or if you did and someone did hear you, they would prefer to keep on walking. That's how troubled the place you were in looked.

You were surprised that your brother had sent someone like that to look for you. At least he would have made a little more effort to find someone more decent. You had to crawl to get you both out of that wrecked house, when it should've been the other way around. As you folded your clothes, you wondered where your brother had gotten that man from.

You were heading back to the room when you heard a snort down the hall. Against the alarms in your head, you approached the hallway to see towards the back, into the living room, as the man had gotten up from the couch and had walked that way about seven steps with the goal of reaching the stairs. At the pace he was going, you wondered how long it had taken him to get there. And with the winces of pain he was making, you knew it was taking all his strength not to make sudden movements.

You sighed as you dropped your clothes on the basket next to the door. That man was going to give you green gray hair.

“Let me help you,” you spoke once you were near him, at the top of the stairs.

It really wasn't that many stairs, only ten steps were separating the man from that bathroom. You didn't know why that kind of platform was there, instead of just making a flat floor for the whole house being so big, but you couldn't judge an architect's decisions.

And yet, even though it was only a few stairs, it seemed like a hundred when you had a bullet wound in your abdomen.

When you started to descend, the man said nothing, just watched you intently as your feet went one in front of the other holding onto the handrail. His deadly gaze caused you to shiver slightly because he looked like a lion about to eat a gazelle.

Still, you stopped at a safe distance.

“May I?”

The man kept his gaze on yours for a while longer, as if he had to weigh every possibility in a short time. You wonder what he saw in you that he had to be so alert. You barely reached his chin, what could you do without him stopping you two seconds before? You didn't even have the option to think of anything.

So when he sighed, you realized he had given in.

-

Bucky took a pleasant nap on the bed in the master bedroom when he finished showering, if anyone could call what he had done a shower. He ran a washcloth with warm water all over his body, with the tiniest amount of soap and unable to wash his hair. The woman downstairs had offered to do it for him, but Bucky didn't even consider that possibility.

Still, he felt fresh enough to really rest for a while.

And by the time he awoke, moonlight was filtering through the curtains.

It was daring to get out of bed. But it was worth it when he reached the kitchen and the smell of meat made his stomach growl loudly. He hadn't eaten anything for over twenty-four hours. He hadn't even accepted the breakfast the woman made because he still felt as if at any moment he was going to vomit up to the air.

But at that moment… at that moment….

“Ah, you finally woke up.”

“How long did I sleep?”

“About twelve hours.”

Bucky moved his head to look at the clock above the entrance to the kitchen, and yes, it was already eight o'clock at night.

“How are you feeling? How's the wound?”

The man stirred when he heard the woman's voice nearby. She had moved until she reached the kitchen entrance, not a step more, not a step less.

“It doesn't hurt as much as it did before.”

“That's good,” the woman shook her head in a nod and walked back into the kitchen. “Sit down. You need to eat.”

Bucky obeyed silently, because dealing with food he didn't want to grumble. He heard the sound of dishes and silverware before the woman came out with two large plates in her hands. When Bucky saw what she had cooked, his mouth dropped open in surprise.

“I hope you like meat,” the woman commented in a light voice, but at Bucky's silence she began to perspire. “I also cooked a vegan option if you-”

“No,” Bucky cut her off, moving his hands to grab the silverware. “I definitely like meat.”

Bucky didn't notice how the woman's shoulders relaxed as she watched him savor each thing on his plate nor how she kept her gaze fixed on him to make sure he didn't choke on how quickly the food was being stuffed.

And when they were both finished eating, the woman pulled out a bag that had been sitting on a chair and set it on the table, bringing it closer to Bucky, but not too close.

At the man's arched eyebrow, she said, “Medication.”

Bucky's eyes lit up, but he shook his head quickly.

“Why the hell didn't you give this to me before?”

“Because there was none before.”

Bucky frowned. “And where did you get this?”

As she answered, the woman got up to pick up the dishes and carry them to the scrubber. “There's a store about five blocks from here. I had some money so I bought it. It seemed necessary.”

The woman went to grab the silverware Bucky had used, not noticing the man's steady gaze on her, when his metal hand stopped her from taking the silverware away.

She unconsciously cringed at the sudden movement, and sought the man's gaze in alarm. Bucky felt such overwhelming anger make its way inside his chest that he didn't even think twice before letting his body act first.

“You did what?”

The woman sputtered a couple of times, like a fish out of water, before replying, “I just went for meds. So you won't get the wound infected.”

“You left this house alone? Are you out of your mind?”

Bucky raised his voice as he rose suddenly from his chair. His metal hand pulled the woman's wrist and slammed it against her chest in one violent motion. She barely managed to take a deep breath before tears welled up in her eyes.

“Do you even have any idea what I had to go through to get you here? And you're telling me you walked out of this house like it was nothing? Alone?!”

Still cringing at the tone of voice Bucky was using, the woman replied shakily, “But nothing happened. I'm fine…”

“Ah! Right! And how can you be sure that no one followed you here? How can you be sure that you didn't compromise our location?”

“I swear I took a good look when I left and arrived. There was no one… There wasn't… Please just... let me go.”

Bucky pursed his lips and took one more detailed look at the woman's contracted face. He angrily let go of her.

She didn't hesitate for a second to start up the stairs.

“Just take the fucking meds,” she spat from afar, and the next thing Bucky heard was the slamming of a room door.

Staring at the empty space through which the woman had disappeared, Bucky took a few seconds to calm his breathing and emotions. Now he had to make sure they weren't going to be ambushed by surprise while he slept and the two were distracted. He could go stay all the rest of the night in the camera room after placing a motion bomb over every entrance to the house… but he was too tired to do that, and he most likely wouldn't be able to find the necessary items in that house to make those traps as invisible as possible. The only thing he could do was to sit in that armchair with a shotgun in his hands and wait. Hope that it was true that no one had followed her.

Bucky sighed. Fuck, he had to learn to manage his attitude.

His eyes fell on the bag on the table and he felt the tiniest whip of guilt inside his chest. It disappeared as quick as lightning. He picked up the bag to rummage inside to find four boxes and a piece of paper.

He shook the bag on the table and the medications fell free. He grabbed the paper with a frown and the whip of guilt returned as he read what had been written in black ink:

“Stranger,

I'm writing this note to tell you how you should take these medications.

The blue one is to prevent infection, so you should take it every 12 hours.

The red one is for pain. If it hurts too much, take it every 6 hours, and if it doesn't hurt too much, take it every 12 hours.

Yellow is an analgesic, it will most likely put you to sleep. Take it when the pain is unbearable.

And the green box is vitamins. Take one after each meal.

These boxes will last for at least a week. Hopefully by that time the wound will have healed much more.

Take them judiciously.”

Bucky stared at that piece of paper as if it were to blame for all his misfortunes. In spite of everything, the woman did try to care for his wound, even if he did nothing but reject the support she gave him.

The sound of something similar to a bell brought Bucky out of the depths of his head.

It was the satellite phone.

Bucky moved to the kitchen, where the sound was coming from. There, beside the blender, was the phone. He wondered if the woman had used it before.

He picked up the device and held it up to his ear in silence.

“Barnes?”

“Jacob.”

“Fucking shit. Why are you answering until now? I've been calling for a while now.”

So she hadn't used the phone.

“I was asleep.”

“What?”

“Long story.”

The man on the other end of the line barely took a deep breath.

“Are you with her?”

“Yes.”

“And she's okay?“”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” the man exclaimed in relief. “When are you going to bring her in?”

“You know I have to wait at least five days before I leave the house.”

“Argh, yes, yeah, right. And have you two got enough? Food? Clothes? Has she eaten well? Have you seen her take care of herself?”

“She's fine. She's more than capable of fending for herself. Stop worrying.”

“It's easy for you to ask me that when it's not your family member who was kidnapped.”

Bucky twisted his lips. “Why are you calling me and not Alejandro?”

“He left early. Seems there was a problem with the New York headquarters.”

“Ah, the troubled mercenary society.”

“Yeah, you should have seen the look on his face from these brats again,” Jacob let out a short laugh that was not reciprocated by Bucky. “Well,” he throat cleared, “let me know if there's any news.”

“Okay.”

And Bucky hung up.

His gaze lingered on the white kitchen wall before returning his attention to the colorful boxes on the dining room counter.

Fuck he was going to apologize to the woman.

-

You were stunned when you woke up the next morning and breakfast was ready and there was no sign of the man anywhere near the kitchen. The same thing happened at noon and at night.

You wanted to meet him somewhere to thank him, but at the same time you wanted to never see him again. However, what you thought about most was his wound and that you should've changed his bandage more than six hours ago. But the man was nowhere to be found. He would only show up to cook something and then vanish.

Still, you tried to comfort yourself with the thought that he had taken the gauze and bandages, because you couldn't find the first aid kit anywhere either.

At some point you thought that would be a good thing, not to find him even by accident for the rest of the days you had to spend in that house. You didn't think you would be able to keep up with his temper, clearly driven by emotions he couldn't control. You'd better take that time to take care of yourself and try to process everything that had happened instead of continuing to repress it, as always.

But… every time you tried to think about what had happened, what it had been like to be in that mansion in the middle of the trees, in the middle of nowhere, a suffocating sensation would make its way from your stomach to your chest and throat, and suddenly you felt short of breath. You couldn't spend more than a minute trying to cope with those emotions and memories you kept locked up in your memory because bringing them up made you feel like you were choking on air.

Maybe it was still too soon.

Yes, maybe it was.

It was already close to midnight when you finished organizing the kitchen. It seemed like the meds were kicking in if the man could spend so much time on his feet cooking and then washing dishes.

Remembering the anger that had sailed across his face the night before still gave you chills. You were trying to get that image out of your head.

You were on your way to the yard when you heard a sound down the hall. There were a couple of doors in that house that you had seen around but had no idea what was behind them, and now you were hearing a sound behind one of them.

Thinking of the man, you moved and walked to open the door, encountering stairs descending to the left and a light at the bottom of the stairs. The sound repeated, and with the door open you could also identify music.

You carefully descended and followed the hallway to the left after descending. Whatever it was you were expecting to see, a gymnasium opened up in front of your eyes. And in the middle of it all, the man, punching a large sandbag as if he didn't have a bullet wound in his abdomen.

You didn't know if you had made a noise or he had a sixth sense, but suddenly he moved his head and his eyes met yours. His expression denoted nothing but indifference and he promptly hit the bag again.

“You do know you have a large wound in your abdomen?” was the first thing you said as you stepped through the glass door.

The man didn't even turn around.

“You could open up the wound.”

“I've been here all day and nothing's happened to me.”

“Yeah, lucky you. Watch how you stretch to hit that.”

The man stopped to look at you when you got too close trying to see his injured side. Feeling prey to his intimidating stare, you backed up a few steps.

“Check it out if you want to so badly,” he turned around to face you and raised his arms waiting for you to come closer. You had barely noticed that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

“No. Did you change your bandages?”

“Yes. The wound is fine. I haven't even had to take the pills.”

You frowned at him as he went back to focusing on his sandbag. “Not even the vitamins?”

The man gave you a sidelong glance before striking again.

“Oh, c'mon,” you exclaimed in annoyance. “At least make my act of recklessness worthwhile.”

His gaze traveled to your face again, his expression incredulous and somewhat angry. He shook his head as if he didn't credit your words and went back to focusing on his blows. One after another. One, two, three, four.

“It really doesn't hurt?”

This time he hit the sack so hard with his metal arm that it flew off and crashed against the wall in a thud.

You barely cowered in place.

“Take off the bandages so you're sure.”

Again he turned his body toward you, his posture nonchalant even though his features were hard, like polished marble.

“Stop,” you raised your hands, “I'm sorry.”

The man sighed, lowering his shoulders for the first time at will. The only times you had ever seen him relaxed had been when he slept.

He began to untangle the bandages around the knuckles of his right hand as he approached the sack he had pushed out of its holder.

“What's your name?”

“Huh?”

“Are you deaf?” the man turned with a frown, but quickly turned away taking a deep breath. “What's your name?”

“Uhm… Y/N. Didn't you already know that?”

“Yes. But I'd forgotten.”

“Ah.”

“I'm sorry, Y/N.”

“Why?”

“I'm not used to… whatever it is you do,” he waved his hand vaguely as if trying to clarify a point.

“You mean help you?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Don't you get help very often?”

“I work alone. That's what I mean.”

“Ah, that makes sense.”

“Well, anyway. I'm sorry I yelled at you last night. I shouldn't have lost control.”

“Yeah…”

“And you shouldn't have gone out on your own like that. Don't ever do that again,” his accusing index finger pointed at you.

“Okay. I'm sorry.”

He sighed and turned around again to look at the sandbag on the floor. He had already removed his bandages and his knuckles looked somewhat swollen, the red color standing out against the olive of his skin. If he'd been like that all day, he must have at least some pain in that hand. You frowned watching him there, not moving.

He couldn't bend over.

Maybe he wasn't so sincere in saying it didn't hurt.

“I can lift it,” you spoke before you even thought it through.

The man, whose name you hadn't asked yet, turned to look at you with an ingrown eyebrow. You tried not to think too hard as he swept his eyes over your figure and then looked back down at the sandbag on the floor, probably taller than you and certainly heavier. But you could do it. Besides, you couldn't allow him to make that effort if there was a chance of once again opening up the wound.

When he took a step back and turned to look at you, your palms sweated. Maybe you really couldn't…

No, you could. You definitely could. It was a piece of cake.

Under his watchful eye you approached the sandbag. You looked at it with narrowed eyes, like your nemesis. You moved your arms, wanting to loosen your shoulders a bit before overexerting yourself lifting the thing, and at that moment you heard a short, thinly disguised laugh through a cough.

When you turned to see him, he kept coughing like it was nothing and turned to walk to another side of the gym.

Ha, how funny.

You turned around to focus on your task and, well, it was crunch time. You felt so determined to shut him up that you didn't even think it was the first time you'd seen an emotion other than indifference and anger in him.

You hugged the sack and gathering all your strength you moved back.

Nothing moved.

You tried again.

Nothing.

You snorted as you stood up for the fifth time and saw that the bag had barely moved less than a foot from its initial state. You rounded the object and sat down in front of it. You swung your legs over and planted your feet on the side of the bag and began to push hard.

You could move it. Not much, but you could move it.

You kept doing it until it was under the support where it had been hanging before the man's anger sent it flying. You put your head up and realized that the support was too high for you to push the bag up. It was impossible.

“Leave it,” you heard the man say.

You found him across the gym in front of you with a bottle in his hands. He took a big sip as he watched you in amusement.

Then, without a word, he moved a little to his left and pressed a button on what appeared to be a joystick. There were many other small buttons and levers that you had absolutely no idea what they could be for in a gym.

