#why did i say blood. i meant i think feet* have more of those thin blood vessels

[mishkakagehishka]

I have a really bad case of conflating fat with how much blood is stored in a certain part of the body, so every single time my foot, which doesn't store much fat, as feet tend not to, bleeds, i get shocked when blood is absolutely pouring out of it. Like girl where are you even coming from.

[just-venti-ng]

Hello writer!! I saw that you were taking requests for good memories and bad memories of (word). So forgive me because I am feeling angsty but can I get both a good memory and a bad memory for the word secret/secrets? I will leave it to you to make me cry and laugh at the same time 👌☺️ (Just kidding unless you want to 👀). I hope you have a wonderful day and that life treats you well! See ya around 👋!!!

(ah, I missed you, anon! I'm not sure if you'll ever see this since it's been so long, but if you do, I hope you enjoy! It's kind of a long one!)

"It will be our little secret, then."

That's what the bard had said once upon a time under the shade of a stout oak with a finger to his lips, his feet dipped in the water of a nearby pond where he'd often go to leisurely strum his lyre.

It was the boy's favorite spot—the only place he really felt he could escape from it all in this petite little nation, sealed off by the wind.

Every smile he graced his people with was honest; genuine. And yet only here where the fireflies dance and the water reverberates his songs right back at him did his joy truly glimmer.

To think the little spirit was the boy's only witness.

"And once the revolution has ceased and we're all free to go where we've always pleased, we'll share with them this gift at a most extravagant feast!"

****

Barbatos stares at the feather cupped within his newfound hands, its edges appearing to have been tipped in blood.

How is he meant to show this to them all when the one who wished to see it most is—

"Dead," says a rather gruff voice tinged with disbelief. "You're supposed to be dead."

Barbatos twists around slowly, careful not to lose his balance. It is an odd thing, standing on your own two feet when all you've ever known is how to float.

"Sir Ragnvindr!" He calls cheerfully, putting his arms behind his back and giving a clumsy little bow. "How pleasant to make your acquaintance once more!"

"Inconceivable..." the redhead—Sir Ragnvindr—mutters, his voice a tad thin as it splinters at the ends with barely-contained anger and grief. "Just who are you, anyway?"

"Why, I'm your trusty bard and friend—"

But right as Barbatos takes a necessary breath in order to say his bard's name, he's unkindly interrupted.

"Don't," Sir Ragnvindr snarls. "Don't... say his name." He pauses, his mouth drawn up into a tight frown before he finds the will to speak with the same conviction once more. "I don't know who or what you are, but you certainly aren't him."

Barbatos feels his insides shrivel as those words echo within this new, hollow vessel of his, cutting deep into the skin he's only just donned. He hasn't had time to let it thicken against pointed phrases like this.

I don't know who or what you are...

But as an elemental being born from a single shred of the thousand winds, he supposes he's never needed such a thing as skin before. He certainly can't allow it to hinder him now, even if the melody has been harshly ripped from the song that is his life and left it sounding empty. He as the harmony must rewrite that melody and carry on.

"And why can't I be him?" He asks somewhat coyly, taking an experimental step forward.

"Because he—" At last, Sir Ragnvindr's voice wavers. Wavers and cracks under the weight of watching the most stubborn boy he ever had the displeasure of meeting take his final breath.

"You died," he corrects with a shuddering breath. "I watched it happen with my own two eyes. I etched your final words into my memory, into my heart itself, but I—"

The man clutches at his chest as if to say it should've been me.

"I can't see the world on your behalf," he finishes, the grip on his shirt tightening as if trying to wrench his own heart out of his chest. "N-not... not when you were so young."

You and I both, the spirit silently agrees. You and I both.

With that, Sir Ragnvindr glances around, clearly searching for something familiar. "Wh-where...?" He stutters out, looking around more rapidly by the second. "If you're really him, where is that bumbling pixie that always followed you around, huh?"

First of all, rude.

Second of all...

To think the spirit was that integral to the bard's life that its absence makes those who knew said bard feel incomplete...

It's sweet in the saltiest way, like seawater might taste to a man dying of thirst.

But if that man has never known the difference...

"That spirit," Barbatos starts slowly with a gentle yet sorrowful smile. "Gave its very life so that I might live on. Its power combined with that of the fallen god was enough to resurrect me."

And if Sir Ragnvindr was reluctant for even a moment, it all dissipates into a cloud of fluff whenever Barbatos reveals the feather hidden behind his back.

"It gave me this in its final moments—a surprise it brought for us all whenever we achieved victory at last."

Sir Ragnvindr's face crumples after that as he looks to the clear blue sky with shining red eyes. He closes the distance between them as he pulls the bard into a hug, not knowing it was all a lie from the start.

And the feather slips through Venti's fingers, flying off with the wind like a secret better left untold.

[midnightprelude]

Major Arcana: Star

Written by @oftachancer and I for the @30daysofdorian event!

Masterpost | First | Previous | Next

CW: conversion therapy (aftermath); successful blood magic ritual; recovering from trauma; adopted children

He held Rilienus for hours, massaging circles into his muscles. Too thin. Too tense. Too many still healing cuts along his arms, his palms, where Rilienus had bled himself to keep Dorian asleep and healthy.

They had meant to honeymoon in Rivain, he remembered, not cling to each other at Rilienus’ childhood home, fighting and exhausted. 

Dorian was broken, he knew, and not the man Rilienus remembered. He failed him, even as he held him, trying to smooth away the sorrow etched in Rilienus’ expression. The thought made him ache, even as the steady rhythm of Rilienus’ breaths soothed him.

He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t try to. He felt the tug of Rilienus’ magic as the last of it fell away, like sheets slipping off the side of the bed, some lingering spell that-

Bruises bloomed across the side of Rilienus’ face, green at his cheek, blotched around his eye. A healing lip. An impact point.

Rilienus held him tightly, even in sleep, gripping Dorian’s tunic as if he might slip away.

“I’d heard you were awake.” Marius Maecilia filled the frame of the doorway, the stole of his Senate robes thrown over his shoulder, the black robes folded over his arm. He left both over the back of an arm chair as he crossed into the dim room, his cool gaze lingering on his son’s healing bruises before he met Dorian’s eyes. Studied him. Searching… and then he nodded slightly to himself, resting a hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, my boy.”

“Did I…” he wondered quietly.

“I’ll say this,” Marius squeezed his arm before drawing his hand back. “I pity your enemies. We don’t happen to know for a surety who those are as yet, do we?”

“He does,” Dorian murmured, his fingers tracing lazy circles through the ringlets of Rilienus’ curls. “He thinks he does. I can’t yet recall. Some of my memories are hidden from me.”

Marius sighed deeply. “…When you know, know that we are with you.”

Dorian ducked his head, exhaling sharply. “I’ve brought sorrow into your household,” he whispered, focusing on the marks he’d left on Rilienus’ skin. Hidden by a charm that had fallen when Rilienus’ power had finally worn down. To keep the knowledge from Dorian, because he knew it would upset him. “I hope never to do so again.”

“A hope more easily reached as soon as we can take action against those that put us in this position. We all know that none of the fault of this lies at your feet.” Marius poured a cup of water from the carafe by the bed and held it out. “And thankfully the twins are too young to wonder.” He frowned. “…you should rest and focus on healing.”

“I’ve been sleeping for three weeks.” Dorian shrugged, frowning, accepting the water and drinking it in a couple of gulps. “I couldn’t even if I wished to.”

“So has he,” Marius nodded to Rilienus. “For most of that. Take time. Until we know for sure that- It is best if you stay inside. Build your strength.”

“And his,” Dorian agreed softly. “Has he told you of his suspicions?”

Marius lifted a brow and the expression was so strikingly Rilienus’. “He has. He gave very strict instructions that we weren’t to discuss it with you. I hope you can understand why.”

“I… am not as resilient as I’ve been in the past.” Dorian frowned. “Have you sent word to my family? Are they here as well?”

“…no.” Marius folded his hands on his knee, his gaze carefully traveling over the wardstones, the sending pool, the piles of scrolls on the coffee table. “…would you like for me to make contact with them on your behalf?”

“Would you not want to know, if it were Rilienus?”

Marius studied the empty fireplace as the sky through the window blackened from a deep orange. “I would want to know,” he said slowly, “if it were you. You are as much my son as he is, papers or no.”

Dorian smiled, dipping his chin. “That’s kind of you to say. I do hope he still wishes to sign them.”

“I did write to Gereon. I’ve yet to hear back. He traveled south, wouldn’t say where. Some project.” 

“…project.” Dorian frowned. “I’m surprised Felix isn’t with him.”

“And leave you alone to plan the big day? I can’t imagine your friend wandering away from your wedding day, can you? Speaking of which, I did see Magister Tilani today. I’m certain she would like to see you if and when you’re up for it.”

“Soon. Yes. Soon.” Dorian nodded, peering down at Rilienus. “Perhaps when the circles under his eyes soften again.”

Marius uttered a quiet ‘hmm’ along with a nod as Rilienus stirred under Dorian’s fingers. 

“Pater?”

“Just checking in to see how things are going.”

Rilienus nodded sleepily, his cheek resting on Dorian’s shoulder. “Better.”

“Yes. Good.” 

“There’s still-“

“So I’ve heard.” Marius met his son’s gaze for a long moment, something silent passing between them. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to scrape something up in the kitchen. Do you need anything?”

“Gods I could go for just about anything.” Dorian squeezed Rilienus’ shoulder. “Apricots, darling?”

Rilienus looked up at him then, searching, and touched his cheek. “Yes. Alright.”

Marius left a bowl of fresh fruit by the door while Dorian drew a bath into the copper basin in the next room. His mana seemed intact, from what he remembered, untouched by whatever spells still wound around him. His cheeks had been overtaken by three weeks of unruly growth, his muscles somewhat diminished from the memories he’d glimpsed while he was slumbering.

Rilienus watched him as he moved around the room, passing a plump apricot from palm to palm thoughtfully. “I don’t hate you with a beard,” he murmured after a while. “It’s… distinguished.”

“‘Don’t hate’ is a rather low bar, don’t you think?” Dorian asked quietly. “Are you intending to grow yours?”

He rubbed the fruit against his cheek, his bristles scratching the smooth surface. “For a little while, I think. Saves time.”

“I’ll trim mine, then, as opposed to removing it all entirely.” Dorian rubbed his hand across his chin. “If it’s dreadful, I’ll try something else.”

“You couldn’t look dreadful if you tried,” Rilienus murmured. The bruises were gone again, concealed by his power. Not much left in him; Dorian could feel that, too. The emptiness. “…You don’t mind it?”

“I don’t mind what?”

Rilienus plucked at the curled bristles on his chin.

“I don’t mind it, no.” Dorian rummaged for the shaving kit, setting out the blades in a tidy row when he found them.

“I’d hate to be another Fortus.”

“…pardon?”

“Galania? From outside Perivantium? Huge beard. Made your chin all red?”

“My chin? Why was my chin-“ Dorian frowned, nodding. “Ah. Another tryst I can’t remember?”

“Before my time.” Rilienus agreed. “I don’t mind them. Beards, I mean.” He cleared his throat. “You really don’t remember anything about it? At all?”

He wet his cheeks, taking up the scissors. “About Fortus? Or about my affairs in general?”

“You can’t remember Jules, or the hot springs, or Perivantium, except I can find them in your mind when I’m in there. They aren’t gone. Only hidden.” Rilienus spoke as though he were trying to convince himself. Of what, precisely, Dorian wasn’t sure. “I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t remember Perivantium. Yes, there was Fortus, but there was also the debate on arcanum resonance and the ruins where you studied the Neromenian vases. All of it tossed aside because of a burly fellow with a beard?”

“I remember Perivantium,” Dorian frowned, some of the pieces falling together as Rilienus reminded him. “There are… voids. So many voids, it’s hard to tell what happened when or where. The contexts are all muddled and jumbled together.”

“But you don’t remember Fortus.” Rilienus rested his chin on his knee. “Or Ernesto. What do you remember about Perivantium?”

“I was at the Circle there for some time, then I wasn’t.”

“Do you remember why?”

Dorian closed his eyes. “I remember the carriage ride to Qarinus was silent. I don’t know what happened to cause me to leave.”

Rilienus ran his tongue over his teeth, exhaling. “Does it help to talk about it?” he asked carefully. 

“I can see you now. I know who you are. I haven’t hurt you again, since I’ve awoken.” Dorian set the scissors aside. “Does it help you for me to talk about it?”

“…I’m not certain,” Rilienus admitted quietly. “I’m not certain it helps. Your mind… your memories… they’re who you are. I love who you…” He trailed off, looking down at the apricot. “I don’t know what to do next. Normally, I’d ask you. I imagine that spell isn’t likely to let you tell me.”

“You love who I was.” Dorian swallowed, drying his face, staring at his own reflection. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”

Rilienus abandoned the settee, crossing to wrap his arms around Dorian, resting his chin on his shoulder. “I love you, Dorian Pavus. No matter what happens. I swore. Do you remember?”

“Before you left for Rivain. When you returned. A hundred other times and probably a thousand more that are hidden from me.” Dorian leaned against him, grateful for the pressure against his back. “I remember.”

“We’ll find our way through this,” Rilienus murmured, muffled, pressing his face to Dorian’s neck. “I promise you that, too. That you can be here again, with me, with us… That is a relief.”

“I’d like to see them,” Dorian admitted softly, turning in his arms. “…if you think- If you believe it’s safe for me to do so.”

Rilienus sagged in his arms, his breaths warm against Dorian’s skin. “It would be good for them to see you. I told them you had measles and you were contagious.”

“Gods, what did you tell them measles did? Turn all their stuffies bald?”

He laughed, rubbing his eyes as he straightened. “I wanted them to be alright giving us space, not to give them nightmares. Can you imagine little Sennec with no fur?”

“Horrifying,” Dorian chuckled. “We do both look a bit like we’re recovering from a wasting sickness.”

“I’ll handle that.” Rilienus squeezed his hips gently, stepping away towards a wooden case. Mostly empty bottles, save a spare few filled with bright blue liquid. He poured a measure into a spoon and sipped, wincing and inhaling sharply. “Never gets easier.”

“You’ve drained yourself down to your dregs. I’d like to take some time for you to recover before we go untangling again, hm?”

“For me to recover?” he asked, glancing over as he tapped a warm glow back into his own cheeks, then returned to Dorian to do the same. “Or… do you not want to-“

“I don’t want to be missing pieces of myself,” Dorian admitted softly, “but I don’t want to lose you trying to find them. I want you to rest and regain your strength.”

Rilienus looked at him, brushing his thumbs beneath his eyes, a sizzle of ozone in the air. “You are my strength. You always have been.”

“I could have killed you.” Dorian touched near where Rilienus’ bruise had been, feather-light. “I need you to have your own strength, too. Alright?”

Rilienus closed his eyes, leaning into his touch again. “Yes. Alright. Yes.” He dampened his lips. “Do you… Do you remember the merprinces? The story?”

“The one you used to tell the twins while you played your hand harp?”

“You told it better. You did the voices. Bella’s been missing the crab, in particular.”

“Is she?” Dorian hummed low, hugging him. “Perhaps we can catch them before your mother tucks them in.”

Rilienus nodded, breathing for a few minutes in the circle of Dorian’s arms before he drew away, taking Dorian’s hand to walk from the room and down the hall. He recognized the long rug down the tiled floor, the mosaics on the walls, the door to Rilienus’ childhood room. Wards and carvings of birds. 

“Any room for a couple more?” Rilienus asked as he nudged the door open. And then Dorian remembered carefully scouring the shops in Minrathous for just the right beds for the twins that would fit in the space. The bird bath just outside the window. The scent of oranges that poured in during the summers.

Auna glanced up as they stepped inside, a smile blooming across her lips. “I think we can manage,” she murmured as a little princess with dark curls clambered from her bed and ran over to them, throwing her arms around them both. 

“Papa and Pater! It’s Papa and Pater!” she chirped, hugging them, still jumping.

The little boy, Plini, stayed in his bed beside Auna, tugging the blanket up to nibble at the edge. 

Pater. The first time he’d heard them say it - Isobel was first, as in most things - he’d nearly wept. He was dangerously close now, as he scooped up the little girl into his arms, hugging her close. Almost three and sharp as a tack. Dorian kissed the top of her head, tugging gently on her dark pigtail. “Your Papa has been working night and day to make me well enough to see you again. I missed you, little dove.”

“Coo, coo!” she sang, bouncing in his arms. “I missed you, too!”

“No more measles?” Plini asked nervously.

“We’ll still need to rest, because measles is a lot of work,” Dorian glanced over to Rilienus. “But we’re both feeling better, aren’t we?”

“We are,” Rilienus agreed, petting Isobel’s hair and pressing a kiss to her cheek before crossing slowly to the bed. “It’s safe, Plin. We’re okay.”

Plini wound the blankets in his hands, but didn’t pull away when Rilienus sat beside him and held a hand out. “See? No spots.”

Plini turned Rilienus’ arm over, examining it cautiously, then scooting closer to him once he was satisfied. “I missed you, Papa. I hate the measles.”

“So do I, Plin,” Rilienus agreed with feeling, hugging the boy. “I hate them very much. But I love you.” He leaned back to study the boy seriously. “Mada says you’re getting very good at the pipes. We’ll have to hear it tomorrow, alright? There’s a lot to catch up on.”

“And I can show you Mr. Whiskers’ circus!” Bella squealed, wiggling in Dorian’s arms until he put her down gingerly. “We can show you now-“

“Riling them up before bedtime,” Auna tutted, rolling her eyes. “Gracious. Bed, young lady.”

“Pater, have you ever seen a rabbit do a flip?” Bella asked him, flopping down on her bed with a grunt. “Mr. Whiskers runs around if you sprinkle spinach and there was a hoop and-“

Dorian laughed, sitting by her side and drawing the blankets back so she could climb in. “I’ve never seen a rabbit do a flip, but I look forward to it tomorrow. I heard a rumor you wanted to hear the merprinces story again?”

“Oh, yes, please!” Isobel clapped her hands together as he tucked her in. “With the crabs and the swarms of fish?”

“Schools of fish,” Rilienus corrected gently. “We can take it from here, Mada.”

Auna leaned over to kiss him on the head, then Plini, then Isobel. She took Dorian’s face in her hands and pressed her lips to his forehead. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. We were all worried.”

“Neither of us could have done it without you.” Dorian dipped his head. “Thank you for taking care of us.”

“That’s family. Nothing to be thanking me for.” She patted his cheek. “Goodnight, ducklings.”

“Goodnight, Avia,” they chorused, one louder than the other, and Rilienus pulled a lap harp from its shelf, settling in beside Plini. “Water or reeds?” he asked quietly. 

“Water,” the boy decided, snuggling in, arms wrapped around a fuzzy stuffed druffalo. So Rilienus played, plucking a series of strings in a gentle cascade like the lapping of a seashore.

[mae-dwrites]

Taking Flight - Chapter 6 - Verdict

| Story Masterlist | Previous | Next |

| Ao3 | Wattpad |

“Chloé!” André cried at seeing his daughter for the first time in over a week. “Are you okay sweetheart? Do you need anything? Whatever it is you want! Sabrina has been trying to see you all week but we made sure she knew you didn’t want to see anyone,” André smiled at his daughter.

“Oh please André like any of that matters. She still made us look far more ridiculous working with that lunatic, honestly it’s pathetic,” Audrey drawled as she flipped a page in her magazine. There wasn’t even a flicker of Audrey looking toward her; Chloé’s chest tighten at the words but her jaw tensed keeping her from opening her mouth. She couldn’t tell if the act of refusing to even glance her way or the words hurt more.

“Almost as pathetic as her throwing her fit and locking herself in her room. If it were me I would have just gone as if it didn’t matter, let alone happened.” If a mouth could roll its’ eyes then Audrey’s was a perfect example of what one would sound like. André nodded, “I know you would dear.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t put her in a boarding school like I had Zoé for a year. She came back great, got into some preppy school in New York City near me,” Audrey continued as if Chloé wasn’t there.

Chloé took a breath and turned a glare to the blond before deciding to speak, “You know what’s ridiculous is the fact that if you had put effort into being a mom I might not have been pathetic as you chose to put it.”

“Excuse me?” Audrey snapped her head up to her daughter. “Are you saying this is my fault.”

“Of course not,” Chloé held her head a little higher. “It’s a team effort really, and you two have done quite the job of being shitty parents. You two could probably get an award.”

Audrey tossed her magazine onto the coffee table that took space next to her. With a predatory look, she glared at the girl, “Is that so?”

“I’m sure she doesn’t mean anything by-” André tried to get out before Chloé interrupted.

“Actually I meant every word,” Chloé sparred a glance at her father before returning to her mother. “Everything I have done for as long as I can remember is to just get your attention. And the only reason I’m oh-so utterly ridiculous and pathetic is that you were never there. You left. You ran away. You had another kid.”

“I do not run away!”

“Chloé I think you-”

“Oh yes, you do! You run away all the time! You’re a coward! You wanna know how I know? Because I did everything to be just like you!” Chloé yelled at Audrey. Chloé’s breathing was ragged, “I did everything you did just because I wanted my mom. Turns out I wasted years of my life turning myself into something I wasn’t. And you know what? You’re not worth it, never were, and you never will unless you change that is.”

Just like me, Chloé left unsaid. Chloé almost left herself hope that she had broke through to Audrey. Almost.

“You’re getting blood on my rug.” Audrey’s face contorted into disgust as she looked at her fists.

Chloé stood there confused for a second before looking down. She unclenched her hands to see she had broken her skin, eight thin crests seemed to reach out to her. The red pooling out wasn’t much individually but together was quite a bit, some slid down to what would be its matching set. Pale, just barely noticeable unless you studied her palm.

The white carpet below her, now stained with her blood, felt like it was reaching for her. The soft woven mat crying under her bare feet. So much white, so much gold. Too much around her, the red drew her in. It was the only true color in the room, she had long ago become blind to the bright yellows and stark whites she had grown accustomed to. All around her, the two colors seemed as though they were trying to get her to return, but she didn’t want those two anymore. She liked the sudden burst of red that lay on each side of her standing spot on the carpet. She liked the brown shades she had on and the duller yellow she had.

No, she loved it. And she be damned from here on out if she allowed herself to continue to let those same colors rule her for the rest of her life. A life that would never be recognized by her. Audrey wouldn’t hold her down.

Chloé slowly looked back up to see Audrey was still looking at her with disgust with some disinterest mixed in.

“Leave.”

“Excuse me.”

“You heard me,” Chloé growled at her. “Leave. Get the hell out of my city, get out of my house, and out of my life. This is my rug, and this is my city. And I’m just done, so go the fuck back to New York! Go back to the oh-so-amazing Zoé, because honestly good for her that you actually care. Go be her mom, don’t sit around here playing pretend.”

Chloé swallowed as her throat became dry, “Because you just look so utterly pathetic here.”

Audrey for the first time was at a loss for words as Chloé glared at her breath slowly going from ragged to calm. It was Chloé’s turn to look Audrey up and down in disgust, she frowned and held her head high. Chloé allowed herself to smirk before turning around taking strides to the hall. Chloé stopped at the doorway, she brought her hand to rest on the doorframe for the sake of dramatics and from beaten in practice. The young woman turned to her mother, “Since you’re so good at leaving me I expect you to be gone within eight hours at the latest.”

Chloé looked at her father with a bored expression, Maybe another day. She looked back at Audrey who just now seemed to be understanding just everything her daughter had said.

“Au Revoir vieille sorcière,” Chloé waved with a smile before walking away.

For the first ever Chloé held her head high up in pride. She didn’t care about being seen by anyone; not the celebrities in this hotel’s walls; not the camera’s that she had used to desperately want on her. No, she was content, it was a strange feeling. She may not know who she was, but Chloé knew who she would never try to be again.

She would never be enough for her mother, and while it would hurt she could live with that. She knew better now and now she needed to make some changes if she wanted to be different.

When she got to her room she grabbed her phone and dial the school.

-

Sorry for the short chapter, the next chapter is just over 4,000. That will be posted tomorrow.

[ladysunbite]

@fallesto

One, the beastial, instinct-driven part of her was confused. All her senses told her there was no one else in the orphanage with them. It could not be shock, or any similar foolish reaction. She sensed the delicately woven fabric of Antoine's nightgown against her skin, his beating heart drummed in her ears, as she had caught the child in her arms, after the witcher had taken him out off the harm's way. The other part, the reasonable, sentient part, insisted they were fooled. The danger was real. For the white wolf, it was real. The crimson vine ran down his temple, which meant the force she could not fully perceive or name had a power to break the skin as well as move objects around the house and beyond. "ENOUGH!" the scream cut through the roar, like silver knife through butter. Miscellaneous object dropped to the floor. The dark mass, ready to tear the sword out of witcher's hands, gobble him up, stopped. Headache cut through Orianna's temples, but she rose to her feet, without any visible effort, without breaking her human mask, even if her blood and bones howled in protest. Majestic.

Oh, it was tempting to leave the stubborn man here, to die. Conveniently not by her claws... "Enough, children. I have not expected such vile behavior of you," now her voice was very cold and very quite, crawling under one's skin, not by any vampiric quality, but by the orator's skill alone.

Her guess was correct, it seems. The dark wave in front of the witcher shivered and almost dissolved. "Now, have I brought you up like a pack of rabid dogs? Or like this fleder here?" she touched the head of a lower vampire, that Geralt had severed a moment ago, with her slipper. Yes, just like she thought. Her unlucky athumica had been dead for at least half-a-night. The sun-eyed looked at the spot where the blackness hovered, hoping she had enough skill and strength left in her. It was hard to speak with the invisible opponent, not being sure how they react. Yet...she knew her children well, alive or dead, did she not? And their trick with the dead bodies of other vampires, puppeteered to intimidate the white wolf, was both smart and swift. She was proud, even if it was not the right time to tell her charges so. "Why are you attacking? Is it wise? No. Is it reasonable? No. Master Geralt here had not driven a sword out before you acted. Think of it. Nieve, Anna... I expected better of you. What drives you?" Oh, she hoped with all her might, the witcher would have enough sense to put the sword away by now. Her initial guess was correct - the mass was the ghosts of her dead children, all those that perished in her care. From fevers or other sleight of death's hand even an immortal was helpless against. "Fear. And fear makes you weak and foolish." she let the words sink, her slipper firmly placed atop the severed head. Generally, she liked her charges to be obedient, but not blindly. She preferred to explain to them the why of things, why she prohibited this of that, and as the result, she was happy to discover, they listened to her and followed her lead with gladness. "First, it is not up to you to protect me. I am to protect you, children." "Second, every person deserves a trial, not an ugly lynching you were to give us a taste now. Do you remember what Her Grace Anna Henrietta says? Discord ruins and..." "...and accord builds," the chorus she could not hear answered, shyly.

"My sweet ones," she let her voice soften, warm as the sun, and her gaze that peered into the thin air, more into the past than into present, every old name suddenly alive at her tongue. "It was a long night. I shall visit you again very soon. But now you must rest," there, she felt something. It was as if a gust of cold wind enwrapped her and pressed close to her skirts and stomach. By the habit, she put her hand where a child's head would have been and brushed it, each one in a circle, gentle and unashamed. Feelings were not something she easily shown to her charges, let alone in front of strangers, but a part of her longed to do it, even if she was not completely sure of the reality. Safety. Or even Sanity. "You are bleeding, witcher. Let me see to your wound. And then we are going to the Unseen. This..." Orianna pursed her lips and her gaze - now listless and pale - shifted to the boy in a white nightgown, huddled in a corner with a smile upon his face, and his heart silent. "...will be the last grave to be dug tonight. And the last siblings to die."

He knew.

