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wildernessuntothemselves · 2 months ago

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Now See Them Burn in Fire | Final Part

Genre: dark fic, smut, angst

Word Count: 15.5k

Chapter Excerpt:

“Fuck, fuck, that feels too good. Stop.” He curses loudly, pulling you off his cock as if he's the one that needs the air.

The small break is like a damn breaking loose, and you sob as the night air rushes in, feeling like embers raked across your burning throat.

You cry, your sobs harsh and ugly, tears mingling with the mess of saliva dribbling down your chin and sticking your hair to your face in a disgustingly pathetic display.

“Are you crying for me now, flower?” He asks mockingly, but the look of false concern on his face quickly gets replaced with primal hunger the harder you cry. “I think I'll never tire of this sight. I have always dreamed of you coming back to me–being so sweet and loving and making me forget all that everyone has put me through. But you put me through it too–you hurt me most of all, and seeing you cry on my cock like this feels just as good as your love would feel like. Your tears are so delicious, my flower.”

Warnings: fem!reader, DARK FIC, NONCON/DUBCON, character death, graphic description of human sacrifice, iron age au, supernatural au, yandere beomgyu, dark magic, blood magic, burning as execution (see the fic title lol), blowjob, missionary, PIV sex, corruption, degradation

The world blurs around you—stone, smoke, the glow of torchlight. All you can hear is the pounding of your heart and Beomgyu’s voice echoing in your skull like a curse: Go to him. Save him if you can.

By the time you reach your home, your legs are shaking, your chest is tight, and your vision is swimming with tears and firelight. You burst through the doorway breathless, bracing for the worst—blood, smoke, the empty silence of the dead.

But Kai is still there. Alive. Pale and sick, but alive.

He looks at you in worry. “What happened? Are you alright?” He asks, concerned about you, but you don’t answer his question, your mind plagued by a matter more detrimental than your current wellbeing.

“Kai,” You whisper urgently, your voice barely above a whisper, scared of the answer you’ll get. “Tell me the truth. Was your family behind what happened to his?”

You don’t need to specify who you’re talking about. He already knows, and maybe that was all that you really needed to know.

Kai doesn't answer right away, and that silence—that hesitation—sends a ripple of dread down your spine.

“I… I’m not sure,” He finally says, carefully, reservedly, building up your dread stone by stone. “I heard things when I was a child, but I don’t remember them clearly.”

“What things?” You press, and he rubs a hand over his face, as if trying to summon the past memories through the fog of time and willful ignorance.

“The elder priests used to visit my father in secret. I didn’t understand it at the time. But I remember hearing Beomgyu’s name... His mother and father were very devout. They went to the temple often—seeking help and guidance. The elders would come straight to my father after their visits. I remember them whispering… something about the boy.”

Your breath catches in your throat. “What did they say?”

“My father instructed the priests to tell Beomgyu's parents to be… cautious of him. His mother had trouble carrying. She was sick often. He told the priests to give her something to help with the pregnancy. He said it would make matters easier for her. He told them to warn his family about him—about Beomgyu. That he was dangerous. That he carried something dark in him. That if they didn’t act in time, he would bring ruin to them.”

You feel the words sink in like venom under your skin.

“They poisoned her,” You say flatly, the realization making you dizzy. “They made her lose her children. And they made them blame Beomgyu for it before he was even old enough to defend himself.”

Kai shakes his head adamantly. “You don’t know that,” He says, defensive. “They were trying to help her. She was so weak—she nearly died giving birth to him. He barely survived. If it weren’t for my father’s help and those priests’ work, Beomgyu might not have made it either.”

You meet his gaze, eyes stinging. “Or they might’ve killed him too.”

The silence that follows is loud, filled with the buzzing in your ears and the mistrust brewing between you. Neither of you knows which version of the story is true, but Beomgyu has already made up his mind. And that belief, whether built on lies or the truth, is the fuel he used to burn everything to the ground.

You suppose you should find comfort in the notion that you aren't the sole reason behind this plague after all. You haven’t brought ruin to Kai’s family. They did that to themselves just as much as you did. And now you're all paying the terrible price.

Kai reaches forward, trying to hold your hand in his own but you pull away, your fingers curling tightly against your chest.