Then, you heard something over your head. You watched in amazement at what the man's button was doing.

The bastard had let you try to do something he knew was impossible for you to do, knowing that there was a stupid button that could do it for you. From the back of the gym, a sandbag was moving from the ceiling to where you were, guided by the mechanical system above your head. You barely noticed then that, in the shape of a circle, there was a kind of rail along which the brackets hanging from the ceiling moved.

You wanted to choke someone.

When you looked back at the man, he had his lips cocked in a smug smile. Damn him.

“I'm not going to offer to do anything for you again,” you exclaimed as you stood up and proudly decided to walk out of there with what little dignity you had left.

“Oh no, you should keep doing it. It's very entertaining.”

You stuck out your middle finger at him as you walked in the direction of the exit without turning to look at him. You heard more real laughter when you were far enough away.

-

It was quite late at night when Bucky came out of the gym. It had only been a few hours since you had left and he thought maybe he should follow in your footsteps and go rest, but for some reason he decided to stay a while longer.

On his way out, he saw the sandbag on the floor again and was too surprised by the urge he had to crack a smile. But he restrained himself.

In the house the lights were still on. It was almost midnight. Bucky had prepared dinner with the goal of getting you to eat and go to bed, because it seemed that every time you ate you had to go to sleep afterwards, even if it was just a short nap. But it looked like that wasn't going to be the case this time.

When he came into the living room he found you lying on the big couch in front of the TV on. Some news channel was playing in the background and it looked like you were deep in concentration listening because you didn't move when he approached.

“What are you doing awake still?” Bucky spoke with a frown before he could repent. “It's almost-”

You were asleep.

Bucky stopped at the side of the large piece of furniture when he saw you with your eyes closed and hugging one of the cushions, with half a sheet over your legs. Of course, it was going to be weird that you were still awake.

Bucky had always seen you walking, alert, moving around, always looking for something to occupy you. Your moments of rest were always away from him. However, looking to the front where the glass table was, Bucky quickly noticed the rag on the table and a small bucket on the floor.

So even all tired out you had been looking for something to do.

Bucky sighed shaking his head.

He took the rag resting on the neatest glass he had ever seen, along with the bucket filled with soapy water, and carried them to the laundry room where he put everything back in its place.

When you returned, you had shifted on the couch and looked like you wanted to find a position to stretch out because your body was more tilted than before.

Bucky turned off the TV which had low sound and stood in front of you on the couch.

He couldn't carry you to the bed without risking too much force that would compromise his injury and seeing how worried you had been about that earlier, he preferred to avoid straining too much. For some reason, he had the feeling that you would prefer to sleep on the couch if it would keep the wound in his abdomen from opening up.

So, he opted for the safest option. He brought down some pillows from the master bedroom along with another larger, thicker sheet. He planted himself in front of you thinking about the best way to accommodate you so you wouldn't wake up sore, although the cushions on that piece of furniture weren't as hard as the ones in the dining room.

Finally he opted to follow the direction your own body was taking. He nestled a pillow over the armrest of the couch, punching it and molding it until it looked comfortable enough. Then he ran his left hand carefully down your neck and his right hand circled your shoulders until it reached your back. He moved you slightly forward keeping you stable and then began to let your body slowly fall onto the couch.

When you were lying flat, he gently pulled his left hand out and stood up. Quietly and very carefully, he removed the small cushion you were hugging, and before you could make any grimace, he rolled a larger pillow between your arms. Bucky watched you sigh in contentment.

Finally, he pulled back the small, thin blanket between your legs and arranged the large sheet he had brought that almost doubled as a bedspread. It would probably get you warm in a few seconds, but that was good, because the nights were cold in that house.

Finished with his task, Bucky nodded to himself.

It was only after he finished that he really realized what he had done. He frowned, watching your placid face as you rested comfortably.

Why had he done that, without even a second thought?

Bucky suddenly felt the need to run away. Now he wanted to undo all that because tomorrow you would wake up and surely ask questions he wouldn't know how to answer. That he wouldn't want to answer. Maybe he could play dumb and say that's how he'd found you when he'd left the gym. Surely you'd been so drunk on sleep that you hadn't even realized what you'd done.

Maybe that had happened to Bucky. Maybe he'd been so drunk on exhaustion that he hadn't realized what he was doing until he'd done it. Yes, surely.

Inside his chest he again recognized the feeling of guilt he'd had when he saw the paper you'd given him with the pills, and that only increased as he remembered he hadn't taken a single one.

It was guilt that made him move like that.

Yes, that was probably it.

[neonovember]

Two Coffee’s

Mafia!au x Steve Rogers

CHAPTERS: 1 2 3 4

summary: your escape to Brooklyn was harboured by secrets and a harrowed past, left abused and betrayed, you accepted your destiny of being swallowed by the crowd. Until the King of New York showed up in front of you and wanted a piece of you for himself.

divider by @firefly-graphics​ !

Taglist 🏷️ (send an ask to be part of my taglist for this series!)

@tinkerbelle67 @patzammit @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @nomadstucky @nessie2183 @shamelessfangirl-3 @namelesssav @marvel-phoenix @euphoric-goddess @roseeatta @abschaffer2  @louderfortheback @stupendouslovegardener @wandamaximoff-simp

It had been several weeks since you and Steve got into a routine, you would meet with him to discuss your husband, and he would be the omnipresent blanket of protection in the form of brooding men in dark cars stationed outside your apartment, the diner, your favourite coffee shop. His presence was present in every vessel and part of your life now, and it seems crazy that just 3 weeks ago you hadn't even down the man.

Now it was like he never left. Now it was like he was a part of your routine.

It’s that thought that lingers as you step outside the diner doors and into the chilly afternoon of the Brooklyn streets. With two cups of steaming coffee in hand, you march with a newfound determination towards the indiscreet black sedan that had been parked on the diner sidewalk since you walked through the doors that morning.

They may not speak to you directly, but you couldn’t find the heart to let them sit around for hours on end with nothing but the car heater and a carton of OJ. Especially against the winter breeze that felt like iced knives against your trembling skin.

You tap on the tinted glass gently, scrutinising the reflection that looked too exhausted and angry to really be you. There is a scuffle before the window is sliding until it reaches a quarter down. The man takes a moment to stare you down, hazel brown eyes with deep burly brows eyeing you before recognition clicks in him.

You’re Steves.

He looks at you expectedly, and you remember why you’re here in the first place, the borderline boiling coffee cups going unnoticed by your freezing hands.

You raise them up with a smile, and his eyes flicker to them. The man sitting in the driver's seat next to him bops his head as he catches your eye. Reaching across the brooding man whose stumbled jaw is currently working itself a beat, the man across from him with light eyes cracks an apologetic smile at his friend before accepting the coffee with a nod.

You don’t miss the bristled expression that adores the man as you hand his partner the drinks, all you can do is smile tightly before the window is sealed shut once again, and the only thing meeting your eyes is your reflection itself.

— -

“3 club sandwiches for table 18 hun, and ask if they'd like today’s apricot cobbler,” Caroline says in a rushed voice as she tied back the loose strands of hair escaping from a not-so-neat ponytail.

“You leaving already?” You reply mournfully, as you watch her sneak a few pastries into her duffel bag.

She whips her head up to look at you, her smile pulled down into a pouting frown

“Aww are you gonna mwiss me?” Caroline bubbles out in a screeching high baby voice.

“Ugh, you know I hate when you do that”

“Why do you think I do it” Caroline replies swiftly, wagging her eyebrows playfully

“Seriously though, I’m the only one on shift for the next” You pull up your sleeve to check your invisible watch “4 hours” You moan, following her as she rummages around the back kitchen searching for her phone charger.

A sound of trump escapes her throat as she eyes the hidden wire under a box of napkins

“No can do my beloved, Ron’s asked me over tonight. I think this time he's finally gonna give in” Caroline replies, as she looks over her shoulder smiling at me.

“You and that man. Jesus Caroline, you know it would be a bit easier to date someone..uh I don't know not married?” You gruff, shaking your head disapprovingly.

Caroline turn’s to you, rolling her eyes half-heartedly

“Not everyone can have Brooklyn's hottest mafia slash bachelor slash billionaire wrapped around our finger” Caroline replies, before laughing at your bugging eyes

I told you to keep that on the low dammit!” You hush at her with your hands, eyes searching the empty kitchen in case of eavesdroppers, or men donned in black. Either one scared the crap out of you.

“You know I would never tell a sole, these lips are sealed” Caroline replies, doing a zipping motion with her fingers

‘Yeah yeah, I do. I just wished you were here in case they- he shows up, you know?” You reply softly, gulping down the fear of even thinking of his name.

A look of recognition comes over Caroline’s features, before it is soon replaced with a fury that screams only fierce loyalty and bad decisions.

“Swear to god, if I ever see that man I’m putting a bullet through his skull” Caroline replies, her auburn brows furrowing with a look of determination that almost had you believing her.

“Mhm, with what? A silicon spatula?” You reply, eyebrows clocking up in disbelief, you used humour to mask all your emotions, not just the messed up ones.

“I was thinking a 47 Remington, maybe a shotgun! If I could just saw off the handle, I think it would look pretty good down his throat, don’t  you?” Caroline smiles with that innocent look, her eyes shining and her cheeks pushing out the dimples on her left side.

“I would pay to see that” You giggle, before pouting your face as she gathers her bag

“You have Hazel on shift don't ya?” She replies as she notices your kicked-dog expression

“Yeah, but she's as helpful as a sac of potatoes. Too busy talking to Daniel to be of any help” You sigh, swiping a hand across your forehead

At the mention of her name, your eyes watch the young waitress leaning over the kitchen counter, loud boisterous laughter leaving her red rubbery lips as she tries and fails to cover her mouth. Her nails are painted a mossy green but are chipped from her constant biting, and every step of hers jingles from the beady jewellery that adorns her neck and ears.

She had gotten the job in less than a day, and spent less time serving customers than she did suggesting songs for Daniel's busted speaker. The power of connections and a pretty face ran especially deep in the service industry.

Being the restaurant manager’s neice also helped.

Caroline turns to you, shaving her hands in your face to squeeze your cheeks

“Worrin’ will give you wrinkles. She’ll help if she knows you need it. Problem is you never ask don't you?” Caroline replies, unwrapping her apron from her waist and hanging it onto the encrusted wooden hooker.

There was truth to Caroline's words, no matter how much you despised them. All your life you had to rely on yourself, didn't matter if you were in the dusty cabin of your mother's home or the ceiling-high walls of your husband's manor. hell accepting even Steves's proposal felt like pulling teeth, despite every day prior wearing you thin with the lack of protection you held walking through the streets of Brooklyn. You'd taken to wearing a hood most days quicker than you did accept Steve's protection.

“Okay well, women in society have largely been told that they are not allowed to age, so guess my wording is really just a fuck you to the world”. You reply, following her out the back kitchen and down the coordinator to the front counter.

Caroline's laugh echoes through the diner, as she smiles across at you.

“There is hope for us yet” She grins, saying a quick bye to Daniel before slamming the diner door behind her.

Not before screaming out to the bustling street side

“Ya hear that world? Y/N says a big FUCK you” 

All you can do is smile brightly as the diner chimes jingle into the growing murmur of the Sunday lunch rush streaming from the diner booth surrounding you.

-- -

“When’s the last time you got laid, Steve?” Rumlows voice echoes in the large office, it's like sandpaper, that voice of his, and it irritates the raging headache pressing against Steve’s temple.

Steve scoffs back a disgruntled noise, shaking his head before flicking through the folded stack of papers left on his desk that morning.

“No, I mean it, they’re usually a sea of women that leave your floor, what happened?” Rumlow edges him, those busy eyebrows rising up in expectation, his bulky frame sitting hunched on the velvet chair across Steve’s.

Steve’s eyes flicker across to Rumlow, searching his face before drifting down to catch the seared tattoo peaking from his rolled sleeve. Rumlow had once been integrated into one of New York's more violent and unstable crime syndicates, the kind that dealt with human trafficking and selling girls like fucking stables.

Steve was already weary of his often violent and ill-tempered mood, the kind that ended up boiling into violent outbursts. But he needed men at the time, and Rumlow was like a trained dog, so he bit back his resignation and enveloped him into the family.

Oh, how he grew to regret it.

“I’m busy, alright, gotta keep fucking Brooklyn from sinking” Steve replies without looking up from his work, swift signature flying over the dotted lines of dock payments and shipments from Budapest.

Rumlow hums, folding his arms across his chest thoughtfully, his eyes linger on Steve’s, analysing him carefully.

“You’re fucking her aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“That girl you’ve got us looking after, a goddamn wife, you know what he’ll do to us if he finds out we’ve got his little wife knee-deep in our shit?” Rumlow spits out, venom lacing his tone as his eyes glint with a certain fire.

“What the fuck did you just say?” Steve’s voice bellow from deep within his chest, but his face is unmoving, his features set in stone that refused to wither into clay.

“C'mon Steve, I know she’s a fine piece of ass but is she really that fucking worth it? I mean you’re putting a lot on stake for some tits-“. Before Rumlow can finish his sentence, a loud crunch envelops the room, Steve's fist flying into Rumlows mouth as he shatters his face.

The immediate scream of pain and anguish fills the room, as blood begins squirting out of  Rumlows nose, spilling down his white shirt and staining it further, Steve has to restrain himself from killing the man for the way he talked about you.

The sound of Rumlows wheezing whimpers is drowned out by the loud stomps of boots against the hallway floors. The door opens with a thunk, slamming into the wall behind it before Bucky steps into the bloodied scene of Steve’s office.

“Fuck sake Steve” Bucky grunts, as his eyes reach Rumlows crouched position on the floor, holding a hand to his nose to try and seize the blood oozing from the imprint of Steve’s fist.

“Clean that shit up” Steve replies before wiping away the blood off his knuckles with a cloth towel, throwing it towards Rumlow.

“You don’t ever speak to her that way alright? Let this be a warning to all of you, what’s my business with her is just that, my own” Steve snarks, flicking off the splatters of blood that landed on his cufflinks.

Rumlow shuffles awkwardly, reaching for the rag with a blind hand before limping out of the office, his dignity and ego left in the pool of blood staining the plush carpet.

Bucky steps closer, his hands shoved into his pocket as he stares unblinking at the stained carpet.

Steve looks towards him, muttering profanities under his breath as he smooths out the wrinkles in his suit.

“What?” Steve asks Bucky, watching on as his closest friend refuses to meet his eye.

“When you have us shuffle in on rotation to watch her like some fucking fast food gig, you don’t think they’ll be asking questions??” Bucky murmurs

“That isn’t why I asked you to watch her now, is it? They're my closest men-you’re my closest man, and you want to question me? Bucky when have I ever done anything stupid? Huh?” Steve replies, eyes searching through the disappointment that covers Bucky’s face.