He knows that is what has happened, but it was not part of the contract, the deal he made with the duchess, to be running his mouth to Orianna or anyone else for that matter that her sister was alive, well and back within the land, such information was for the duchess and her lords and ladies to deal with, it was not to be spread far and wide and most of all, it was not for him to spill the secrets of those freely given to him out of trust.

“I know what has happened, if you wish for details, go to the duchess, but I doubt she is in the mood to speak.” About everything that has happened.

Telling was easily done, Orianna was used to people doing as she said, spilling their secrets, being scared of her, but he was not, he did not buckle nor break or part with anything.

“The contract is with the duchess, not with you.” Thus if Orianna had any sense of pride, respect and custom within herself, she would know, and if she had sense, it would not be hard to piece together what the duchess was scared for and why he was hired to deal with this when it was hopeless, pointless, a higher vampire cannot be killed, the best course.

Would be to give the higher vampire what it wanted.

But to stand and look a sister within the eye and ask her to basically murder her flesh and blood herself, never.

“Not in the habit of killing people before children.” 

As he would stand there and see this scene play out before his eyes and he spoke the truth, he was a contracted killer, that was true, but he had a code, he had morals and he had emotions, barely. Never children, never harming them or forcing them to see how the world works, Orianna was many things, but he was not here to end her life.

Another time.

In the future.

He knew they would cross paths and it would be a simple matter.

Of a contract against her and his blade doing the talking instead of his mouth.

“Be at ease, I mean no harm.”

As he muttered the words this time, awful with little ones as he was, but he knew how to handle them, had his own daughter, out there, somewhere, as he turned his head to the side and looked into the distance and smiled, good times, back then, very good times, maybe his friends were right.

Maybe this was the last big job.

Settle business here, and retire once and for all, hang his blades up on the mantle, sit before a fire, have his friends and family around him and remember the little moments, the small things, the things that are and were important to one and all.

The good times.

“Orianna …”

As he glanced up.

“Shit …”

The darkness was spreading now, as he gripped his silver sword and removed it and moved forward, taking a child by the scruff and throwing him out the way, the three days where up, the army of lower vampires where attacking everyone Beauclair, massacring the civilians and spreading, as he moved, rolled through and departed the head of the creature and would raise his hand and blast the others away, he would make short work of them, but it would be endless, until she did something, unless she got to the unseen elder and made a deal, he would not be able to protect anyone at this rate.

[stolen-pen-name23]

can i please have chronically exhausted obi-wan constantly wearing himself thin and it starts to concern everyone and someone needs to guide him to bed and give him some hot cocoa and pet his hair (greying from stress) back from his face & he needs to be treated so gently please

Hello Anon and thank you for this prompt! I am SO SORRY it has taken me so long. It's been sitting in my inbox for literal months, but I finally put something together for it!

***

The thing about Obi-Wan Kenobi is he won’t willingly show anyone how hard the war is on him — how badly he’s taking it all. 

Though he is a skilled and cunning warrior, that part of him is the part he resents the most. He loathes the clever strategist and despises the skilled swordsman. He takes no pride in his achievements in battle — not when he’s experienced so many losses. 

It is this side of himself he can’t stand to be alone with. 

The latest battle was a bad one — ultimately successful, but Obi-Wan doesn’t consider any battle a success. Not really. So when he stumbles back into his quarters on board The Negotiator, he doesn’t stay long. He stays long enough to wash the dirt and grim and blood spatter off of his skin, but he leaves as soon as he possibly can. 

His men walk through the halls and he can sense their somber moods before they can even pause in their strides to salute him. 

He’s always hated the gesture. 

Exhaustion clings to his bones, but he doesn’t dare go back to his quarters. Besides, he has plenty of work to do. Even if he wanted to crawl into his bunk, he knows it would not be the responsible choice. Briefings and reports await him, as does the latest batch of death certificates he needs to sign. 

He makes his way to a meeting room near the bridge and settles in for a night of paperwork meant to sum up the events that would never truly leave Obi-Wan’s mind. 

His datapad flickers to life and he squints at the bright blue light before his eyes adjust and he sets to work. 

The progress he makes seems minuscule as the never-ending reports keep coming in for him to fill out. He yawns a few times and rubs his dry eyes, but manages to stay awake and work on his reports.

Until someone clears their throat.

Startled, Obi-Wan looks up sharply before he realizes it’s Cody that stands before him. A small voice in the back of his head wonders why he didn’t sense Cody appear as soon as he was within fifty feet of him, but he shelves the thought for another time. 

“Hello Commander,” Obi-Wan says. His voice comes out hoarse from disuse. 

“General,” Cody says, almost tentative. “I think you should go to bed.”

“What about you?” Obi-Wan deflects. “You were in the battle just as I was and here you stand. If I need my rest then so do you.”

“Sir, I have rested. It’s morning.” 

Obi-Wan blinks in surprise. It’s so hard to tell when morning and night begin and end when traveling through hyperspace. Just another aspect of this war he cannot stand. 

“I didn’t realize,” Obi-Wan says honestly. Though, even if he did, he’s not sure he would have returned to his quarters anyway. He runs a hand through his grey-flecked hair, smoothing it back and out of his eyes. 

“It’s alright. I know yesterday was… difficult.”

“It’s always difficult,” Obi-Wan says, more to himself than to Cody, yet sympathetic eyes stare back at him. 

“I know,” Cody says softly. “We’ve all been there, General.” 

Though the words are meant to be empathetic, they only make Obi-Wan feel colder. He doesn’t want Cody to feel the way he does. He doesn’t want anyone to feel the way he does. 

“What I’m trying to say…” Cody begins, seemingly picking up on Obi-Wan’s thoughts, “What I’m trying to say is that you’re not alone in this. Just cause you’re the General doesn’t mean you aren’t one of us — one of our brothers.”

Something in Obi-Wan threatens to crack open. He keeps his composure, but he knows how much those words mean. He knows better than most the value of brotherhood. 

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says softly, holding Cody’s gaze and hoping he understands just how much he means it. 

“Of course, General.” Cody nods his head to the door. “Ready to go to your quarters now?”

“Yes, I think I am.” Obi-Wan stands, but a wave of dizziness hits him. He sways on his feet, unsteady until a firm grip grabs his arm and holds him upright. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. No need for concern,” Obi-Wan says, waving him off.

Cody frowns but doesn’t fight him. His grip loosens, but Cody doesn’t let go of Obi-Wan the entire way to his quarters. Obi-Wan finds he doesn’t mind. 

When they get to his door, a sudden wave of dread crashes over him. 

“Cody,” Obi-Wan chokes. His mouth is so dry he can barely speak his Commander’s name. “I can’t be here… I can’t be here alone.” 

“I can stay with you if you’d like?” 

Obi-Wan’s cheeks redden in humiliation, but he can’t bring himself to turn down Cody’s offer. Cody follows him inside.

Only when he lays eyes on his bed does he realize how exhausted he truly is. He sags down into it, even with his boots still on his feet. 

“Goodnight, General,” Cody says.

“Goodnight,” Obi-Wan murmurs.

In the morning, he finds himself covered in a blanket he didn’t have before, his boots set neatly on the floor, and his Commander watching over him at his side

[captains-simp]

Hi bestieeee, congratulations on 1K!!! I have a request for you!! Mommy!Nat or Dark!Nat blackmailing R into sex or else R would be fired?? Thank you

I wonder who this request is from?🤔

2.8k words

Warnings: dub-con (bordering on non-con), coercion, blackmail, unhealthy power dynamic, oral sex (giving), praise, strap on sex and cum filled strap on

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You knew Natasha was coming before you saw her; before you even heard the chilling sound of her heels against the polished floors of the 46th level. You knew because you saw it in your coworkers eyes. You saw the way they cowered behind their desks and averted their eyes or made a swift exit from the area entirely. You knew because that was just how it worked at Romanoff Industries.

You were lucky enough to have your own office. Well, that should have made you lucky in avoiding Natasha's piercing gaze but it did not. Most of the time she stalked down the area outside your office she came straight to you and even if it wasn't her destination she would be sure to look in as she went by.

That was one of your less fortunate days, she was coming to see you and it wasn't to deliver a compliment about your hard work. Your boss let herself into your office without knocking and strolled over to your desk, her hips swaying in the mesmerising way they always did in those incredibly tight skirts.

"What happened to that report that was meant to be sent to me hours ago?" She demanded as she stood in front of your desk.

"Apparently someone picked up on some faults of the latest design so we can't do anything right now." You tried to explain but Natasha never did like excuses. "I don't know when it will be fixed." You continued.

"And you didn't think to tell me this?" Natasha glared.

"I thought someone would have told you." You were right, a lot of someone's had told the redhead, but apparently she needed to hear it from you too. "It's not my job to." You couldn't help but add. You knew Natasha hated when people pointed out things she didn't want to hear, more so when they did so confidently. You were one of the few who managed it, maybe that was why Natasha seemed to have it out for you. It was just a compulsion to you, to one up your boss. Even if it rarely succeeded.

You had always had mixed feelings about Natasha. Sometimes you thought when she went home at night she venturer into some cave that led to the pits of hell where she returned to her rightful throne. Other times that tough and stubborn show she put on was nothing short of admirable. There was no doubt it was what got her her success and therefore gave you a job. It was just hard to deal with when it was aimed at you individually, or what you could argue felt like personally.

"Don't give me that." She snapped. You were aware of all the eyes of your coworkers looking in on the pair of you and hanging on every word that was exchanged.

"You know full fucking well if something you're doing is going to be delayed you tell me." She was leaning both hands on your desk and leaning over to get closer to you. With such a short distance between you you had no choice but to stare back into her forest green eyes, like hell you were going to look away and back down.

"You can write that fucking report anyway. I want it on my desk today." Today? There was no way you could get that done in office hours, you would have to be working long past when you were meant to usually go home. "And when the design has been fixed you can write another one on it." She was testing you, willing you to say something you would regret. You weren't going to fall into her trap.

"Okay." You said, holding her gaze.

She didn't say anything else. Natasha stood there for another few seconds to watch you, waiting for something, anything. Then she stood back up straight and headed towards the door that she slammed closed behind her and marched back to her own luxury office.

That could have been an email.

*

It was approaching midnight when you finished the report. You were about to email it to Natasha when you remembered she wanted it in paper form so you begrudgingly sent it off to the printer.

It was a waste of paper you thought as you trudged over to the elevator that quickly arrived as there was no one else in the building. You figured Natasha just wanted to be that extra bit difficult. Well, you knew that was what she was trying to do.

You had worked with Natasha for longer than most, you knew her. Or rather, you knew the front she painted. You knew what annoyed her, what she wanted, what she thought of certain people and you could predict how she would conduct business down to the exact price tag of a product. But you didn't know her personally, sometimes you wondered if there was anyone who did.

You knocked on your bosses door and waited until she called for you to come in. You planned to simply walk in, put the paper on her desk and walk out to go home but once you were several steps past the door Natasha called for you to close it.

She didn't look up at you as you trudged across the ridiculously big office and put the papers down. It was only when you turned around that she spoke again.

"Stay." Was all said. You bite back a comment about not being a dog.

You turned back around and expected some speech and your attitude earlier but continued making notes on a design plan like you weren't even in the room. A few minutes of you fidgeting on your feet and looking around the office for anything interesting, Natasha picked up your report and leaned back in her chair to read it. She showed no signs that you had done a good or bad job with the report.

Finally, she put the paper down on her desk and went back to the plans. "Close the door behind you." Was all she said. You clenched your jaw and rolled your eyes once turned around to finally leave and go home.

"Don't roll your eyes at me, y/n."

*

Turns out it wasn't as simple as writing two reports. Design after design failed. First there was a slight issue with the batteries, then the shape, then it somehow became a liability. You mentioned all these faults in your reports, as you legally had to, but it became tedious very quickly. You always hated paperwork. It was meant to be such a small part of your job. You could only hope the sudden increase was temporary, especially as it wasn't exactly one of your strengths.

You continued to work over time and met Natasha late at night, always having to wait until she finished reading till you could leave. You thought you had to be doing at least a good job with them for your boss to never say anything, because she was always ready to point out small errors. That was until one particular night.

"These reports are getting worse." Natasha scolded. The comment made your blood boil. They were certainly not getting worse, maybe the designs were but you knew it was no fault of yours.

"The designs don't work." You fired back and crossed your arms. You had been worked tirelessly on those reports and they only stated the facts.

"Do you even care about your job, y/n?" Natasha asked seriously, angering you more.

"I've sacrificed more than I ever thought I could for a job for this company."

"You're on thin fucking ice, l/n. With the way things are going I'd be in a right mind to fire you." ...what the fuck?!

"What?" It came out as more of a whisper. After everything that you had done for the company and the years you had spent there, Natasha wouldn't really fire you, would she?

"Unless you're willing to make up for it all." She said seriously with something unmistakably dark in her tone.

"I don't more extra hours than anyone here." You said, not knowing what else she could mean.

"Not more than me, something takes quite the toll. I can hardly fit the time in to distress anymore. That's where you come in." Natasha explained as she stood up from her chair and sauntered around to the other side of the desk, the sound of her heels clicking echoing around the room.

There was a long moment of silence when Natasha left barely any space between you. You searched her eyes for any hint of what she was referring to but inevitably found nothing. Until she suddenly pushed you down onto your knees in front of her.

"Show me what other skills you have and maybe I'll consider letting you stay." She smirked down at you and ran the back of her hand across your cheek before cupping your jaw. "Entirely your call."

"Natasha this is crazy." You tried to reason but it was hard to ignore the faint throbbing you felt from being on your knees for her. "I could tell someone." For the first time ever, you heard her laugh. She threw her head back in a mocking laugh that soon turned into taunting chuckles.

"Y/n, who would believe you over me? You can be my guest and try but you'll never have another job in this city again, maybe further if I feel like it." She shrugged. You gulped and felt your breathing shake. Fuck.

Natasha, apparently impatient, hiked up her skirt and leant back against her desk to look at you expectantly. Your mouth suddenly went dry when you caught sight of her bare pussy, having not had any underwear on. You wondered if she often sat around like that. If she sauntered around the building and into your office where you could easily let your fingers wander up her skirt. Did she always leave them off for you?

"If you want to keep your job I suggest you get to work." She spoke. You tentatively moved forward and gripped onto her thighs for support, still looking up at her for any signs of a tell.

She was positively soaked. You could see her clenching in anticipation, the sight and musky smell entirely inviting. So you licked a long strip of the redhead's folds and moaned at the sweet taste of her. Sweetness was hardly what you expected given the tough and cold exterior of your boss, you hadn't expected it to be so instantly addictive either.

You pushed your tongue further inside the redhead who gave a breathy moan in response. At that, your mind was made. You sucked harshly on Natasha's clit and felt it pulse rapidly between your lips before returning your tongue to where she needed it most.

"Look at how much you're enjoying this." Natasha smirked as she looked down at the beyond contented glint in your eyes. "So good at pleasing you like mommy."

You worked your tongue tirelessly inside her, spurred on by the blissful sounds that fell from the redhead's mouth with every flick and curl of your muscle. You were lost in the incomparable taste of her and hoped it would be something that lingered on your tongue for a while. You were in awe of the way her mouth hung open in a silent scream as her eyes clenched shut every time your tongue brushed against some beautiful nerve ending. The sounds she made when you did so rivalled the faux sweetness of a siren's song. You knew the dangers of being lulled too far but you wanted to explore it entirely, convinced there was some hidden beauty that no one else could see.

"Fuck, so good." Your grip on Natasha's thigh tightened when her hold on the back of your neck did. She started to buck her hips against your mouth and her breathing patterns became more irregular. Your boss seemed lost in the pleasure she was experiencing from you as her eyes shut firmly and her movements became more erratic. But even then she held onto her power over you.

"I want you to swallow every last fucking drop." She ordered and gasped when your nose bumped against her clit. You picked up the pace of your tongue, making sure to swipe it against all the spots you had learnt made her shudder.

Her nails were practically digging into your neck when she reached her high. Her breath got caught in her throat before she gave the most animalistic moan you had ever heard. She furiously bucked her hips against your face as she rode out her high and relished in every wave of pleasure.

She recovered impressively quickly and was still raring to go, apparently having more plans for the night. She smiled down at you with a glint of the devil in her eye as she stood back and turned around to retrieve something from her desk, telling you to sit on her chair.

You were anticipating Natasha to return the favour, especially given how much she clearly enjoyed what you had to offer. Instead, she slipped a harness through your legs and pulled it up to your waist where she fastened it to sit securely. It was only when she moved away that you saw the size of the red toy, standing proudly and daringly. You wouldn't be surprised if your boss couldn't make it fit, yet again about to see that you really didn't know her. She was unpredictable and nothing short of it.

Natasha straddled your legs until her knees hit the backrest of her chair and her cunt was lined up with the toy. You went to hold her waist to guide her but your boss grabbed your wrists harshly and pinned them to the chair either side of you with a warning look.

She lowered herself onto the toy and groaned when the head of the toy alone started to stretch her. She kept her strong grip on your wrists as she looked more of the strap and you could only watch on in awe as the fake cock disappeared inside her.

Natasha moaned loudly and paused half way to adjust herself and breathe heavily before slamming herself down on the rest of the toy. "God." She grunted. "Mommy feels so full."

"Let me help you mommy." You tried but she shook her head.

"You don't get to touch right now." Was all she said before she lifted herself partly off the toy and slammed back down drawing another beautiful moan.

Your boss continued this for a while until she found herself in a rhythm that pleasured her deeply. You could see her juices smeering the toy everytime she withdrew and the sight alone made you groan, you already wanted to taste her again.

She rode you with vigor as her pace increased as did her grip on you. Profanities spilled from her mouth like a song that you wanted to join in with but you were too fixated on the sight infront of you. Natasha's bra clearly wasn't all that supportive because her breasts bounced with each thrust downwards and you wished more than anything that you could reach out and take her top and bra off to cup them, even tweak her nipples between your fingers to see her squeal.

"Gonna cum- fuck! Mommy's gonna cum on your cock and you're going to fill me up more." She said between moans and gasps. You didn't really understand what she meant by fill her up more but you weren't going to object, not when you wanted to see her cum again so badly.

She suddenly let your right hand go and grabbed on to the back of the harness. You were confused until you felt something click and Natasha was moaning louder than she had all night. "Your cum feels so good in me." She all but screamed before jerking her hips wildly and cumming around the toy.

She fell forwards slightly and grinded against the toy to ride out her high desperately. You gripped her hips with your free hand and moaned when you saw some of the cum leaking out of Natasha's pussy.

With a groan, you pulled your other hand out of the redhead's grasp and lifted her up and down onto her desk where she looked up at you with blissful eyes. "Don't go thinking you have any control." Natasha sneered but gasped when you withdrew the strap and snapped your hips forwards again.

"We'll see."

[jackrrabbit]

Adversary /// Overhaul x f!Reader (18+)

Summary: You make a deal with the devil to save your life, but it turns out Overhaul’s not interested in your soul.

A/N: Remember when I said I was going to do a fantasy collab and then dipped for like 9 months? Hahaha…anyway…

@pleasantanathema @ present-mel @shadowworks—if it’s not too late, here’s my part for the Pleasant & Strider Fantasy AU Writing Collab from a million years ago. Go check out the masterlist and gorge yourself on these amazing pieces!!

Tags/Warnings: dubcon, demon fuckery & occult things, big heresy/sacrilege/perversion of religion, sex in a church ft. Catholic sex guilt, other than that it’s not that bad lol, inexperienced reader, mild degradation, shameless camp and demon-fucking clichés, Overhaul calls you “little girl” 👉👈

He doesn’t look like a demon.

Not that you really know what demons are supposed to look like. But…red skin, right? Fangs and claws and swirling masses of bad energy. Maybe cloven hooves for feet. Yes, that’s the Disney version—but even if you didn’t expect a cartoon personification of evil, you didn’t expect this.

He looks like a doctor, you think. Lab coat hanging open, surgery mask pushed down under his jaw, stethoscope draped over his shoulders. No, he’s a little young to really look like a doctor…an intern, you amend, shifting back in your hospital bed. He looks like he fits right in here, not a hair out of place. Except for, you know, the polished black horns curling out of the sides of his skull.

Overhaul. It was written in the book. That’s the only thing you have to call him in your head.

He’s standing in the center of the sigil you drew at the foot of your bed before midnight, surveying the room critically without meeting your gaze. He looks annoyed—that’s not a good sign, is it?—but then again, of course he’s annoyed. You’d be annoyed too if you got summoned out of your cozy hell dimension in the middle of the night. According to the book, you’re lucky he even showed up…although ‘lucky’ isn’t really how you’d describe yourself most days.

“So,” Overhaul says after a long moment of silence in which you question every choice you’ve made in your relatively short life. “You’re dying.”

You nod.

“And you don’t want to be.”

You nod again, wondering if you’re supposed to be contributing more to this conversation. It’s a bit difficult when your mouth is so dry it feels like you’ve been eating dirt, but you suppose being in the presence of an unholy servant of Satan will do that to a person.

“Fine.” He sighs, frowns, and then finally lowers his gaze onto yours—and you shiver.

Those eyes. No human has eyes like that.

“Make me an offer,” Overhaul tells you, and through his open mouth you catch a flash of sharp white teeth.

Okay. Okay. The chirping of the heart monitor speeds up (as if it weren’t obvious enough that you’re terrified) and you fold your knees up to your chest and fidget with your ring and think. He’s giving you a chance to establish parameters. You’re supposed to start with his end of the deal, the thing you want from him. That’s what it said to do in the grimoire, aka the 19th century demonology volume your creepy cousin brought back from her pagan anthropology research trip in rural France. The one you keep hidden under your bed because your mother would burn it if she knew you were reading about summoning demons.

Offer nothing to a hell creature without first telling him your price. You know the words by heart, both the winding calligraphy of the original French from the grimoire and the rushed scrawl of the English translation your cousin left for you in sheets of lined paper layered between the pages of the book for you to read. Really, this is her fault. She was the one who slipped you the book, who told you that it worked, who snuck you the ingredients for the summoning. She was the one who left a bookmark at the chapter on this particular demon, one that specializes in ‘Contrat pour Remédier au Déséquilibre des Quatre Humeurs’, which she said meant a contract to cure any illness. Even his ‘name’ is translated in her hand, practically an afterthought in the margins of the page.

‘Le Malin qui Ravage et Rebâtit’— Overhaul?

You looked up the literal meaning of this phrase on your own. It did not reassure you.

“Girl.” His voice is cold, irate. Your eyes snap back up to his and it feels like that burning gaze is laser-beaming into your skull. “Do not test me. My time is limited…as is yours.”

You swallow. “How long do I have left?”

“Less than a single human year,” he tells you without a trace of sympathy. “Seven months, twelve days, three hours. Or so. You’ll be too exhausted to leave this bed in four months, and the pain will become intolerable in six… By the end, you’ll wish—“

“Stop,” you breathe out. The heart monitor is beeping wildly and you squeeze your knees into your chest, trying to calm down your breathing. “Stop, I—I want to live.”

“Of course you do.” Overhaul’s lip curls. “How very predictable.”

Be specific, you remind yourself, doing your best to ignore the stifling disapproval from the man—the demon—in front of you. Something about him (maybe how clean-cut he looks, maybe the indisputable authority in his demeanor) makes you want to impress him. But you didn’t turn your back on your religion—you didn’t draw pagan symbols on the floor in chalk, fill silver cups with various questionable substances (including your own virgin blood), and turn the crucifix your mother hung over your bed upside-down so you could let a demon make you feel guilty for wanting to survive. “I want to be cured. I’m okay with whatever natural death I have instead when I’m older, I just don’t want to die of this illness. I want you to make me healthy.”

“Simple enough. What else?”

‘Simple’? Your heart surges with something you’ve felt very little of since your initial diagnosis—hope. “T-That’s it. Just the cure.”

Overhaul glares at you. “Humans… Every vice in the world available to you, and you limit yourselves to the basest priority of survival.”

“But you can do it? You can cure me?” you persist.

Overhaul steps forward (quiet, so quiet you wonder if he really moved) and holds a hand out to you past the foot of your bed—you hesitate, and a second later you can see the muscles in his hand flex, stretching the latex of his plastic gloves tight over his knuckles.

Just do it. You give him your hand. Carefully. Like you’re scared the contact will burn you. It doesn’t (although his skin feels warmer than yours), but after a moment his grip tightens, sliding down past your hand to circle the fragile bones of your wrist and squeeze.

“Ow?” You wince.

The demon’s eyes flicker closed for a second, lips moving silently like he’s talking to himself—and then he drops your hand unceremoniously back onto your lap. “You could be cured before the sun rises this morning. I doubt your stay in the hospital will extend past the end of the week.”

He sounds bored, voice as flat and passionless as it was earlier, but your heart is soaring. Cured. You’ve lived with this illness for so many years, you can’t remember the last time someone told you you could be cured. And getting out of the hospital that soon? You can just imagine taking down all the decorations from the walls of your room here and setting them up in your old bedroom at home. You could see friends on the weekend and not take an oxygen bag, you could get a job or—or apply to college, you could have a life—

“That is…assuming you have something to offer me in exchange for the cure.”

Your stomach drops. You’d almost forgotten about the other half of the deal.

“Don’t tell me I came all this way for nothing.” Overhaul steps back, and the orange light of the candles you set sends strange shadows over his arrogant face. The fires look brighter now, and you find yourself tracing the lines of those shining black horns. In an odd way, they look natural—so organically framing his temples that you can’t imagine him without them.

“N-No, of course not. I have some money—I mean, my mom has some, and I can get it for you…” Which is half the truth. If you know anything, it’s that your mother’s spent most of her savings on your treatment and care. You probably have more debt than you have money in the bank right now—you’d try to get rid of that, too, if you hadn’t read in the book how important it is to keep your request as simple and straightforward as possible.

…Although it’s apparently not enough. Overhaul’s eyes narrow, molten gold irises carved into slits. “Even if I had a use for human money, do you really believe your life is worth so little?”

“No—no,” you say quickly. “I just thought—in case you were interested—”

The air crackles with energy, the candle flames spark bright blood-red, and the hair on your arms stands straight up. “I am not.”

“Okay! I get it.” You wave your hands back and forth, pulling your IV line from side to side with the motion. The book was very clear about staying calm and rational while you work out the terms of the deal, but that’s easier said than done when you have a real live (live?) hell creature in front of you. You always knew this was going to be the hard part—all the stories say there’s only one thing that a demon would be interested in, and no matter how inviting the prospect of living past this illness is, you know you’d rather die than sell your immortal soul to the devil. “I’ll give you anything except my soul! And—and don’t hurt anyone I care about, or— just don’t hurt anyone, okay? Other than that, if there’s anything I can give you, I will.”

Overhaul’s lip curls, baring a thin strip of those unnaturally sharp canines. “And is your soul really so valuable?”

This throws you for a loop. Isn’t that the standard deal? A soul for a wish? That’s how it’s supposed to work—at least in this twisted version of reality where you can summon a demon to perform unholy miracles for you. But if you think about it, it doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why would your soul be valuable to him? You can’t form an argument, especially since you’re not willing to barter it away in the first place.

Your mouth is pursed open as you search for a response, but Overhaul doesn’t seem willing to wait. A gloved hand wraps its way around the railing at the side of your bed, and he leans in closer. “Little girl…what makes you think you possess anything I desire?”

Little girl. You’re not a little girl, you’re a grown woman—and yet there’s no untruth in the statement. In front of him you feel insignificant, immature, weak. You have nothing real to offer, and something tells you that you’re not going to get rid of the demon you summoned without a sacrifice you’re not willing to make.

You twist your ring around your finger—the nervous habit you haven’t bothered to break because you’ve always had more important things to worry about—and the glint of silver in the candlelight must catch Overhaul’s eye because before you even notice him moving, your delicate hand is trapped in his larger one to give him a better view of the tiny piece of jewelry. “What is this?”

“It’s—um, a ring. A purity ring.” Has he never seen one before? Well…actually, that makes sense.