“Did you ever ask your father about any of it?” You ask, the words trembling on your tongue.

Kai’s eyes drop. “No.”

“Why?” The question hangs between you like smoke. But he doesn’t answer. Instead, he lifts his gaze and the challenge in it surprises you, “Why don’t you ask your elders?”

Because you're afraid. If you never ask, you can keep believing it’s all a lie—some twisted tale spun by Beomgyu to justify his cruelty. Because if you ask—if they confirm what you fear—then there’s no going back, no hiding behind the safety of denial. You’d have to face what they did. What you all allowed. What you might still be a part of. And you’re not sure you’re strong enough for that.

“Did he tell you this?” He asks and you look away, scared of him pulling a thread that would unravel all your lies.

“He told me things too.” He says quietly and your head whips around in alarm. “He said he got to you before I did.”

You shake your head, bile rising in your throat. “He is lying.” You hiss, tears of anger and guilt burning behind your eyelids.

“Is he?” He asks, and the suspicion in his voice breaks you. “Then how does he know about the burn mark on your left thigh?”

“That—he doesn’t—” You stumble, scrambling for something—anything—that might explain how he could know something so intimate about you. But no lie comes. Your mind is a storm of grief and guilt, too tangled for reason, too loud to spin deceit. So you cling to the truth—at least, the part of it that might still save you. “I never let him touch me. He knows about the burn because he was there when it happened. We were making a persuasion draught—he dropped the heated spoon and it burned through my dress, caught my thigh and he—”

You falter as you look up, the words dying in your mouth.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You whisper because he is. Kai is looking at you like he doesn’t know you. Like something fragile and precious has cracked between you and he doesn’t know if it can ever be mended.

“You were doing potions together?” He asks, voice quiet but not gentle.

You swallow hard. Every word you speak seems to drag you closer to the flames. “We were just playing around. We were children. I didn’t—”

“You taught him magic.” It’s not a question. It’s an accusation.

“Only little things. Harmless little spells. Simple rites. Nothing of this magnitude.” You shake your head, desperation bleeding into every word, begging him to believe you. “I can’t even perform magic of this scale. Please—you have to believe me.”

But his expression doesn’t soften. He looks at you as if you’re a stranger—someone he almost recognizes, but cannot trust.

“Did you let him touch you too?” Kai asks, and you shake your head, but the motion shifts your hair from your shoulder, revealing things even worse to him.

His eyes land on the marks Beomgyu left on your neck and his expression falters.

“Were you with him just now?” His voice rises, and you shake as you witness your beloved's unbridled fury for the first time since you've known him.

Panic flares in your chest. You've forgotten to cover up your sins. You've forgotten.

“It was just a kiss,” You blurt out, and the hurt that flashes across his face guts you. “Please, you have to believe me—I was only trying to save us. He killed our families, Kai. I was trying to stop him. I thought if I gave him what he wanted—”

His jaw clenches. He turns away for a moment as if he is trying to restrain himself from doing something he might regret.

“I had nothing left,” You whisper pitifully. “And if I could trade my shame for your life, I would do it all again.”

But he’s not listening anymore. Whatever you say, it no longer reaches him. Despite the frailty of his body, he rises—slow but unshaken—death blazing behind his eyes as he makes for the door.

“No—please, please,” You beg, following him, stumbling over your own desperation. “You can’t stand up to him. He’ll kill you. You don’t have the strength—”

Again and again, you say the wrong thing.

“Is that why you let him fuck you? For me? Because you think your husband not man enough so you have to whore yourself out to protect him?”

You flinch, knowing you've utterly broken him but also knowing you had no other choice but to try to protect him and your child. You had no other choice. You're all doomed.

“I didn’t—I swear to you, I didn’t—” You reach for him, but he shoves you away, his violence shocking you, his fury lending him strength he should no longer possess, his sickened body rising on nothing but rage and heartbreak. “I’ll prove to him—and to you—that I am not the fool you both take me for.”

And then he’s gone.

You chase after him, heart hammering, the past unraveling behind your eyes—your father choking on his own blood, your mother kicking and screaming as she's dragged away, Kai's father being fed to the flames. Too much has already been lost. You cannot lose him too. But he will not be stopped, and the more you try, the more attention you draw. Doors creak open. Faces peer out, roused from uneasy sleep, watching as you stumble behind your enraged husband through the streets.