“Never, but I think you’re about to start now” Bucky replies, anger lacing his tone as he moves out of the room.

As much as it pained him to admit it, there was truth to Rumlow’s words, Steve had made a name for himself as a notorious bachelor who never slept with the same girl twice. He found a certain addiction in the debauchery of sex, but it was never love. Steve fucked because he liked to hear the sound of his name screamed into the city skies, watching the women he’d bring home unravel before him.

Now though, Steve has to take a moment to consider that his bed was left cold through most nights, the mantel and throne of the mafia king consuming him.

-- -

Pushing through the swinging doors of the diner restrooms, you cough out a gag as you breathe a lungful of air sharply. The diner's bathrooms were usually a mess by the time you closed your doors but god did it seem so much worse today.

Your eyes survey the diner for the crowds of patrons that usually occupied the leather booths but find them empty instead, a few drizzled customers sipping a coffee before folding their newspapers and making their way out.

The sun had dipped into the horizon soon after you had walked through the bathroom stalls, but the winter months caused the night to come quicker than ever, basking the outside with a darkness you can't help but shudder against.

Collecting the diner menus, you shove them into the shelving compartment situated near the doors, and as you reach for a washcloth a sudden feeling of eyes searing holes into your back envelops your senses. It feels like you’re being watched, and it feels like you're just now noticing, the suddenly ominous atmosphere created by the foggy darkness outside causing you to gulp. You crane your neck slowly to search for those pair of eyes, but all you can see is your manager’s head bobbing up from the diner counter.

She gestures with a nod for you to come over, and you discard the washcloth on the table before meeting her eyes.

‘I’m going to head out, just serve the last few customers and lock up for me.” Mare replies, wiping a hadn't across her face as she slings a bag across her back.

“Where did Hazel go?” You reply as you notice her absence from the kitchen

“Oh, she had to attend this party or something so I gave her the rest of the night off” Mare replies nonchalantly.

You have to dig your diners into your thigh to stop from throwing a sharp remark. You had to beg Mare to let you stay home after you’d got that flu going around the city, and even then you had to make it up in overtime. And now she was leaving you to clean up the diner all on your own, so much for a positive working environment.

You think about stealing from the register just to spite her, but you know she would find out either way and then you'd be rotting in a jail cell with an officer calling for your husband to come to pick you up and throw you back into your other living hell.

So you bite your tongue and bid her farewell as she exited the diner without a second look.

You register her words soon after, customers? But you had sworn all of them had filed out hours ago. It’s then that you noticed the hunched figure almost lying over the diner counters, and you move swiftly to reach his stool.

The man from before is perched on one of the diner stools, his grip pressing into the counter until his hands were knuckle white. A stringy black wooden jacket now adores his body, a stark difference from the deep coal black of his tailored suit in that car hours ago. It obscures half his face, scrunched up to cover his nose and mouth.

His eyes dart across the now empty diner booths, ears catching every sound like a hawk, the scar stretching across his face like a white hand pinched and relaxed with every turn of his head. 

He’s hiding from something that you know, but you also know he isn't a man to particularly be afraid of getting caught.

Stepping towards him with a tentative shuffle of your feet, you grip your notepad tight around your hand, a tight smile gracing your features as he slowly rises his head from your scuffled converse to meet your eyes.

“What can- what can I get you?” You gulp down the nervousness from your voice, there’s nothing to be afraid of. He wouldn't hurt you- he can’t, Steve had promised. And you don't know why but you take it his word is as good as gold.

“Just a coffee honey, just like the one from before” The man replies, a dead look in his eyes as you note down his order.

“Nothing to eat? I can’t promise you a fresh meal, but we’ve got a few sandwiches I could heat up for you” You reply, you ask just because it's customary, but god you wished he could be out any sooner.

“Haven’t got the appetite ‘m afraid” The man replies, a smile cracks over the ice of his features, that same jagged white scar folding across his face. There's a glint in his eyes that shine against the diner's fluorescent lights, like he knows something you don’t and it scares you to no end.

You nod slowly, before quickly shuffling your body to get behind the kitchen counter. Reaching for a clean ceramic mug, you make quick work of pouring a fresh batch of espresso into the mug, the black liquid swirls like a whirlpool, steam rising from the cup so you have to carry it gently towards his seat. You feel his eyes on you the entire time, and your hands shake a little as you place it out in front of him.

“Anything else?” You say, rocking on the ball of your feet as you watch him carefully.

“I’m all set, thank you” The man smiles up at you, and your eyes furrow at the disingenuous smile that fits all too big on his face, its almost disprorpoatnte like a Halloween mask, all white teeth and dead eyes.

“I would appreciate it if you could join me, however..?” The man adds, eyes meeting yours that burn into you intensely, he still wears that same Cheshire smile, but his eyes, his eyes almost challenge you to say no. To see what would become of you if you did.

“Uhm..I’m on the clock, can’t be chattin’ when I'm meant to be..” You reply, trying to find the right words to say.

“Serving..customers?” The man clocks his eyebrow, turning around to gesture to the empty diner.

“There hasn't been a soul hat walked through those doors ever since you took your little bathroom break honey, so how about you make my crap day just a little brighter by sittin’ with me?” The man frames his proposal like a question, but you know the way he grips the counter tight that he means it as a command.

There is a beat of silence, of you just staring at him, trying to conceal your growing fear before your eyes dart to the diner doors. He catches your eye line, and coughs out a wheezing chuckle, clocking his head to the side.

“You aren’t that dumb, are you?” The man replies in a condescending tone, and you let your failure weigh down your shoulders.

“Follow me” The man replies with a smile, gathering his coffee mug with one hand before pressing the other to the small of your back, causing you to shudder unconsciously. He leads you to one of the booths hidden away from the door, and you sit with your back straight as he leans onto the booth table.

The silence between you both is filled soon with his hurried gulps of coffee, slamming it to the booth table and causing a crack to form like a lightning bolt through the ceramic mug. The violence causes you to finch, and he looks up at you with a grin.

And within a second, the man is quickly unmasking his hoodie from his face, and the scene that confronts you causes a sickening nausea to rise up your throat. The man’s face, which had been obscured by the hoodie earlier, now bears violent bruises and cuts that burst from his nose and jaw like flowers. They glint against the diner booths overhanging light, fresh and still swollen since the object or thing had cracked against his face.

The man grunts at your disturbed expression, slamming a hand down onto the diner counter that causes you to flinch.

“Your fucking protector gave me this, did you know that?” The man snarks with disgust, you're too afraid to meet his eyes but you take in his words slowly.

Your protector? Huh? No… he doesn’t mean-wait

Steve did this?

You can’t dwell on that realisation before the man is rambling to you angrily again

“And for what? You aren’t shit to me, to any of us, and frankly, we’re getting tired of watching your ass mop and clean after fucking truckers and shit. I used to take down fucking men, and I’m here babysitting. I think it’s about time to put out, alright?” He replies a knowing expression across his face that is soon morphed into amusement as he registers your confused expression.

“I mean you do know that’s why he keeps you? Wants to train you to be his little wife like you once were to little old Richerson’s. Or did you think we’d forget about your husband who’s hunting you down hm? Who’s probably going to throw my ass in the Hudson with a missing foot for even talking to you?”

You bristle at the mention of your husband's name, shaking your head as you press your fingertip to your squeezed eyes until you see stars.

No, no no. This was all wrong. Steve said he’d protect you, he had said that. He promised it like his life depended on it, but the truth was, yours did. And now, now he confuses you, your temples start to throb as a headache sets in as it does since that night when you think too hard or try to remember anything from before. Before your husband, before New York, before this very diner booth.

Did Steve really expect you to be some sit-in wife for him? Jump from one prison into another to finally be the last chest piece of his kingdom? You feel sick at the thought, the nausea burning your stomach as you press a hand to your mouth.

“You seriously didn't think you were anything else did you? Women can't be in this world unless they're whores or wives. That’s how it's always been and always will be. Don’t ever think otherwise, or soon you'll just be another fucking useless whore lying fast down in an alleyway” The man grunts, before pushing the cracked coffee mug towards you before rising from his seat, reaching into his pocket to throw a few scrunched bills at you.

“Clean this shit up, and I suggest you start putting out and doing it fast” The man replies, looking down at you before reaching for your chin, raising your face to meet his eyes.

He ticks at the tremble of your lips as you gulp down the nausea and fear still bubbling deep inside you.

“It's a shame really, that such a pretty face goes out like this, you see I didn't want to be the one to tell you this, but he gave me no choice.” The man sighs sadly as if it was the world's burden to carry that information.

“Reckon you could’ve been something if Richardson had not snatched you up like he did all those years ago. Funny how life works though isn't it? Used to be living in tower high walls and now you're scrubbing a dirty restaurant floor”. The man replies softly, yet the words spit out of him like blood, insincerity written all over his face that told you he didn’t feel bad. Not one bit. In Fact, he probably enjoyed it.

He lets go of your chin with a shove, before his loud boots stomp against the linoleum floors, slamming the diner doors behind him with a bang, and leaving you to drown in the ever-growing lies the people you’ve trusted have suffocated you in.

[seventeenlovesthree]

Digimon Writing Challenge - Mix and Match: Sora + Tailmon + Hope

[Yamato] [Takeru] [Hikari] [Sora] [Taichi] [Koushirou] [Mimi] [Jyou]

Summary: The 02 group is gathering as many Chosen Children to join their battle against the giant Digiegg in the sky. Tailmon chooses to pay Sora a visit, hoping to convince her to come back as well. [SPOILERS FOR "THE BEGINNING". Inspired by the "What if...?" Post-The Beginning drama about a certain "fanfiction" thought up by Takeru, Hikari, Patamon - and Tailmon...)

Word count: 662

„Sora!“

On a day like this, with the sky being engulfed by darkness, permeated by streaks of menacing gold, the Takenouchi flower arrangement school was the last place Tailmon would have seen herself ending up at. And judging by her startled expression, Sora Takenouchi probably had not expected to get a visitor like this either.

„Tailmon…? What are you doing here?”

Her phone still in hand, Sora simply stared at Hikari’s Digimon partner who had just jumped through the window of her room.

“We’ve decided to split up to get as many of you contacted as quickly as possible to join the fight,” the white cat elaborated urgently, “so Aquilamon dropped me here and…”

She stopped herself in her tracks, now actually looking at the girl, no, the adult woman in front of her. A saddened grimace forming on her face. She had been one of the first whose partnerships had vanished. Many, many people may end up having to face a similar fate if they proceeded the way they did. Nevertheless, Tailmon felt a surge of oddly familiar pain rising in her chest while facing Sora directly.

“… For how long do you intend to keep doing this?”

“Eh?”

A glance at the phone in Sora’s hand – and at the tears shimmering in her eyes – was enough for the Digimon to tell that she had probably been unable to prevent herself from noticing the wave of messages that must have been coming in for hours.

“You got Hikari’s message, didn’t you? You surely read all of these messages in the past, isn’t that so? And yet… You keep choosing to stay away from everyone still, even after all this time?”

Sora flinched, shaking her head quickly.

“It’s just that… It wouldn’t be feasible for me to join the fighting right now…”

Instinctively, Tailmon returned the head shaking.

“I know it’s not easy for you! We all know that!”

With a Digivice made of stone, the partnership still not reactivated, it didn’t make sense for her to actively participate. But Tailmon had seen miracles happen just by having the whole group united. The light of hope in everyone was strong enough to always succeed after all! As long as nobody was left behind…

“… But is staying away forever really what you think is right for you, Sora? Things have changed… You have changed, even physically…”

For as long as she could remember, Hikari’s hair had always been shorter than Sora’s. Now that her own partner had started to let her hair grow, usually putting it in a messy ponytail, Sora’s pixie-cut seemed even shorter to her. As if she had chosen to cut more parts of her past away.

“It’s the fate of every being, especially for you humans, but… Knowing from personal experience, staying by yourself can just be incredibly lonely and… Stagnating.”

This time, she could see a gentle smile form on Sora’s lips.

“Is that why you came here specifically, not Hikari-chan?”

With these words, the young woman stood up from her chair and knelt down in front of Tailmon. She seemed much more graceful, so much more mature than in her memory…

“Thank you, Tailmon, but… I want to believe in everyone to find the right path for themselves, do you understand? I want to have hope that… Right now, this is still the correct path for me. As it is for Hikari-chan and everyone to take part in the battles for as long as you all can. It doesn’t mean that it will stay this way for the rest of my life and… I’d lie if I said that I didn’t miss everyone badly, but… For now, this is all I can do. And all that Hikari-chan can do herself, because she is brave and strong and whatever may happen, it’ll be alright. So please tell her that I believe in her… And that she should keep following her own path as well. For me, okay?”

[metatronhateblog]

The Opening Credits Pt.1 Jimbriel

Okay so as I'm sitting down to take a crack at ciphering the angelic language on the show, I've come tot the conclusion that I have so many clues and other things I found, that it's time for me to start slowly dropping these out because boy oh boy have I been collecting clues and theories like a dragon hoards golds. I've also added another member to this blog who will be posting theories and clues as well.

That being said, welcome to the Sequence of Opening Credits Post Part 1, or the I sat down and played the opening credits at .25 speed and took screen grabs of everything weird I found. (Which, brief disclaimer, my eyes are not perfect and I'm bound to miss things, even my glasses don't 100% correct my vision. There's bound to be things I miss and if you happen to find them feel free to add in your finds!)

Today I'm starting off with Jim/Gabriel. Since it was said recently in a panel he's in every scene of the opening, and I knew that cause I've found him...at least I think I found all his appearances... I'm going to start this series of posts off by sharing them with you.

Right off the bat, we have him in the scene directly after Crowley lights a match in a cave.

He's there, nice and clear and noticeable. Keep that in mind because I think that's the most openly we see him in the opening credits.

The next scene after the goats his the graveyard scene. He's already a little trickier to find.

And for those who don't see him in that picture, here's a closer look.

Next seen they enter the mausoleum and you see Gabriel as they decline

(I'm realizing now that if I use too many images there might be a parts 1.1 lol) Any ways after hiding behind that tombstone shaped similarly to (but not quite) the one that says 'Here lies the former shell of Beelzebub) we see him (or at least me, I'll be honest I don't see him when they're walking over the lake of fire) Is in London??? Getting bombed.

Now is you don't see him here that's okay, I told you it gets harder.

He's standing here in this window, even more interesting to me, once the plane drops the bomb that explodes into rabbits...

He's hiding his head in the box lol.

Moving on, I ALMOST didn't see him in the next scene (walking through West End) because I shit you not, he's tucked away in a little nook.)

He is actually hidden (paint me like one of your French girls style) IN THE FRONT of the scene. Makes me wonder if that's where he might be when they cross the lake of fire.