Overhaul turns your hand over in his without touching the band of silver. He’s looking at it closely, inspecting the lovingly engraved cross in the design and the inscription on the other side. “Matthew 5:8,” he reads out.

“…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” you recite cautiously. It feels wrong to speak the words in front of him, but somehow you can’t help yourself.

Overhaul’s hand doesn’t leave yours. “This ring is important to you.”

“It’s a symbol of a—a promise I made to God. To save myself for my future husband.”

“To ‘save yourself’? To save what?”

You can’t believe you’re explaining this to a literal demon. You close your eyes and inhale slowly and taste smoke. “My…virginity. It’s a promise that I won’t have sex until I enter into a biblical marriage.”

At this, Overhaul is quiet. You give him a moment to answer, half expecting him to question why you think God cares about your sexual status (honestly, you’d be lying if you said you haven’t wondered this yourself), but he stays quiet until you peek up at him to try and gauge the look on his coldly handsome face.

He’s still staring at the ring. He hasn’t touched it—maybe he can’t, because of the cross?—and through the latex, his skin feels hotter than a human’s is supposed to be.

“Is there…” you start, but you trail off when you realize you have nothing to ask. You give a little tug to try and take your hand away and you’re surprised when your wrist actually slides out of his grip to fall back on the nest of sheets in your lap. You didn’t think he’d let you go so easily.

Overhaul turns his head to the side, eyes drilling into you so you feel like you should lower your gaze. The candlelight flickers in strange shadows over his horns. “This will do,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“In exchange for your cure.” The demon taps his own left ring finger, the place where the purity ring sits on your hand, and your heart soars. He actually wants that? It’s just a simple silver band, not worth much, but you’re not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it has some special significance because of the religious connotation. Your mother will be angry you’ve lost it, but you’re happy to cope with that if it means living to actually get married!

“Yes!” you blurt out before he has a chance to rethink his offer. Sure, you’ll miss the purity ring—you’ve had it since you were a kid, after all—but there’s no question you’re getting the better end of this deal. At least in your opinion.

Something flashes through his yellow eyes, something you don’t even want to try and identify. “The contract, then.”

You barely have time to notice that his voice has gentled, that it’s practically silken in comparison to before, when the candlelight flickers again and suddenly the contract is everywhere. Everywhere. Writing appears on every surface in the room, covering the walls, stretching over the ceiling, coiling around the sides of the hospital equipment and decorating your bedsheets until you and Overhaul are the only untouched surfaces in sight. The characters are inscribed in red, dark red like—don’t think about that, you tell yourself squeamishly. You can make out some of the letters, even a word here or there—French, you recognize, mixed with what looks like Latin and interspersed with what you can only guess are runes.

“I can’t read this,” you tell him, fidgeting with your ring for what you now realize will be the last time.

“I only need your name,” he purrs, and then you feel a fragile weight in your hand: a feather, pearl-black and glossy and too large to belong to any bird you can think of, its angled tip glistening with wet ink. There’s an empty space in the writing before you, and Overhaul’s gloved hand comes to yours again to guide you into place.

This feels wrong…then again, of course it does. Even if you’re getting off relatively easy and just losing your ring rather than your soul, you’re still making a deal with a demon. You sign your name, forcing yourself to think about the future you have ahead of you rather than a disapproving white-bearded caricature of The Man Upstairs wagging his finger at you for haggling with a literal servant of Satan. People have done worse things to survive, haven’t they? It’s just a ring.

You set the feather down and Overhaul sighs, thick black eyelashes obscuring his intense gaze for a moment—and then the contract is gone, leaving your hospital room as blank and sterile as it’s supposed to be (well, aside from the candles and all the other ritual stuff you threw together to summon a demon in the first place).

“Are you going to cure—heal me now?” you ask.

“…Patience, little girl.” He’s pulling his glove off, peeling it down his fingers to bare the pale skin of his hand. You catch your breath and wonder what this is going to feel like, and then the tips of his fingers meet your cheek and—

you stop breathing.

It doesn’t hurt.

Or if it does, you don’t remember the pain a second later when breath floods back into your lungs. What you do feel is energy. Strength in your muscles, blood pumping through your veins, every inhale and exhale as light as a bird and freer. You feel healthy. You’re surprised you even remember what health feels like but you do: it’s like you’ve only been half alive, and now life is surging into you and through you and around you, bubbling up in your core like a spring overflowing. You blink rapidly, thinking you might cry from the sheer pleasure of it, but when you open your mouth it’s laughter that comes out. You’re healthy. You’re alive. You barely notice the IV line literally falling off of your skin because the hole where it entered your vein is sealed shut and healed perfectly.

No more needles. No more hospitals. Even without all the monitors beeping out your heart rate and measuring your vitals, there’s not a shred of doubt in your mind that you’re cured.

“Thank you!” you laugh, looking up at Overhaul and for the first time, not caring that he’s evil incarnate. “I feel—I’m okay! It worked!”

“Of course it did.” His expression is inscrutable, but he lets you have a few moments to enjoy your newfound health.

You roll your shoulders back, flex each muscle you can isolate one by one to test, make fists with your fingers and then run them over your hair, which is already thicker and shinier than it was a moment ago. Your body thrums with energy—you want to run, to feel the ground against your bare feet and the cold night air on your face, and you think you could do it! Your legs are already swinging over the side of your cot, ready to run barefoot out of the hospital if that’s what it takes, but before you can stand up Overhaul’s pushing you back down onto the bed.

“Have you forgotten your end of the bargain already?”

Honestly you did forget, but only for a second, only because you were so excited to just be outside again. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Your hand goes to your left ring finger, ready to slip the ring off and hand it over, but Overhaul shakes his head.

“Not here.”

“What—?”

You’re falling. Your hospital room is disappearing, the image of your walls and your window and your bed disintegrating into yawning black, and you’re falling through it into nothing, into emptiness, and Overhaul’s still-bare hand in yours is the only anchor you have so you clutch onto it and squeeze your eyes shut. You want to scream—that’s the sane thing to do when you’re falling through miles and miles of empty space, right?—but when you open your throat the sound is swallowed up just like the light was…

Overhaul’s hand burns into yours, an improbable lifeline that you pull closer more out of terror than conscious thought. The slick, empty air rushes around you and you think I am going to die like this and then, incredibly, as soon as you’ve accepted your imminent demise, you feel your back mold onto a chilled, flat surface, vertebra by vertebra up to the back of your head, as if you’ve been lain down onto it.

Your heart thuds in your ears and you brace for an impact because your body hasn’t quite accepted yet that it’s not falling anymore—but at the same time, you know you’re lying down on something. You pry your fingers away from their vice-grip on Overhaul’s arm and feel around blindly for what’s underneath you, and when it seems reasonably tangible you let yourself open your eyes.

Way above, vaulted dozens of feet over your head, is a ceiling studded with gilt-edged frescoes and stained glass. It’s raining (even though it wasn’t in the hospital, you think) but through the massive panes of colored glass there’s enough oily blue light to make out that you’re in a church.

You’re in a church, with a demon. Isn’t that against the rules?

You sit up stiffly and look over at Overhaul, who’s standing at your side and looking down at you…which is how you realize the soft, cold surface you’ve been deposited onto is the blanket on top of the altar in the sanctuary. “Where...did you take me?”

“You should know this place.”

And you do, when you look around. It’s empty now and you’ve never been here at night, but this is a church your mother would bring you to when you were little, back before the disease got so bad you couldn’t risk traveling to it anymore. This is where you took your purity vow…the ring feels heavy on your hand. “Why—why—“

“I can’t stand human hospitals. Filthy places… How that reek of illness and death doesn’t bother your kind, I’ll never understand.” Overhaul pulls his latex glove back on. He’s dressed differently now, no longer impersonating a doctor—black shirt, black pants, and a…bird mask in red leather and gold. So are you, as a matter of fact. Instead of your hospital gown, you’re in a gauzy white dress that’s already been pushed up to pool around the tops of your thighs.

The slip is too thin for the cold, and you can feel your nipples standing up under the cloth so you fold your arms over your chest and hug yourself. “Why did you take me here?” The sound of your voice echoes off the walls eerily and you wish you hadn’t spoken so loudly. The reflection of your words sounds girlish, nervous.

“I told you. Your side of our contract.” Even in this dark, the angular features of his face are clearly concentrating—on you. “Are you already having second thoughts? Such a fickle little thing…”

“You mean the ring?” You reach for it again, ready to tear it off and throw it at him if that’s what it takes to see your deal through, but Overhaul snatches your hand away, pinning it above you.

“Not the ring,” he says. “The promise.”

The…promise?

A chill makes its way down your spine despite the heat radiating off the demon’s body and onto yours. “I don’t understand.”

“The promise,” Overhaul repeats—and you hear a sound almost like wings flapping and then he’s on the altar with you, knees straddling your hips as a single hand holds both your wrists above your head. “To remain a virgin until marriage. Your promise to God.”

A streak of lightning cracks down on the other side of the stained glass window behind the altar, illuminating the room briefly in spectacular pits of red and orange and yellow…and then it’s dark again, and the only color you can make out is the gold in Overhaul’s eyes.

“I’m going to break it,” he murmurs, lowering his head toward your ear right as the answering thunder rolls through the sanctuary, up through the altar, up into you.

///

Méfiez-vous de son piège, the grimoire said. Beware of the catch.

Of course it wasn’t just a ring.

Overhaul’s fingers are in—inside you, his middle and ring finger pumping through the length of your cunt like they belong there, like you were made to be touched this way. A mixture of your juices and your own spit cling to the latex because he made you suck his fingers before he put them in you and he hasn’t bothered to take his gloves off—not that you asked. You’ve been too busy biting your lip to try and muffle the moans that he keeps forcing out of you. He’s bracing himself on top of you with one hand and fingering you with the other, so your own hands are free to push into your eyes and hide your face…until he yanks your arm back and stops.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes are screwed shut and you shake your head back and forth, the movement shuddering your whole body right down to your pussy wrapped around Overhaul’s fingers. He slows the movement and kneels back, pushing one of your thighs up into your chest as he does it.

“Look at me.”

And you’re not sure whether it’s some unearthly power he has over you or the plain old deterioration of your willpower, but you can’t refuse him. You crack your eyes open and he’s glaring down at you, skin pale as ice in the blue light. Once he’s satisfied that you’re watching, the demon leans back in to fuck your cunt with his fingers, slowly at first and then quicker when he hits something inside of you—a spot, a place on the inner wall of your pussy that makes you feel like you’ve been shocked— heat blooms through you like blood in water and you gasp and he curls his fingers up to pet over that spot again.

“Wait—wait, that’s—it feels—weird!” You’ve never felt like this before. You’re not supposed to feel like this, it’s wrong.

“I understand you’ve never touched yourself, but don’t pretend you don’t like it.” Overhaul says, voice as indifferent and calm as ever even though your cunt is dripping clear sticky liquid over the plastic of his glove.

He pushes back in and grinds his palm over the little button on the top of your pussy—your clit?—and you want to scream. “No, I—I don’t—nnhh...”

Do you like it? The demon’s body is so hot next to yours, like he’s running a fever except you’re the one going out of your mind… You’ve heard metaphors for sexual pleasure before (that it’s like having something to drink when you’re dying of thirst; or that it’s the ultimate act of intimacy, love in physical form) but all of that’s a fucking lie. There’s nothing to compare it to, no reference that makes sense, because it doesn’t make sense—you don’t even want him to keep going, do you? You’re only doing this because you signed your name on a devil’s contract, because you don’t want to die and there’s no alternative…but that doesn’t explain why you feel so warm from the inside out, why you’re squirming and your hips are rocking involuntarily no matter how much you try to keep still. This isn’t right. You feel like you’ve been lied to.

A good girl wouldn’t like this.

Overhaul isn’t going to let you close your eyes, so you don’t—but the sounds coming out of your mouth are so…indecent (and how can you think these things about yourself? the word feels like someone else is saying it when you hear it in your head) that your hand is drifting up to your mouth before you can stop yourself, trying to stifle all of it…

“Let your voice out. I want you to hear yourself moan.”

Long fingers slide their way out of your pussy and then move up to rub quick little circles around your clit and you moan, like a whore, like a girl getting her cunt rubbed by a demon— “Oh, uhhhn—something, it’s—coming—“ There’s something building up in your core—a peak, a climax, something that makes you fist your hands in the nightgown he put you in (so tight you’re surprised the thin fabric hasn’t torn) and tilt your hips up into him, begging without words because you don’t have any to express what your body is asking for…

But he doesn’t give it to you. Overhaul takes his hand away from your pussy and the shock of the cool air after his too-hot touch is almost enough to send you over that edge—almost. Not quite. And without it, you’re left shivering and quaking, thighs twitching as your baser instincts beg you to just put your hand between your legs for once and hump your fingers to completion if the demon won’t do it.

You’re not going to risk that, though. Not when Overhaul’s dragging your body closer, bunching up the blanket on the altar under your spine, so your pelvis is angled to his… He’s already shirtless and you hear him unzipping his pants but you can’t bring yourself to actually look at him, even when you feel something hard and hot nudging up against your inner thigh and then aligning to your sticky wet slit.

“This will hurt a bit, but I want you to look,” he says, and you don’t even understand at first until you make yourself feel it—his cock, pushing up against your tight cunt to finish this, this perversion of what your first time was supposed to be…

And what was it supposed to be? Roses and candles and soft kisses? A nameless, faceless husband unzipping your wedding dress and making love to you with the lights off? The way the demon touches you should be cruel in comparison but it isn’t, it’s lighting fires under your skin and turning your brains to mush, so how is your body supposed to tell the difference?

It’ll hurt, you know that, you’ve heard enough about sex to know that it always hurts the first time for girls…women. It was already a stretch to fit his fingers in your virgin pussy, so of course his cock is going to hurt. You turn your head toward the window at your side and try on look out at the rain drawing rivulets like veins over the glass, something to focus on instead of him.

“I said look,” the demon hisses, and his hips push forward a bit and you bite off a whimper of pain. “Watch me take your virginity…look at your tight little cunt swallowing me up just like it was made to.”

“N-No—“ you whine, even though it’s not like you can ignore it. “Don’t make me, don’t make me look, I can’t—“

“Then look at me.”

It’s what he wants, some kind of wicked satisfaction he gets off on, but you’re lucky enough to even get an option so you choose that one, shifting your gaze up into his face instead of the place where his cock is pressing deeper and deeper inside you. Overhaul’s eyes are half-lidded and it’s hard to tell from behind the mask but the look on his face is…pleasure? No, that would be too human. Restraint, at least. He could just thrust up into your body in one stroke, but he wants you to feel it for some reason.

Maybe because it’s a worse betrayal of your chastity if you want to get fucked.

Lucky for you, though, you can barely feel anything aside from the pain. The heat you felt building earlier is draining out of you even as Overhaul tilts deeper, layering his chest over yours. You’re almost grateful for the modest barrier the dress provides between your torso and the solid muscle of his abdomen. His cock in your pussy feels like it’s too big too deep too much and it’s the first time you’ve felt like your body wasn’t created specifically for this purpose so you hold it tight.

“Does it hurt?”

A second of clarity makes you want to snarl (of course it fucking hurts, I’m losing my virginity to a demon I summoned from hell) and you dig your fingernails into your palms to stop yourself from saying it out loud. Overhaul pulls out a fraction of an inch and then pushes back in and you feel like the breath’s being pushed out of your lungs. “Yes! Yes, it—it hurts—“

“I can make you enjoy it…for a price,” he sighs, settling into a slow rocking motion of his hips pushing into yours.

And you want to, every sore muscle in your cunt is telling you to give in and give up, give him what he wants so you can enjoy it like he says—but you’d rather hate every second of this than make another deal. You shake your head quickly and because you’re still too afraid to look away from him, you don’t miss the look of surprise that flits across his face before he tamps it down. “I don’t—I don’t want to—like it,” you gasp out between thrusts. “It’s better if—if it h-hurts…”

This time it’s obvious—his eyes really do widen, and you feel some petty triumph at having caught him off guard like this. Who’s predictable now? you think—and then he’s lifting one hand off the altar at the side of your head and tugging his glove off with his teeth, and you don’t even have time to be afraid of what he’s going to do to you because it’s too late, his bare fingers are already stroking over your mound and onto your core, massaging into the flesh of your stomach so he can feel his own cock sliding in and out of you—

and it doesn’t hurt anymore?

You only have a second to try and understand—he cured you, he healed the pain from your first time just like he healed your illness?—before he hooks his grip under your thigh and folds your legs into your chest so he can fuck into you harder than before. His cock slaps into your pussy and you can hear it, hear how wet your filthy little cunt is, smeared through with your juices. It’s sick—the sound of skin against skin, and the moaning you can’t hold back, you sound like a woman in a porno and you wish the pain would come back just so you could keep hating what he’s doing to you. “What—what did you do—“

The demon ignores you. “It feels good, doesn’t it.”

“Nn—“ It’s deeper like this…deeper and rougher and you can feel it. Now that the pain’s been reduced to the dull ache of a stretched muscle, you can feel everything—his cock sliding against that same spot in your cunt that makes you want to squeal, the friction of his body moving against your clit, all of it, everything you wanted to block out— he pumps into you and you hear your breath sobbing out a moan a second out of rhythm, the sounds of you bouncing on demon cock echoing over the walls. “Please—ah, ahhh…”

“‘Please?’ Are you begging—me, little girl?” Overhaul pushes your thigh up and drags his cock through you, excruciatingly slow, forcing you to feel the thick head slide over every gummy wall in your slick pussy.

You shake your head, mewl, try to force your hips to stop rocking back into his and grinding your clit against him. But you can’t. You’re a—you were a virgin, for fuck’s sake! Overhaul’s immortal. Probably thousands of years of experience on how to make you feel like you want this, like you’re only alive in the places he touches you… You’re at his mercy, if he has any. You never stood a chance.

“Then are you begging your god?” His body lowers directly onto yours and like you’re being controlled by puppet strings your arms fold around him and rake your fingernails uselessly into the smooth skin of his back. You can feel the vibration of his mirthless laughter through his chest. “It must hurt terribly…to know he isn’t listening.”

“Don’t—stop, please,” you sob. “Don’t say—don’t stop—please!”

“Listen to yourself, girl—“ Overhaul’s breath is faster now, but you don’t have time to question it because you feel your peak coming again, the tension rising up through your cunt and your abdomen, harsher and crueler than when his fingers were in you but you want it just as much. More. “Has he ever answered your prayers? Has he...ahh, fuck—who’s the one giving you what you need?”

“No— please, please just let me let me, please—“ You’re talking nonsense now, begging for the release—at least then it’ll be over, and you need it, you need it so badly you feel your muscles locking up, cramping, your ankles crossing each other behind Overhaul’s back.

“Good girl,” the demon breathes, and then he lifts off you so he’s kneeling upright with the two of you still connected, his thick, heavy cock still speared in your pussy, and his fingers come down again to rub at your clit. Everything’s so wet you can hear the motion of his fingers slicking themselves through your juices, sliding up and down the little button over and over and it feels so good that a tiny part of you almost wants to drag it out, to savor it, but the rest of your body is going to die, is going to go crazy if the demon doesn’t let you cum right now, right now, right now!

And he does. Praise the Lord. The pads of Overhaul’s fingers pass over your clit one last time and your head rolls back, your throat moves but you can’t even make a sound, your legs shake and you cum.

You didn’t know it was like this.

Your cunt squeezes down on his cock, throbbing and pulsing and your toes literally curl (you didn’t think that was a real thing!) and your vision goes black for a moment and—oh fuck oh fuck i want this i want more how is it possible that i’ve never felt like this—you understand, more intimately than ever, why sex is wrong:

because nothing that makes you feel this good could possibly come without a cost, could it?

///

It must take longer than you thought for you to come back to your senses, because when you regain awareness of your body you’re in your hospital bed. You’re clean, too, and you wonder for a second if Overhaul bothered to clean you up? Or no…he probably just snapped his fingers and transported you back to your room. You’re not really sure how it works.

What you are sure of, however, is that you just got fucked by a demon. You’re sore in places that you didn’t know it was possible to be sore, and there are already bruises forming on the flesh of your thighs from how tight he was holding you. You don’t really have time to inspect these, though, because apparently your…ordeal (if you can call it that) isn’t over.

Overhaul’s still here.

He’s facing the hints of sunrise through the east window, dressed again in the immaculate lab coat and surgeon’s mask. “You’re awake,” he says without looking at you.

You nod hesitantly. You’re not really sure what the protocol is in this situation, but at least you’ve finally held up your side of the contract, right? And so has he. Despite having been up all night doing sinful things, you’re still itching to get out of this bed and test the limits of your healthy body. “You’re…going to leave, right?”

“Yes—”

At that, you sigh in relief and settle back into your starched bedsheets.

“But there’s one more thing you owe me.”

“Goddamnit,” you swear for the very first time in your life. After what you just did, taking the Lord’s name in vain seems like a relatively minor sin.

Overhaul’s mildly irritated expression doesn’t change, but he holds his hand out to you, palm up, the way you imagine someone would if they were helping you out of a car or requesting a dance at an old-fashioned ball. And really, you want all of this to be over—you want to get out of this hospital, you want to taste what the air outside is like, you want to distract yourself from what you just gave up in exchange for a future. At this point you’re just going to have to hope God isn’t as picky about the whole premarital sex thing as you grew up believing.

So you put your hand in Overhaul’s.

Slowly, carefully, like he’s afraid it’ll burn him, he slides your purity ring down your finger and balances it in the palm of his bare hand. It sizzles when he touches it, glowing orange until it eventually burns down into a ash-black circle in the center of his palm. Once he’s satisfied that your pretty little ring has been reduced to nothing more than a scorch mark, he closes his hand around yours and you feel something sharp, painfully hot, etching onto your finger.

It’s over in a second, but you still yelp and yank your hand away from him as soon as he lets you. “Ah—ow, what was that?”

He burned you, he literally burned you! He’s already healed it, but there’s still a thin, pale scar, an intentional one left wrapping around the skin at the base of your left ring finger. Like a wedding ring.

When you look close, you can make out a symbol on the back of your finger where the cross used to sit—and even though your conscious mind doesn’t recognize it, the sight of it rings out something inside your ribcage, deeper and truer than flesh and blood. It’s the devil’s mark, you think. It’s his.

“…A promise,” Overhaul says softly, and even though it’s a chilly morning, you can feel the heat of his hands on yours a long time after he vanishes back into the dark.

[silversatoru]

step-dad nanami + brat taming 😼?

dark content event!!!

yes yes yes yes yes yes yesyyesysyesy mmm so good mm very tasty idea ily and i got very carried away

nanami + brat taming

tw: nsfw 18+, f!reader, psuedocest (nanami is your step-dad), brat-taming, noncon/dubcon, impact play, power imbalance, mild size kink?, manhandling, fingering, nanami said fuck jujutsu and is a very rich business man au

wc: 1.7k

you knew your mother’s new fiancé was a moderately successful business man, but you certainly weren’t expecting to pull up to a security gate on the day that you moved in with him. a large house constructed with dark-colored bricks loomed over your mom’s dented toyota prius, and you wondered what the hell one lonely man needed all this space for.

the white-haired butler that opened the front door and offered to carry some of your bags seemed nice enough, but you couldn’t help but scoff at the entire situation. walking onto the pristine and shiny floors in your scuffed up sneakers made you wonder just how your mom had managed to gold-dig her way into this one. either she was terribly convincing, or this guy was horribly desperate — either way you weren’t opposed to reaping the benefits. a butler, a giant in-ground pool, a bedroom that was three times the size of your old one?

yeah, you’d settle in real quick.

and you did just that, taking whatever you wanted and not feeling a shred of guilt for it. this guy, nanami kento, had more than enough money to go around, so why shouldn’t you indulge yourself? why shouldn’t you throw unsolicited pool parties while they’re at work? invite boys over to spend time in your king sized bed? your mom forced you out of your hometown to move in with this rich asshole, might as well make the most of it.

and things were going pretty fucking smoothly if you do say so yourself, or at least they were until nanami caught you sneaking a boy through your window one night.

you thought your were so smart, so slick with the way that you used his house as your personal playground behind his back. but why would he own such an esteemed property and not have security cameras? you weren’t smart at all, in fact you were incredibly, incredibly stupid.

and you’ve been getting on nanami’s nerves for a while, sashaying around the house in tiny outfits surrounded by a horde of immature boys. he’d watch you through the security footage while he worked — blood boiling at the way you flaunted his home as if it were your own.

those boys were never going to be enough for you; you’d walk all over them with your inflated ego and terrible attitude. you needed a man, someone grown, who could put your back in your place — you needed nanami — and fuck, he’d wanted you since the day you walked through his front door. he’d been patient, very patient, but this was enough to snap the thin wire that was holding him back.

he didn’t hesitate to kick the boy right back out the window he climbed through, threatening to call the cops if he didn’t leave his fucking property right now. and then a firm hand was wrapped around your wrist, dragging you up the stairs and into his bedroom.

he gave your arm a harsh tug, tossing your body towards his large neatly made bed. the edge of the raised mattress whacked you in the gut, your face falling forward and mashing into the silky comforter.

“what the fu-,” you snapped your head back to look at him, but were immediately met with a rolled up black sock being shoved into the back of your mouth.

you coughed and whined through the fabric as he grasped both your wrists in his one large hand, his other weaving the leather belt that was previously looped through his trousers around your wrists. he had zero patience for you right now, and he was making that evidently clear.

“i’ve tried to stay patient with you, but you’ve forced my hand this time,” he looked at you with dark eyes, one of his hands undoing the zipper at the back of your skirt.

you tried to kick with your legs, tried to cuss him out through the sock, but it was entirely ineffective, his strong hands holding you down and the cotton preventing a single coherent word from leaving your lips. your skirt was gliding to your feet now, your bare ass exposed and looking nanami right in the eyes.

“sneaking in another boy? how many times should i spank you for that? five? ten? i think ten would be suitable in this situation,” he used one hand to keep you pinned to the mattress, and the other to caress the smooth skin of your upper thigh, “what do you think?”

obviously you tried to reason with him, tell him that you didn’t deserve any spanks, that you weren’t a child, that this whole thing was fucking weird — but none of that made it out of your mouth, not through the soggy sock that was still in your way.

“i’m glad you agree, ten it is,” he gave you a thoughtful look, raising up his hand in preparation to strike you for the first time.

“one”.

his hand swung down with incredible force, a piercing smacking sound echoing through the room as you squealed and kicked under his touch. it felt like a thousand pins piercing through your skin, a blazing fire that burned through his fingers and straight through to your brain.

“two”.

the second smack was brought down with even more strength, your whole body lurching in response to the impact. you still kicked, still fought, still screamed through gag for him to fuck off, but a small part of you was already anticipating number three.

“three”.

the third strike to your backside flipped a switch in your brain, your legs falling limp and your screams replaced with pitiful whimpers and whines. his hand on your skin was starting to hurt so good, bits of the sock becoming trapped in your clenched teeth.

four, five, and six came quickly after, only a few seconds of rest between each of them — and nanami knew that he’d won when your feet began to push up onto your tip-toes, your ass wiggling closer to him as you waited for more.

“you count the next ones,” he reached forward and plucked the disgusting sock out of your mouth, tossing it to the floor and caressing your cheek.

seven came down hard, goosebumps lining your arms as you yelped; your tied up hands grasping at air. a shameful “seven”, rolled from your tongue a few moments later, your shaky voice flooding nanami’s ears.