And then you’re there—back where it all began. Beomgyu’s house lies before you, dark and looming.

“Come out, Beomgyu. Let’s end this now. Man to man.” Kai stands tall, fists clenched, voice loud enough to wake even the gods.

It doesn't take long for the man, the monster, to emerge. The words hardly leave your husband's mouth before Beomgyu is stepping out, slowly, silently, as if answering a summons he’d long foreseen. His eyes land on Kai—not on you, not on the gathering crowd, only Kai—and a flicker of delight flashes across his face.

Your fear for your husband multiplies tenfold. Beomgyu has been waiting for this. This is a trap. It’s all been a trap, and you’ve fallen into it like fools.

Beomgyu’s men move quickly, stepping in to block the path between the two men. You hear the hiss of drawn blades, the excited murmurs of those roused from their beds now watching with wide eyes, eager to witness the latest sacrifice.

“Fight me, you coward. don’t hide behind your men.” Kai shouts, voice hoarse, the sickness still clinging to him like a death shroud despite his brave display.

Beomgyu only raises a brow. “Why? So you can try to kill me, just as your father did? Can you truly not stand to see the people rise and demand justice for themselves, so much so that you would slaughter us all just to reclaim your crumbling power?”

“Nobody else,” Kai replies, not caring to refute any of Beomgyu's other claims. After all, a dead man has no use arguing with the angel of death. “Just you.”

A beat of silence.

“So be it. You shall taste the wrath of the gods as your father did before you.” Beomgyu proclaims, his words aiming to get under Kai’s skin, to rattle him more than he already is, to remind him that he stood helpless as Beomgyu sacrificed his father to the flames. He wants to kill his soul before he lets the flames devour his body. “May the gods cast their favour upon the better man.”

A wave of heat flashes across your skin as he throws a glance at you, and you gulp as he lifts a hand and motions for his men to step back.

Your heart seizes up. He’s going to fight him. He's going to kill him.

Kai raises his sword, steady despite the sickness weakening his limbs. You try to move forward, try to speak—but someone grabs your arm and pulls you back. “Stay out of it,” They hiss, their grip like hellfire on your skin.

Beomgyu steps forward, the moon catching on the edge of the sword at his side, throwing harrowing reflections across his cruel face. Kai’s hand is tight around the hilt of his sword, though it trembles faintly—whether from fever or fury, you cannot tell. The last of his strength has been scraped together for this moment, and it shows in the tension of his shoulders, the tightness in his jaw. He should not be standing—but he is through the sheer power of rage and vengeance. But which man’s pain is greater? Whose hate is stronger?

They circle each other beneath the pallid light of the crescent moon, their swords gleaming, breath billowing like smoke into the night air—one man’s breath waning with every step while the other’s steams with vitality. When their blades meet, it is like thunder—metal shrieking against metal.

Kai fights like a man with nothing left to lose. Each blow is wild, desperate, heavy with everything he cannot say. But Beomgyu—Beomgyu moves like something not quite human. He doesn’t block so much as predict, dancing just out of reach, deflecting each strike with sickening ease.

He toys with Kai. Every clash, every sidestep, every glint of steel is mocking, a way to lure him in, a way to make him think he has a chance. You feel it, in your bones, the dread building with each near miss, each time Kai’s sword is turned away. Beomgyu is letting him fight. Letting him hope.

Only to take it away.

When Kai somehow manages to land a hit—a shallow cut across Beomgyu’s arm, you think it might finally turn the tide. You too, start to foolishly believe he has a chance.

But Beomgyu doesn’t even flinch. He turns his head slowly, looks down at the blood on his sleeve… and gives a smile that curdles the blood in your veins, smothering your heart

Then the real fight begins.

Beomgyu’s strikes grow faster, sharper. The clang of their swords grows louder, deafening. You watch in horror as Kai starts to falter. His knees nearly buckle. He stumbles then recovers—barely. Your hand covers your mouth, heart hammering so loud you think it must be echoing across the clearing.

Beomgyu disarms him in a blur of silver and motion, Kai’s blade spinning into the dirt with a horrible finality. Kai lunges at Beomgyu with his bare hands, his eyes screaming with hatred—but Beomgyu pushes him back easily, driving his foot into Kai’s chest and sending him sprawling onto his back, gasping for breath.