Moving on. Next time we seem him is in space, while Crowley and Aziraphale are doing an interesting little 'swapping sides dance.' Our mans is clinging for dear life lol

In the next scene is where I get confused. Crowley and Aziraphale are sitting on the roof aaaaand...

Jimbriel is standing above 'Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death?' Why not about the bookshop??

In his next appearance....he actually has wings? Which is sus to me again but what isn't sus about this show lol. Jimbriel is in an elevator, riding down as the line of people making their slow death march pass.

Using all my will power to acknowledge the blatantly weird things in this screen grab alone, I move on.

In this one, I will momentarily ignore our boys kissing in the opera box and instead show you, Jimbriel. ALSO in an opera box.

Now I'm not sure Jim is in the direct next scene cause no one is, but there is a falling apart? statue of Gabriel in front of Mount Zion.

Aaaaand finally we have him walking along with everyone else, preparing to seal his fate. I won't do a close up of this one because he's right there.

And that concludes The Opening Credits Pt.1. I would say something more, make a little theory or something, but I don't think there's much to say on Jim giving someone (whose name currently escapes me) said in an interview Jim is in every scene. So anyways. Here's this for you to hold as reference, or just look at, or ignore cause I'm not sure myself how important it is. (Yay me for fitting this all in one post!)

Anyways I'm going to get started on cracking this Angelic language. Stay tuned for more Opening Credits posts because believe me. I have more.

[french-unknown]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 (𝟒) | 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐎𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐫

finnick odair x fem!reader

summary: Both in their twenties, (Y/N) and Finnick have been friends with benefits for several years. However, tensions will rise as their summertime relationship begins to evolve.

warning: none

word count: 3.2k

[ masterlist ] - [ previous chapter ]

/!\ THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER /!\

author's note: You can access free exclusive content through the link below. It's a PDF slideshow about (Y/N)'s personnality and how she grew up as career. There is also about her games and how she lived in the Capitol.

CLICK HERE ➜ Get the PDF

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟒 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝟕𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬

The train leading to the Capitol moved inexorably toward its destination.

Caught up in thought, (Y/N) sat huddled by the window of her train car with a glass of juice in her hand, brooding over the thoughts that had clouded her mind since the end of the Games last year.

The Capitol had always been a haven for her. It was her vacation spot. Where she had fun and where she could do whatever she wanted. She was loved and adored there by people she did not know who came to talk to her to compliment her, buy her drinks or bend over backwards to meet her slightest requests. And that, without her having anything to do in return.

She was fine there.

"What do you mean you can't do it?" her mother asked, speechless, preparing three lunch boxes in the kitchen before daybreak.

"There is another one my age who is much more talented than me." explained the 12-year-old (Y/N) as she sat down on one of the chairs in the room with a glass of orange juice already served for her.

"Work harder then." Declared the woman, finishing more curtly cutting her vegetables on the cutting board.

A memory of one of the many times her blonde-haired elder from the Career Center laughed at her flashed across her eyes. She felt her heart start beating faster.

"Preceptors prefer her." muttered the (H/C)-haired child, her mouth full, as she ate the fried eggs and still-warm, crispy bacon her mother had made for her before she woke up.

The adult turned to her, knife pointed skyward as her gaze darkened. In this take with her unkempt hair after hours of grueling factory work coupled with her waxy pale complexion and gaunt figure, the blunt knife looked far more menacing than it should have been.

"I don’t give a damn if they prefer her." she growled as her lips twisted into a sneer. "Work more and become their favorite. There's no way she's volunteering instead of you."

"But she really is a genius!" exclaimed the child.

"I don't care." replied his mother, now distributing the different ingredients unevenly between the different lunch boxes.

The silence stayed until her father entered the room. Dark circles were already present under his eyes despite the fact that he had just gotten up. He went directly to pour himself a coffee in a chipped cup before recovering a leftover stale loaf from the day before. He didn't even bother to sit down and simply leaned his forearms, burned in places, against the counter to drink his cup in one go and swallow his piece of bread in a few bites.

His wife handed him one of the lunch boxes, the small one with wooden cutlery, before they kissed and he left to work at the forge for the day. The mother, for her part, put the small lunch box with metal cutlery in the fridge then packed the largest of the boxes in a new bag which she gave to her daughter still in front of her eggs.

"Don’t forget to lock the door when you'll leave." she said before heading up the stairs in her wrinkled clothes towards her bedroom.

(Y/N) snapped out of her reverie.

She never imagined that the Capitol could be dangerous for her. It was just a bunch of giggling turkeys whose only concern was sequins and frills. And, sure enough, they knew how to party. But never had anyone forced her or made her uncomfortable at a party.

Still, she had known Finnick for years and he was not the type to lie about such matters.

Moreover, here they are all back at the Capitol for the ultimate Hunger Games.

The (H/C)-haired girl clenched her jaws at how badly she had been screwed by those same turkeys.

Finnick would now return to the arena. Just like Enobaria. So did Brutus, though she cared less about him. And they were going to have to fight to the death. Again.

She finally saw the gigantic silver towers of the Capitol in the distance so she drained her glass before getting up and gathering her things. She knew only too well what was about to happen and she intended to be ready. The lesson was learned: the Capitol was no longer an ally.

As they all disembarked, she felt a pang of anger rise unpleasantly in her chest as she noticed the dozens of people gathered around the edges of the dock. They were fewer than usual, compared to the previous years she had accompanied her former tributes, but they were still there chanting the names of the duo from her district. As if they were genuinely happily sending them to their deaths after years of being around them and pretending to love them.

A bunch of traitors.

The sourness in her throat and stomach made her saliva feel like it had been replaced with acid as she painfully swallowed it. A stab in the back. She no longer doubted for a second that they would have had exactly the same enthusiasm if it had been her name or any other victor who had been drawn instead of the District 2's tributes.

She puffed out her chest, lifted her chin and then continued to walk under the cheering of the supporters, hiding as best as she could the burning humiliation that rumbled in her.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

After the Tributes Parade, (Y/N) returned with the entire District 2 team to their assigned dormitory.

They walked in silence down the hall without a word being spoken: no encouragements, no ruckus, no laughter. Only the sound of their soles echoed in the cold, concrete hallway of the Capitol. The girl was no exception to the rule and she walked, caught in her thoughts, with her eyes fixed on the backs of the two tributes.

Yet as they all waited for the elevator, the religious silence was broken by rushing footsteps.

"(Y/N)!" Finnick shouted in the distance, running in their direction.

The (H/C)-haired girl froze among her peers and felt bad. She wasn't ready for a showdown, even more among the other victors of her district. A bead of sweat slipped down her back. She swallowed, panicked. Her eyes remained fixed on the figure of the blond who grew bigger and bigger the closer he approached them.

Then, the tinkle of the elevator suddenly sounded and the doors opened.

Immediately, the young girl engulfed at the same time as Enobaria and two other former victors while Brutus and the others remained on the step of the cabin. Although surprised by the fact that they stayed outside the device, she did not wait another second before pressing as quickly as possible the button for the second floor as well as the one to close the doors. As the latter closed, she saw the others of her district firmly blocking the blond with green eyes under the pretext of a lack of space in the cabin.

She huffed, relieved, slumping against the support bar of the machine.

Now that she knew that the boy had been forced all these years and that he too had wanted to be with her, she didn't feel very well anymore. Still resentful of all these years when she felt replaceable, she understood that it was not his fault but she could not forget this pain. And seeing the face she had wanted all along didn't help matters.

"You're ok?" Lyme, one of the victors of the older generation, asked impassively.

"Yeah." sighed (Y/N) while becoming aware of her posture and straighten up. "I'm ok."

The doors reopened and the four former victors exited the device to join the dormitory. When the rest of the team joined them, no one mentioned the appearance of the tribute from District 4.

And if she turned away to avoid the blond in the hallways before his interview with Flickerman, that wasn't their problem.

And when Johanna pushed her around later that night, calling her a coward, and the two girls started throwing punches at each other in the middle of the hallway to the point that they had to be separated, they still didn't ask any questions.

Then, the morning of the start of the 75th Hunger Games arrived, and she still hadn't said a word to Finnick.

She watched him from her television, standing on its pedestal, as he prepared to dive into the water. She counted down with the announcer and felt her heart tremble at the sound of the cannon. She only had a 1 in 24 chance of seeing him again. She felt a slight pang of jealousy, however, the moment she saw him go straight to a female tribute with whom he spoke briefly before protecting each other. But she was a little more reassured when she saw them going into the jungle with Mags and another boy. At least they weren't alone.

She was nevertheless annoyed by these thoughts.

She was avoiding him. She was the one who refused to speak to him as he approached her. She was the one stepping back. She didn't want to feel that sour, slimy feeling she already knew and that was gnawing at her heart.

She spent the whole day thinking about it while watching the Hunger Games for the first time since she had participated. She tossed and turned in her bed as she watched them run in circles and imagined the excitement it must have been in the Games viewing room. Between the sponsors and the mentors who had known about the tributes for several years, she had no doubt that there had to be animation.

Arriving in the evening, she stopped thinking.

Throughout the day, she had noticed the Finnick she knew from before. She had seen him take care of Mags. She had watched him save the unknown boy. And even now she could observe his kindness when, even though he was thirsty from a day in the jungle with no water running around with a woman on his back, he still cared that his eldest was sufficiently hydrated.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all if she could let go of her resentment.

She was aware that she could sometimes be a little proud and react quickly if her pride was touched. That she could be a little offended if she was questioned or criticized. Or that she had a tendency to be a bit dismissive towards others, even if she was right for the people of the Capitol.

A mocking smile bloomed on her lips as she remembered her volunteering.

She relives herself at 16 in the crowd on the District 2 main plaza as the escort announces the name of this year's female tribute. She also remembered Ceres' confident and smug aura at the age of 18, as her blonde hair shone in the sun like a crown of gold and she savored her moment before offering herself as tribute. Just before the (H/C)-haired girl overtakes her and sadistically takes her place. A shiver went down her spine when she remembered the hateful look she received on this platform when she had just taken away her last chance to participate in the Hunger Games under the dumbfounded gaze of her Preceptors and the astonished but extremely proud eyes of her parents. All those years of preparation were for nothing.

That will have taught her to make fun of the other future Career Center tributes.

(Y/N) came out of her daydreaming, however, determined.

If Finnick got out of there alive, and he still wanted her, she would at least try to give them a chance.

The next day, she woke up early and continued to watch the Games. Happier with her newfound conviction, she thought as little as possible as she watched the show.

However, all this was spoiled when the evening arrived.

Already uneasy from witnessing the conception of the plan to kill the two tributes from her district, she felt even stranger when she realized something was wrong. She consciously knew that everything was fine and that the plans of the two remaining teams were working very well so far.

However, she had a pit in her stomach telling her that something was wrong.

She couldn't put her finger on it, but what was happening on television seemed kind of weird.

She then got up and began to pace around her room because she was too nervous to stay still. She was wearing her day clothes despite the late hour and wasn't planning on changing anytime soon, the feeling in her stomach making her too hyperactive to do anything but stare intently at the screen.

One way.

One return.

One way.

One return.

And it continued until they came to the lightning tree.

The moment Beetee appeared on the screen, passed out for no apparent reason in the vegetation, without being able to advance the plan and with the whole team dispersed, she understood that the Capitol was too invested in the Games. They had always had their hands on them in the arena because of traps, mutants and other subterfuges but, this time, to knock out someone non-dangerous as discreetly as possible, something was happening.

She froze before looking around. She compared her beautifully decorated and trimmed room to the kennels of their damn pink dogs or their tame Bengals: it was the same, just human-sized.

"Don't forget who the real enemy is." Finnick's voice echoed in her ears through the TV.

Immediately, (Y/N) came out of her torpor.

She ran to the door without waiting and rushed out of her dormitory. As soon as she set foot in the hallway, she threw herself towards the emergency stairs since she had no time to wait for the elevator. She made it downstairs in less time than it took her to get out of breath and walked straight through the front door of the Tributes' Center.

She didn't know exactly who she was running from or why exactly, but she couldn't stay there.

As she arrived at the end of the street and turned into a perpendicular street, she heard the sound of boots hammering the asphalt of the capital. She quickly hid behind a trash can. Curled up behind the container, she saw a whole troop of Peacekeepers pass in front of her at a brisk pace.

In the direction of the Tributes' Center.

As soon as they were out of sight, she came out of her hiding place and resumed her run. It was dark, she did not know where to go and yet one thing was certain: for the Capitol, she was definitely no longer an ally.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

Two weeks later, a hovercraft landed in the 13th District.

Plutarch stood tall to the side of the landing jack, a smirk on his face as his hands cupped behind his back were clenching impatiently. As soon as the aircraft stopped, it approached just before the back door opened. He thus saw a well-known woman with blond hair, shaved on one side, accompanied by her team.

He immediately greeted her happily.

"I was expecting you earlier." he began with a smile. "Did you have any problems?"

"Not really, just a stowaway who wouldn't let us go." replied the woman with a sneer.

She turned slightly to point her surprise guest at the grizzled man.

At the back of the cabin, he could therefore see a (Y/N) still a little green from her hovercraft journey. She was strapped to her seat with one of her hands over her mouth and her legs didn't seem to be the most stable in the world. Yet she was there and above all, she was free and alive.

One more victor on the team could only be beneficial for their propaganda.

So he walked over to the (H/C)-haired girl, who had finally untied herself in the meantime, and held her hand while introducing himself. The girl then walked out of the flying machine beside him.

"Where's Finnick Odair?" she asked immediately.

Plutarch looked at her, confused.

"Pardon?" he answered.

(Y/N) repeated and the man directed her to the infirmary before dispatching a helper from the loading dock to guide her. In the corridors, the girl tried to speed up the pace, however her companion kept the same speed, forcing her to slow down. Annoyed, she still tried the blow several times before finally keeping up with the man's rhythm. When she set foot in the infirmary, he briefly indicated the direction of the blonde's room before leaving.

Offended, the girl from District 2 watched him go before continuing on her way.

The moment she walked through the door, the lights around her changed from a dull orange to a bright blue. A growl sounded from the pile of blankets on the bed. She saw movement there.

"Finnick?" she whispered.

Another gurgling noise was heard from the bed again, and the accompanying movement revealed the top of a small tuft of blond hair that she had seen many times before. Immediately, a huge smile split her face and she approached the mattress. There, half camouflaged by his blanket, she recognized the face of the former victor from District 4.

She stroked his cheek gently before sitting down on the edge of the mattress.

"Finnick?" she repeated softly.

One green eye slowly opened before being joined by the other. As soon as he recognized the newcomer, his eyes widened. He immediately threw the blanket away from him before standing up in a jump. His hands immediately flew to rest on (Y/N)'s cheeks, cupping her jaw at the same time in his broad palms.