“good girl,” he cooed, “three more”.

the next three stung the worst, nanami hissing at how badly it hurt his own hand — but your were a lightheaded, dizzy mess; practically drooling on his sheets by the time he was done. you’d done exactly what he asked, taken all ten and even counted out the last four — you were so good for him, and it was so easy.

he helped you roll over onto your back and then slipped his hand under the waistband of your panties, pulling and letting them fall down to your ankles. you’d taken the punishment pretty well, so it was only fair that you were rewarded now.

he sat down on the edge of the bed next to you, one of his hands pressing down onto your puffy clit. you knew how inappropriate this was all becoming, but your head was much too hazy to care.

he dipped two of his fingers low, slipping them into your slimy cunt and gently pushing them up inside you. his fingers were long, a sharp whimper flying through your teeth as he curled his fingers against your walls.

what the hell would happen if your mom got home right now? if she saw her soon-to-be husband fist-deep in her daughter?

those were the things you should have been thinking, but they didn’t cross your mind once. how could you care about the what if’s when nanami was stuffing you full with his thick fingers on one hand, and expertly massaging your clit with the other.

no one your age had this experience, and none of the boys you’d messed with had ever made you feel this good with such little effort. nanami was opening your eyes to his expert hands, and you began to wonder how many sorry brats had ended up in this exact spot before. maybe this is what he did for fun — romancing middle-aged women just to prey on their college-aged daughters until they inevitably get caught one day — and then the cycle continues.

but right now, on the edge of losing yourself around his fingers, you didn’t care if you were the hundredth step-daughter he’d done this to — it was worth it.

your walls clamped around his fingers as he thrusted them deeper, his other thumb rubbing hard and consistent circles over your sensitive nub. it was impossible to hold out any longer, the ball in your stomach flying undone as you rolled your hips into his hand and creamed all over his fingers. the room was filled with the prettiest mewls and whines, your body shaking and lurching as he kept feeling you even after your orgasm was fading.

only once you accidentally kicked him from the intensity of the overstimulation did he unsheath his fingers from your cunt, his skin glistening with your fluids. he shoved them into your mouth, your eyes widening as he offered a simple: “suck”.

but you did what you were told, you’d quickly learned that disobeying him would only lead to something worse. he smirked for the first time after he plucked them from your mouth, your lips making a satisfying popping sound.

“never gonna invite those boys over again, right?” he taunted you, an obvious bulge sitting in his dress pants.

you quickly shook your head no.

but if breaking the rules meant this would happen again?

you’d be breaking them every goddamn day.

[haadeswrites]

Elysium

god this fic took forever i’m so sorry!! but hey, first fic on the new blog! <33 also y’all should really thank @iwaasfairy who listened to me complain about this fic for a solid month, she’s the reason it got finished

Cult leader Oikawa Tooru x female reader

tw: indoctrination, extremely dubious consent, blood, yandere themes, religious themes, minor character death, implied abuse & drug use, mild smut, nsfw

The island itself is breathtaking

Pristine beaches with gleaming white sand, vast swathes of lush, green rainforest and waterfalls that cascade into shimmering pools of crystal clear water. Untouched, undisturbed; a paradise. At least, that’s how Ryuji had described it. 

Paradise, but only in the sense that a gingerbread cottage in the middle of the woods is paradise to a lost and hungry child. 

He hadn’t been wrong. Bare feet sink into soft, white sand as you climb from the boat - the warmth just toeing the line between pleasant and burning. Gentle waves ebb and flow behind you, and there’s a light breeze that kisses your skin, the taste of seasalt carrying in the wind. Home, it seems to sing.

A laugh sounds somewhere in the distance, yet the only other figure on the beach is a man walking steadily towards you. He smiles when he sees you’ve noticed him; friendly, non-threatening. It’s a far cry from the swarming welcoming committee you’d been dreading, and you wonder if that’s somehow intentional as well. 

As the boat pushes back out to sea he comes to a stop before you, “I’m Makki,” he says, pushing the fringe of his hair back and giving you a not-so-subtle once over. Whatever he sees must meet approval, because his grin only widens, “Welcome to the Commune.”

Ryuji wasn’t wrong; the island is a beautiful, deadly thing.

—

You’d never heard of the Commune before the phone call. 

And maybe that shouldn’t be so surprising. You’ll be the first to admit you’re hardly an expert, but from what you do know, groups like the Commune – cults – don’t spring up out of thin air and start broadcasting their mistreatment and systematic abuse. 

They’re not the kind of people that have sweet old ladies clutching their pearls and mothers shepherding their children away – at least, not in the beginning. Not entirely. They’re not out to recruit extremists to further their cause, they choose to prey on the vulnerable, the lost and the disillusioned. Those easily manipulated. You suspect that’s why when you google the Commune, all you find is a website for what essentially looks like a long term luxury wellness retreat.

‘The Commune is about healing and harmony, about returning to nature, supporting one another to forge a brighter, more holistic future together… a self-sufficient community living apart from technology and other evils of modern society.’ 

You fight the urge to roll your eyes as you scroll through. There’s a whisper of philosophical teachings woven throughout, a page dedicated to their founder, Oikawa Tooru – smiling handsomely in every single picture, because what would a burgeoning cult be without a charismatic leader – but there’s not enough.

So here you are, on an island hundreds of miles away from home living amongst strangers; because Ryuji wouldn’t have sounded so terrified if this was just some alternate, free-loving bunch of hippies.

And even with all that he’d told you, everything you thought you’d be prepared for, the Commune is like nothing you could’ve imagined. 

Makki introduces you to Asuka, a woman only a few years older than yourself, dark haired and stunningly beautiful, and winks as he tells her to take you under her wing. She smiles brightly, eyes twinkling, and pulls you into a heartfelt hug – as if you’ve known each other your whole lives.

“We’re so glad you’re here!” she beams.

You’d like to hate her. 

It feels like you're supposed to, sometimes; when she gets that dreamy look in her eyes and starts talking about Oikawa and the Commune and how lucky everyone here on the island is. Yet there’s something about her – the genuine warmth she emanates maybe, or the kindness in her eyes – that makes it difficult for you not to like her.

“You should come to the gathering tomorrow,” she hums idly one afternoon, maybe a week or so after your arrival. The two of you are sitting on the edge of the pier, legs dangling down into the water, tangled fishing nets to be repaired strewn between you.

“I always go,” you reply.

She laughs, fixing you with a knowing look, “And sit right at the very back, all but running off the moment we finish?” 

And your traitorous heart skips a beat. 

“It’s okay to take things slowly,” she says. “We understand that being a part of the Commune is a big change from the life you knew, and that not everybody is able to see what we see and embrace those changes.” 

Asuka sets down the knot she’s working through and reaches for your hand, a gentle smile on her face, “But you shouldn’t be afraid. You’re meant to be here, I can feel it. You just need to stop fighting against it; surrender yourself to us, to the island, and everything’ll make sense, I promise.”

It’s dangerous territory. One wrong word could set off alarm bells, yet you can’t help pressing just a little.

“Do you ever miss it, then? Life outside the Commune?” 

Your family. Friends. The life you left behind before you came here to be brainwashed like all of the others.

“Why would I?” she answers without missing a beat, and it’s hard to ignore the bitter flicker of disappointment you feel at her answer. “The island provides for us, we don’t have to spend our days selling off tiny pieces of ourselves just to make ends meet. It’s paradise here, and we have Oikawa to thank for that. Why would I ever want to go back?”

Silence falls between you as you struggle to think of something to say to salvage the situation. Yet Asuka isn’t even looking at you, instead staring out at the water with a strangely pensive expression. 

“Did you know I was married once?” The words seemingly out of the blue, you can only shake your head. For a moment, she doesn’t reply, watching as the waves rise and crash offshore. And then;

“I was young, eighteen or so, fresh out of high school and he was a small town cop.” Her eyes flicker to yours, and your heart clenches at the sadness and pain echoing there. “I thought he was a good man, once upon a time.”

A chord strikes deep, your chest tightening involuntarily at her words. It’s not the same, of course it’s not the same, and yet… 

No. You stop the errant thought in its tracks. Groups like the Commune prey on the vulnerable, you know this. People like Ryuji, like Asuka, like–

Her fingers squeeze around yours, pulling you back to the present. “Come to the gathering tomorrow. Listen to Oikawa, it’ll help.”

—

She doesn’t give you a choice in the matter – dragging you by the hand to sit right at the front of the gathered crowd that very night.

Oikawa’s handsomer up close; tall and dark haired with pretty eyes and long, sweeping lashes that frame delicate cheekbones, it’s not hard for you to see how a man like him has amassed such an impassioned following. 

Once he starts actually speaking, however, you realise that his good looks and charming smile are just the tip of the iceberg. Oikawa’s utterly captivating as he preaches about the cycle of life and death and the paradise that awaits his faithful. Passionate and engaging, he speaks like he truly believes every word of the lies he’s spreading. 

And Asuka, her friends, the others gathered, they eat up every word like it’s gospel truth, resounding cheers and thunderous applause deafening around you. In the midst of the rapturous din, Oikawa’s eyes flit to yours.

Slowly, he smiles – a dazzling grin that makes your stomach flip – and everything; Asuka, the noise, the others swarming around you, it all fades away.

For one electrifying heartbeat, you’re frozen in place. Just you and Oikawa, trapped in the pull of each other’s gaze.

—

You can’t forget the reason you came.

But it’s… difficult, in a way you struggle to understand. You only have one purpose for being here, one goal; find Ryuji and bring him home. 

And yet, some days it’s like there’s a fog in your mind, and you have to focus to remember why you’re here at all. You catch yourself laughing with Asuka and her friends, the days passing by in a blur of endless, easy distractions. 

It barely feels like work when you’re sitting under the shade of the trees, eating the fruits you’ve picked by hand – ripe and sweet, unlike anything you’ve ever tasted – diving off waterfalls into the crystalline water and meandering down the shore collecting seashells. Even when you are working, mending clothes or cooking with the others, it fills you with a sense of contentment you can’t quite explain. 

Like you’re a part of something bigger. Like you’re doing something that matters.

Ryuji becomes a distant thought. A whisper in the back of your head, a niggling in your gut, easily brushed aside and ignored until there’s a moment of quiet. In the dead of night, the balmy summer night’s breeze kissing your bare skin, you lie awake, lost in memories of the last time you’d seen him. 

Fists angrily pounding at your door, the yelling that gave way to sobs and the hoarse, desperate pleas that followed. Ryuji’s face; pupils blown wide and eyes rimmed in red, darting restlessly around as he held you too tight and begged–

Rolling over in bed, you gaze out your window at the star flecked sky, the shadows of the forest that lie at your doorstep, and wonder what it is that scares you more; that you’ve lost track of the days you’ve been here, and saving Ryuji is starting to feel like an afterthought, or that you could so easily forget all of it, find a place here in the Commune and be happy.

‘The island, it–it fucks with your head.’

Ryuji’d told you that, and you’d brushed it off as paranoia. You need to find him. Find him and get the hell outta dodge.

You can deal with the fallout later.

—

Kiyoshi. 

He’d mentioned the name a few times amidst his rambling – a friend of his on the island. You’re annoyed with yourself for not thinking of it sooner, however much like Ryuji himself, trying to focus and remember the name is like wading through thick mud.

Once you do, though, finding him amongst the hundred and fifty or so inhabitants is the easy part. 

There’s no strict division between genders within the Commune, however Kyoshi, despite his somewhat lean stature, is among the builders of the island and his path doesn’t often cross with yours. 

From Asuka you find out that he’s been a part of the Commune for years now, before even she joined, and that he mostly sticks to himself, though you’ve seen him chatting quietly to a few of the other men, a perpetually angry looking blonde in particular.

It’s the last part that piques her interest, “Why’re you so curious, anyway?” she asks, her face lighting up as a sudden thought occurs. “Do you want me to introduce you two? To be honest, I didn’t think he’d be your type, if you’re interested, though…”

Cheeks aflame, you’re quick to shut her down. “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve just… seen him around and we’ve never really spoken, I guess.”

A lame excuse, though mercifully she lets the subject drop without too much prodding.

Therein, of course, lies the problem. Walking up to Kyoshi and casually trying to drop Ryuji into the conversation without raising red flags is risky, but what other options do you have? You’ve already spent too much time on this island.

Although, maybe Asuka has the right idea. 

While you hadn’t been lying when you said you weren’t interested in Kyoshi in that way, nobody else knew that. Who would really look twice at the shy newbie striking up a conversation with the quiet, easygoing man? He wasn’t unattractive per se, and from the brief interactions you’d seen of him, he seemed kind enough.

You have enough patience (barely) to wait for dusk the following night. There’s a celebration, something about the full moon and a blessing on the island and the Commune– you hadn’t really been paying attention when Oikawa had spoken about it. Still, it’s too good an opportunity to pass up. With the fire pits crackling, and the dancing and music and the sweet honey wine flowing freely, nobody will be paying too much attention to what you’ll be doing. Hopefully, the alcohol will also serve to lower Kiyoshi’s guard, and perhaps if you’re really, really lucky, loosen his tongue as well. 

Of course, you’re not banking on him telling you exactly where Ryu is or what happened to him– and that’s assuming he actually knows – but at this point you’ll take anything over the nothing you currently have. A tiny slip up, that’s all you’re asking for. 

As the sun descends beyond the horizon, you play your role well, laughing and chatting amongst friends, sipping carefully at the cup of wine in your hand as you wait for an opening. And perhaps it’s your nerves working against you, but you find that it’s not just Kiyoshi your attention is drawn to. 

Up on the shore, away from the rabble, Oikawa lounges back with a cup of the same honeyed wine you’re pretending to drink. For the most part he seems deep in conversation with Iwaizumi, his right hand, but every once in a while he glances up, letting his gaze roam over the crowd of his followers.

Every inch a king and his general.

And it would seem benevolent, if not for the strange smile he wears – the one that widens when his eyes catch yours.

Swallowing tightly, you force yourself not to dwell on it, to ignore the odd sensation curling in your gut and the way your skin prickles under his attention. Now is not the time to lose focus.

Pushing all thoughts of Oikawa aside, you subtly scan the beach once more, only to find that Kiyoshi’s moved, sitting now on a piece of old driftwood near the bonfire. Alone for the first time tonight. 

Your legs are moving before the thought even fully registers. 

“Do you mind if I sit?” you ask, gesturing to the empty space on the log beside him. 

Kiyoshi smiles, the laugh lines at corners of his eyes crinkling pleasantly, and shakes his head, “Not at all.”

“Thanks.”

Taking another sip of your wine, you will your shoulders to relax, your racing pulse to slow. This has to seem natural, and so you force yourself to hold your tongue, let your head loll back and breathe deep, soaking it all in. You can hear the others in the distance, the music and the dancing, the happy laughter and shouts that beckon – you want to go join them. Even your blood seems to hum, a call of something other pulsing through your veins.

But you pay it no mind. There are more important things to worry about tonight. 

Indeed, steel blue eyes have been appraising you curiously for a while now. “This is your first Lunar blessing, isn’t it?” Kiyoshi asks after a moment.

You nod, humming in agreement. Less than a month; you’ve been here less than a month. Is that a good thing?

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

A harmless enough question, and again you nod your head. “Yeah, it’s…” you pause, searching for words that won’t sound hollow. “It’s paradise. I feel like I need to pinch myself just to make sure it’s real.”

He smiles gently. “But?” he probes.

Grimly, you wonder whether Kiyoshi’s usually this perceptive, or if you’re just a really terrible actor. In a way, you suppose it really doesn’t make a difference; you’ve come too far to turn back now – at least not without raising suspicion. 

So you lie with a truth, and pray that it works.

“I had a friend I was supposed to meet here,” you confess quietly, gazing not at him but the crackling flames of the bonfire, the burning embers carried off into the night. “He was the one who said I should come, but now I’m here and he’s not and every time I catch myself enjoying this–”

“You feel guilty,” he surmises, cutting you off. “Because he’s not here to enjoy it with you.”

Wordlessly, you nod – and maybe it isn’t so much of an act when your eyes begin to glisten, your smile wavering. 

Kiyoshi’s silent for a moment, and you take another sip of the honey wine to hide your nerves. “You shouldn’t, you know,” he says eventually. “Feel guilty, I mean. You belong here, with the Commune. You’re happy here. Paradise… isn’t for everybody.”

He doesn’t say it to be cruel, more like he’s simply stating a fact, and somehow that makes it all the more unnerving. And it’s nothing you haven’t listened to Oikawa preach about time and time again. The Commune is for the devoted, the faithful – the lucky few – and you’ve never thought too hard about what he’d meant by that.

The Commune’s small, maybe a hundred and fifty or so people on the island. There’d been no initiation, no test of faith or trial period you’d had to pass when you arrived – at least, none that you’d been aware of. You simply stepped off the boat and they’d welcomed you with open arms. 

An uneasy sensation settles into your gut, goosebumps prickling at your skin despite the heat of the midsummer night. 

That… doesn’t make sense. It can’t. Absolute control’s too important in groups like this, they couldn’t just let anyone–

Kiyoshi speaks again, his calm voice pulling you from your thoughts. “What was his name?” 

You blink at him slowly – stupidly. “Sorry?”

“Your friend,” he clarifies. “What was his name?”

“Oh, um- Ryuji.”

Kiyoshi’s brow furrows in thought for a moment, but he merely shakes his head, “Doesn’t ring a bell, but like I said, not everyone who arrives stays with us for long.”

He looks you right in the eye as he says it.

You don’t understand the cold, foreboding that seeps through your veins, because he’s lying. He has to be. 

Ryuji was here. They were friends, Ryu’d told you that–

Why did you think this stupid plan would work anyway? That he’d tell you anything, much less the truth when this whole fucked up island is full of liars and those too indoctrinated to know the difference?

“You alright?” he asks when abruptly, you shoot to your feet beside him.

And it takes every ounce of willpower you have left to force an easy smile to your lips, raising your cup just a fraction, “Yeah, just gonna go get a refill. Thanks for the talk, Kiyoshi.”

Whether he notices that your wine’s barely touched or not, you don’t care – not as you turn on your heel without another word and head back up the beach. 

Your head is pounding, your body trembling – you don’t hear the call of your name until a hand reaches out and grasps at your wrist, spinning you around.

Asuka greets you with a wide grin, Makki and a tall, broad shouldered man you think is called Mattsun standing either side of her – the former’s arm slung casually over her shoulder. “There you are! I’ve been looking for you,” she says. “Come on, we’re gonna go swimming, it’s so pretty out there!”

You glance out towards the ocean. Moonlight bathes the inky blue water, light shimmering off the rippling tide; some of the others are already out there, splashing amongst the waves. 

“Clothing optional, of course,” Makki laughs, and Asuka tugs on your wrist once more. 

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

But you shake your head, slowly pulling your hand from her grip, “I’m not feeling great, I think I’m gonna head back.”

Asuka frowns, concern marring her pretty features. “Are you okay? Do you need us to call Mizo–”

“No,” you say, cutting her off. Healer Mizoguchi is the last person you need to see right now. “I just– I just need to go lie down for a bit. You guys go have fun – enjoy the blessing, I’ll be fine.”

Makki and Asuka share a fleeting look, but it’s Mattsun who interjects before either one of them can speak, “I’ll walk you back, then.”

Your stomach churns. It doesn’t sound like a suggestion.

And the smart thing to do would be to accept his help; the walk from the beach to your villa isn’t far, and while you’re not as familiar with Mattsun as you are with Makki or Asuka, it’s not like he’s going to hurt you or anything, but–

“Really– you don’t need to, it’s fine,” you smile weakly, shuffling back as he reaches to offer you his arm. “Go swim, I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

Mattsun shrugs easily enough, falling back into line with the other two – yet there’s something in the way he grins and holds your gaze for a beat longer. A glimmer of amusement, as if there’s some joke you're not a part of. “I’ll hold you to it, sweetheart.”

The heat that floods your cheeks clashes uncomfortably with the cloying heaviness in your stomach, but somehow you manage to stutter out one last goodbye before turning back to scamper off in the direction of your room.

–But not to lie down.

There’s not a cloud in the sky, and the full moon’s bright. No need for a torch, not unless you decide to venture into the heart of the forest.

You’ve been a fool. Kiyoshi, Asuka, Makki, Mattsun; you can’t trust any of them to help you, even unwittingly. Ryuji’s here on the island – somewhere – and every second that slips away, every second that you allow yourself to forget puts him in further danger.

And so you cling to your discomfort, ground yourself in it. The prickling sensation at the back of your neck, the tightness in your chest as you slip past your villa, keeping low and quiet – they’re a reminder that there is something insidious here on the island, that you have to get out.

You and Ryuji.

He’s here. Away from the others, kept under lock and key as punishment, or maybe being forced to undergo whatever kind of glorified brainwashing they’ve got going on, but here. You need to be smart about this, because while you don’t intend to stop until you find him, tonight will be your best shot – while everyone’s distracted down on the beach. 

For the first time in a long time, it feels like you have a clear head. 

Creeping through the underbrush, you steer clear of the well trod pathways that lead towards habitation. You’ve been there, and to the docks, and the river. 

If they’re still keeping him here (and they are, you refuse to entertain the possibility that it could be otherwise) then it’s not somewhere out in the open. A bird cries out in the distance shattering the calm of the night, and you flinch – but it only serves as another reminder that your time tonight is limited; you cannot afford to delay. You wrack your brain, trying to dredge up memories of the last few weeks, surely you must have seen something–

“Lost?”

The single word, spoken in a deep, gruff voice has your blood running cold.

Slowly, you turn. 

Iwa stands behind you in the thicket, his face utterly impassive. Briefly, you contemplate whether it’s worth trying to bluff your way out of this, but Iwa’s eyes narrow, flashing in the dim light and you think better of it.

A sigh escapes you, your shoulders deflating. “Where is he– Ryuji?” you ask; a whisper rather than a demand.

Iwa’s expression gives nothing away. Did he know, or have you handed him the smoking gun of a crime that’d fallen through the cracks? Does it even matter anymore? You’re just–

You’re tired. 

Exhausted. In the space of a few moments all of that shining determination and resolve; it fled, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. This has to end, you can’t keep fighting against them forever. You can’t keep drowning in this guilt, feeling torn every second that you spend here on this stupid island. You just want to find Ryuji and go home.

… Right?

A tense beat passes as Iwa appraises you, and then; “Come with me.”

The hand he places on your shoulder doesn’t give you much choice. His grip isn’t what you’d describe as gentle, yet he’s careful enough to make sure you don’t trip or stumble as he marches you north. 

In the thick of the forest away from the beach, it’s eerily quiet. Every twig that snaps underfoot, every ragged breath you draw; it feels too loud. Out of place amongst the stillness of the midsummer night. 

And isn’t it ironic, that for the first time since you set foot in this paradise, you feel like you’re trespassing?

A bead of sweat trickles down from your temple and your mind unwittingly drifts back to Mattsun and Makki. Are they still swimming with Asuka? Probably, you reason. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how long it’s been since you left them on the beach, but surely no more than an hour.

And strangely, like water drawn from the depths of a well, an image comes to mind; the four of you standing in the waves, you perched atop Mattsun’s shoulders, screaming and giggling in delight as Asuka tries to knock you down again, two sets of eyes watching from the shore… 

You should have stayed on the beach.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“You can ask,” he replies drily – humouring you, you suppose.

Your lips quirk upwards for the briefest of moments. “What happens on the Lunar blessing? Asuka, the others– no one told me what it was.” 

Iwaizumi doesn’t answer you immediately, but you feel his fingers reflexively tighten on your shoulder. Likely it wasn’t the question he was expecting; surely there were others that you could have asked – but you don’t really want the answers to those.

If you’re being led like a lamb to proverbial slaughter, what good would it do you to know it? 

And yet as the seconds pass and no answer seems forthcoming from your captor, you resign yourself to the fact that your curiosity will remain unsated. You don’t even know what prompted you to ask in the first place; knowing Oikawa it’s probably some grand, meaningless spectacle. Pretty, hollow words spoken only to–

A heavy sigh draws you from your thoughts, and you falter in your step, almost tripping over your own feet in the process. Iwa’s quick to right you, urging you forward with a less than gentle nudge. “Walk straight,” he grunts, yet it lacks any true heat. Anticipation flutters through your veins, and he mutters a soft curse behind you. “Fine. It… it’s an exchange.” 

An exchange? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Your eyebrows draw together, mouth opening to press the matter, but Iwa beats you to the punch.

“You’ll find out for yourself soon enough, now shut up.”

You have no response to that, so you do.

—

The two of you walk in silence for what feels like hours. Eventually, the terrain becomes steeper, the worn path you’re treading twisting and winding, and you realise you must be close to the mountains at the heart of the island. 

As your breath comes in heavy pants, your legs beginning to ache, you can’t help but be lost in the beauty of it all.

The flora’s different here, unlike any you’ve seen before. Flowers bursting from the bark of towering trees, blooms of vibrant hues; reds and purples and soft, baby pinks. Even the vines at your feet curl amongst pretty white buds that gleam invitingly under the moonlight. Your jaw falls open as you gaze around in wonderment. 

You forget why you’re walking, where it is that you’re heading. Iwa’s grip relaxes as a quiet gasp escapes you, and he doesn’t stop you when you stray from the path to take a closer look. You can’t resist reaching out to touch the silken petals, leaning in to smell their perfume. Soft and light and sweet, your eyes flutter shut, a smile creeping across your visage. 

It reminds you of home. Not your actual home – the rundown, tiny shoebox apartment you gave up before you came here – but something deeper.

Home, like the long summer days spent playing in your parents’ backyard. Home, like afternoons curled up by the window, watching the rain come down in sheets outside. 

Home, like the comfort of arms wrapped around you; two hearts beating in sync.

“C’mon,” Iwa interrupts after a minute or so, his voice a touch less gruff. “We’re almost there.”

Dazed, you find yourself nodding, allowing him to guide you back to the path. This time, he doesn’t grab you by the shoulder, seemingly content enough to walk by your side. 

True to his word, it’s only another few minutes before you see it; a wooden villa, four times the size of your own and far, far grander, set amongst a clearing of trees on the mountainside. Confused, your eyes flicker from the villa to Iwa and back again. Gossamer curtains billow lightly in the breeze, a warm, inviting glow spilling from the open windows. Surely this cannot be where he meant to lead you… and yet he merely stands at your side, arms folded across his broad chest, watching you expectantly. 

“You gonna make me carry you up there?” he asks, not unkindly.

Swallowing tightly, you shake your head. 

Another glance, and you catch a shadow lingering by the window. Your heart skips a beat, apprehension curling in your gut as you begin to walk, every step feels less steady than the last. You’re almost glad when Iwa takes you by the arm; if only so that you have something to focus on other than the growing tightness in your chest. The villa, with its pretty flowers and airy, elegant grandeur is far from the isolated cell you’d been afraid of, yet the uncertainty of what you’re walking into eats at you all the same.

Is this where they’ve been keeping Ryu, or has he brought you here for another reason?

Nothing, however, can prepare you for what you find inside. Warm light emanates from lanterns that bathe the room, and your eyes widen as you stare around you.

Strange, gold carvings inlaid with mother of pearl decorate the thick, woodens support beams, a pot of incense burns on a table overflowing with fresh fruit. There’s a jug of the same honeyed wine you’d drank earlier in the night and two cups set on an ornate stand nearby – just within arms reach of one of the chaise lounges.

Iwa affords you little time to gape, drawing you further in. Silken tapestries hang from the walls – you’re pulled along too quickly to truly take note, but the brief glimpses you get hint at a story; a divine being cast from his home, lost and wandering.

It tugs at something buried within you, and uncomfortable, you tear your eyes away.

The two of you reach a closed door at the end of the hall, and Iwa pulls you to a stop, knocking once.

“Come,” a familiar voice calls.

You stiffen, though perhaps you should have foreseen this outcome. Who else would Iwa bring you to but to him? Distantly, you register his grip relaxing, the sound of the door sweeping open and his voice at your ear.

“Go on.”

And it’s funny, you think, how two halves of yourself can be so at odds with each other. Because while your stomach twists itself into knots, goosebumps prickling at your skin, your legs stumble forward of their own accord.