He stands over him. Raises his sword.

“No,” You cry out as if your neck is the one at the edge of the sword. “No, no, no—please—”

The blade halts just at Kai’s neck, trembling there as if eager to slice through, a hair’s breadth away from the skin and muscle. One wrong breath would end it. One slip, and everything would be over.

But Beomgyu doesn’t move. He doesn’t behead Kai where he lies. Instead, he looks at you. And in that breathless stretch of silence, where even the wind seems to still, he smiles again—slow and knowing, as if to tell you that this was always how it would end.

Then, without breaking your gaze, he lifts his sword.

“Seize them,” He commands softly, the words falling from his mouth like the final chant of a curse.

In a moment, his men surge forward. You scream Kai's name as he’s dragged up from the earth, his bloodied body unable to resist. But you still have some fight in you, and you kick and bite, clawing at the arms that close around you, trying to break free, but they are simply too many. You are outnumbered, outmatched. Hopeless.

The world spins. The crowd doesn’t move, doesn’t intervene. They stand and watch the last branch of the ruling family fall at the hands of Beomgyu's sweeping darkness, and they welcome it, too dumb and blind to see that they're surrendering their own lives with yours.

_____________________________

The men drag you through the settlement, your feet stumbling, your wrists raw from the bonds. At first, you barely notice anything but the iron grip of fear wrapping itself tighter and tighter around your heart.

But then…you realize the fires are gone. All of them—every hearth, every brazier, every torch—has been snuffed out. No embers glow. No lights leak from the homes that once pulsed with life. Though the whole world is plunged into darkness, the sweltering heat remains, pushing out all hope, smothering any chance of salvation. You can feel the old power in it—the power of endings.

They drag you all to the heart of the settlement where the great fire should be. But there is no fire. Not yet.

Your heart pounds harder the closer you get, a nauseating apprehension roiling in your gut. The smell of burned flesh and smoke still hangs heavy in the air, suffocating your lungs. Even if the fire is dead, the ashes remain.

You are forced to kneel with the others—all those who have remained loyal to the ruling family—but you don’t look at them. You don’t look at the faces of your fellow doomed. You don’t look at the faces of those who have condemned you. You don’t even look at Beomgyu.

You only see him. Kai.

They have stripped him bare to the waist, his body bloodied and bruised, bound tight to the remnant of the stone altar that Kai's grandmother had used. There he, and it, lie at the center of the clearing in front of an imposing structure… a great wickerman.

No. This cannot be—the dead fires, the wickerman... Beomgyu cannot be bringing this gruesome ritual back. He cannot be this cruel.

You look with horror at your lover, his hair matted with blood and ash, and you see the rise and fall of his chest—he is still alive. Still breathing. For now. He doesn't even lift his eyes to you. Perhaps he already knows what you know. Perhaps he sees his fate in the face of the terrible wickerman.

You try to rise but someone strikes you down. You taste blood in your mouth as you see Beomgyu step forward, his black robes billowing around him like wings of a great carrion bird. “By the will of the gods, the line of corruption shall be cut out. The final blood shall be spilled. The curse shall end tonight.”

You scream out—but your voice barely carries, swallowed by the heavy, dark night.

Still, Kai stirs, his eyes find yours. You see no fear in them. Only sorrow. Only regret. And then he turns his gaze to Beomgyu and spits at his feet.

The crowd gasps.

Beomgyu smiles. A terrible, calm smile. He draws his blade—a blade that gleams unnaturally in the fireless dark, and advances. Kai doesn’t struggle, his body too weak—his spirit broken. He has already resigned to his fate.

You sob, struggling against the arms that hold you down. “No! No, please!”

Beomgyu kneels before Kai. He places a hand on Kai’s sternum—almost gentle. He pauses for a moment, closing his eyes as a strangely revenant expression overtakes his face, like a priest anointing a newborn as it comes into this world. But instead, he seems to be marking Kai’s soul for his taking, relishing in the moment before he drives his knife in and severs his soul from his body.

Kai’s scream splits the night. It splits your soul. You thrash against your captors. You scream. You beg. But it is no use.