"It's you?" he asked, affected. "It's really you?"

She gave him a more shy smile before coming to cover the blond's hands with her own. With her thumbs, she gently caressed his knuckles.

"It's really me." she affirmed.

The blond immediately separated his hands from her cheeks to come and hang her by the waist. He assured his grip before turning her over to slam her hastily on his mattress.

Feeling a gag come back to him after his hovercraft ride, the (H/C)-haired girl wanted to calm him down but she didn't have the chance to do so because she felt Finnick's lips crashing on hers. It was neither soft nor delicate. It was raw lip-to-lip contact as if he desperately wanted to make sure she was there.

Before she could react, he pulled away and nuzzled his head into her neck.

"How did you get here?" he asked as his fists came up to grip the fabric of her t-shirt.

"Long story." she replied while looking at the ceiling.

The grip on her t-shirt tightened even more.

"You're staying?" came from the blond with an almost trembling tone.

(Y/N) in turn moved her hands up to the boy's blond hair to rub his scalp. She lowered her head at the same time to plant a kiss on his unruly locks.

"I'm staying."

END

[kylowritten]

If the Slipper Fits

Pairings: Kylo Ren x ForceSensitive!Reader

Summary: Nobody wants to be the woman whose foot fits that slipper.

Warnings: evil stepmother, mentions of murder and death, forced marriage

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: My attempt at a reversed(ish) Cinderella x Thousand and One Nights mashup

Part 1

Motes of dust float through the air, suspended in the stream of sunlight spilling from the window. You don’t have to look to know that the street is empty. No one will go out today. Still, your stepmother steals glances every few minutes, hoping to catch the procession of Stormtroopers that will inevitably make their way to each house.

The curtains make a swift sound as your stepmother lets them fall closed. “They’re late.”

You glance at the grandfather clock in the parlor with you. There’s no set schedule, of course, but after nearly a year of the same thing, you notice patterns. Your stepmother is right. The Stormtroopers are late. Usually their knock rings through the house at exactly noon, and it’s about a quarter after. You’ve been shifting uncomfortably in the overly plush armchair for the past half hour.

“Maybe something happened,” you offer lamely.

Your stepmother’s mouth presses into a tight line. There’s no pretending that the implications of the day don’t make you braver than normal.

Every day, the Stormtroopers venture into the kingdom in search of finding the prince’s next bride. Every woman of the appropriate age has to try on the enchanted slipper. If it fits, they’re taken from their home to the castle, where they will partake in a grand ball leading up to the wedding ceremony at midnight.

Then the same process happens in the morning.

No one knows what happens to the brides.

“Maybe,” your stepmother replies, in the curt tone she reserves only for you. You imagine that, if it were any other day, she would’ve snapped at you for responding.

Tiring your neck, you watch her go back and forth as she begins to pace.

There’s a loud thump above your heads. You both ignore it.

“They should be here,” your stepmother mumbles. She stops long enough to peek out of the curtains again. Angrily, she whirls around, as if you’ve somehow conspired against her. “Why aren’t they here?”

Another thump.

Your stepmother glares at you, then: “They can’t stay up there much longer.”

The Stormtroopers rotate through the six different districts of the kingdom, and today is your district’s turn. Once every six days, you’re taken out of your room in the attic, dusted and polished like old china, and presented as your stepmother’s only daughter. Her biological daughters squirrel themselves away in the attic instead, just as long as necessary. It’s the price you pay for getting to stay — your stepmother won’t kick you out onto the street and your stepsisters never have to try on the slipper.

“They’ll be here soon,” you say. “Probably.”

“I’m going to check on the girls.” She makes it halfway up the stairs before she stops and turns, one hand on the railing, and stares directly at you. “Don’t do anything while I’m gone. And especially do not open the door.”

The grandfather clock ticks as the seconds pass by. You hear the muffled voices of your family upstairs, probably your stepmother plying your sisters with dresses and jewelry to keep them quiet. Nobody dares snitch on them. Your stepmother’s wealth buys their silence, inherited after your father’s passing. Your father’s hard earned money pays for the neighbors to avoid your eyes, to pretend they don’t notice that you’re being exploited.

Knock knock knock.

Your body stiffens. Gaze sliding from the stairs to the front door, you hold yourself upright, as if you freeze then they will leave. Again — knock knock knock. Where was your stepmother? You weren’t afraid of disobeying her, but rather you found that her presence acted as a buffer. She happens to be a terrible person but at least you can cling to her like a drowning man.

Reluctantly, you rise to your feet. The distance from the parlor to the front door seems especially far, the ticking of the clock punctuating each of your steps as time seems to stretch on.

Your hand seizes the doorknob.

Knock knock. A deep, modulated voice. “Open up. It’s the First Order with the Kingdom of Ren. If you do not let us inside, we will be forced to intervene.”

Your wrist twists —

“What did I tell you?” Your stepmother hisses your name. She flies down the stairs and you jump back right as she thrusts past you. “I told you not to open the door. Go sit back down.”

The plush armchair hits your backside rather hard as you sit down abruptly. Your fingers unwillingly forming into claws, you grip the arms of the chair.

“Smile,” your mother instructs. She opens the door.

The lens of your vision blurs. Vaguely, you witness your stepmother welcoming the Stormtroopers. Are you smiling? You hope you are, or else your stepmother will punish you, if the prince doesn’t kill you first. Frankly, you’re not sure what fate is worse.

“Say hello,” your stepmother says. The Stormtroopers, in their stark white armor, look strange standing in the drab parlor.

“This your only daughter?” One of the Stormtroopers asks. Clearly he’s not one for pleasantries.

“My pride and joy,” she answers. She sweeps across the room to your side.

There’s no use perpetuating the facade your stepmother so desperately wishes to uphold, so you stay quiet. One of the Stormtroopers has the slipper encased in a glass box, atop a maroon colored cushion. They approach you. You stick out your foot and wiggle your bare toes anxiously as they ceremoniously remove the slipper.

Even though you’ve been through this whole charade a hundred times before, the cool, icy material of the slipper never fails to shock you. The Stormtrooper slips it on your foot.

You don’t understand the magic imbued in the slipper. Somehow it changes daily to fit the next person suited to be the prince’s next bride, but you don’t know how it decides the qualifications. Maybe there isn’t any, and it’s just an excuse, another method of oppressing his kingdom.

“Next time you come, I’ll —”

Your stepmother doesn’t finish her sentence. Buried so deep in your thoughts, you realize too late that the attention has been shifted to you. The Stormtrooper kneeling before you withdraws his gloved hands as if you’re contagious.

Hysteria claims you. “It doesn’t fit,” you insist. Were you really that loud? Or did it just sound like that in the silence? You shake your head. “See, look, right there —”

You bring your foot up to eye level, trying to justify yourself. But there’s no denying it.

The slipper fits perfectly.

“No,” you breathe. The word drops out of your mouth, leaden, weighted with fear.

The Stormtrooper stands. “Grab her.”

“No,” you say again, scrambling back. The chair about tips backward. Pleading, you turn to your stepmother, her face devoid of color. “Please, no. Please don’t let them take me.”

She stares. And she continues to stare as the Stormtroopers grab your arms and hoist you up. Desperate to escape, your feet cycle above the ground, trying to find purchase. No amount of struggling seems to effect the Stormtroopers, however, even as they carry you into the sunlight and you scrape and claw at the doorframe.

The effort only rewards you with ten long scratches into the wood, and nearly half of your nails pried off. Blood drips down your fingers.

“No! No!” you scream.

You don’t care that you’re making a scene. You’ve seen it before, girls getting carried, kicking and screaming, from their homes. At the time you stood diligently by and watched, sympathetic but grateful it wasn’t you. Now it was your turn, and as you implored the curious onlookers, you wished they would do something. That they would prevent the Stormtroopers from whisking you away like hundreds before you.

But they did nothing, and you knew they would. They, not unlike you, were relieved it wasn’t their wife or sister or daughter, and that they had another week with their loved ones.

“Please, I can’t go,” you sob. A trail of hot, shameful tears burn down your cheeks.

Your life has been suddenly and unfairly severed. You would be married to the prince that night and then killed. No longer would you be able to do all the things you enjoyed, or kiss someone, or feel the rain on your skin. A montage of things stolen from you flashes through your mind, each one inflicting more pain than the last.

“Stop struggling,” orders one of the Stormtroopers holding you. He nudges the tip of his blaster into your side, and that subdues you enough to stop struggling.

You shuffle along the dusty road.

A shuttle crouches at the edge of your small village. They steer you towards it. You risk a glance over your shoulder.

A pang of sadness strikes you. You didn’t expect to see your stepmother or stepsisters. And you didn’t exactly have a lot of friends, seeing as you were hidden away most of the time, but it became very clear that no one would grieve for you. No one would miss you. No one trailed behind you, begging you to be spared, crying out their love for you while clutching at your feet, hoping for one last embrace.

Resolved, you turn and step onto the shuttle. The inside was quite dark, and it took a few moments for your eyes to adjust. You scan your surroundings as the Stormtroopers drop you into a chair. The ship was deceptively large. An impressive amount of screens and displays consume one side of the bridge, overseen by First Order members in grey uniforms.

“Is this her?” A voice behind you asks.

A man with a head of red hair rounds the chair, hands clasped behind his back. “Welcome,” he says. He waits for a response but you give him none. “If someone speaks to you, it’s only polite that you answer.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, flush with anger, “I thought all courtesies were abandoned when you took me from my house.”

The man studies you, unimpressed. “You won’t last any longer than the others with an attitude like that.”

The others? Did he mean the other brides? A chill dances down your spine. You barely listen as the man introduces himself as General Hux, the right-hand of the prince and charged with debriefing the chosen women.

He drones through his speech in a mechanical manner. You figure he probably was bored of repeating it, although he did so with effortless efficiency; it dawns on you that you should’ve paid better attention. But could they expect that of you after being uprooted from your entire life? Not to mention that the shuttle rolled and shuddered as it flew through the air, the effects of never having flown before taking precedence.

“— once at the palace you will be fitted into your gown for the ball. Do I need to review proper etiquette for meeting the prince?” Hux asks.

It’s only then, as you stare at your feet and try not to throw up, that you realize you’re still wearing the enchanted slipper. Your other foot was entombed in the ugly brown shoe your stepmother permitted you to wear.

Hux must take your silence as a yes because he launches into a new tirade. His voice drowns amongst the thoughts running rampant through your mind. Suddenly, you can’t take it, and you reach down to yank the slipper off your foot. You’ve only just put your hands on it when Hux unexpectedly apprehends you.

“What are you doing?” He snarls. He pushes away your hands. “You must not take off the slipper under any circumstances until the prince has seen you.”

You recoil in surprise. “But I won’t see him until later tonight.”

“How astute of an observation.” Hux cruelly rolls his eyes. “Weren’t you listening at all? The prince insists on approving each bride himself. You will meet him in your quarters before the ball so he can verify that the slipper chose you.”

He might as well have injected liquid nitrogen into your veins. You would meet the prince before? Foolishly, you believed most of your engagement to happen during the ball and in the company of others. The prince wouldn’t harm you then. But the notion of meeting him alone made you faint.

Numerous stories surrounded the prince, each one ghastly and unpleasant. You knew this much as true: after killing his father and driving his mother from the throne, Kylo Ren began the bloody crusade of finding a wife. Speculations in your village spoke of some powerful benefactor who ultimately controlled the prince. You weren’t sure what to believe. But he certainly wasn’t the type of man you fancied being alone with.

This line of thinking led to another, one you purposefully avoided. If you were to marry him, would he expect you to consummate the marriage? That part of the rumors could never be decided upon. In one version he mated with the women then chopped off their heads like some homicidal insect, and the next claimed he shared his new wife with the soldiers sworn to protect him, the Knights of Ren. You weren’t particularly fond of either option.

You couldn’t exactly ask General Hux these questions. And it wasn’t like the other brides survived to clarify for you.

Hux carried on until the shuttle gave one last enormous, shuddering breath, then landed. He promots you out of the chair. “Remember what I said,” he tells you.

You nod, although you honestly didn’t retain a single word. But what were they going to do?

Kill you?

You let out a bark of bitter laughter. Hux sends you a strange look. You promptly ignore him, and he parades you into a growing mixture of departing Stormtroopers and First Order members.

The door of the shuttle releases with a hiss. Your vision fills with views of the Capitol. Having never been outside of your village, you’re not sure what to expect as Hux leads you down the platform. Evidently, you’ve landed somewhere within the palace. Erected on all sides of you are sleek, glossy black walls, piercing the sky like shards of broken glass. And within the palace walls, like teeth in the gaping mouth of a monster, are rows upon rows of idle Stormtroopers.

You stumble forward, Hux urging you along.

“Take her to her room,” he commands the closest pair of Stormtroopers. “And alert the prince that she’s arrived. He’s expecting her.”

Part Two here

[bxd-decisions]

◈ "THE DAY WILL COME WHEN YOU WON'T BE" ⸻ RYOMEN SUKUNA

◈ SYNOPSIS︙ Sukuna, a rebel, a man who just seeks fun at the end of the world, finally atones for his sins, in every conceivable way.

◈ PAIRING︙ Ryomen Sukuna x afab!reader

◈ GENRE︙ Angst, DARK CONTENT, zombie apocalypse AU

◈ WORD COUNT︙ 3k

◈ WARNINGS︙ Dark content, angst, suicide attempt, kidnapping, blood, murder, major character death.

◈ AUTHORS NOTE︙ THANK YOU @davidahlia for the help bro!! Also I'm reposting this. This is also an entry for this collab by @medusashima!! ❤️

REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK APPRECIATED

The door of that larger car would slide open, and a tranquilizer would be shot right at Sukuna's shoulder, making the man fall unconscious.

"The threat has been shot down."

Uttered a mysterious voice. And right in front of you, a well-armed man would come out, trying to arm lock you and pull you into the car. Another man would tie you up and put a tape on your mouth, tossing you to the back of the car. A larger man with glasses was looking forward, said glasses shining through the darkness.

"You will be okay.

Suddenly, you would feel a tranquilizer in your neck.

After a few hours, you would wake up in some sort of room, your hands chained, and the same man with large glasses standing in front of the door. Near the door was a large glass window, directly leading to the sight of Sukuna: bloodied and tied up to a chair. You couldn't remember a thing. But the moment you saw Sukuna all tied up, and hurt, you began crying, and you wanted to rush to his side, only to realize — you couldn't move.

"Hello there, Y/n. Worry not, your flesh remains untouched, and the monster has been contained. You are safe now."

"Sukuna!"

You screamed for him, worry and pain was visible in your tone as you just wanted to be near him. You hated seeing him like that. "What have you done?! Let us go now! He's not a monster you asshole!"