Two steps forward, and your breath catches in your throat.

It’s a bedroom, that much you can deduce from the decor, but that’s not what captures your attention. Nor is it Oikawa, leaning against the bureau with a genial smile – at least not at first. 

No. In place of a back wall, there’s open space, not so much as a panel of glass obstructing the view before you. And what a view it is; from this height you can see the sprawling forest below, the coastline dotted with bonfires and the moonlit ocean shimmering beyond. Where the floorboards end, there are steps, you realise as you unwittingly inch closer, leading to a cascading spring – likely fed from the waterfall you can hear rushing nearby.

How easy it would be to brush aside your worries, you think, to shed your clothes, slip into the cool, calm water and lose yourself entirely. Even amongst all you’ve seen and experienced on the island so far, this is incomparable. 

“Stunning, isn’t it?” Oikawa murmurs, coming up behind you.

His voice startles you, yet when you turn, you find him not gazing out at the scenery but rather at you, that same strange, knowing smile curling at his lips.

“Some days, I admit, it’s hard to tear myself away,” he continues, unbothered by your stunned silence. “But even I can’t neglect my duties for too long.”

You swallow, tongue darting out to wet your lips. Confusion twists through you at the conversational tone, surely he hasn’t brought you here just to chat about the impressive views, yet there’s no hint of disapproval on his face, no indication that he’s anything less than pleased with you.

It’s unnerving to say the least, but you’ll play along with his game if that’s what Oikawa wants.

“Beautiful,” you say, though the words feel woefully inadequate even as you speak them.

He hums in agreement, something akin to pride flickers in his eyes at your assessment, “A labour of love, I suppose. But… everything you see here, everything I’ve built, it comes with a price. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I-I’m sorry?” you stutter.

“Paradise,” he elaborates, his smile widening. “There’s no give without take. Those people down there,” he nods down at the beach, the tiny, ant-like figures still milling about, “the lost, the beaten, the abused – I gave them what they so desperately sought; a sanctuary. A life without struggle, without suffering.” He pauses for a moment, reaching forward to take your hand. You almost flinch, almost skitter across the room to put as much distance between you as you can, but you don’t–

His palm is warm as it envelops yours, a pleasant heat that seems to spread through your veins, easing your tense muscles. There’s nothing to fear from him, you’re safe with Oikawa.

“Aren’t you happy here?”

Yes.

“What about the price?” you ask instead, though it takes more concentration than it should to force the words out. 

Oikawa’s thumb sweeps along the back of your hand. “I never said it was your price to pay,” he soothes. 

There’s something wrong with that sentence, but another sharp knock at the door draws your attention before you can think too hard about it. You turn out of instinct, barely aware of the way his hand tightens fractionally around your own.  

A single finger at your jaw coaxes your attention back to him. “If you built a paradise, wouldn’t you give whatever necessary to ensure it flourished?”

Oikawa stares at you expectantly, deep brown eyes searching your face as he waits for an answer. Agreement would be the logical choice – the one he seems to want from you – but even as your lips part, the only sound that escapes is a breathless, confused noise. 

When you were a kid, maybe six or seven, your parents took you to the beach one day and you waded too far out into the water. The waves were bigger than you expected; all it took was one mistimed jump and you were dragged under.

It wasn’t for long, probably only seconds, and ultimately you were fine – but you remember those few seconds so vividly. The feeling of helplessly tumbling through the water, fighting to break the surface but not knowing which way was up. Your lungs crying out for oxygen, the disorientation and dizziness, the panic.

It feels like that now – like the floor’s dropped out from beneath you and you’re just hurtling through empty air, desperately trying to slow yourself down with nothing to grab onto.

None of this makes any sense. Your emotions are shot to pieces, too many parts of yourself being pulled in different directions and you’re not sure which ones you can trust anymore. How can you be? Oikawa’s still holding your hand, smiling at you, and you just want everything to stop for a second so you can right yourself and breathe–

The door opens.

Iwaizumi appears in your field of vision, dragging a bound, hooded figure behind him. And because this is all some big, cosmic joke, you get your wish. Both of them, actually. 

Time slows. 

Even with a burlap sack pulled over his head, you recognise the man Iwa shoves to the floor and sneers at. 

Hundreds of miles, weeks of uselessly traipsing around this fucking island, and finally– 

Finally, you’ve found Ryu.

There should be relief. Fear, considering his current state, yes, but Ryuji’s here and he’s alive and as the hood is ripped off his head Oikawa squeezes your hand and the only thing you feel is… anger.

Not a heated flash that surges through your blood. It’s slow and seething, insipid. You look at him, locked in place as empty, pleading eyes meet yours and all you can think is that all of this – everything – is his fault.

“Asuka told you why she came to me, didn’t she?” Oikawa asks.

Your brow furrows, why–why is he asking you that now, how did he even–

He slips closer behind you, letting your hand go in favour of your shoulder, his spare dragging lightly along the bare skin of your arm. “She was lost, in so much pain. The physical wounds, they heal after a while,” his voice is right in your ear, a low murmur that sends a shiver rippling down your spine.

It isn’t an unpleasant feeling.

“But the scars inside, well… sometimes those fester.”

Gagged and bound, kneeling at your feet, Ryu doesn’t even try to make a sound. 

He’s thinner than you remember. Face gaunt and bruised; there’s a half healed, mottled yellow one painted across the left side of his jaw, one eye purple and swollen. You glance at Iwa, standing stoically behind him, muscular arms folded across his chest. His work, you wonder, or others as well? You notice the tear tracks running down his face, catching the light of the lanterns, but it’s as if you’re seeing it all through a thick pane of glass. None of it reaches you, there’s nothing but that simmering, ugly feeling in your gut.

Oikawa hums, “I told you that Paradise wasn’t for everyone. It’s a haven, yes, but there are those who simply… don’t belong.”

His body’s so warm, pressed up against yours. Fingertips graze along your side, and this time you don’t bother biting back that tiny, breathless moan. Iwa briefly smirks at it, but there’s no embarrassment. Why should there be? Your eyes flit back to Ryu, bowed on the wooden floor.

Another memory resurfaces; A sharp crack and a ringing in your ears, Ryuji, eyes bloodshot and glazed, falling to his knees, clutching frantically at the leg of your pants as endless apologies spill from his lips. 

It wasn’t him. It was never him. 

“He hurt you,” Oikawa purrs. “He kept hurting you, I saw it.”

The words wash over you like waves breaking on the shore, but you find yourself nodding anyway. It was the truth, wasn’t it? A thousand tiny hurts, piled up on one another until you finally broke.

And you’d still come when he’d called.

Listened to him when he’d begged you not to hang up the phone.

“Iwa.” 

The brunet moves towards a grand chest of drawers pushed up against the western wall. An ornate dagger sits atop, strange and beautiful; the blade isn’t steel or any metal you’ve seen before, but some kind of black stone, the handle intricately carved ivory. You hadn’t even noticed it before, Oikawa’s room filled to the brim with odd trinkets and treasures, but now that you have, it’s hard to tear your eyes away.

Iwa takes it and carries it over towards the two of you, holding it with the utmost care. 

“Obsidian,” Oikawa informs you as he accepts the blade from his friend, bringing it in front of you both to show it off. “Pretty, isn’t it?” And while you can’t see his face, you can hear the smile in his tone.

He isn’t wrong though. 

Ever so carefully you reach out, the soft pads of your fingertips running along the obsidian surface, surprisingly cool to the touch. The razor sharp edges – wavy and asymmetrical, leading to a tapered point – you’re careful to avoid, almost positive you’d draw blood with the slightest touch. 

“Take it,” he urges, his breath ghosting over the shell of your ear. 

Obediently, you turn your hand over, your fingers wrapping around the hilt when he presses it against your palm. And as long fingers curl around yours, you idly wonder how old the dagger is – there’s not so much as a scratch on it, yet there’s something about the weapon in your hand that feels ancient. It thrums under your combined touch.

Oikawa jerks his chin at Iwa, and with a short nod and one last, lingering glance cast your way, the latter exits once again. 

Leaving you and Oikawa alone with Ryuji.

“It’s almost time,” he remarks – though time for what, you’re not entirely sure. His lips press against your hair, his arm dropping from your shoulder to your waist, drawing you flush against him. “I know why you came to me, the lies that led you here.”

Both of you turn your attention back to Ryuji at that, the bound man now shaking with the force of his muffled sobs, snot dripping from his nose. That bitter resentment rears its ugly head again, soothed only by Oikawa’s pacifying hum, his thumb now rubbing slow circles at your side. “Shh, I’m not angry – none of that matters now. You’ve found a home here, no? You want to stay on the island with me.”

You swallow, nodding your head rapidly. The thought of having to leave now, of being forced out after everything you’ve seen and felt and experienced here, you– you can’t fathom it. You don’t want to. 

Ryuji’d wrought so much damage, but even before he’d swept through your life… had you ever been happy? Were you ever truly accepted – or loved, for that matter?

You can’t go back to that life. You won’t; he’ll have to drag you kicking and screaming from the shore. The Commune is your home, this is where you belong. Here, with Oikawa.

“Good girl,” he croons, another kiss pressed to the crown of your head. You beam at the praise and Ryuji crumples a little further. “Death begets life, you understand now, don’t you?”

You glance at the obsidian dagger in your hand and then at Ryu, beaten and bruised, bowed in forced supplication before you, and nod.

His fingers tighten around yours, “Then do it.”

Leaning forward, you reach for Ryu, fingers lightly trailing down his ruined cheek, curling at his chin to coax his head upwards. He squeezes his eyes shut, pain and regret etched over every inch of his face, but he doesn’t fight you. 

Baring his throat to your dagger, Ryuji’s pleas take the shape of your name.

Muffled, thanks to the gag, but unmistakable. And for one single moment, you falter. 

This… this is wrong; for all his faults, and god knows there were plenty, Ryu didn’t des–

A wave of calm washes over you, allaying your fears, your doubts. Your breath leaves you in a heavy gust, taking with it the tension in your shoulders, and Oikawa’s voice, smooth and honeyed, reaches your ears once more, “Nothing comes without a price, doesn’t he deserve to be the one to pay it?”

With your hand still tucked inside of his, your arm moves with a will of its own; slashing with inhuman grace.

The dagger cuts deep, Ryuji’s eyes snapping open in shock as a spray of warm blood hits you both. He chokes – a horrid, wet, gurgling sound – wide, pleading eyes frantically shifting between you and Oikawa. Every beat of his failing heart sends fresh blood spurting from the gaping wound. It drenches his front, splatters across your dress, your face, crimson pooling at the wooden floorboards at his knees. His mouth falls open and shut, trying and failing to form coherent sounds and you just stand there and watch, the dagger hanging limply at your side.

It doesn’t take long; seconds at the most. 

Ryuji’s slumps to the floor, his body finally growing still as the light fades from his eyes. There’s a beat of absolute silence, and then–

Oikawa shudders behind you, a strangled, drawn out moan leaving his lips. You try to turn, but his arms lock around you, every muscle tensing, his back arching. The dagger in your hand grows hot, burning the soft skin of your palm, but with his fingers still tightly entwined with yours you can only whimper and endure it.

With a hoarse, guttural roar, a pulse of pure energy surges through the room like a shockwave. Every cell in your body lights up, electrified, buzzing; a dizzying euphoria unlike any you’ve felt before coursing through your blood. 

Across the island, voices cry out in delight, a symphony of life. The trees tremble and shake, invigorated and renewed, fresh buds bursting from the forest floor, blooming under the light of the full moon.

The harvests flourish, even the river swells in response to the call.

Death begets life, just as he promised.

And with every inch of your body alight and singing with pleasure, you can barely think much less protest (and why would you want to?) as Oikawa roughly yanks you around, hungry lips crashing against your own as his fingers pull and tear at your bloodstained dress. He wastes no time with foreplay, and you suspect only begrudgingly takes a moment to hoist you up against him and carry you to his bed.

There’s nothing gentle about the way he hauls your hips to his, sheathing his cock inside of your warm, tight cunt with one savage thrust, but you don’t care.

Not as you cling to him, fingernails raking along his shoulders as he presses your thighs further apart so he can fuck you deeper. It’s hard and rough and brutal, yet you moan for him all the same, his name a prayer swallowed up by feverish, claiming kisses.

Tonight, bathed in blood and the soft glow of moonlight, you offer your god everything.

—

“Look, look!” 

A small hand tugs at your skirt, and you glance down to find a little girl with pretty, dark curls holding up a crown of woven flowers.

“Do you like it?” she asks. 

Carefully, you take it from her, bringing it closer to examine. She watches you intently as you study it, lifting it this way and that to appraise her work, humming thoughtfully for good measure. “I think it’s beautiful work,” you tell her after a long enough pause, and you can’t help but smile at the way she lights up, preening under your praise. “Why don’t you go show your mama? I’m sure she’ll be very impressed.”

The girl nods rapidly, thanking you before skipping off in the direction of her parents. The sun’s hanging low in the sky, the fires already being readied for the night ahead. You’re not unaware of the watchful gaze that carefully monitors your every move, and the moves of anyone who ventures too close by. Soon enough, you’ll return home to the heart of the island – anticipation fluttering in your belly at the thought of what awaits you – but for now, you let your feet sink further into the sand, closing your eyes as you bask in the lingering warmth of the setting sun.

At least until the sound of your name being called draws you back to the present. Yet it’s not Iwaizumi approaching, but rather Makki, two strangers trailing along behind him. 

“Thought I’d find you here,” he grins, throwing a casual arm over your shoulders. “This is Kaneo,” he gestures to the man, “and his wife Manaka. They arrived this morning, I’ve been showing ‘em round.”

You turn to the couple, smiling sweetly as you extend a hand, “Welcome to the Commune.”

[raggaraddy]

your writing is amazing 🥺

could i ask for a yoongi version of the reader being shot because of them? your other ones are so good!!!

Family affairs

@dramaclub-thin

A/N: Thank you, sweetheart! I'm glad you're enjoying the series. This one has a bit of OT7 and I hope you like it too. 💜💜💜

If anyone else wants to request, you can here.

Other parts:

Namjoon

Jimin

Taehyung

Jungkook

Summary: You'd tried so hard to hide your relationship with Yoongi from your father. You knew when he found you were dating someone from a rival club that he'd kill you. You just didn't think it would be literal.

Trigger warnings: Violence, Filicide, Blood, gun usage.

Yoongi

Mafia! Yoongi

Mafia! BTS

"Yes Daddy," you poke your head through the door to his office with a little knock. Normally you would never bother your father while he was working, but one of your brothers came to your room to let you know he was calling for you.

"Ah, Darling. Yes, have a seat." He stands up from his desk, gesturing to the chair ahead of him. "I need your advice on something."

For a moment you get a flutter in your stomach. He never asks you for anything. Your his pretty princess on a pedestal. And he never involves you in anything that a woman wouldn't have been responsible for in the 1950s.

"Of course," you smile, shifting comfortably.

"I know you're tech-savvy, so maybe you can explain this to me. I had some photos printed, but I think there must be something wrong with the camera. Have a look,"

Reaching into his desk drawer as he speaks he pulls out a stack of A4 photos. As he lays them out your eyes jump straight back up at him. Checking for his reaction, a sharp pang of absolute fear hitting you. They're pictures of you and Yoongi, his arm around you when you were coming out of the Bangtan clubhouse.

"I know the camera has to be faulty, because that" he tapes your image, "looks like you. And I know my one and only daughter wouldn't be socializing with those Bulletproof scum."

"Daddy, I-I," you stutter with no idea what to say.

You thought you were so clever, so careful that there was no way he'd ever find out. Even when Yoongi would worry about you possibly being caught you would shrug it off. Your love was invincible and meant to be, and you were smart. No chance your family would ever know you're with Yoongi, and no way his family would ever know you were from a rival gang. As far as they knew, you were just Y/n Brown, the hairdresser from one district over.

But clearly, you weren't careful or clever enough.

Your stark silence is loud enough for your father and he nods a sombre confirmation. "How long Y/n?" He questions.

"Daddy, I don't-"

"How long?!" He's quick to anger, making you jump.

"A few months," you lie, your eyes dropping to your lap. Telling him it's been closer to 18 months is only going to enrage him further.

Slumping back into his office chair he lets out a heavy sigh.

"You think you raise your kids right. To know loyalty and family." He derides looking at you fiercely. "But then you find out your own daughter will open her legs for any cretin. In complete disregard of everything she should know."

You knew it would be awful if he ever found out, you know he is a terrifying dangerous man, but hearing your father's derogatory comments are harder to take than you ever expected.

"What did you tell them?" He sits forward. His demeanour, his expression going from disappointed father to cold mafioso.

Your mouth going dry, you swallow hard. Shaking your head softly. "Nothing."

"Bullshit!" He yells. "You expect me to believe they just let the daughter of Bastille get all cosy with one of the 7 without you giving up something."

This is so bad. You knew your parents, your brothers, the entire Bastille would disown you for this, but they'll actually kill you if they think you've sold them out.

"No. I didn't tell them anything. None of them knows who I am. Only Yoongi knows. And I didn't tell him shit. You know I wouldn't." You defend yourself trying to reign in your distress.

"Well, there's a lot of things I wouldn't think a daughter of mine could do." His voice is so detached. He's stopped looking at you. This is so so bad.

"Dad. I didn't say anything." You restate, fighting to convince him. Feeling like you're trying to prove the case for your own life. "I know the rules. Don't talk to anyone. Not cops. Not friends or enemies." You repeat the words that had been drilled in your entire childhood. You knew nothing, you saw nothing. Those are the rules.

"I don't believe you." He says bitterly.

Your hands are trembling, you're panting heavily. You know being with a rival club member is a stupid thing, but the clubs are in a truce.  And despite your father's opinion, you would never be so stupid as to actually say anything. And Yoongi would never let you, even if you decided to. You did one thing wrong, but you made sure you did everything else right.

Leaning back, he opens his phone book. Searching for a number.

"Dad," You plead for his attention. Raising the phone to his ear he shushes you, placing a finger over his mouth.

You have no idea what to do. You've seen him decimate people for so much less than what he's accusing you of. You don't know how to prove your innocence.

The call answers and you can hear a distant 'hello'.  Putting the phone on speaker he puts the receiver down.

"Warren L/n here. I believe I have something of yours," he says.

"What are you talking about?" You inhale a staggered breath, hearing the familiar gruff voice of Kim Namjoon.

Your dad's plan was simple. If you were telling the truth about Bangtan not knowing who you were, their leader would be confused and concerned that you were with the leader of Bastille. But if they knew who you were, this would be a much more straightforward issue. Namjoon would understand right away why he was calling.

And if you were lying about one thing, he could assume you were lying about more.

"Say hello Y/n." Your dad prompts, his look daring you to refuse.

"Hi," You squeak, nervously chewing the inside of your cheek. Your own safety aside, Namjoon was going to kill Yoongi.

There's a brief pause. The background noise on Namjoon's side disappearing. "Kidnapping women? I didn't realise you were handling that personally now."

"Who said kidnap?" he leads the conversation.

"Then maybe you want to explain what one of our girls is doing with you?" Namjoon growls, sounding protective.

That was enough confirmation for your father. The leader didn't know what was going on. But he was about to.

On Namjoons side of the line, he was pacing back and forth in a closed meeting room at the entrance of the clubhouse. Your father was revealing the secret that you and Yoongi had fought so hard to keep.

The phone call ending, Namjoon was in a rage. Marching across the bar he stormed at the table with other members around it. His maddened expression drawing Yoongi's attention. But the older member didn't have any reason to think this fury was directed at him and so he doesn't react quick enough as Namjoon punches him in the face, knocking him from his chair.

The other boys instantly becoming alert, Jungkook jumps to Namjoons side holding his arm out in front of him, looking ready to intervene. Jimin standing between the floored Yoongi and the enraged leader.

"Hyung, what the hell ar-" Jimin snaps.

"You fucking idiot! Bastille's daughter?!" he roars trying to push through Jimin. Jungkook stepping in to help keep him at bay.

Climbing back to his feet, nursing a split lip, Yoongi's eyes go wide. Completely caught off guard by Namjoon's revelation. "How did you-" he gapes.

"Everything she's seen, everything she knows! Do you have any idea how much you've exposed this club?" He lunges again, bowling the mediating members out of the way. Diving through Yoongi, the two men trade blows as they scuffle on the floor.

The scene quickly gets out of hand, and as Yoongi throws Namjoon through a table, Jin and Hoseok come from a backroom to step in also. The four of them now working to pry the two battling men apart. Jimin and Hoseok holding back Yoongi. The oldest and youngest members trying to keep Namjoon at bay.

"Enough!" Jin scolds with a firm shove to Namjoon's chest. "Someone explain what the hell is going on!"

"Just Suga thinking with his dick, instead of his brain." Namjoon spits.

Shirking off the boys, Yoongi barges forward infuriated by the provocative comment. War breaking out again with a solid hit at Namjoon, a gash opening over his eye. Another difficult struggle beginning for the members, grappling and clawing them apart. Having to fully restrain them to have them stop. Being held as they bleed.

Grabbing both of them by the collar, Jin demands their focus. "The next man who throws a punch leaves here with a bullet in his leg!" He growls. "Am I clear?!" His fist tightens, stiffening their necklines.

"Yes,"

"Yes, Hyung."

The two of them conceded, their energy dropping as their eldest releases them. "Good. Now sit down so we can talk this shit out."

It takes several minutes and a round of drinks, but the room calms down enough for the members to sit down. They send the few 2nd levels out and the 95's girlfriends. The bar remaining with only the 7 original members. Taehyung coming back just as the disclosure began.

Namjoon starts, passing along the information your father had given him. The 6 of them all sharing disappointed, worried or angry glances towards Yoongi.

"She wouldn't have said anything." Yoongi insists, after explaining his side also. Trying to defend his decision. To defend you.

"You can't know that," Jimin argues, flumping back in his seat. Taking a sip with a pissed-off scowl on his face.

"Yeah, we've all been pussy blinded before. You're not thinking clearly." Jungkook snips.

"Maknae-" Yoongi warns. Getting tired of the disrespect that keeps getting thrown his way.

"Hey, watch it." Jin interrupts, correcting Jungkook's blunt attitude. The youngest shrugging, downing the last of his drink.

"Look, if she was giving information to L/n, then why would he call to tell you that he knows." Yoongi disputes. Hoping to bring reason back into the debate.

"He wants to trade. The latest shipment of horse for Y/n." Namjoon answers with a frustrated scoff and a roll of his eyes.

"That's close to 500 K. That's not happening," Hoseok jumps in. The rest of them firmly nodding in agreement.

"Okay, but if that's the case. If he's trying to sell her off, that means she's not working with him. Right?" Taehyung backs Yoongi's point.

"Idiot," Jimin shoves his friend, "It could be a part of the plan. A way to rip us off for half a million."

"Or it could be a set-up," Namjoon adds. "Let's say Hyung's right, and she isn't working with her old man. If we're willing to sit down, if we try to buy her back, it confirms that she knows enough that we're concerned about it."

"I'm telling you, she doesn't know anything. She didn't want to know anything. And even if she did, she's not gonna give it up." Again Yoongi vehemently defends you.

"Well if she doesn't give him anything then L/n kills her." Namjoon finalizes. "To hurt the club, and as retribution for her betrayal."

"What I don't understand is why you would let her go back? If you trust her and you know how ruthless Bastille is, why would you let her keep going back to him?" Jin asks, genuinely baffled.

Standing up Yoongi can't take anymore. He's furious. He's upset. At himself most of all. Feeling to blame for allowing you to be in this situation, he leaves in anger. Needing some time to himself to think.

"I don't know, she seemed pretty cool," Taehyung mutters, leaning into Namjoon. "You don't really think he would kill his own daughter, right?"

It's been 2 days and you've been locked in an empty storage shed at the edge of the property like a captive. Your father turned your world upside down looking for information. His people went through your computer, your phone, your car, your room. Everything that was yours he and his men had raided. And just like you said, there was nothing there. No information about Bastille, and nothing about Bangtan.

"Suga. I'm guessing that's Min Yoongi? Unless you're cheating on him." Your dad muses holding up your phone. That is so humiliating. So many nudes and dirty texts are in that chat. There may not be revealing information, but there was still plenty of personal stuff.

"You know Darling, I don't like to admit when I am wrong, but it looks like you were telling the truth. I can't find any proof that you gave up any family details." He smiles softly, your heart lifting with relief for a moment. "But then I was looking through your camera roll and, in the pictures where you actually have clothes on, it's just full of Bangtan." He comes further into the empty shed, leaning on the wall alongside you. Showing you the screen as he scrolls through. The only entrance being blocked by one of his more grizzly looking men. "See here, there's you and a bunch of them at a restaurant. There's you and the leader. You and the crazy one. Here's a family-style photo, isn't that nice."

He keeps scrolling through shot after shot, exhibiting an entire album full of Bangtan family pictures.

"I'm sure you never expected anyone else to see these. I guess I should have been teaching you not to put the same password for multiple devices." He scoffs. "But the interesting thing, when I'm going through these photos you seem to be really close with all of them. Some of these even go back to last year. Which makes the timeline you gave me a little off."

He shows the details of one of the pictures to you, the time stamp from when you had already been with Yoongi for 6 months.

"This one is from May 2nd. Last year. On the 10th those bastards stole one of my shipping containers. With nearly 100 grand worth of merchandise. Did you know about that?"

"You mean people." You sneer, his characterization of human trafficking as 'merchandise' making your skin crawl.

"So you did know." He smiles coldly.

"I found out- I knew after," you justify. Even as you continue to defend yourself, you have a sick feeling that it's all for nothing.

"I'm really curious what else you know." He hums, walking around the front of you to get back into your eye line.

"I don't know anything," you tell him for the 1000th time with an exasperated shake of your head. Moving away to the far side of the shed.

"Darling, I'm your father and I'm telling you we need to reconcile this. Your mother is worried sick. I'm here losing sleep over this. I'm giving you a chance to repay all the damage you've done. A chance to forget all this. You tell me everything you know about Bangtan, and just like that," he snaps his fingers, "you get to return to your comfortable life."

You don't trust his change in tone or his promises for a minute. You may not have known the darkest parts of who he is, but that's how you can be sure that his offer to forgive and forget is rubbish. Not even the father in him would let you forget a mistake. Especially one this major, not with the way he is reacting. And he's so much more brutal when it comes to Bastille.

"And if I don't?"

"Then you've betrayed your family. And we'll find out what we want to know in other ways." he taps the back of his hand in the other, symbolizing a beat down.

You shake your head hard. You might love your dad. But you don't like him. You've known for most of your life that he was a bad guy. And Yoongi, Bangtan, they might not be the good guys, but they've been the family you've always wanted. There is no way you were telling him even the most insignificant detail.

"Hit me all you want dad, I still don't know anything." You snarl.

"I could never hit my own daughter." He taps his heart, a feigned pained expression on his face. Nodding his head in your direction, he trades places with his man who advances on you.

Breathing hard you step back only to hit the wall.

The tall, square-built man swings. The back of his hand slapping your cheek, the force so strong that it smacks you into the corner sidewall. His hand, like a vice, grabs ahold of your head and mightily slams it into the steel beam running down the sheet metal wall. Pushing your hands against his chest, you weakly attempt to fend him off, but he ends your efforts with another solid wack against the frame.

As blood streams down your head, his focus switches. The majority of his attacks landing on your torso.

With you curled up on the floor, wheezing and gasping for breath, the assault finally stops. But not out of mercy. Even through the ringing in your ears, you can hear the outburst of gunfire in the distance.

Both your dad and his man rush out, leaving you locked away. While it's for an equally terrifying reason, you're thankful to have this time to catch your breath. Although every laborious intake brings agony.

After some time, light floods back into the room, your father standing in the doorway outlined by the setting sun. "I'm sorry Darling. If I had to do this, I hoped it would be a bit more ceremonious. But we don't have the time for that now."

You gasp at him raising his gun at you. He shoots three times. One in your chest, one in your shoulder and one in your stomach.

The shock, the impact takes the breath from you. And you can't draw it back in. Your eyes glassing over, your head filled with nothing but white noise. Feeling a fleeting moment of relief as everything goes quiet and dark.

"Fuck. No!" Yoongi howls. He, Jin and two 2nd ranks had chased after your father as he fled.

Bangtan's siege on his property was highly successful till that point, and he had run downhill to the storage garage. Looking to make a getaway.

The other's continue after him as Yoongi stumbles into you. His steely outer shell crumbling away the moment he sees your body limp and bleeding out.

Falling beside you he leans over shaking and in tears. Kissing your lips gently with heartfelt pleas "I'm sorry Y/n. I'm so sorry. Please don't do this. Please."

Jin doubles back, watching distraught from the entrance as his brother falls apart.

Lifting your head up, Yoongi brings your forehead to his. The movement making you splutter blood. The first sign of life that either of the men had seen.

"Holy fuck, she's alive." Jin gawks, jumping in beside Yoongi pressing on the hole in your stomach. The bullet in your shoulder and chest had both hit bone, stopping the slug from going through, blocking the wounds from severe blood loss. The bullet in your torso shot through your bowls and thankfully not through your vital organs. Meaning your chances of survival were much higher. It was either 3 highly unlucky shots or three precisely placed ones.

"I'm so sorry Y/n." Yoongi's in shock. Devastated and guilt-ridden, and unable to make himself function.

"Dude, get your shit together or she's not gonna make it." Jin smacks the side of his brothers head, snapping him out of his grief-stricken daze.

"Can you save her?" He asks rubbing the tears from his eyes.

"Not a chance. But I can keep her alive for a minute until we get to the clubhouse. Call the doc, tell him to meet us there." Jin orders, having much more clarity at this moment. "And get the boys to bring the car around. We're going to need a few of us to move her."

Yoongi follows Jin's lead, wiping the blood from his hands onto his pants to dial.

"Think of it this way," Jin smiles shortly, trying to soothe Yoongi's fear and panic with an ill-timed joke. "If she survives, at least she'll have proved she's Bangtan."

[sserpente]

Raw Desire

Synopsis: Something is wrong with him. Something none of the Avengers, including Thor, understand. When Loki turns into his Jötun form unwillingly and begins to act in a very primal and aggressive way, their solution for the problem is to lock him up in a cell below the compound until it’s all over. It’s a disease, perhaps, one which only Frost Giants can develop. Only Loki is not sick. Loki is in heat--and his Jötun body will not rest until his most carnal desires have been satisfied...

Words: 9176 Warnings: Jötun!Loki, smut, fluff, symptoms of addiction

A/N: You wanted some Jötun!Loki, I wanted some Jötun!Loki... so here we go. Enjoy, everyone! 😏

Additional NSFW Warnings: breeding kink (a little bit, anyway), Loki is in heat (kind of, duh), lack of aftercare (at first...)

-

His antagonising scream tore through the entire compound. You flinched, alarmed. Loki. The heart-breaking sound of pain tugging at your nerves was followed by a loud thump—like a heavy metal door falling shut, locked for good. It had come from the cellar, where the Avengers stored weaponry and ammunition; along with provisory but secure prison cells of Wakandan technology for criminals until they could be handed over to the authorities.

When you reached the source of the rousing noise, you almost knocked straight into Thor. His muscly back resembled a thick fleshy wall that would break your bones if you collided with him with too much force and speed.

“What happened?” Out of breath, you moved around him—facing the culprit of the commotion. The eerie flickering camera right outside the cell door showed Loki knocking his fists repeatedly against the metal door. His knuckles were already bloody from the repeated impact, yet the door would not budge. Much more concerning, however, was his appearance. Loki’s skin—every inch revealed to the naked eye anyway—was blue, his otherwise enchanting blue eyes sparkling with mischief of a deep blood-red. Countless, unique and fleshy lines formed a complex pattern on his arms and the back of his hands, even his face and neck. Your lips parted, both in shock and surprise at what your eyesight had revealed to you.

“He’s losing his fucking mind.” Tony responded for Thor before the Thunderer could even open his mouth in defence. He came tramping into the room as mad as you had never experienced him, tapping away on a tablet in the process. “I told you it was bad idea to bring him back here, Point Break! What were you thinking?”

“Can anybody tell me what is going on?! Why is he… like this? Is he in pain?”

“In pain?! He almost killed Nat. If Wanda hadn’t interfered…” Tony did not finish the sentence—regardless, the threat of what consequences there would have been for the God of Mischief was clearly audible.

“This was unlike him. He had no reason to…”

“No? He pounced on her like a… like a…”

“Beast?” Bruce added matter-of-factly. His hands were in his pocket when he approached the scene and patted Thor on the back in an attempt of providing comfort.

“Maybe… maybe this isn’t his fault, Stark. I know my brother, he’s never acted like this before!” The God of Thunder roared in defence, his arms crossed.

“Yeah,” Tony retorted sarcastically. “You know your brother so well he even tried to kill us all. Three times. No. This man is evil. Look at him!”

Petrified, you risked another peek. Loki was downright animalistic, his fists still working the metal cell door. He was getting weaker, worn out—like the fire in his red eyes was slowly being extinguished to make way for weariness. There was something primal in his behaviour; something raw. You would be ignorant to deny it scared you.

“Tony,” you began, forcing your voice to cease the shaking, “What happened? Why did he attack Natasha? Was he hurt?” Your sudden concern for him was going to give you away. No, not sudden. It had always been there, hidden just beneath the surface of your heart. You had only kept it a secret because… because what?

Loki did not know you had been harbouring romantic feelings for him for a significant amount of time now. Dark, tall and mysterious, he matched not only your type but had hopelessly captured you with his melancholic and lonely nature, the grief in his stunning blue eyes. You refused to believe that Loki was evil, that he had ever truly wanted to harm his brother; and you were desperate to be his friend… and even more than that. But the God of Mischief had hidden his heart behind such a hard shell that you were worried you might never get him to open up to you.

You would by no means describe yourself as an altruistic person—but there was a both enamoured and depraved part of you which desired, longed, for him to like you back.

“Talk to me.” You stated, tilting your head when he flung his dagger at one of the battered punching bags in the training room.

“What?” He sounded almost scornful when he spun around to gift you an incredulous look.

“Talk to me, Loki. I want to know what’s going on in your mind. I thought I was… you are always so distant. You disappear in here every other night, you snap at everyone trying to speak to you. You look nervous, like something is trying to break out of you.” Like you are trying to get rid of monstrous amounts of bottled up energy, you added silently. “You seem so restless. What’s wrong?”

“What concern is that of yours?” He spat.

“See! That is exactly what I meant.”

Loki growled. “What do you want from me, (Y/N)?” You flinched when he used your full name as opposed to the nickname everyone called you by.

“Why? Why are you screaming at me, I’m just trying to help! Don’t you get it, Loki? I care about you. And I care about what you think, even if I am probably the only one in this bloody compound who does.” Now that was unfair. But it was also the truth. “Why are you pushing me away? Let me in…”

Desperately, you moved forward in an attempt to reach up and cup his face, only for him to grab your wrists and pull them away harshly.

“Let you in? All I have ever received in return for ‘letting someone in’ was hurt and hatred. Give me one good reason for why I should open up to you,” he mocked, releasing your hands as if they would burn his fingers if they lingered on your skin for too long. “Tell you about my sorrows.” Sorrows. He had sorrows.

“I am not them.” You simply said. “Not any of them. I am not Odin, not Thor, none of the Avengers.”

Blinking, you snapped out of your memory. You had had this tragic conversation only two nights ago. No matter what you had said, he would not tell you what was on his mind. Now you knew.

“Something is wrong with him.” You interrupted the discussion, one you had not paid any attention to, by silencing them with a loud and determined voice.

“You don’t say?”

“No, Tony, you don’t understand… Loki is… he is Jötun. Thor, has he ever voluntarily turned into his Jötun form?”

The God of Thunder thought about it for a moment—then, he shook his head. “No.” You gave him a meaningful look. “So… you think it has something to do with his species?”

You nodded slowly and swallowed.

“Then we keep him in here until he is better.” He concluded. Your eyes widened.

“What? Thor, no… you can’t keep him locked up in there! What if he doesn’t get better on his own? Are you going to incarcerate him forever?”

“That would be an improvement.” Tony tossed in bitterly.

“We have to help him.”

“We? (Y/N)…” Bruce remarked almost tauntingly.

“You’ll find us upstairs. We need to let the others know about… whatever this is.” Tony added. You gnashed your teeth when he and Bruce turned to leave. For an awkward moment, it was eerily still—right until another one of Loki’s screams tore through the uncomfortable silence. You flinched once more. He was howling in pain.

“You think it might be a disease only Frost Giants can get?” Thor asked with concern in his deep voice at last.

You shrugged apologetically. “Maybe…”

“Loki and I were going to return to Asgard next week. I shall ask around, one of the healers should be familiar with Jötun diseases.”

“Go as soon as you can. Your brother is in pain, Thor, can’t you hear that?”

The God of Thunder nodded absentmindedly. But if no one was going to do something about Loki’s suffering—whatever it was—immediately, you would do it alone. So you did what Loki would do first. You dug up his books.

-

Loki’s room was neat, tidy. The green bed had been made—there was not a single wrinkle in the fabric and the desk was all clean, not giving thin layers of dust only visible in the direct sunlight a chance. The books he had brought from Asgard, old, thick, yellowed and heavy, he had stored on a bookshelf higher than you could reach.

Sucking in a determined breath, you moved the desk chair in front of it. The polished wooden floor to your feet complained with an ear-piercing shriek as you did. Determined, you climbed up to study the titles. All of them were written in Nordic Runes, making you realise that your research would end up being a lot harder than you had initially assumed. You could not speak a word of Old Norse, let alone read those Runes. Never mind that… you needed answers—and Loki needed your help.

It took you two hours to go through the titles and have them translated via a website you had had to pay for (using Tony’s credit card details—desperate times called for desperate measures) to use its allegedly reliable services.

Then, finally, after what felt like half an eternity, you found a suitable page-turner. It was titled Mythical Creatures and Species across Yggdrasil—at least, that was what the website you used told you.

Eagerly, you opened the book searching frantically for the chapter on Frost Giants and began sucking up all the information you could get. The more you read… and the more you compared Loki’s symptoms to the described behaviour of Jötuns in the book, the more aghast you became. One thing was for sure. Loki was not sick. Loki was aroused.

Terror-stricken, you bookmarked the page, grabbed your phone and jumped to your feet, abandoning the pile of books on Loki’s floor. You needed to speak to Thor right now.

He was about to enter the bathroom when you found him, once again almost knocking into his broad form.

“I… I found something.” You choked out.

“What?”

“I found something… about Loki. Thor… he is not ill, not really, he is…” Biting your lower lip, you pushed the God of Thunder into the bathroom, shut the door behind you and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. “He is… aroused.”

“What?” He roared, blushing. “What do you mean he is aroused?”

“Look… I found this book, I…”

“You speak Old Norse?”

“No! I used… I used a translator. Thor, listen, please. It says here that to ensure their continued existence, male Frost Giants, every one-thousand years, experience the primal urge to copulate with females of their kind. Much like wolves or elves, this ‘heat’ usually begins with restlessness, extremely aggressive and possessive behaviour, unusual amounts of pent-up energy as well as an extreme hunger and loss of appetite at the very same time. Loki hasn’t showed up for lunch, dinner or breakfast and… he has been spending extraordinary times in the training room downstairs in the middle of the night lately. He barely sleeps, it seems.”

“Go on…”

“How old is Loki, Thor?”

“He is a little over one-thousand years… old.” He looked up in shock when he realised.

“That’s why he is in his Jötun form, Thor. He can’t control it, it’s not his fault, it’s… in his nature. God…” You had read it all, yet you were still working on processing it.

“This… it would explain why he tried to attack Nat. So… he is not in danger then?” Thor probed.

“No, not necessarily but—“

“So we can just wait until it is over.”

You frowned. “Until what is over?”

“His heat! If what you are saying is true and Loki’s behaviour derives from his heritage… if he cannot control his reactions, we have to keep him locked up and wait. We can’t have him ravish all the females in the compound.”

“But… he is in pain.”

An urgent knock on the bathroom door interrupted you.

“Hey, are you having a soap party in there? Other people need to use the bathroom too!” Closing the heavy book shut again, you rolled your eyes.

“There are at least three other bathrooms in this compound, Tony!”

“What are you two doing in here anyway?” He asked as he opened the door and leaned against the threshold when he spotted you two sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

“(Y/N) found out that Loki is… uh… in heat.”

“In heat?!” Tony repeated. “Like a cat?”

“No! It… has something to do with the procreation cycle of Jötuns. It… is in his nature.”

“Fuck…”

“Hey… language.” If you hadn’t recognised his voice, you would know it was Steve who joined your heated discussion. “What’s going on here?”

“Loki is in heat, like a cat.” Steve frowned.

“No, he isn’t! Not like a cat, this is…” Thor stood again before you could finish your sentence.

“It’s for the best, (Y/N). Down there, he’ll be save from getting himself into trouble.”

“Thor, wait! Loki is suffering! Soon, he will…”

“We can’t risk it, (Y/N)! He almost raped Natasha!” Tony barked. “And if you go near him, I’ll lock you up too. I’ve seen what he’s capable of, (Y/N). I will not let him hurt you.”

“He… he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.” You chirped. No. Loki would never deliberately take a woman against her will. If he did… no! Loki had in incredible amount of self-control and composure; and you knew how much he despised his own heritage. He would fight this—for as long as he could.

“Besides…” Tony added. “It wouldn’t be so bad if he got a taste of his own medicine.”

“Stop blaming Loki for your PTSD, Tony. That was Thanos’ doing and you know that.” You growled darkly. The billionaire paused for a moment.

“He is staying where he is,” he concluded then. “Until he’s gone back to normal.”

-

But you did not want to wait. You couldn’t. You had read about the symptoms in detail. In the book it said that moodiness and aggression were only the beginning. If Loki did not act on what his Jötun body demanded from him and… released, then soon, excruciating pain would torment his loins. Masturbation appeared to be out of the picture. You nibbled on your lower lip. This thought of yours invaded his privacy on a truly shameful level, yet you were certain that if sexual arousal had already been plaguing him for a significant amount of time before this outbreak of his, he would have tried to lay hand on himself already and learned it did not provide the necessary relief.

Sooner or later, he would no longer be able to suppress his erection—and it would not disappear until he… sheathed himself inside a female to fill her with his seed. Under different circumstances, the idea of him claiming a woman… you, in such a possessive manner would have aroused you tremendously yourself. As of right now, however, Loki was in agony. The pain, if ignored for too long, would only get worse—it could last up to months and even then the denial of sexual release could result in permanent damage to his loins and even his potency.

But there was no cure either. No potion or spell to contain a male Jötun’s heat which Thor could have forwarded to Asgardian healers.

It was past midnight when you stopped reading and translating—too appalled by how much more Loki would have to suffer if nothing was done about his… condition. The only way to make it stop… was to act on it.

Your lips parted in realisation. You liked him, very much so—and you found Loki incredibly attractive, dreaming of his hands on your body, even. Perhaps you could help him after all. You were not Jötun but… would his body really make a difference? This most primal part of him wished to mate with a female—and although you had never seen a female Jötun, you doubted they looked much different than you did down there.

-

You had to wait another thirty minutes until the lights in Tony’s lab finally went out and you could sneak through the compound and downstairs to the cells—and once you had made sure that Vision was nowhere to be found, you switched off the security camera for Loki’s cell and approached the thick metal door.

It was quiet. He had stopped screaming. There was no banging against the walls either. Yet when you unlocked the door and slipped inside, his appearance, cowering on the floor and leaning against the cool wall with bare feet, startled you to the core. Loki’s raven hair was completely dishevelled, his knuckles bruised and covered in dry blood. His Jötun appearance was downright intimidating and close up, even more fascinating. He was breathing heavily, the thin shirt he had been wearing underneath all of his armour torn in several places, revealing blue skin and in his dark leather trousers… there was a remarkable bulge.

You shivered slightly when his red eyes met yours. Slowly, he tilted his head. “What are you doing here?” He growled hoarsely but weakly.

“I… I want to help you.”

The God of Mischief snorted. “You cannot help me.”

Mutely, you shook your head. “I can. Loki… I… I know what’s happening with you.”

He snorted once more. “So do I.”

“Let me help you.” Taking a deep breath, you moved closer to him. He reacted immediately. Loki jerked, greedily, as if to grab you and pull you on his lap. He could barely stop himself. Yet you were convinced that he would not hurt you in this state… much. A wave of courage rolled over you—you were doing this for him; and you wouldn’t be doing it if you did not like him in this way. Regardless of what he thought of you after, if he could even imagine being with a mortal like that… you longed to stop his pain.

“Leave.” He said quickly when you kneeled down next to him, timidly resting your palms on his thighs. “No… I said… leave… while you still can.” You did not. In fact, you ignored his rather sincere warning. Slowly, to not tickle the sleeping dragon, you reached for the buttons of his leather trousers and began undoing them until he grabbed a hold of your wrists to stop you. He was ice cold.

“Have you… lost your mind?” Loki was cut off by a loud hiss escaping his lips when your fingertips brushed against his erection. He was large—much larger than he would be in his Aesir form, you presumed, and his cock too was blue and covered in dozens of ridges.

“It won’t go away on its own,” you whispered. “You know it won’t. It’s okay.”

Braver this time, you stroked him again, creating more skin on skin contact. Loki was still holding on to you tightly but made no move to stop you. The touch of a female… it must have been bringing some sort of relief already. Coming here had been the right decision.

“Loki…” You murmured. Finally, your hand closed around his incredibly hard cock entirely and you began to jerk him off—gently at first, only to pick up speed when his breathing grew even heavier than it already was. Defeated, he dropped his head against the wall, revealing his blue neck to you. “Please let me help you.” You repeated. “It’s okay. I trust you.” Upon those words, Loki’s eyes widened barely noticeably. Perhaps it was all he had needed to hear to lose his self-control and composure entirely.

Growling like a wild animal, he suddenly started at you, pushing you back firmly so you lost your balance like a beetle on its back, wrapped his ice cold hands around your ankles and pulled you into him. Your back collided with the floor, knocking all air out of your lungs. You gasped for air all the while Loki busied himself with your clothes. Any layer of fabric was too much. He wanted you naked for him. His sheer strength petrified you when he tore at your pyjamas and ripped them to pieces until they were scattered all over the cell. You trembled—but it wasn’t the icy temperature of his blue skin that made your limbs shake so much. It was, so you realised when your widened eyes fell on his massive erection, now fully springing free from his tight trousers, your own arousal growing into dizzying heights. This, whatever it was, excited you—maybe even way more than it should.

Once more, the God of Mischief grabbed your ankles, forcing your legs open. Your heart skipped a beat when he laid his blood-red eyes upon your bare pussy. Your lower lips must have been glistening with your juices in the artificial light of the cell. Loki growled, his long and cold fingers gripping your ankles so tightly you could already feel the bruises forming. Eagerly, he positioned himself between your legs, the tip of his hard and ice cold cock teasing your clit. A moan escaped your lips, urging him on. The fire in his eyes had returned, like your body had set his ablaze.

He spread you even further for him, your nails digging into the metal floor beneath you—and then he claimed you for his own. Inch by antagonising inch, he split you apart, sheathing himself so deep inside of you all air was knocked from your lungs yet again. He was ice cold and he was much larger than the average man; and you were beginning to understand that yes, female Jötuns were anatomically different than humans. Human women were not made for taking such long cocks… so why did every single powerful thrust of his feel so good?

Loki pulled out almost completely, with only the tip remaining inside of you, only to plunge back inside only the fraction of a second later, fucking you furiously. Your tight and wet walls appeared to mould around his manhood, gripping him tightly, asking for more despite the almost unbearable coldness against your most intimate parts. No longer were you in control of your arms. They reached up, palms gliding over his bare chest and enjoying the coldness under your fingertips. Fascinated and aroused at the very same time, you traced every single ridge on Loki’s body while he was fucking you senseless, until your eyes rolled to the back of your head, unable to take the pleasure. His long manhood his spots inside of you which you had never known even existed. He leaned down, at last letting go of your ankles, instead taking a hold of your wrists to pin them both down right above your head and pressing his body so tightly against yours that your clit kept rubbing against his pelvis with every single stroke. You moaned, stricken by ecstasy, and arched your back as you kept moving your hips up to meet his thrusts.

Aroused, you looked down, watching how his blue cock kept sliding in and out of you, spreading your lips as they enveloped him welcomingly.

Loki groaned, his attention steering towards your breasts as they bounced with each of his rough thrusts. Hungrily, he lowered his face, his cold breath ghosting over your mounts, and sucked your right nipple into his mouth—hard. He nibbled, suckled pulled and bit until the already hardened nub was throbbing with pleasure and need and he repeated the same blissful procedure with your left nipple all the while he kept rutting into you uncontrollably.

“Loki…” You wondered if, in his current state, he would be able to speak. As of right now, he indeed reminded you of a wolf who would annihilate anything standing between him and his subject of desire, his prey—you.

Your toes curled, the promising and numbing sensation growing in your lower abdomen having you scream his name over and over again. You could already feel yourself clenching around him, your body urging him on to mark you with his seed and impregnate you and when he finally released himself into you, burying his cock as deep inside of you as was physically possible and coating your walls with his load, he triggered your own release.

You came with a loud moan, feeling him twitch against you as your pussy contracted around him again and again until you collapsed underneath him, spent and tired from his vigorous fucking. Loki, on the other hand, didn’t even think about letting you be. Unceremoniously, he pulled you on his lap so you came to snuggle up against his cold and naked chest, your face hidden in his neck. He supported himself by leaning against the metal wall, his cock still resting deep inside of you.

“How… are you… feeling?” You breathed out, barely able to keep your eyes open. Being taken thoroughly by a Frost Giant had been a lot more exhausting than you had initially assumed.

He was panting, his eyes almost shut. His erection inside you, however, was still very prominent and nowhere near ebbing down.

“Better… soon.” He growled into your ear. Soon? A high-pitched scream escaped your lips when he sank his teeth into your neck and bit down hard enough to make you squirm on his lap. You could still feel his ice cold sperm dribbling out of you and coating his own cock when he grabbed your arse and began moving you up and down his cold rut, forcing you to ride him.

“Oh… fuck…” You choked out. You were tender already, sensitive to the touch. This was too much, too soon. Yet Loki was too caught up in his pleasure and urges to give you a break. He took you several more times that night, eliciting orgasm after orgasm after orgasm from you—until you were on the verge of passing out.

-

You awoke with a hunger unlike one you had never experienced before. Irritated, you crawled out of bed—using the toilet but skipping your morning routine to get to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast. It was only seven. Loki had not… released you until half past six. There was no way your body could have drawn enough rest from this meagre hour of sleep.

Be that as it may—for now, you were hungry. Quietly, you tiptoed into the kitchen, ignoring the sweet ache and tenderness between your legs and resisting the urge to cup yourself through your pyjama bottoms. The white and bright light of the fridge blinded you when you opened it and reached for a package of juice and one of those pre-packed turkey sandwiches Tony kept buying. Unceremoniously, you then closed the fridge with your butt and sat down at the kitchen table to eat. And you kept returning to the fridge until Steve joined you in the kitchen to have a cup of coffee and then go for a run. When had you ever been this hungry before? Was it because of the aggressive sex you had had with Loki? Jesus…

You blushed when Steve asked you how you had slept—and you were rather grateful you had been smart enough to switch off the security cameras before… helping Loki out. He had still been in his Jötun form when you left at long last but he had looked content and… satisfied, in the most carnal manner possible. You would wait until the rest of the Avengers were up to check on him, to not raise any suspicion.

So when Thor staggered into the kitchen with a shit-eating grin on his face, you nearly jumped from your seat.

“Good morning!” He yelled—clearly in a very good mood. He managed to scarf down an entire package of fruit loops before you couldn’t take it anymore and aggressively scratched your fork over your empty plate until the room went awkwardly quiet.

“Didn’t you forget something?” You asked him heatedly. The God of Thunder frowned.

“No! I did flush the toilet this morning, (Y/N).”

Rolling your eyes, you stood.

“Loki. Loki is still one level below you, locked up in a cell, in pain, while you are enjoying your breakfast.” You hoped though, sincerely, that he was no longer in pain.

“(Y/N)… we spoke about this, there is nothing we can do. Down there, he can’t hurt himself or anyone else. I told you I’m going to Asgard soon, I will speak to—”

It was in this moment that your plate broke in half. You had, subconsciously, used your fork to stab it so forcefully it fell apart like a rotten apple. Eyes widening, you mumbled an apology.

“Sorry… I just… no one should be suffering like this. You all heard him last night.”

Bruce gave you a gentle smile. “You’ve always had a big heart for everyone, huh?” You nodded quickly. They did not need to know about your feelings… or the arousing ache between your legs. Your heart was racing. You took a deep breath, hurrying out of the kitchen without cleaning up behind you. Instead, you immediately locked yourself in the bathroom and turned on the tap to splash some cold water on your face. The icy temperature calmed you once it came in contact with your skin, reminding you of him—if only for a moment.

You were shaking. What on Earth was wrong with you? You took a quick shower to wind down, threw on an oversized sweater and then headed downstairs to the prison cells. A glance at the monitor of the security camera made you let out a relieved breath. Loki had indeed gone back to his Aesir form—and he did no longer seem to be in pain. It was, so you wondered, very unusual, however, to not complain and wreak havoc so the Avengers would let him out but then again… would they truly believe him if he told them he had overcome his heat?

With another deep breath, you opened the cell door and slipped inside.

“You were not supposed to see me like this last night. No one was.” He said quietly before you could even open your mouth, not bothering to make eye contact with you.

“Did you know? What was happening to you?”

“Yes.” He snorted, a bitter smile spreading on his thin lips. “I believed I would be able to control it.” Finally, he looked up, his blue eyes locking with yours. “Did I hurt you?” Your lips parted in surprise. Slowly, you shook your head.

“No… I mean… it was quite pleasurable… for me as well… actually.” You choked out sheepishly.

“Hmm… that I could tell,” Loki gave you a light smirk. “Thank you.” He said then—and for the first time since you had met him, you sensed true honesty and sincerity in his smooth voice.

“I’ll leave the door open.” You returned his smile; the planes in your belly flying loops.

“We are… keeping this between us, are we not?” He hastened to ask when you turned around.

“Of course.” After all, no one needed to know you had let Loki mate with you to regain control over his loins.

-

It was five days after your intimate encounter with Loki when your constant shaking became worse enough for him to notice—and if that wasn’t bad enough already, your body had begun to sweat; a lot. Day in and out, you had to change your sheets as if your bed was your personal sauna—or your personal hell.

You felt like you had been hit by a bus, like an extremely nasty form of the flu had you in its steel grip tightly, unwilling to let you go. Sleep, however, to get some rest and recover, would not come either. Two hours per night at most, three if you got lucky. And instead of getting better, it became worse.

He had been restless ever since. It could not be. After all, it had also never… or had it? Growling to himself, he locked the door to his room, enjoying the quietness and most of all, utter privacy.

Not a soul in the nine realms was aware he was still in the possession of the Tesseract. So when he produced it out of thin air—his large hand momentarily surrounded by a green mist—he made sure to hurry and quickly teleported himself back to Asgard. Heimdall would never open the Bifrost for him if he wasn’t accompanied by Thor.