You kept on fidgeting with the chains and trying to pull your hands out of the grip. You wanted to kill this man for hurting Sukuna. And you wanted to be with Sukuna. You were scared the man wanted to kill him.

"Your view is biased thanks to the brainwashing he has caused in you. I worry for your wellbeing, and it sickens me to my stomach to even believe what he did to you."

You looked at the man like he was completely crazy. Sukuna didn't brainwash you. He saved your life, and he was good to you. Only good to you. He didn't deserve that.

"Please stop it! He didn't... Brainwash me... He... He saved my life"

The man shook his head, putting his hands in his pockets. He looked somewhat like a maniacal priest, but he was in fact a hunter. A skilled one. A man of law, one whose only goal was to keep humanity safe from monsters.

"You may be unaware, but Sukuna is the cause of countless atrocities. Forgive me for the chains, those were orders of an underling of mines. It was my mistake to keep him unsupervised. But granting how you are acting, I suppose it's best you remain chained."

The man turned to the glass, staring at the Sukuna that was very much hurt. "I am Giffard Gabriel- A Hunter and a Judge. And Sukuna's judgment is long due."

You weren't a liar. You would even admit how pathetic you were and how he just... Kept you around, and looked after you.

"He took me away from my camp... There were horrible old men there that always wanted to... Do horrible things to me... And... He took me away from that. He's been protecting me. Let him go"

You were... Begging him at this point. You wanted to be with him at least. "At least... Let me be with him"

Gabriel's very neutral tone began shifting. His eyebrows raised, like if his eyes under the shining glasses had widened. Slowly looking down, Gabriel took a deep breath, before uttering to himself. "Could a demon ever atone for his own sins...?"

Gabriel pulled out keys from his pockets, slowly approaching you without any evil intent. He unlocked the chains on your wrists, using his arms to hold you when you fell. He then let you get up, as he backed away and turned to face the door, opening it and heading to Sukuna, in the middle of the room.

"Men. Halt. This is a direct order from your leader. You are all prohibited from laying any more injuries on this man. Anyone that breaks this rule shall be personally executed by me."

A loud gasp coming from all the soldiers that were ready to fire at sukuna- but Gabriel was their leader. And they knew very well what would happen if they ignored those rules. So they simply backed away. Gabriel then got closer to Sukuna, and drew a cross with his own blood at his forehead. "In the name of God himself, I forgive you for your sins."

Sukuna knew better than to react to this- There were countless men ready to fire, and a blood-thirsty hunter there. Any wrong move would cause him to be dead. Gabriel pulled a long weapon, cutting down the ropes that tied Sukuna to the chair, and he then backed away.

Sukuna waited for Gabriel to leave the room so he finally got up from the chair, stumbling across the large room until he got to you — Where he attempted to hug you tightly, but only fell weak in your arms. "I'm... sorry…"

You immediately hugged him back tightly, you began crying your eyes out into him. He looked horrible and you were blaming yourself for it. And he was apologizing, he didn't need to. He did nothing wrong. You carefully pulled back from the hug, cupping his cheeks very gently.

"Please don't say sorry. Look at what they did to you"

You once again hugged him, you were however making sure to be extra gentle when you did so, before you carefully led him back to the chair so he could sit down.

"Don't move too much, but I'm here now" You sniffled as you tried to calm yourself down, as best as you could. You hated to see how the person you loved most being so... Hurt.

"Hey... stop..." Sukuna used the last of his strengths to push you away as you forced him on the chair. Sukuna shook his head and cleaned the blood from his mouth, before he just coughed up more blood.

"They're right. I'm a monster. I deserve all of this — And even more, because I dragged you into this."

He got up, like nothing had happened, and in a moment of anger, he simply broke down the chair with a single kick. He clenched his fists and began walking away, stopping after a few steps.

You shook your head, you didn't want him to do this. You needed him. Even though you flinched when he kicked the chair, you immediately went up to him. You were lost without him. You needed him, and you loved him.

"Don't do this to me. Don't. I need you Sukuna. Please don't leave me"

"Why do you want to stay at my side so much? A few hours ago, you looked like you hated me. It's safer if you stay that way. You saw what happens if you side with the monster." Sukuna scoffed. He didn't want to say that, he didn't mean to say that — He just wanted you to be safe. And nothing else.

"Look. ...I love you. But... you're risking yourself by just staying at my side. So the first right thing I'll ever do in my life is leave. I wish the best for you." Sukuna began walking, very slowly. He wanted to leave, but at the same time he didn't. His brain was... conflicted.

You went tense. Tense because he said... He loved you, but was quick to catch up to him walking away, and hugging him tightly from behind. But you made sure to avoid his wounds.

"Please don't. I love you too. I don't want you to leave me. I can't be alone again... Please" For the first time ever, you were genuinely begging someone to stay by your side.

Sukuna flinched when you hugged him. And in fact, a single tear fell from his eyes. He didn't want to leave you, but he didn't want to risk your safety either. So when you broke the hug, Sukuna quickly turned to face you and grabbed you by the legs and back — Holding you bridal-style, as he leaned forward and gave you a passionate kiss — a very long one. When he broke the kiss, he looked into your eyes. "Stay with me, okay?"

Completely ignoring his own injuries at that moment. He put you on the ground once again, and offered his hand for you to hold, walking through the room until you reached a large door — which slowly slid open for them, revealing their car out there. "Let's get out and go back. I need to rest."

A faint smile came to your face when he said he wanted you to stay. You immediately followed him when he put you down, making sure to have a firm grasp on his hand, like your life depended on it. When you got to the car, you ran to the driver's seat.

"I'm driving though" You insisted as you got in the car and started the car up. Before you started to drive, you wiped your tears away properly and took a deep breath.

"Not like I could drive anyways."

He said, heading himself to the backseat and lying there, completely tired and breathing heavily.

"Did you mean it?" You looked at him as you began driving, before looking back at the road ahead

"When you said you love me. Did you... Mean it?"

When you asked something, he didn't respond at first, since he didn't understand. But when you asked again, he coughed and answered properly. "More... than I ever meant... something in my... entire life."

Sukuna said, before coughing even more blood out. His injuries were pretty bad, but he would pull through. He smiled, sitting up and adjusting himself on the seat. "I wanted someone close... i didn't know I wanted a partner. Whaddya say?"

He was suddenly cut by another cough.

"Two lovers, ridin' free on our own rhythm... I never felt this before, so I can only assume it's love. Please, be at my side."

You smiled at his last statement, but it was a sad smile. Because you couldn't stay at his side even if you wanted to. You eyes were watering and there was a visible crack in your voice when you voiced the next words. "Yeah... I'll stay by your side as long as I'm alive"

"I won't let you die."

After another few minutes you stopped by his hideout, and as soon as the car stopped moving, you burst into tears, letting your forehead fall onto the steering wheel. "I'm sorry Sukuna." You felt the need to apologize for what you were about to tell him. But you hoped he would just... End up hating you.

Sukuna leaned closer, putting his hands on your shoulders as you stopped the car. He was somewhat worried about what you had to tell, so he tilted his head and lifted one of his eyebrows.

"Sorry for...? What happened?" Sukuna was confused and worried. After all he had gone through, he wondered what would be the next bad news.

You lifted your head to look at him, your eyes showed nothing but sadness. You knew you were gonna die, and he was probably gonna be so mad at you "Please don't freak out..."

You lifted your shirt slightly to show him a visible bite mark on your lower back, you immediately lowered your shirt, drying your tears. "Thank you... For everything"

A quiet chuckle escaped his lips as he saw the mark. But his expression was... one of almost panic. "That's... how it ends?"

Sukuna slowly walked out of the car, opening the storage on the back of said car and picking up a literal molotov, lighting it up and tossing it on the hideout, which began slowly burning.

"AFTER ALL I'VE BEEN THROUGH, I FINALLY FIND SOMEONE I WANT AT MY SIDE, AND SHE'S FATED TO DIE!?" Sukuna fell on his knees, laughing maniacally as he seemed to be crying. He was done with everything. Even after being forgiven, the one he wanted at his side would be gone. And gone for good. He slowly pulled a handgun from his pockets and pointed it at his head, but he let it fall. "Why didn't you tell me sooner...? WHY DID YOU LET ME LOVE YOU!?"

You got out of the car, your skin was already pale, you already looked like a corpse, and you had a fever that came straight from hell. You let tears run down your face, standing behind Sukuna. You were selfish. "I wanted to... Be loved... Before I die... I'm sorry. I know I was selfish"

You wiped your tears away again, trying to give him somewhat of a smile, like you wanted to show him that everything would be okay, but you knew it wasn't gonna be okay.

"Please can you... Stay by me... Until I die? I don't wanna be alone... I don't wanna stay... As one of those things. You need to put me down when I wake up again. It has to be you... Please" You were begging him. You didn't want to end up another lost soul roaming around. You wanted to be... Peaceful.

"You made me suffer... You made me go through worse than I already had faced..."

Sukuna punched the ground, actually creating a crack on it. But he slowly got up, watching as his hideout burned brighter and brighter. He turned to you, his watery, red eyes locking into yours.

"But I can't get myself to hate you..." Sukuna approached you and gave you a hug, digging his face on your neck and tightening his embrace as much as he could.

"I swore to be at your side until the end. Here I am." Sukuna broke the hug, only to kiss you passionately. His last kiss, his last goodbye. When the kiss was broken, he sat down on the ground, laying you on his lap. "I'm not gonna be alive enough to miss you. I can't get myself to live another day alone... not again."

You didn't cry anymore. Instead, you smiled at him, you didn't want him to die because of you. Your only wish would be to let him live. "Sukuna you can't die. You'll be fine. You're gonna live. Please just do that for me... Okay?"

You sat up slightly, only to lean against his chest, planting a kiss on his cheek. "Just stay alive please" You whispered to him, and you took one of his hands, holding onto it and resting your head again on his chest. Smiling again, just once more at him.

"I'm... Going to sleep now... Good night..."

You whispered to him and closed your eyes. You felt comfortable, peaceful. You looked peaceful too, like you had just... Fallen asleep. Your heart finally stopped beating, and your breath came to a halt, as you fell into long and eternal sleep.

Sukuna was strong not to cry over this. He held you in his arms, looking over your deceased body with nothing but anger and sadness. He was once again, alone. No one at his side, no one to love him, no one for him to love, and half of the survivors probably still hated him. He just wanted to die, at this point.

"Come back..." He pleaded. But he knew it was useless. Tears began running down his eyes as he left your body on the ground, getting up and grabbing a handgun. There were exactly... two bullets.

"I never thought I would do this..."

He pointed it steady at your head, ready to shoot the monster version of his lover. His heart ached every second he thought about having lost you. He had nothing else to live for. His hideout was burnt by himself, his lover was dead, and he would probably die of hunger, or because of his wounds.

"Wake up... let me get this done with…"

The whole night. You hadn't moved an inch the whole night. Dawn was starting to break, the sun shining on your translucent, pale skin. You looked beautiful, even when you were a corpse. You just looked like... A doll.

But you wouldn't be in that state for very long, as your fingers started to move, and a breathless gasp came from you.

And then your eyes opened.

They were now a blue kind of color, and the moment the undead you locked your eyes onto Sukuna, you growled, snarled and your arms lifted in an attempt to get to your very first meal. You were ... A monster.

Sukuna had a long while to think about his future without his lover. He was so burdened by this loss that he couldn't even sleep. So burdened that when you woke up as a monster, Sukuna missed the first shot. But he steadied his arm, focusing his sights and finally shot you in the head, as he fell to his knees. "I used all two bullets... what will be of m-"

Bang.

A loud shot coming from a sniper rifle, piercing Sukuna's head from the side, splattering blood on the ground and almost instantly killing the man. Whoever killed sukuna, planned this all along.

"Mahito, the man is dead. Definition of a corpse." A giggle as the assassin slid down the mountain, checking on both corpses to make sure... they were both dead.

"If the stupid priest won't do it, we will. Maybe leaving the girl to die back at the camp was a nice idea to begin with."

The man began laughing maniacally and loudly, as he gave a kick to your deceased body and pulled a shotgun- shooting your head open before doing the same with Sukuna. "Now let Romeo and Juliet rest- and rot as corpses."

TAGS: @tokyometronetwork @mxhitos @yuujispinkhair

[lucky-clover-gazette]

The Big Picture

Vio & Shadow-focused Four Swords Manga Adaptation | Rated G

Chapter 6: The Village of the Blue Maiden

Shadow Link hides behind the tavern, whose roof casts enough shade to protect him from the mid-afternoon light. He’s basically imperceptible like this, his own supernatural form combining with natural shadows, and as long as he stays quiet and still he should be able to—

BONK!

Shadow slams a hand over his mouth as Arrghus rolls past his boot. Suppressing a groan, he retraces the rock’s downward path to the third-floor window directly above him.

“What the hell?” Shadow whispers. “Where did you hide, in their bed?”

“Yep! Yep!”

Shadow pinches the bridge of his nose. “You could have just pretended to be a paperweight.”

Arrghus giggles. Shadow kicks it across the street.

Read the chapter on ao3 (ideal) or under the cut:

APRIL

Vio had kind of assumed that being the hero meant being welcome wherever he chose to go. Two whole weeks of travel later, and the Village of the Blue Maiden definitely disappoints.

It’s a nice-seeming town, at least, with its almost bohemian architecture and the smell of ocean salt in the air. But that niceness is almost entirely negated by its agitated residents, all lined up at their local law enforcement office to heckle whoever’s inside.

“Open up!” calls out a voice near the front of the line. “I’ve been waiting for three days!”

Before any of the heroes (probably Green) manages to speak up, a teenage girl throws herself in front of the crowd. “Stop! Stop fighting!”

One of the larger men elbows her aside. On instinct, Vio and the others come to her rescue, holding the crowd back with their matching shields.

“Get back in line!” Green chastises them.

The man pauses in confusion. “What? Who are you people?”

The four seem to agree simultaneously that he doesn’t deserve an answer. Instead, they all turn to the girl.

“All you all right?” asks Red, friendly as ever. The girl’s eyes widen at the sight of their faces, which briefly confuses Vio until he remembers their whole thing.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine…”

Green turns back to the crowd, self-righteous as ever. “You’re adults. Act like it.”

“Right,” Blue smirks. “Wouldn’t want to set a bad example for the kids.”

“Our children were stolen from us!” exclaims an older woman, who kind of reminds Vio of Arcy.

Wait—stolen?!

The crowd turns back to the law enforcement office, knocking so hard it might just break the door down. Hearing the pleas of concerned parents puts a lump in Vio’s throat, as he imagines his—Link’s—father’s current predicament.

Vio shakes his head. No point in thinking about that, not until they have the Force necessary to take on Shadow Link.

“I appreciate your help,” the girl says quietly, looking from one hero to another. Vio wonders if she can tell the difference. He certainly can, but that may just be from several weeks of travel… and maybe some wishful thinking, too. To tell the truth, Vio feels pretty uncomfortable with the idea of three other people sharing his exact appearance.

It is interesting, though—Shadow Link, from what Vio can remember, looks a lot less like Link Prime than any of the four. Purple hair and monstrous features aside, his face just… doesn’t quite match. It’s like a distorted attempt at a copy, uncanny but not exactly unpleasant.

Of course, the same cannot be said for the rest of Shadow Link, who as a whole is extremely unpleasant.

“It’s no problem,” Green tells the girl, who actually stands a few inches taller than the heroes. “We’re here to help. It’s what we do.”

Vio represses an eye roll at that. The statement is objectively true, but the phrasing still feels dreadfully cliche.

“Are you travelers, then?” the girl asks, shyly avoiding Green’s eyes.

“Yeah, sure,” says Blue. “And we’ve been camping for two weeks. You got any extra beds?”

Red gasps and elbows him in the gut. “Don’t be rude!”

The girl just giggles. “You’re all welcome to stay at my family’s inn for the night.” She motions to the three-story building behind them, which appears to have a tavern on its bottom floor.

“Thank you so much!” Red chirps, already heading for the door. The others move to follow, but Vio crosses his arms over his chest.

“What?” asks Green, his unusually sharp tone indicating annoyance. Honestly, Vio respects the poorly-concealed frustration far more than Green’s usual aura of saintlike patience.

“Did you not hear that lady?” he says, motioning towards the crowd. “There are missing children, and for some reason law enforcement aren’t helping. I’d like a rest too, but maybe we should look into that first?”

Red and Blue exchange a glance. Green sighs.

“You’re right, Vio. Good idea.” He turns to the girl, determined again. “Do you know anything about all this?”

She nods. “Everyone is talking about it, especially in the tavern. Do you think you could help?”

“I know we can help,” Green says reassuringly, and they all follow the girl inside.

─────────────────

The tavern is small but cozy, and Vio imagines that at a normal time it would be pleasant. It’s a rather rustic space, with wooden furniture and a crackling fireplace. Vio finds this environment far more charming than the cold marble of Hyrule Castle, and could easily picture himself reading by the fire.

But right now, nearly devoid of customers, the tavern is more unnerving than anything else. With most adults in the village in a state of panic, only a few patrons remain.

“We don’t have money,” Blue says bluntly as the girl approaches their table. Green elbows him.

“Oh, that’s all right,” she says, offering them a tray of mugs. “We’re thankful for your help. I’m Erune, by the way.”

Tucked away in their little corner of the tavern, undistracted by unruly crowds, the heroes finally manage to get a good look at their new friend. She’s pretty, Vio notices, and can’t be much older or younger than they are. The nearby fire flatters her her honey-blonde hair and amber eyes.

The others all blush—furiously in Blue’s case, awkwardly in Green’s case, and half-obscured in Red’s case. They stare at Erune as if their beating hearts threaten to break through their chests, and their minds have reverted to only the simplest of thoughts. Red doesn’t even have the mental facilities to sip the drink at his lips.

Erune tilts her head. “You know, it’s strange...”

“W-what?” asks Blue, like an idiot. It’s literally one word, and he still manages to be an idiot about it.

“You look exactly alike,” says Erune, looking from face to face to face to face. “Are you quadruplets?”

“Of course not!” all four heroes exclaim, each in a slightly different tone of voice. For Vio, the answer comes from a place of discomfort. For Green, it must come from the desire to keep their whole actually-the-legendary-hero-in-four-pieces thing under wraps. For Blue it’s likely a welcome excuse to act outraged, and Red probably just wants to feel like he’s a part of things by agreeing.

“We’re not even related,” elaborates Green, further determined to deny any notions of abnormality. Vio understands that urge perfectly, although he begins to rethink his assumptions about the others’ motivations.

“Yeah, we’re honestly really different from each other,” Blue agrees, ironically.

Red nods vigorously. “That’s so true! I’m really good at cooking, for example, and these guys… are not.”

Erune giggles, even though nobody told a joke. Red, Blue, and Green appear to be very pleased by this.

It confuses Vio, the desperation the others have on full display. They wouldn’t be acting like this if some random knight had asked—but then again, most castle knights are male. Erune, at least to Vio’s knowledge, is very much not male.

He tries to compare her to another young woman he knows, Princess Zelda. Both are pretty, or at least the definition of pretty that most people seem to agree upon. From what Vio can surmise, there are certain attributes that make a girl attractive, almost like a checklist. Hair, eyes, voice, whatever. And every girl checks at least some of those boxes, and that’s how men choose who they want to date and marry and have babies with.

Or something. To Vio, it all sounds rather dreadful, but that’s probably because he’s only sixteen, and he’s technically only been himself for like two weeks.

It’s a flawed system of evaluation, one that completely ignores everything going on in a person’s mind and heart. But it’s also the only objective logical system Vio can intuit from the information at his disposal. Based on Link Prime’s memories, the books Vio has read as reference, and impossible-to-ignore societal norms, Erune is a pretty girl. And if Vio was Link Prime or a male character in a book, her beauty would be the first thing he’d notice. However briefly, he’d find himself overtaken by it.

He would… probably be thinking a lot less right now, in general.

“What about you?” asks Blue, putting his chin in his hand. “Do you have siblings?”

Erune smiles at his interest. “Nope, just me and my parents!”

“So your mother and father own this place,” says Green, motioning to the tavern. “It’s very nice.”

“Do you have a favorite drink?” Red asks, before Erune can even answer the previous question. “Do you enjoy living in this village? I’ve always wanted to live near a beach, it’s—”

“Tell us about the missing children,” Vio interrupts, abrupt and impersonal. Blue glares at him as if to say, ��way to kill the mood.’

“Oh!” exclaims Erune. “Sure, I can tell you what I know?” It’s a statement, but it comes out like a question.

“Go ahead.”

“Ten days ago a big storm hit,” Erune begins, taking a seat at the table. “When it passed, eighteen children were gone.”

“Eighteen?!” Red exclaims, eyes wide. “That’s so many children!”

Erune nods grimly. “All of them, actually. This isn’t a big village.”

“By children,” Vio says, “do you mean anyone under eighteen years old?”

“Clearly she doesn’t, or she’d be gone too,” Blue scoffs.

“I didn’t want to assume—”

“All the disappeared kids are under the age of fourteen,” Erune clarifies, ignoring the way Blue is totally sabotaging Vio’s interrogation. “I’m sixteen.”

“So are we!” chirps Red, for some reason.

“And the storm,” Vio continues, “can you describe it? Thunder, lightning, big waves?”

Erune seems to shudder at the memory. “It was really dark. The clouds were so thick, it’s like they completely blocked the sun. And the wind—”

“The wind,” Vio repeats. “It was strong?”

“Very strong.”

Vio hums. “Well, at least it makes sense.”

The others look confused, out of their depths, and for a second Vio is genuinely pleased by his own display of superior intelligence.

“Uh, Vio?” Red finally asks. “What makes sense, how?”

“It’s the Wind Mage,” Green realizes, just as Vio opens his mouth. “We freed him, what, about ten days ago? Two weeks?”

Vio tries not to feel annoyed that Green beat him to his own conclusion. “Obviously,” he mutters.

Blue turns to Erune, blunt as ever. “Anyone mention seeing a giant flying eyeball lately?”

“No one knows anything,” she sighs. “They’ve all been busy asking for help.”

“I noticed that,” says Vio. “You have… law enforcement here?”

“Knights, stationed on behalf of the crown. They don’t typically have much to do, but they always keep their doors open just in case.”

“Until two weeks ago,” Vio guesses.

“They’ve locked up the place. No one can get in, and no one’s left.”

Vio recalls what had happened to the Hyrule Castle knights—they’d been corrupted, possessed, turned into Shadow Link’s toys. Very quickly, he begins to understand.

“There’s nobody in there,” he tells Erune.

“Inside the building?”

“Inside their armor.”

Erune gasps and covers her mouth.

“Take it easy,” Green warns Vio. “She’s helping us.”

Tears well up in Erune’s eyes. “So we’re… we’re alone? No one is going to save us?”

“No, we are,” Vio says, impatient. “I just need to understand what’s going on. Is there anything else you’ve seen, or heard, that could possibly relate to the missing kids?”

The young woman hesitates, suddenly avoiding eye contact.

“Erune,” Green says softly, reaching for her hand. “You can tell us. I promise you, nothing is too strange for us to believe.”

“Green’s right!” chirps Red. “A magic sword split us into four people!”

Vio puts his face in his hands. So much for keeping things under wraps.

Surprisingly, the insane declaration seems to ease Erune’s anxiety. “In the square,” she says, “I saw a shadow that looked like one of the missing children.”

“A g-ghost?” asks Red.

A shadow, dipshit, Vio wants to say. You know, like the one who send all of Hyrule’s knights to the Dark World?

Now that Erune has started talking, she can’t seem to stop. “The people outside think I know something more, but I don’t. Every day they get angrier. This used to be a quiet village, but—”

“Don’t worry!” Red interrupts with a warm smile. Vio has to hand it to him, he has knack for dealing with people’s emotions—probably because he has so many of his own. “With Link on the case, your problem is as good as solved!”

Vio smiles and nods along, but something about the phrase discomforts him. Link isn’t here at all—it’s Vio, Green, Red, and Blue solving the problem.

“Link?!” Erune gasps, grabbing the sleeve of a passing woman. “He’s a knight from the castle!”

The woman’s jaw drops. “A knight, finally!”

Erune leans in closer, addressing the heroes. “So… do you guys know him, then? When will he arrive?”

The four, including Vio, can only laugh.

“No, no, no—”

“We just told you—”

“We are Link,” Green says, his expression shifting to a reassuring smile. “The Wind Mage Vaati has cursed this land, that’s why you experienced such a strange storm. And his servant, a shadow version of Link, must be responsible for the missing children.”

“Does that mean you know how to stop him?” asks Erune, not even bothering to hear an answer. “I’m so glad heroes have come, all the way from the castle!”

Vio’s expression sours. He would have liked to explain his own deductions himself.

“Please,” the young woman continues, clasping her hands as if in prayer. She addresses Green directly, which Vio supposes makes sense. “Save the village’s children!”

“Of course we will,” says Green. Blue nods along eagerly.

“Stay here tonight,” Erune tells them all. “You must be tired after your journey.”

Red grins. “Thank you, ma’am!”

─────────────────

Red clutches a pillow, eyes sparkling, as the heroes make themselves comfortable for the evening. “Erune is sooooo cute!”

Blue crosses over to Red’s bed and pulls on his pointed ear. “Focus on the job, idiot.”

“Ow!” exclaims Red. “I’m just saying, is all! Don’t you think she’s pretty? And nice?”

Blue seems to fluster at that, blush spreading onto his face. “I mean, yeah, of course she is, but—”

“I feel kind of bad, though,” Red sighs. “When I was Link, it’s like I only had eyes for Princess Zelda. Like, yes, she was pretty and nice and a good person and everything, but it was more than that. Can’t you remember how we felt about her?”

Vio glances over the top of his journal, surprised and somewhat frustrated by the genuine fondness on Red’s face. He scribbles onto the page just a little harder than before.

“I remember,” admits Blue, settling back down in his own bed. “I—Link—was always so happy to see her. Nervous too, it was a weird combination. It’s like his brain got all twisted about it.”

“Yeah, well, she was interesting company,” says Vio, pointedly ignoring the latter part of Blue’s statement. “And convenient. Link didn’t have many options for friends, it was basically her or the knights.”

Blue raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t call the way Link felt about her just ‘friendship.’”

“Me neither,” agrees Red, thoughtfully. “I don’t think Link wanted to spend time with the other knights in the same way he wanted to spend time with the princess. It’s just different, when it’s a boy and a girl, I guess.”

“I see,” says Vio, holding his pen so hard against the paper that ink pools beneath its tip.

Blue shrugs, leaning against the headboard of his bed. “It’s only natural that he felt that way.”

Red perks up at the sentiment. “And it’s only natural that we feel the way we feel now! I’m sure Zelda wouldn’t be hurt if she knew I called Erune cute.”

“Don’t you think there would be more pressing matters on her mind,” Vio asks between gritted teeth, “like being kidnapped by Shadow Link, or her entire kingdom falling apart, or her boyfriend being dead?”

“Link isn’t dead,” Red says quietly. “We’re Link.”

“I’m nobody’s boyfriend,” snaps Vio. “And neither are you two idiots.”

Blue and Red avoid his gaze, ashamed. Good, Vio thinks. This conversation is entirely unnecessary.

He looks back down at his journal, trying to ignore the toxic sensation roiling in the pit of his stomach. “Vaati must be behind this, somehow. And Shadow Link.”

Blue raises his sword and swirls it around, as if testing the air for Evil. “In the past, Vaati took maidens, right?”

Vio hums affirmatively.

“Then Erune is in danger too!” exclaims Red. “Uh… what’s with you, Blue?”

He now holds the sword in a battle-ready position, despite the total lack of danger in the room. “I’ve got a gut feeling we’re in danger.”

“We’re always in danger,” Vio snarks.

“There’s no one here but us,” adds Red, much more productively.

“Yeah,” Blue says, pulling back his sheets. “You’re probably ri—hey, why is there a rock in my bed?”

He lifts it so the others can see—a very boring brown stone, the approximate size of a paperweight.

“Local customs?” Red guesses, tilting his head.

“Just get rid of it,” mutters Vio.

Blue throws it out of the third-floor window.

“Where’s Green?” he asks, looking outside.

Vio’s eyes don’t even leave the page. He was wondering how long it’d take for them to notice. “He went out to get some air.”

Blue scowls. “Oh no, he didn’t. He’s talking with Erune on the porch!”

“Aw, but I wanted to talk to her too!” whines Red.

Vio rolls his eyes. “Then go talk to her. And on the off-chance she says anything actually useful, let me know.”

“You don’t have to be so mean,” Red tells Vio. “She’s nice. Why can you be nice?”

Vio’s mouth goes dry. His scowl deepens. His pen stops moving.

“You stay here, then,” Red sighs, grabbing his Four Sword. “Blue and I will go check it out.”

Vio hums, still paralyzed. Why is his heart beating so fast? Why is it suddenly difficult to breathe?

He stays completely still until the others leave, unsure how to proceed in these conditions. Once they’re gone, he finds himself turning to a new page in his journal.

Entry: Day 14 What the hell is my problem?

─────────────────

Shadow Link hides behind the tavern, whose roof casts enough shade to protect him from the mid-afternoon light. He’s basically imperceptible like this, his own supernatural form combining with natural shadows, and as long as he stays quiet and still he should be able to—

BONK!