He was worried about you and his surprise about these particular circumstances was remarkably low. When he closed his eyes, he could still taste your hard nipples on his tongue from when he had suckled on them. He remembered how warm your body felt against his when he had cradled you in his lap and the thought of your tight cunt around his throbbing cock stirred arousal in his leather trousers if only he indulged in reminiscences for too long. Most of all, however, he was unable to forget the sincere smile on your face when you had freed him from the cell the next day… and the mesmerised gaze you had met him with when he had ravished your sweet quim over and over again.

With another deep breath, he disappeared in an ice cold cloud of smoke.

-

Sneaking past the guards and into the palace library—the one place he had spent hours on end in growing up here, hiding away from Thor, his friends and the world, reading and hoarding knowledge—was pathetically easy. He knew exactly what to look for, what lecture would confirm his worrying suspicions. Once he found what he had been searching, he sat down on the windowsill—another usual spot he found comfort in—and began his research. He had known about the impact of a male Jötun’s seed on his female counterpart, of course; for even though he despised his own race, he, as opposed to Thor, had paid attention during their private tutoring lessons as children. The heavy book in his hands, however, made him, the God of Mischief and Trickery, hold his breath. What Loki had not known was that the repercussion of a male Jötun’s seed did not just occur in Jötun females. It applied to any species—including humans. However, the chances of survival for weaker lifeforms were alarmingly low.

Abandoning the book, he hurried out of the library and into the city. There was someone he needed to speak to.

-

“With all due respect, my prince but you are not welcome here.” Loki rolled his eyes. He knew it would not be fun, exactly, to seek out his ex-partners and ask about their well-being long after he had left them. The man opening him when he knocked on Sigyn’s door, a woman he had been engaged with for several years in his youth, was about as tall as Thor—his right hand decorated with a golden ring. Husband. Just great. And, judging by his obvious dismay of finding him on his doorstep, she must have told him about their shared past.

“I need to speak to your wife. Urgently. That is an order.” Sigyn’s husband growled, clenching his fists but stepped aside regardless. Loki made sure not to pay any attention to the furniture and his surroundings. Toys were scattered all across the living room, hinting that Sigyn had become both wife and mother in his absence. Her face fell when she spotted Loki standing in the middle of the small room—truly like he would even have preferred Helheim over being here of all places—as pale as a ghost.

“Loki… I mean… your highness. What… brings you here?”

“I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Um… by all means. Sit down. Would you like some ale?”

“No.” Sigyn pointed at the rectangular kitchen table and then sat down opposite of him. Her hands were folded on the surface of the polished wood.

“It is good to see you.”

“Likewise… Now this will sound odd,” he began unceremoniously, ignoring her husband towering above him with his arms crossed. “But I have to know how you fared after we separated. Not… emotionally. Physically.” He emphasised.

“Physically? That is indeed odd. Oh, I… um… let me see, it’s been such a long time. I had quite an appetite after you left,” she laughed, clearly uncomfortable with his presence. Loki sighed.

“An appetite. What more than that?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Except… yes, of course! I fell ill a few days after. The healers never found out what my body was rebelling against. It lasted for a few months. Tiredness, insomnia, attacks of sweat and I could not stop shaking. Why do you ask? Did you… did you experience it too?”

“No,” he replied quickly, a nauseous feeling spreading in his guts. You were showing the exact same symptoms. Symptoms of addiction. “You said it lasted for a few months?”

“I am sorry, your highness but is there a point to this interrogation? My wife has to feed the baby.”

“We’re almost done.” He barked, glaring at Sigyn’s husband from the corner of his eye.

“It did,” Sigyn confirmed. “But then it never returned.”

“Thank you. That will be all.” Loki took a deep breath and stood, resisting the urge to massage the bridge of his nose to clear his thoughts. It was only when he turned on his heel to leave this way too harmonic place that he noticed Sigyn’s husband had left the door open for him. He rolled his eyes.

“Loki! I-I mean, your highness…”

“Loki is fine, Sigyn. We have seen each other naked, after all.” Beside him, he could practically hear her husband gnashing his teeth. He smirked.

“I understand you do not wish to share with me what troubles you but whatever it is, I hope everything will turn out to be alright.”

Loki gave her a smile. It was as honest as he could muster in this tense situation. Sigyn had always known when he was being plagued by dark sorrows, even before he learned about his true parentage. Much like you. You too had been able to tell he had been unwell, both physically and mentally. He swallowed thickly.

“Thank you, Sigyn.”

He had to see Amora, too. They had not exactly gone separate ways peacefully but if she had experienced the same symptoms as Sigyn after their break-up, he had to get back to you immediately. And he had to tell you. The truth, a luxury given his nature, was the very least you deserved.

-

“Where have you been?” Thor roared as soon as he entered the kitchen to pick up one of those cold drinking chocolates you had introduced him to a while back—the ridiculous amount of sugar would help you, if only for a moment. The presence of Tony, Nat, Bucky, Steve and Thor, leaning against the counter or sitting at the kitchen table, he ignored as best as he could. He would have preferred to be alone now.

Loki quirked his eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. “Asgard, given that you were unwilling to get help yourself.”

“How? Heimdall wouldn’t…”

“There is a lot Heimdall does not know, brother.” Thor grumbled something he did not understand but it sounded awfully like a curse word in Old Norse.

“Whatever. Have you seen (Y/N)? Her room is down the same hallways as yours, has she left her room lately?” Tony barked at him.

“As far as I am concerned, she has Vision bring her excessive amounts of food, for she is too weak to come to the kitchen herself. No. I have not seen her around.” He replied nonchalantly, with false disinterest. This time, so it seemed, however, his choice of tone, equalled shooting himself in the foot.

“We need to get her to the hospital. None of the medicines I gave her worked even a little bit—and I contacted the best doctors I know.” Loki suppressed a scoff. As if a hospital full of human ‘doctors’ would be able to help you. The only one who could… was he.

“For Fuck’s sake, she has been feeling ill ever since…” Tony’s face fell. “Ever since we locked up your brother.” Belligerently, his gaze wandered over to Loki again. “Okay, Reindeer Games, what did you do to her and don’t even try to lie to me!”

“You do assume, automatically, that I have something to do with it?” He mocked. Tony clenched his fists.

“Loki,” Thor added calmly. “Do you… know something?” The God of Mischief sighed. If he told them, what little trust they had in his capabilities as an Avenger would vaporise like smoke. It mattered not. In fact, he could not care less if any of those self-proclaimed heroes even liked him. Yet if he spoke the truth… surely they would do anything in their power to keep you away from him—which was exactly what they could not do if they wanted you to survive and feel better again as much as he did. He could just take care of the problem on his own… sooner or later, however, they were bound to find out about their intimate encounters, and he was beyond keeping secrets like that. If he wanted to make love to you, then he would, may the Norns help him.

“It is… my seed.” He choked out reluctantly.

“Your… what!? Your… yeah, no, I can’t say that out loud without throwing up… is making her sick!?”

“The seed of a male Jötun is causing… an addiction. Withdrawal will make her weak and ill.” Loki looked up grimly. “Frost Giants live in strictly monogamous relationships.”

“What, like penguins? How did she even come in contact with… did you… did you rape her? I swear to God, I will kill you.”

“I did not lay a finger on her.” Loki replied darkly.

Tony threw his hands up in the air. “So how did your happy juice get inside of her in the first place then!? How did that happen, I wonder?”

“She came to me voluntarily, Stark!”

“But you knew? If you knew it would make her sick, why didn’t you stop her, you selfish asshole!?”

“How!? How, Stark!? Resisting the urge to mate in heat is like attempting to suppress a sneeze. It’s impossible. Don’t bother your pathetic human mind with things you do not understand.”

“Loki…” Thor began warningly. The God of Mischief ignored him with a hostile growl.

“(Y/N) would never do that.” Tony said then.

“Perhaps you do not know her as well as you thought you do.”

“You little shit, I will…” Tony jumped from his chair as if stung by an adder, prompting Loki to draw one of his daggers seemingly out of nowhere when he started at him. Both Natasha and Steve barely managed to hold him back.

“Leave it, Tony. This is Loki. He is just trying to provoke you.” Nat appeased.

Just this one time, however, they were wrong. Loki did, in fact, care about you. It was just he had not realised that until you had willingly offered your body to him when he had been in pain. Glaring at them darkly, he rose from his chair.

“I am going to fix this.” He spat. It almost sounded like a threat. “Not for you. I could watch you drop dead to my feet without so much as blinking. But for her.” Fuming, he stormed out, his right fist still clutching at his dagger in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. And as of right now, Thor knew better than to stop him.

He needed to see you. Remorse and guilt were eating him up from the inside out—and it wasn’t just the fact you had helped him in spite of everything he had done to Midgard only a few years back. It was… you were… Loki closed his eyes for a brief moment. You were his.

When he knocked on your door, there was no response. Now there was a chance you were asleep, yet he somehow knew better than to leave and try again later as to not startle you. After all… he was going to make you feel better.

He slipped inside, locking the door behind him with magic so you would not be disturbed. The sight of you almost broke his heart. You were trembling, buried under a pile of blankets, pale and weak.

“(Y/N)…” He spoke with a quiet voice, approaching you slowly. Your eyes opened when you heard his voice, your weak body barely managing to turn over to look at him. A cough escaped your lips before you could answer him.

“Hey…”

“How are you feeling?”

“Terrible.” You tried for a laugh but could only manage another cough. With a straight face, he sat down on the edge of the bed so he was able to bring his palm to your forehead. You were incredibly warm, yet the sweat made your skin cold to the touch. His heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, he was worried you only had a few weeks left until your body gave up fighting the withdrawal. He would not, ever let this happen.

“I brought you some cold drinking chocolate.”

“Oh…” You chuckled weakly. “Thank you. Is that the only reason you came?”

“No,” he laughed. “I came to check on you.”

“An eye for an eye, huh?” Your eyes fell shut when you smiled.

“Hmm… I’m afraid it is a little more complicated than that.” He purred. You never noticed how his eyes fell on your crotch, even if it was covered by a bunch of blankets. Slowly but determined, he slid his left hand under the layers of fabric until he found what he was searching for. With skilled fingers, he began to massage your clit until he felt you responding to his attentive touches. You arched your back, your sex growing wetter and wetter fast—like your body knew exactly what would follow. Licking his lips, he scooped some of it up to spread all over your quim and create even more friction. You were squirming by the time he removed the blankets entirely and positioned himself between your legs, careful not to shift all of his body weight onto you.

Was he going to… did he… could he possibly… reciprocate your feelings? Your heart skipped a beat, butterflies awakening in your belly. If only you could…

“Loki… Loki, I… I really want to do this again too but… not now, I’m… I really don’t feel well.”

“Shhh…” He would ponder over your words later. You wanted to do this again too? Had it not just be compassion and pity that had driven you to offer him your most intimate parts for relief? And what if you refused him now? You had to trust him. So he shut you up by pressing his lips against yours, capturing them in a passionate kiss and then, once again slowly but determined, removed the blankets and peeled your pyjama from you until he had you naked—fine, he had helped with magic; and he was certainly too impatient to remove his own clothes, so instead contented himself with freeing his growing erection from his trousers only.

A whimper escaped your lips when you caught sight of his arousal, his tip—not blue but the colour of flesh this time—pressing against your entrance. He slid inside you to the hilt with almost no resistance, your warm pussy welcoming him in. Loki moaned when your walls gripped him tightly; it was like your body already knew his release would make it feel better. Only this time, he was in control. This time, he would take his time and make gentle love to you—right until you began to tremble underneath him for entirely different reasons.

Your eyes fell shut when Loki started moving, retreating almost completely only to plunge back deep inside of you fast and passionately. You were too weak to buck your hips, as much as you would have loved to. And despite your weariness, he felt incredible. You were unable to decide which form of his you liked better.

You kissed him again when his nose brushed against yours and his breath tickled your lips, bathing in the intimacy between you. But when he slid his hand down to where your bodies were united to pamper your clit all the while speeding up, hungry for his release, you stopped him, albeit gently.

“I… I don’t think I can, I’m too… but I… it’s okay.” You murmured. “Cum.”

It was a request he could not resist, not any longer. Thrusting forward a few more times, his release was beginning to overwhelm him. He groaned into your ear, his hot breath brushing against your cheek, and let his climax consume him. He was throbbing against your walls, his seed—surprisingly warm and not as cold as it had been the first time—filling you to the brim and until you could feel it dribbling out of you again. Loki stilled, turning you over so you both rested on the mattress on your sides, with his slowly softening cock still inside of you and one of your legs draped over his hips. One heartbeat passed, then another and another. And just like that… you felt like you had been reborn.

“How… I feel so much better.” Loki kept silent. Remorse was sparkling in his blue eyes. Avoiding your curious gaze, he looked down, with a start fascinated with the blue roses on your bed sheets.

“Loki?”

“You did fail to read all of it, did you not?” He stated quietly.

“What… what do you mean?”

“The book you took from my shelf. I looked it up when you got worse. It wasn’t until I left for Asgard that I realised why our… sexual encounter is making you ill.”

“I… wait… Does that mean you believe it has something to do with you? I mean… what we did? Is it… I’m not pregnant, am I!?”

“No. You are not.” He smirked at you weakly. “That, I would have sensed already. No… I’m afraid it is a little more complicated. Frost Giants live in strictly monogamous relationships. They never… switch their partners once they mated during their first heat. If they do…” Loki took a deep breath. “It appears that the seed of a Frost Giant triggers some sort of… addiction for their female partner. They develop a carnal craving for their seed which forces them to keep returning for… more.”

Biologically speaking, this was a downright bulletproof way of ensuring the survival of a species—the Jötuns’ own bodies turning against them and demanding sex. The gravity of his words, however, hit you only a moment later. So this was why you had been feeling so sick lately. You were showing signs of… addiction. Your body had become addicted to Loki’s seed. You swallowed thickly.

“I-is there… is there a way to stop this?”

“I went to speak to my former partners back on Asgard—which, to be frank, does not just sound like a disaster. But I needed to know if they experienced any symptoms similar to yours when we… separated.” You ignored the painful sting in your heart when he said ‘former partners’. Of course Loki had had sex before, had perhaps even been in love. He did not strike you as the type of Norse God who was unexperienced in the art of love making. After all, he had more than just proved this to you. It mattered not, not now.

“And… did they?” You probed nervously.

Loki nodded seriously. “They were both bedridden for months, plagued by uncontrollable trembling and sweating. Their appetite increased, they ate twice as much than they usually would without ever feeling truly full… and they barely slept anymore, tossing and turning for most of the night. Amora added she became increasingly violent as well. They, of course, believed it was a virus which would pass, eventually.” Terrified, you remembered how you had broken your plate in the kitchen the night after your lovemaking. It all made sense now.

But you did not dare ask what this meant. When dreaming of having a relationship with Loki, you had not imaged a partnership out of physical and sexual necessity which would feel like a chore to him; like an obligation now that you had helped him out, after all.

“But they were Asgardian.” He suddenly said, pausing to let his words sink in. “You are human. You are mortal. I am uncertain you would survive…” If I stopped having sex with you. Is that what he had meant to say before he stopped himself abruptly?

Taking a deep and shaky breath, you gathered all of your courage, as weak as it may be.

“This is all my own fault, Loki.”

“It is not—“

“N-no, let me speak. It’s my fault. You couldn’t help it. And I came to you on my own accord. But…” You swallowed. “Even if I had known, I still would have helped you.”

The God of Mischief frowned when you reached for his hand and held it—but it was a downright vulnerable expression.

“Loki… I’m not going to expect you to keep having sex with me if you don’t… I mean…” It was then he began to smirk cheekily.

“And if I do?” Loki had truthfully speaking always been a puzzle—always keeping his deepest thoughts and feelings all to himself. Until now. So he did reciprocate your feelings.

“Y-you do?” His smirk widened.

“It… does get better after a while, once the pair is more acquainted to each other’s bodies,” he continued. “And they are then able to spend more time apart without any signs of withdrawal showing. Ultimately, however, once the male Jötun claimed her, the female is bound to him… if he decides to keep her.”

Despite your weakness, you raised an eyebrow. “That sounds pretty sexist, Lokes.” Loki looked up. His heart jumped when you gave him a nickname.

“Sexist? No. Dominant? Yes.” He growled darkly.

“You’re right. It’s probably not sexist given that male Frost Giants go into heat.” You giggled in response. Loki tickled your sides for that remark, making you wriggle around on the bed. If your hunch was not deceiving your love-drunken mind, then the God of Mischief had just begun to court you.

“Loki?” You mused, raising your voice in a shy manner.

“Hmm?”

“I think I feel fit enough now to have an orgasm.”

The God of Mischief laughed—as heartily as you had never heard him laugh before. “Do you now?”

Next thing you knew he was already on top of you again, covering your naked body with tender kisses.

-

A/N: Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my first (to be) published novel! If you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate it so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥  

[separatist-apologist]

Lucien Vanserra + The Villain Theory & Why the Mating Bond Is Not Fake

I've been thinking about this for a while and I've decided I want to debunk this because of all the *insert character that is definitely not the villain becoming a secret villain*, Lucien is most definitely not it.

The theory, according to tiktok, is that Lucien is a secret schemer who has tricked everyone, including Elain, into believing they are mates for undefined, suspicious reasons likely related to Koschei. I find this unlikely considering his "father" is ALSO scheming with Koschei and Lucien likely has some awareness of this considering how often Eris is suddenly hanging around.

This is so long. Everything is under the cut.

However, lets pretend he doesn't. There is consistent, contextual proof that Lucien a) could not make up a mating bond even if he wanted to and b) everyone would know if he had.

Starting in ACOTAR, Tamlin tells Feyre the story of Lucien. On page 160, Tamlin says:

"Lucien said he didn't care she wasn't one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father's court to his scheming brothers."

Followed up on page 161, Tamlin adds:

"...his father has never apologized and his brothers are too frightened of me to risk harming him. But he has never forgotten what they did to her...even if he pretends he has."

That's ACOTAR. I know SJM likes to change things on a whim, but foundationally, this is Lucien's character and across all five books, it never changes. Lucien is still haunted by Jesminda and the mating bond he lost. He firmly believes, if we believe Tamlin to be a reliable narrator (and we should, as Lucien backs Tamlin's opinion up in his private thoughts. It is also worth noting that if Lucien has a villain origin story, it begins right here, the moment his father beheads Jesminda. To assume he's the villain, we ought to believe that he's been scheming non-stop for at least 200 years (since he's like, 300ish?) and to what end? To kill Beron? He'd have been scheming far longer than Elain was alive.

Moving right along to ACOMAF, on page 619, Amren says:

"And the bond," Amren breathed, Cassian's blood shining on her hands as she slowed its dribbling.

Mor said, "She asked the king to break the bond. He obliged."

I thought I might be dying- thought my chest might actually be cleaved in two.

"Thats impossible," Amren said. "That sort of bond cannot be broken."

"The kind said he could do it."

"The king is a fool," Amren barked. "That sort of bond cannot be broken."

"No, it can't," I said.

This is from Rhys' perspective. A mating bond can't be broken with magic- it's forever. Even rejected or in death (we'll get there), the mating bond is for life. Assuming Lucien's mate was Jesminda, even if it hadn't snapped in death, she would STILL be his mate and death would not have changed that. Neither would any magic Lucien, a spell-cleaver, might possess.

Let's also consider Elain, who has no reason to lie and every reason to call Lucien out regarding the bond. In ACOMAF, page 608, we see this:

"...Elain was staring over Nesta's shoulder. At Lucien-whose face she had finally taken in. Dark brown eyes met one of russet and one of metal. Nesta was still weeping, still raging, still inspecting Elain-

Lucien's hands slackened at his sides. His voice broke as he whispered to Elain, "You're my mate."

It's Elain who sees him first, who feels the mating bond mere seconds before Lucien. Why choose Elain, if you're going to pick a fake mate for your scheme? The argument is generally that she has the least amount of knowledge about Faeries and no interest in that education but how would Lucien know that? Feyre told Lucien nothing about her sisters (she told Ianthe instead), which means he would have had to guess. Given that Elain fights being put in the Cauldron, there's nothing contextually in that moment that suggests that Lucien somehow knew she was the easier sister to fool.

It's also worth noting that Lucien, up until that moment, still genuinely believes Jesminda was his mate. If he's the villain, having a fake mate makes no sense to the story or his plans.

Feyre has been inside Lucien's mind twice. Once in ACOMAF (pg. 95):

"Thoughts slammed into me, images and memories, a pattern of thinking and feeling that was old, and clever, and sad, so endlessly sad and guilt-ridden, hopeless-"

And again in ACOWAR when Lucien meets Elain for the first time. On page 249, we get the best description of what Lucien is feeling regarding the mating bond, all through Feyre's perspective:

"Too thin. She must not be eating at all. How can she even stand?

The thoughts flowed through his head, one after another. His heart was a raging, thunderous beat, and he didn't dare move from his position a mere five feet away. She hadn't yet turned toward him, but the ravages of her fasting were evident enough.

Touch her, smell her, taste her-

The instincts were running a river. he fisted his hands at his sides."

"But there she was. His mate. She was nothing like Jesminda."

"Elain had been...thrown at him."

"That circle of people who now claimed to be Feyre's new family...It was what, long ago, he'd once thought life at Tamlin's court would be. An ache like a blow to the chest went through him, but he crossed the rug."

"But he couldn't breathe as she faced him fully. She was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen. Betrayal, queasy and oily, slid through his veins. He'd said the same to Jesminda once. But even as shame washed through him, the words, the senses chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours."

"She looked away- towards the windows. 'I can hear your heart,' she said quietly. He wasn't sure how to respond, so he said nothing and drained his tea even as it burned his mouth.

'When I sleep,' she murmured, 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer. 'Can you hear mine?'

He wasn't sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, 'No, lady. I cannot.'"

These are Lucien's thoughts from Feyre's perspective. He has no idea she's in his head, so why is he thinking all those things? Why feel guilt that he finds her beautiful or that he'd once said all the same things to Jesminda that he thinks about Elain? Why care about her well-being? We know mates are driven to protect and Lucien's very first thoughts about Elain are ones of concern. She's not eating, she's too thin, how can she possibly stand? Not, hahaah my evil planned worked and I totally have an in with the Night Court (which, why would he need considering Tamlin is currently allied with Hybern and Lucien could have taken full advantage of that?).

Additionally, assuming Lucien is faking the mating bond for some poorly defined, evil plot, why keep such distance? Why not force himself on her? That's the claim, right? That he's forcing her to be with him which is amusing because in ACOFAS, Lucien has some thoughts on page 162"

"'How is she?'

'Better. She makes no mention of her abilities. If they remain.'

'Good. But is she still...' A muscle flickered in his jaw. 'Does she still mourn him?'"

First question he asks. "How is she?" Followed by if she's still in love with her ex-fiance. And I can hear the screaming now, "HE ASKED BECAUSE HE WANTS TO OWN HER" but like, on page 165 of ACOFAS, we get:

"I can't stand to be in the same room as her for more than two minutes."

Truly a stupid plan to fake a mating bond with a person that is causing you to be eaten alive with guilt and longing. We know the second he's around her, Lucien's is overwhelmed with the mating instincts and feels guilt over Jesminda, which is why he spends little time around Elain. He also tells Feyre, on that same page, he doesn't want his life to be financed by Rhysand. Feyre practically begs Lucien to move back to Velaris, to work for her full time, to let her set him up somewhere nicer and Lucien declines it all. If his plan hinged on getting closer to the IC, to using Rhys' resources, why tell her no? Why not take her up on it? Why not make him part of her life in a much more tangible way?

And finally, the dreaded scent of the mating bond. Feyre doesn't risk talking to Rhys when she's in Spring for fear of alerting everyone to the scent of the bond. Azriel, too, cannot stand the smell of it to the point he stands in the doorway during solstice rather than come in.

Ladies, Gentleman, and Non-binary pals of the jury, examine the evidence. For Lucien to be a villain, he has to KNOW that Feyre is a daemati before she does and both leave his thoughts unguarded while constantly assuming she MIGHT be picking through them. He also has to be able to control large amounts of people at the same time via the smell of the bond and Elain being able to feel it. When he tugs, she responds.

It would require everyone around them to be incredibly dumb. Feyre and Rhys basically share a mind and while they don't necessarily trust Lucien (unfairly imo), I firmly believe one of them would have picked up on a fake bond or Lucien's scheming.

Lucien wanted Jesminda, not Elain. If he decided to punish the world around him for the consistent pain he was enduring, he doesn't need Elain to achieve this. He's friends with Feyre. He has contacts all over Prythian. He didn't need to fake a mating bond, nor does it make any sense to do so. What they have is REAL.

And lastly, the bond can't be broken. Rejected, yes, broken no. Regardless if you think they'll keep it or not, they ARE mates and Lucien is NOT the villain who will be heroically slaughtered. They're awkward, they're uncomfortable, they have shit to work out but they ARE mates, and Lucien has proven over and over that all he wants is a home and goddamn peace and quiet.

[tobegiggledat]

You're Meant to be Laughed At

18+ CONTENT AHEAD MINORS DNI

❀pairing: Emi Fukukado (Ms. Joke) x GN!reader

❀warnings: unhealthy relationship dynamics, victim blaming, gaslighting, implied past rape/noncon, mild sexual content, implied kidnapping

❀word count: 1.5k

To your surprise, disheveled appearances aren't enough to catch the sights of a large crowd. A makeshift gown of tattered linen is slung loosely across your shoulders, but remains tainted as it chafes at your bruises just as abrasively as when you were lying unwillingly against it.

It evades the grasp of your twitching fingertips, the unforgettable scent of blood and stolen sex still lingers within its threads, permeating your judgement even though you're way past the reach of her doorstep.

Dust coats your soles in a thin, chalky layer, feet singed by the sidewalk’s heat, you tiptoe through bypassing civilians, many who hardly turn their cheek to your shuddering form and practically scoff at the sight.

“Can someone help me please!”, you finally shout within the sea of the unbothered.

And for the most part, no one pays any mind to your panic-stricken sentences, dodging each desperate flail of your arms outwardly as you try to draw more attention to yourself, and the weakened state of your body.

Dread starts to seep through your aching muscles and into your bones, the crowd is thinning out the further you travel along this lonely path—it's hopeless you think.

That is, until you're finally approached by a businessman just before your light dims completely.

“What’s the matter?” A deep but calm voice emits from the suited man before you, tall and with features too difficult to make out from the intense shadows that cast across them.

“You've gotta help me”, you gulp. “S-she’ll be here any minute, but I don’t know what to do. "S-She—"

“It's alright now. No one's coming to hurt you.” His collected tone almost borders on cold. “I’m gonna try and look for a hero, but first can you tell me what happened? Who’s she?”

“Emi! A lady with green hair, I was kidnapped by her, and-and…“

The man smiles.

Initially, those small curves at the corners of his mouth are something you brush off as a nervous tick, an unexpected, but common reaction to receiving such news so suddenly.

He wouldn’t find humor in your misfortune would he…

“Sorry about that, you were saying—”

You’d never guess that a sinister chuckle was capable of passing through kind lips, but it does—boisterous and loud as it attracts more confused looks than what you could've ever achieved with your shouting.

“What’s so funny?”, you ask awkwardly between his cackles.

Blood bursts in the veins across his cheeks, his laughs turn into near chokes and gasps for breaths while a crowd finally gathers near.

“Please, help me”, you take advantage of the surrounding people. “I'm in trouble! I was kidnapped by a woman with—”

But even more chuckles emerge around you; some high pitched and squeaky while others are deep enough to rattle your insides—yet all are of the same manic intensity.

“Why are you all laughing? I'm serious, she kidnapped me—the woman with a bandana and green hair.”

It takes a few more interrupting giggles for you to conclude that any further reasoning would be a fruitless endeavor.

Why doesn’t anyone ever listen? What more will it take for your struggles to finally be acknowledged? You’re unsure but these dizzying thoughts eventually shatter any optimism you may have had left.