Shadow slams a hand over his mouth as Arrghus rolls past his boot. Suppressing a groan, he retraces the rock’s downward path to the third-floor window directly above him.

“What the hell?” Shadow whispers. “Where did you hide, in their bed?”

“Yep! Yep!”

Shadow pinches the bridge of his nose. “You could have just pretended to be a paperweight.”

Arrghus giggles. Shadow kicks it across the street.

Delegating work like this is a pain. Shadow knows that Ganon warned him to stay out of the light, because it can hurt him and the heroes will use it against him, but there must be something else he can do. He at least deserves more capable monsters to do his bidding, like dragons or hinoxes or sharks or even raccoons. He’d prefer anything, really, over a pet rock that giggles.

“Erune, it’s dangerous for you to be out here tonight.”

Shadow perks up at the unmistakable sound of a hero’s voice—the green one, he’s pretty sure, with that righteous affect and calm demeanor. Peering over the side of the building, he confirms his suspicions. Green approaches the village girl who gave the four a place to stay, seemingly alone.

“Link,” she says, voice tiny and almost lost. ”I was just saying goodbye to Rosie.”

Shadow narrows his eyes at the object in her hands: a porcelain doll, wearing elaborate handmade clothes. It reminds him of his own toys, in a way—pointless ordinary artifacts, elevated by a personal touch. He would never admit this to Vaati or Ganon, but he has grown slightly attached. The unarmored knights’ spirits wandering the fields of the Dark World are almost so pathetic that they’re endearing, like tiny animals caught out in the rain. And as for the children of this village, they’re safer preserved the Dark World than anyone living in the world of light. Lord Ganon has no reason to harm any of his own subjects.

“I’m going to give her away tomorrow,” Erune says. She stares down at the doll, wearing a fond smile eerily similar to the one on its painted face. “I’m a little sad, but I’m too old to play with dolls.”

The green hero takes a seat beside her. “What makes you think that?”

Erune frowns. “Something one of your friends said. The purple one.”

Green shakes his head, almost like an exasperated parent. “Don’t let Vio get to you. He’s just bitter because he’s made from the least heroic parts of Link. Or that’s my theory, anyway.”

Shadow raises an eyebrow. He’d always viewed the purple Link as quiet and stern, but not outright unheroic. Isn’t that supposed to be his thing?

“It’s not just what your friend said,” Erune continues, sadly stroking the doll’s hair. “I still don’t think I should keep Rosie around.”

Green’s frown deepens. “But she’s important to you.”

“She is a thing,” Erune says, now holding Rosie slightly away from herself. “An object.”

“Okay, but—”

“I was a lonely child, you know. She made good company back then.” Erune takes a deep breath, speaking more to the doll than to Green. “But I’m growing up now. I’m more responsible for myself and the people around me, including the children of this town. I fear that I’ve let them down. I think it’s about time I stop playing altogether, and pay attention to the things and people who really matter.”

There’s a strange feeling in Shadow’s chest. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like what this girl is saying, and feels almost betrayed given his previous observations. She may no longer be lonely and in need of her toy, but Shadow—

Shadow decides that he is angry. That feeling, he can work with.

Green says something vaguely supportive and Erune returns his smile. They both blush.

Shadow clenches his fist.

“Hey, asshole!” Blue bursts onto the porch and puts Green into a headlock. “We work as a team, remember?”

“Sorry!” cries Green as he’s pulled back inside. “Blue, can you get off my—”

The front door slams shut and Erune is left alone. Well, Shadow thinks, to her knowledge anyway.

“Oh, Rosie,” the young woman tells her doll. “I know those four heroes are here to help, but I don’t want to just stand by while they do all the hard work.”

Arrghus returns to Shadow, rubbing up against his boot. “Give me directions, Master!” it chirps eagerly. “Give! Give!”

“Shut up,” Shadow says between gritted teeth, shaking the rock off of his leg. “You’re useless and weak and I hate you. Show me some real power, and I’ll consider giving you directions. Hell, kill the heroes yourself and Ganon will probably give you my job.”

Arrghus quiets at that. Shadow doesn’t feel any better.

He redirects his attention to Erune. She stares down at the doll with such conflicted fondness that it makes Shadow’s heart ache. Not for that silly little Hylian or her toy, but for… something else.

It’s the late afternoon. Shadow’s magic isn’t at its peak, but it could still take him between the dark and light worlds. And as for anyone he’d bring along, like those village children or the castle knights, they’d find themselves transformed at any time of day. Light-dwellers can’t just travel from one world to the other without some kind of corruption occurring. As long as the presence of natural light distinguishes this world from the other, the two can never truly overlap—and pathetic creatures like Arrghus and Shadow will never reach their full potential.

Shadow still has quite a few tricks up his sleeves, though. He leaves Arrghus in the dust as he goes briefly non-corporeal, traveling through dark shadows until he meets his mark. He occupies the empty husk of Rosie the porcelain doll, shaking in Erune’s hands like he/she/it’s about to explode.

“Let’s play,” he hisses, watching gleefully as Erune’s eyes widen in horror. “I know a special place, where only lonely children can go… and play forever!”

He drowns her in darkness, ripping her from one world and forcing her into the other. Erune barely puts up a fight, to Shadow’s satisfaction. She must appreciate the escape from her responsibilities. Deep down, she is no better than any other lonely child. And here, in the Dark World, Shadow must admit—she makes a rather charming addition to his collection.

Shadow leaves her in the Dark World and returns to the world of light. He occupies his own body again, the only form that requires no effort to maintain. Rosie the doll lays abandoned on the porch, and Arrghus is nowhere to be seen.

The late afternoon is quiet now, in Erune’s absence.

And something feels… off.

Shadow looks at Rosie, and the off-ness only increases. It’s nothing to do with the doll itself, he realizes—it’s the shadow behind the doll, growing unusually sharp in real time. His eyes dart up to the sky, which has grown unusually dark for this time of day. Normally he’d associate this sudden shift with a heavy passing cloud, but the sky is completely clear.

His gaze returns to the porch. The porch, and the nearby trees whose leaves cast shadows onto the wood. Very, very unusual shadows—small crescents of darkness and light, rippling like ocean waves.

Shadow looks back up just in time. He watches, stunned, as the moon eclipses the sun and the world is plunged into total darkness.

[miniapplepies]

The only thing that knows your bleeding is your bandage.

The bus ride home from school had always been miserable, especially in the summer heat. Strands of hair clung to my forehead with sweat, and my whole body swayed back and forth in the sticky plastic leather seat. Nearly every window was open, apart from the one directly above me. I never bothered opening my window because I hated how my long hair flicked around when it was. It always seemed to either get stuck in my mouth or whip me in the face so hard I was afraid it left marks. The other students were loud, always having something incredibly important to yell at each other about. That part always confused me because I rarely felt the need to talk, much less yell. 

However, as time passed, fewer students remained on the bus. First, the bus would stop with a hiss and shudder, and the driver would reach over and pull open the door. The students would jump up before the bus stopped, always being met by a shout from the driver. They left with short, often rude, goodbyes to their less fortunate friends whose stops were further along the route. I never had anyone sit with me, at least not willingly, but I preferred it that way. As the chaos in the air stilled and the sun began shining golden light through the windows, I felt a sense of calm unlike anything else I had felt. I hated school, every second of it. But in those moments, those seemingly insignificant blips of time, I felt peace. It was usually the only time I'd feel that way. Well, that is until I got home. 

I don't even remember how old I was when it happened. I was definitely in middle school, but I've lost almost every other detail. As soon as I stepped inside, I could feel it in the air. Mom and Dad had fought again, and this time, it was bad. The sound of the front door opening caused my parents to rise out of their chairs in the living room and meet my gaze. Mom had been crying; that was clear. Concealer was caked under her eyes, and her mascara was laid on thick. It was all a poor attempt at hiding just how upset she was. However, Dad stood tall, an unreadable wall that loomed over me. His jaw was clenched, whether out of nervousness or anger, I'll never know. 

"Hi, honey," My mom finally said, breaking the silence. "How was school? Did you learn anything?" They already knew the answer when I said it.

"It was fine." If I had learned something that day, I would have forgotten it by the time I left class.

"That's great. Why don't you take a seat, your father and I have something to talk to you about." Mom explained, "You're not in trouble." She must've seen me tense up at her words because she gave me a gentle smile that was supposed to make me feel more at ease. It didn't. I did as I was told and sat on the couch directly across from them. They sat on the loveseat, leaving about a foot of space between them.

"You know your mother and I love you very much, right?" My dad spoke with a tone that made me think there was a gun pointed at his head.

"Sure, I do." I nodded, confused. 

"And you know that we would never want to hurt you?" He asked. Then I braced myself because no one ever says that unless they're about to hurt you. 

"Of course," I answered, my voice almost a whisper. My dad sighed, placed his elbows on his knees, and interlocked his fingers in a tight ball. Mom's lips quivered, and she reached with a shaky hand to move a strand of hair from her face. 

"Your mother and I—" Dad started, but I stopped listening after the first few words. I knew what was happening; truthfully, I saw it coming. The screaming, the slammed doors, the tension in the air—all of it had been pointing to this: My parents didn't love each other anymore. They didn't even like each other. That day, something inside me broke so violently that I was shocked my parents didn't hear it. I didn't cry. I didn't sob or wail. My pain was horribly discreet and almost as silent as bleeding from an unstitched wound. The problem with a pain like that is that other than you, the only thing that knows you're bleeding is the bandage soaking it all up. But I didn't have a bandage then and wouldn't get one for years. 

"Are you alright?" My mother's voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I looked up at her. If I had spoken, I knew tears would follow, so I answered her with a slight nod and a straight face. The stillness in the air was so thick I could barely breathe, and their piercing stares felt like sharp blades. My eyes moved back and forth between them, and at that moment, they seemed like complete strangers to me. 

“Uhm,” I stuttered, desperately wanting to fill the air with some type of sound. I couldn't help but fidget with the zipper on my backpack, sliding it back and forth as I searched for the right words. “What happens now?” 

It only got worse. The following months passed in a whirlwind of cardboard boxes, anger, and court dates. I found myself in countless meetings with the lawyers, each one drilling me with the same questions over and over. It didn’t matter how young I was, not anymore. I sat in the courthouse the same way everyone else did, and that was enough for them. 

I remember my shoes' tapping sounds as I entered the courtroom. The first person I laid eyes on was my dad, and his expression would have convinced you that I was being accused of murder. He had no idea I would show up, and I could sense his eyes on me the whole time. I could tell by the look on his face that he was not just angry but absolutely furious. Was he angry at me? Did he know how scared I was? Could he see how badly I wanted to go home?

My heart sank when the judge asked me who I wanted to live with. It was an impossible question. How could I choose between my parents when I loved them both so much? It hit me then how permanent this was. This wasn't something I could simply wake up from like a nightmare or recover from like a sickness. They wouldn’t ever love each other again, no matter how badly I wanted them to. Then, I remembered something my grandmother had told me years before. She always said that I had my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile; on my face, they were still together. In a way, they would always love each other because I knew they’d always love me.

[indigochromatic]

🌙 How does your system handle dreams?

That's an interesting question! Our dreams are kind of Weird (although tbh, whose aren't). It's almost always me fronting while dreaming, and even when S fronts it's nearly always (except for a few memorable cases) like he's "switched in", and still has to use my/our IRL body in the dream--and also, we don't seem to be able to do co-con, somehow? Like, we can switch, but it's all 'backdoor switches', with maybe a second or two of overlap where we can sense/feel each other and then it's back to dream chaos alone. Really wish we could figure that one out, it kinda sucks tbh. We also used to have way more problems with "lucid, but not in the fun way" dreams, where I'd be awake in the dream...but without the stereotypical lucid-dreaming-omipotence thing: it's like being a video game character with no powers and no items trying to navigate an ever-shifting, chaotic (and sometimes not-super-friendly) landscape. - tw unreality/derealization below - Also I'd dream about waking up, and think I'd woken up until something went Weird (for example, realizing that the view outside my window is slightly the wrong angle, or changed since I last looked at it)...then try to wake up, dream about waking up again, etc, for multiple loops/in a row until finally actually being able to wake up. Not super fun, although more frustrating/sad/isolating-feeling than horrific. (The nightmares can definitely get horrific, but those feel more like rapid-onset panic attacks while asleep that cause the dream landscape to shift abruptly or something like that, idk) - end tw unreality/derealization - Some of the more negative dream stuff has gotten better on average, after an odd, multi-day, back-of-headspace episode that I can only describe as "S picked a fight with some part of our subconscious and won", so that's been helpful. I used to be able to "fix" my nightmares by just shifting into dragon shape at-will, but for some reason that seems to be working less well in the past couple of years. I've also had some luck with talking to dream NPCs politely and asking if I could wake up.

Another kind of neat/odd thing I've noticed is that sometimes (I only really notice during lucid episodes, so idk if happens the rest of the time as well or not), the dream's "visual channel" and "audio channel" will be...disconnected, basically? Like, there will be the usual chaos-brain dream landscape going on, with it's 1-3 seconds of stability before shifting, and then a simultaneous mostly entirely unrelated radio-chatter audio track going on "in my head" (like, it's not coming from the dream, it's in my head while I'm dreaming), like hypnogogic auditory hallucinations carrying on into the dream? Feels distinct from system communication, because even though there's clear words and different voices, there's...like, no feeling of substance behind them, and you can't really converse with them. It doesn't feel like a person, it feels like I'm hearing the background-radiation static noise thoughts of my brain translated directly into pseudo-auditory information. We don't get hallucinations (afaik) while awake, so that's interesting!

We've also had one especially long-and-weird lucid dream episode that involved sort of being given a "tour" of a bunch of visual metaphors of brain functions, with multiple rounds of me "floating back up to the surface" of waking and then dipping back down--and during those kinda-awake windows, I could talk to S, who said it felt like he could "see a little into the dream over your shoulder", as though I was standing in a doorway and he was looking past me at what was beyond it--but he couldn't follow me into it, for some reason (we still don't know why). Also I can daydream in dreams. Like, I can be asleep and in a dream, trying to imagine a thing (usually carrying on whatever thread I was following before falling asleep), which stays internal to my head even within the plane of the dream, so I'm like, trying to find a chill spot in-dream to sit and continue the daydream thoughts, but occasionally get interrupted by weird dream stuff and have to look around for a different chill spot. I've tried seeing if I can impose the daydream-visualizations onto the dream landscapes, the way lucid dreams are "supposed" to work (and how they used to work more frequently for me when I was younger), and for some reason they just sort of stay in the "daydream channel" even while dreaming. It's sort of hilariously many layers of meta, and I have no idea why our brain apparently does this currently, maybe it'll change again someday.