“Hey!”, says a voice coming from the other way. “There’s my favorite jokester!”

Jokester? Jokester?

Your skin suddenly chills at the nickname and cheerful tone that says it.

A firm hand is placed on your shoulder and by its grip you don't need to meet her eyes to recognize Emi as she stalks behind you, proudly. “What did I tell you about making jokes like that?”

“I-I wasn’t joking though…”, you murmur, shoulders drooping at her touch as your limbs attempt to cocoon you.

“That’s enough. Look at what you’ve caused.” Emi points at the curled over businessman and the other gigglers. “It’s kinda distasteful, don’tcha think, joking about kidnapping and all that stuff? You shouldn’t make people laugh at things like that, yknow?”

“But, it wasn’t my fault. I was trying to—“

The sharp glare of mint irises cut you short.

“C’mon, let’s get back, I don’t want you to cause any more trouble.” She nudges you to take the lead back to her house, which you trail toward meekly under her watch; her eyes a suffocating thread that loops tightly around the base of your neck, and punishes you for movements outside of what she expects.

“Go and wait in the room for me”, Emi says quietly and with an unreadable tone upon reaching and entering the doorway.

You immediately do as you're told, walking briskly to your shared bed then sitting on its edge until she follows suit.

When she enters, she's silent, pacing along the tile to meet your knees as they dangle over the mattress. She stops to look at you closely, but it's difficult to tell what she's feeling when her stare follows the frightened twitches of your lips and the uneasy flickers of your eyes.

“Emi, I’m really sorry”, you begin in hopes of aiding the tension. “I just got overwhelmed this time, you know I love you.”

She slowly pulls at the covers on your trembling figure, without a word. It's a silence that's overwhelmingly thick and difficult to move in.

Not a single trace of her signature smile is present; the one she wears now is trembling, as if a crooked line etched poorly into a stone slab. Though, her face has always been much like that of stone, slowly cracking from the years she’s held a playful façade until her true sinister nature is revealed.

That same playfulness is what roped you into these circumstances, though her stone wasn’t as blemished when you met her initially.

Her cracks have multiplied tenfold since then, and you think your presence and the continuous disagreements that arose from it may have accelerated them.

“Emi?”, you desperately reach for her arm but she pulls away.

“It’s fine, it's fine”, she says, swatting at the air with the back of her hand. “You just wanted to pull a little trick on me, right?”

“R-right...I guess I thought it would be funny at the time.”

“Oh, you did?” Her brows raise a little at that.

You nod.

“We should really work on your humor then”, she continues. “I don’t like jokes at the expense of others, and you kinda scared me back there.”

“Yeah, sorry...”

She hums softly. “Anyways, enough with the gloomy talk. Let’s do something fun, like earlier, before you ran away.” Her fingers begin to swipe lightly across your shoulders, but you swiftly duck from her touch.

“Oh, I don’t know, I think we should try something else”, you hesitate while trying to inch away from her, but she doesn’t allow it. “How about we-we—”

“C’mon, you know you like it.” She's swift to close the distance, straddling your hips as your back is pressed against the sheets. “After a few minutes, you’re begging me to keep going. You’re always like Emi, don’t stop. Pleeease, I want to cum now, I'm sorry.”

Her hands clumsily reach down to swipe at your slit. “Look, it's already wet, see.” She holds the glistening tips of her fingers in front of you, before bringing them to her lips, and sucking on them obnoxiously until you squirm with embarrassment.

Once she’s finished, she stills, sharp eyes gazing down at you once more.

“Do you know why I like you so much?”, she eventually questions. “You’re always so funny even when you don’t intend to be.” Her body is warm as it rests on your thighs, and when you're calm enough, you could sense how she moves gently with each of her breaths. “I just wish you’d stop sharing that part of you with other people. That’s the real reason why I got so mad earlier, if you were wondering.”

“But I don’t know how to because I never get what’s so funny in the first place”, you say timidly.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t talk as much about what’s going on between us, no one is ever going to take it as seriously as you do.”

The curt way her words leave her lips has you nearly recoiling, you quickly shift from beneath her, weight now resting on your elbows. “What do you mean? I’m telling the truth aren’t I?”

“No, I think you’re confused about our relationship. I wouldn’t do anything to you if I didn’t think you truly wanted it. I mean if I really kidnapped you, why did you walk back here with me so easily? It’s because deep down you realized you were being ridiculous—comical, even—and that being with me is the best place for you and it’s all you’ve got.”

Your jaw clasps tightly with her words repeatedly bouncing between your neurons, you stare blankly at the ceiling, along with its cracks, its dull and peeling paper, and its faint water stains…

You don't even notice Emi’s sorrowful glance until you finally turn toward her and she brings you into her arms. “I'm sorry. I hope I didn't take it too far”, she speaks into the crook of your neck.

“I don’t like being laughed at, Emi.”

“No, no. There’s nothing wrong with being laughed at. It just means you’re a natural comedian.” She pulls away to place a palm on your chest, her nose burrows into your cheek. “My natural comedian.”

[min-jpg]

can i request zhongli , kaeya and xiao with a fem!s/o that comes from an extremely rich family and the boys get kidnapped and held for ransom and then out of nowhere their s/o comes and beats the group of people that kidnapped the boys , gracefully😋😋

Note: we stan a baddie s/o! Anyways, enjoy the drabbles with a word count averaging 0.5k for each character :) I'll make the setting at an abandoned warehouse, classic

---

Kidnapped Genshin Boys x Fem Rich!reader pt.1

Part 2 (Childe, Diluc, Kazuha)

Characters: Kaeya, Xiao, Zhongli

Genre: fluff, established relationship, some woman kicking ass action, (TW: mentions of blood and violence)

---

KAEYA

Your boyfriend would deliberately act like a damsel in distress with no fighting aptitudes. Exaggerating his emotions to fabricate fear, he voluntarily let himself be held hostage, thinking they caught an easy target. Kaeya went along with his abductors' antics because he intends to bring them down once they reach the hideout.

While they were camping in the warehouse, Kaeya was not worried at the slightest. These people were no vision bearers, just mere greedy criminals that do not know who they were messing with.

Kaeya is aware of how affluent you and your family are. He already anticipated something similar to happen one day. Lowly tactics like these do not budge him at all, especially his unyielding loyalty towards you. As if the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonious would be shaken by something as childish as this.

While he was improvising a plan in his mind, one of the men yelled, "Intruder!"

They all assembled at the source, but glanced at each other in confusion, "Intruder? Where?"

While an altercation sparked between them about the unseen intruder, their attention successfully diverted away from Kaeya. Thus, using the containers and blind spots to your advantage, you sneaked your way towards your boyfriend. While freeing Kaeya from the ropes that bound him to the chair, you giggled as well, "Are you lost, baby boy?"

Your unexpected appearance left him stunned, but it was a pleasant surprise, "Lost in those eyes, baby girl." He smirked back. By the time you finished, the men realized that the intruder was you.

Now that you are actually here, Kaeya's concerns began sprouting because he wanted to ensure your safety first before carrying out his plan since your arrival was not formulated in it.

You fueled his worries when you stepped forward towards the group. You dropped the bag you carried along in front of them, "Here. You wanted the money right? Take it."

"Well, that wasn't so hard." The gung ho group laughed boisterously among themselves, the leader leaning down to pick up the bag. You swung your foot, landing a clean kick on his face which caused him to stumble back. He pressed his nose, blood trickled down, "You-"

You refused to let him finish by sending another vigorous kick, this time at the center of his stomach, causing him to hunch as he grabbed onto his stomach and surpassing his coughs. To finish it off, you plunged your elbow down the back of his head and connected with an uppercut. The force was strong enough to send their leader flying back and never stood up again, completely knocked out.

The rest of the gang blinked. It was not even a fight. You took him down with only a few moves, barely breaking a sweat.

"You guys want some more? Or just take the money and leave us alone." You taunted them. They hustled along, grabbing the bag, and left their leader in the warehouse. Little did they know, the bag was not filled with money, but just some rocks to give it some weight.

Kaeya walked up behind you, clapping his hands, "That was superb, babe. I didn't know you were such a fighter." Needless to say, Kaeya is so proud of you and praised the way you executed your beautiful course of movements. He will also keep in mind to never mess with your temper too much in the future.

XIAO

Your boyfriend could take out all the adversaries he wanted to, driving them to regret that they wished they never premeditate this abduction. Unfortunately, his hands are tied because the group threatened that harm would come your way instead if he did not comply with their demands.

"You just have to sit here until your girlfriend bails you out. I'm sure she has some extra cash to blow to save you."

You did warn Xiao beforehand that similar incidents happened in the past and it is bound to occur again, to which he glazed over as a simple matter since he is confident with his combat experiences. But you did not explain how the incidents were settled. Xiao did not know that you have the capability to defend yourself, so obviously he reluctantly listened to them to protect you.

If they were to resort to hurting anyone, Xiao would rather have them hurt him instead if it meant they could spare you. He will never forgive them or himself if they even attempt to graze a single strand of your hair.

While worrying for your safety, he heard one of the men shouting a yelp, but it got cut off as his body fell, passing out cold on the ground.

The group huddled together, "Who's there?!" Their eyes darted around to search for the one responsible.

While they were bewildered, you jumped down from one of the containers at the warehouse, sending your knee flying directly towards one of the members to knock him down. In a kneeling position to pin the person below in place, you sent a swift strike to his neck, making him faint. As you stood up, the gang and also Xiao all looked at your abrupt appearance with wide eyes.

Glaring at the men in front of you, "Now, if any of you touched my boyfriend, one doctor visit wouldn't suffice." Without giving them any time to react or respond, your palm curled into a fist, dashing forward to begin taking them down one by one with your nimble feet.

Your calculative movements were sharp and precise, leaving no opening for your foes to attack. As the battle proceeded, your hair flowed gracefully behind along with your bold actions. Although Xiao was itching to help, he only managed to stare at you in awe, marveled by your bravery and poise stance that showed no weakness.

Before you both knew it, the fight ended with you emerging victorious.

You ran over to Xiao to free him immediately, "Oh archons! Xiao, are you okay?" Caressing his cheeks, you frantically inspected his face for any external injuries. Those men will face your wrath if they did anything to him.

Xiao was still processing what happened, his pupils fixed at you, lips parting, "That was really... amazing of you." He wanted to tell you that you looked so gorgeous that it made him breathless, but kept his mouth sealed after. For now, he enjoys the sensation of your hands that were used to unleash such fury now stroking his face so lovingly. It is also worth mentioning that Xiao has a new profound respect for your charming side that he never knew of.

ZHONGLI

Your boyfriend maintained a tranquil state of mind when he was kidnaped. Not portraying any signs of retaliation or profound panic, it even caused the group to be unnerved with how silent Zhongli behaved.

While held hostage, the head of the abduction blabbered about how they intend to lure you here, exploiting you through Zhongli's situation for some quick money grab.

Upon hearing that, Zhongli's eyebrows twitched in a displeased manner, "So you'd rather take advantage of someone for money instead of working for it? Don't you have any dignity left?"

"Obviously! If there's an easy way to earn money, who wouldn't want to partake? Someone as sheltered and rich as your girlfriend will never understand. Don't act like you never took money from her." They ridiculed his righteous morales by bringing you in the conversation, implying Zhongli only dated you for your status.

Zhongli leaned back against the chair with an inscrutable demeanor on his face. He knew that surely someone would point out the disparity in social status between you and him. But, if they thought he only valued your wealth and nothing else, then he will have to disappoint them.

"Oh, I'm very lucky to have a wealthy partner. Something you will never understand, yes? That's why you turn to disagreeable schemes such as this." Zhongli stalled time by making mindless talks with the leader.

Not appreciating Zhongli's remark, the leader raised his arm, ready to swing at full force to land a hit, except you obstructed him. Appearing out of thin air, you found your way towards Zhongli and held a tenacious grip on the man's arm from behind before he could potentially scar your boyfriend's precious face.

The group was alarmed by your arrival and the way you constrained their leader's strike. Applying even more force to twist his arm, you contorted his limb. It caused him to arch his back and bawled in pain as he attempted to wriggle his arm out of your grasp. In contrast, you reinforced your strength and kicked the back of his knees.

Once you let go, everyone watched him squirmed in agony on the ground with your grip leaving a red imprint on his arm. Turning your head towards Zhongli, you sent him a cheeky wink, "You're one lucky man indeed."

Now channeling your attention at the group, "Who's next?"

The group charged towards you, assertive that their strengths in numbers will have more odds in winning against you, a woman who stood alone.

Thus, to prove them wrong, not only did you beat their egos to pulps, but also the entire gang. Keeping a composed manner, your limbs carried your movement with great finesse and elegance. You dodged and blocked every incoming attack, never allowing them to get a clean hit on you. Your presence dominated the flow of the battle.

Eventually, only one victor is appointed, that victor being you.

You walked back to Zhongli to untie him. You placed your hand on your hip, huffing your chest to stand proud, "How was that? Not only is your girlfriend rich, but also powerful."

Zhongli nodded in agreement, softly patting your hair as he watched you with affectionate eyes, "That was a remarkable performance to remember down the road. Guess I have a lot of things to learn about you." Although Zhongli is fully competent to defend himself if things went wrong, he found it absolutely charming of you to protect him. You were reckless, but he acknowledges your ability to fight so gracefully.

[golddaggers]

midnight rendezvous

pairing: louis tomlinson x f!reader

warnings: filthy smut with hints of fluffness. period sex. petnames. him calling you baby doll. defo nsfw +18, so my dudes, read carefully.

a/n: it's your renegade writer back with her fantasies. i've written this a while back and though it'd be such a shame to share. if you do like it, make sure to reblog and like. thanks and enjoy *wink* leth x

word count: 3k+

xx

It’s just a bit past midnight when I park home, no one wandering the streets, or children playing about, there’s just the chilled breeze fumbling with the leaves. I don’t notice a second car on the driveway until I’m up close, I blame the dim yellow streetlights and my exhaustion. It had been a particularly busy shift at the hospital, I wanted nothing more than to sleep for about two days straight.

The cold crisp air makes me tremble for a split second, but I am soon welcomed by the warmth of the inside. I kicked off my sneakers, trying to be as silent as possible, I didn’t want to wake him up. A second car meant Louis had come home and he must be tired, it had been weeks since he had a break, we hadn’t seen each other for even longer. The weekends he happened to be around, I couldn’t work my schedule to spend them at home with him. It sucked, and I missed him more than I could put it into words.

A frustrated sigh slips while I walk to the kitchen, filling up a glass of water. After so many years, I should be used to it: the busy schedule, the months spent apart. I’m not, though. And being honest, I don’t think it’s possible to not be in pain when waking up to an empty bed beside me, to not hear the soft humming when he’s doing the dishes, to not miss the press of his lips on mine. I just wanted us to buy a bunch of lands somewhere, live a quiet, happy life, have children, and grow old. Just the two of us.

This was something I would never tell him. Robbing him of his passions wasn’t on my mind. I knew he’d oblige if I did say so. If I asked him, but I couldn't.

I leave a half-drunk glass behind, and go upstairs, taking off my plain white shirt then unbuttoning my jeans. Before I got to the bedroom, however, I froze, strangled sounds coming from there startling me for a second. It's followed by a smile creeping in, I’m very much aware, and familiar, with them.

The door isn’t closed, so I peek in. I see him naked, sheets pooled by his feet, and one hand wrapped around himself, moving up and down with ease, his thumb applying just enough pressure. I feel my mouth watering at the sight, a cramp twisting my belly. Desire gathers quickly, I was so touch-starved that I might as well come undone just by watching him get himself off.

His eyes are closed, thin lips parted. I slide off my pants, throwing both them, and my shirt away, walking inside in just my black lingerie. Even that was starting to be uncomfortable.

“Lou?” I call him, standing with crossed arms. He’s quick to drop everything, shooting me a wide, surprised glare. “Sorry, didn’t mean to spoil your good time.”

I’m half-joking at this point.

“I thought you’d only be home in t’ mornin’,” Deep blue eyes, sparked with lust, stare up at me. I'm very aware of how much I want to be near him again. “C’mere.”

He pats the space on his right side, it’s mesmerizing how quickly he can go from a sex god to a warm loving man. I go, but I don’t stay beside him, instead, I take my seat on his lap, which makes him laugh, rough hands on my waist, squeezing the flesh. I shift, uncomfortable, feeling him beneath me. So hard, so ready. It’s been so long I might just assume I'm a virgin all over again, shamefully responsive to anything he might do to me.

Louis leans in, planting a kiss just between the curve of my breasts. The prickle of his bead makes my pulse rise. It’s the intimacy that gets me hooked. He feels like coming home. A warmth that springs from the tip of my toes to my head, flushes my cheeks, and makes my forehead sweaty.

A “missed ya” whispered on my skin makes me shake, he then kisses the soft spot where the shoulder meets the neck, I let out a groan, moving, seeking friction. His smirk is taunting, both hands going up to my cheeks, four eyes meeting in the middle of a tired night.

“What now?” I say, unsure, panting as his thumb toys with my lips, pushing inside for a moment.

“Do you want a shower first?” He asks, staring at me, a boyish smile on his face.

“I should. I’m disgusting.”

“Nonsense,” The tip of his nose is pressed to my cheek, a ghostly kiss left behind on my jaw. “You look amazing anyway. Why d'ya think I’m so worked up?”

“Were you thinking of me? Getting yourself off imagining my hands around you? My spit and my lips, hmm?”

Louis pants when I grind down on him, slick with the throb of him against me. The fabric of my panties still forbids me from knowing his skin on mine, from sinking and swallowing him whole.

“Yeah, I was. Always think abou' ya', love.”

“I think about you too,” The friction makes me lean forward, sighing against his warm neck. “Nights get so lonely… I miss you so much, you know.”

“Darling…”

“Mmhm, I have to touch myself, grab my boobs,” I place his hands on them, and he squeezes, promptly. Fills his hands. It’s swollen, sore even. I’m burning up.

“Do you say my name when you come?” Louis asks, quietly, sucking a patch of skin. I’ve got goosebumps, I’m reeling from the build-up.

“I do. Over and over and over,” The room feels warmer if that's possible. Sweat drips down my back. I’m aware as to why I’m so sensitive, besides the yearning when it’s been months since he last touched me, my period heightens things up.

For a moment there, I almost forgot it.

“Can I just fuck you now, doll?” It’s a hoarse whisper, I clench in frustration. I’m hot, nearly suffocating. “Want t’ feel yeh so bad.”

His accent thickens, I’m lost, too into the moment to think coherently. I go for his lips, kissing him with passion, biting down on his bottom lip, still moving my hips, rolling against his. He pushes back, groaning into my mouth. It’s sinful. Everything about him is.

“Can’t, sweets,” It slips out, breathlessly. “‘M bloody down there.”

He smiles, soothing, hands firm on my hips. My stomach somersaults, it’s amazing how Louis manages to make me feel 17 every time he gives me that gorgeous smile of his. I feel like one of his groupies.

“Never cared ‘bout that before. C’mon, help me out.”

“Lou…” A strangled noise followed. I’m reaching a point where pleasure mixes with pain, I’m too aroused, too sensitive. He touches me there, trained fingers light to not hurt me but enough to stir me on. “You’re trying to bribe me, aren’t you?”

“Am I getting there?” The double entendre makes me chuckle, nodding. “Good. Let me take those off, hmm?”

“Come,” I untangle myself from him, the cold, empty feeling brings a pang to my lower belly. “If we’re doing this, let’s do it in the shower.”

I slide off my panties, tossing them at him. Louis laughs wholeheartedly, balling it in his hand while kicking the sheets away to follow me into our bathroom.

It’s bright, with mirrors everywhere. My hair looks an absolute mess, strands falling down my shoulders, I’ve got flushed cheeks, and glistening skin, perspiration all over. Five minutes with him just does that to you. He looks impressive from behind me, his brown hair was thrown back, wide blue eyes staring right at me from the reflection. I can see the extension of his tattoos, the tanned skin from being under the sun a little too long last weekend.

Louis is a sight for sore eyes.

We exchange a look then smile. The kind of intimacy that only comes when you love someone, beyond passion, beyond attraction.

He undoes the clasp of my bra. I sigh in relief, gasping when his hands cup my boobs, pinching my oversensitive nipples. I can’t help but toss my head back, resting it on his shoulder. He’s good at this, playing with me, edging me out.

“Missed them even more,” Louis expresses, a half-smile on his face. “You’ve got the prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.”

“You know you’re probably the only man on earth that can get away with saying stuff like that, right?” We share a laugh. “Turn the water on, sweets, yeah? I need to take the tampon off.”

While he busies himself with getting things ready, I put my leg up on the toilet and gently pull it out, being careful not to spill any blood on the floor. I’m mentally grateful it’s not an extra heavy day. I wrap it up in toilet paper and toss it in the bin.

“Water is warm, baby,” Steam starts to fog up the room. “Come.”

“I hope I will.” I wink at him. I don’t know why I’m suddenly so cheeky.

“Don’t tease me,” Lust soaks up his voice, eyes stern. He’d punish me for sure. When I wasn’t expecting him to do so. When we weren’t so desperate for each other. Whenever he’s back home, there’s no games, just tension relief.

He goes in, standing beneath the shower rain, his back facing me. I look at his ass, all perky and round. It’s no secret that I got a thing for it, and I might’ve bitten it a few… hundred times. Whenever I get the chance, really. I grab them, squeezing the muscle, a hoarse laugh falling from his lips. Louis thinks it’s silly, doesn’t see how it’s so great.

We kiss, then. In a brief moment, he spins and pulls me in, tongue rolling ‘round with mine. It’s wet, crude even. I make sounds that would mistake me for a pornstar, groaning when his tip brushes where I’m aching with need. He pulls my hair back, exposing my neck to him, sucking and biting. Leaving behind bruises I’ll have trouble covering. The adrenaline high doesn’t let me focus on that, though.

His hand slides between us, lodging between my legs, his palm pressing my pulsating clit. I call out for him, squeezing his shoulders, whimpering. Just this faint touch sends me into overdrive. It’s borderline ridiculous. How good he is. Or how much I want him. How I crave for him like a junkie craves a fix. It’s the trip of a lifetime when he’s inside me.

I go for his dick, so painfully hard it could cut right through me. There’s something about watching his eyes snap close, or how he moans, but I wobble, my breathing going fitful. He says my name, pressing his soft lips to my forehead, still rubbing me out. My hand seems smaller when it’s wrapped around the width of him. Louis feels heavy and scorching hot.

“I want to do something,” I whisper, high on the pleasure he was giving me. “Would you let me?”

“I want to fuck you, darling,” It’s raw, doesn’t sound dirty, more like a pleading question. “Please let me, hmm? I want to fill you up. Watch it drip down out of you. My pretty baby with cum all over her legs.”

A pained whimper comes out.

The tip of his fingers are stained red, they never really slipped inside me, just circling, creating a build-up that leaves me in discomfort. It’s unusual how much time we are taking with this, at this point, we would’ve fucked about three times already. Either way, I like it. The glint in his eyes, eyes that I adore. Diamond beauties staring down at me, so full of desire. It’s powerful. To know you have such an effect on a man like him.

I place him in the tight space between my thighs, both of us groaning with the stronger contact. I’m dripping and it’s not just blood, he’s thrumming, hips sloppily jerking forward. I feel him almost in me, but not quite. I scream, I’m sure our neighbours would make complaints. I don’t find it in me to care. It's way too heavenly.

Tattooed hands land on each of my love handles, our bodies are almost one at this point. That’s when he lifts my leg, we both can’t do any more foreplay, no more waiting. I help him inside, a little bit of blood gushing before he’s deep within. It takes a while for me to get used to him again, two months can be enough for things to shrink back up.

“God, your cunt is so fucking tight,” He mumbles, out-of-worldly. “You’re gonna make me come and I barely even started.”

“And you’re so fucking big, gonna split me open,” I shoot back, gripping tight on his forearm, trying to balance myself as he starts to pound, slowly at first. “Fuck, baby. This is so good.”

“Tell me who can make you feel so good, baby doll,” A particular hard snap of his hips makes me sway on my step, but his iron grip steadies me. “Use your words. I want to know.”

“You!” It’s a desperate squeal, I feel full, he stretches me to a burning point. Pain mixing with pleasure. It doesn’t take a scientist to tell me I’ll have trouble sitting down tomorrow. “You, baby.”

Louis lifts my other leg, both on the crook of his arms, and presses me against the tiled wall of our bathroom. His teeth clamp around my nipple, biting, sucking. I feel dizzy with the torrential rain of emotions. The water keeps falling on us, warm. It splashes when he thrusts.

None of us is lasting longer. I wasn’t particularly known to do so, not when he was the one handling me anyway. Some people are just skilled. Just know how to push somebody else’s buttons. And Louis knew how to push mine. He knew how to push me into the fucking edge. Coax a string of orgasms out of me if he so wanted. With his fingers, with his tongue, with his dick.

I moan, one hand tugging the hair at the nape of his neck and the other going to where our bodies met. It’s a fucking sight. Watching him go in then out of me. I start rubbing myself.

“You have to be quieter,” He says, our foreheads glued together, still slamming into me like I’m his favourite rag doll. “We don’t need people calling the police.”

“It’s your fault,” My reply is followed by a curse word. “Giving it to me so good like that.”

“Mmhm,” Dark blue looks at me, I can feel him getting sloppier. It’s close.

In urgency, he kisses me, I’m too frail, too putty in his hands. A numbness starts on the tip of my toes, it makes my eyes roll back, I can’t even voice anything anymore, entirely surrendered to him. To the vulnerability of this moment. Being his as much as he’s mine.

Time stands still whenever I’m with him. And right now, I can’t even keep track of it, too lost in him. That’s why I don’t know how long it took, it could’ve been seconds or minutes or hours. But I broke. Went up screaming. Barely registering he was telling me to shush, that it was too late in the night to be so loud. If that was what he was saying at all.

I’m shuddering, that I can tell with conviction, convulsing. That doesn’t happen often. I mean, it’s always fucking good, but like this, like I’m on something, that’s exceptional. At one point, he growls, squeezing me tighter. His hips stutter, face squashed against my chest. He spends himself inside me, as it was promised. I’m beyond satisfied, I’m in a state of bliss no one can reach me. Where the world doesn’t exist, only him.

Louis stays in for a while longer, nuzzling between my breasts, I play with his hair, a bubbly smile on my face. No high higher than this. He helps me down, I don’t trust my feet, clinging to him like a child. A chuckle falls from his lips.

“That good, huh?”

I just nod.

“I’ll help you clean up.”

With a sponge and a bit of liquid soap, Louis rubs down my body, taking his time to bubble me up. I’m still sensitive to touch, I have to pull his hand away when he tries to touch me down there, where I’m probably red and still swollen. I can feel the burn. Good burn, though.

When we both finish cleaning ourselves up, we step out of the shower. He still has a protective hand around my waistline. I wince at the thought of moving away, but I have to, I can tell I’m one second shy of making a mess on the floor.

He fetches us towels while I go deal with the bloody problem. Pun intended. I clean the dripping blood mixed with cum on my thighs, and when I look up, deep blue is fixed on me. As if entranced.

“What?”

“You just look hot.”

A little laugh slips.

“Thanks. You don’t look so bad,” I groan, it’s still sore-ish when I slide the tampon in. “You really did a number on me.”

“Eh, who’s counting?”

Louis winks, helping me up, I’m still weak on the legs. There’s no need to get dressed, so we wrap ourselves under the sheets, our sopping hair making stains on the pillows.

It’s so painfully intimate.

“I love you,” I whisper, half-asleep, minutes later.

“I love you more.”

His voice is the last sound I hear before I drift to the first night of sleep where I feel full, happy, and satiated. Slept like a queen, his arms wrapped around my waist, cheek pressed to my back. I was on my little piece of heaven and no one could ever snap me out.