Beomgyu carves open his chest with a butcher’s precision, parting ribs and sinew with ease. Blood gushes freely, staining the sacred stone black. And then—worse still—Beomgyu’s hand plunges into the opening he has made. You turn your face away, bile rising in your throat, but you hear it—you hear the wet, wretched sound as he tears Kai’s still beating heart from his chest. You feel yourself shatter. You sob so hard you cannot breathe. You scream his name until your throat rips raw. But there is no mercy.

You look back to see Beomgyu lifting your beloved's heart high for all to see, for you to see—the heart you had sought so hard to love and protect, now ripped out and silenced forever by the hateful hand of a monster you had foolishly let into your lives so many years before—the man you had thought for a reckless moment you could let into your own heart many moons ago… Now he stands, holding your true lover's heart in his hand, presenting it to you like a mad warrior presenting the severed head of his enemy to his lover.

With a sickening grin, he casts your sweet Kai's heart into the waiting kindling piled high at the base of the pyre.

You watch, broken, paralyzed, as he places dry herbs and twisted branches—kindling—into your husband’s broken ribcage. He lights a fire, not upon the earth, but within the ruin of his body—a hearth of flesh. The flames writhe unnaturally, curling outward like grasping fingers, hungering for more.

The fire takes your lover's body from the inside out, consuming him from his very soul. The smell of burning flesh fills the air anew. The corrupted smell of the man you loved, making you retch uncontrollably, and you fall onto all fours. You claw at the ground, as if you could bury yourself and escape this nightmare. But the nightmare is only beginning.

This single, profane blaze becomes the mother-fire. From the ruin of Kai’s chest, Beomgyu lights the terrible wickerman. From the fire consuming your beloved’s broken body, his men take up torches, each dipping into the inferno in turn, carrying the corrupted flame to each home, relighting the dead hearths with it—ensuring that every house, every family, every life bears the mark of this sin.

And as the smoke climbs to the black sky, you know, his tribe will never know the gods' mercy, not when their fires burn with the blood of your beloved—your sweet, beautiful Kai. Once all the fires are lit, Beomgyu turns to the people, his face calm, triumphant. He declares, “The cursed bloodline is no more. The plague has ended with him! Rejoice, my good people. Let this tribe rise from their ashes!”

The crowd erupts in a fevered cheer—grateful, desperate, foolish. You can barely hear them over the ringing in your ears. Because Beomgyu knows—you know—that Kai’s bloodline is not gone. You carry it still—in the form of the life growing quietly within you.

And Beomgyu is not done yet.

You are forced to your feet, alongside the others, and one by one, you are made to kneel before Beomgyu. The searing heat of the great Wickerman’s flames scorches your back, the flames’ flickering shadows dancing on your skin as you are asked the same damning question: “Do you denounce the cursed bloodline?”

The first few in line stand resolute, their loyalty to your husband’s bloodline unwavering. They remain proud, courageous... until they are dragged, screaming, into the burning body of the Wickerman, their defiance swiftly consumed by the flames.

The courage of those next in line dwindles rapidly, and they all quickly learn that the burn of shame is more tolerable than the scorch of hellfire. They weep, they beg, they repent. They bend the knee.

And then, it is your turn.

Beomgyu's voice is soft, almost sympathetic, as he repeats the question. “Do you denounce the cursed bloodline?” But you know better. His gentleness is nothing but a mask, a cruel performance meant to give you false hope. He means to torture you the same way he tortured your husband.

You understand that no words will save you now. This is the end.

Still, you must try—You think of the life growing inside you and your stomach twists violently as if your unborn child is crying out, desperate for its own salvation. To save its still-forming body? To protect its eternal soul? You do not know, but you know you must do something, anything.

“Yes,” You choke out.

“Then rise.” Beomgyu compels you to your feet, and you rise on shaky legs, expecting him to laugh, to mock you for the weakness you’ve shown in renouncing your own husband—only for him to cast you into the flames just as he threatened.

You shut your eyes as he draws closer, preparing for the end. You think of your husband’s face, his smile, and in the silence of that moment, you wish it is his face that greets you in the afterlife, despite all that has transpired. You wish that in death, he might come to understand, to forgive you for what you've had to do.

But instead Beomgyu pulls you towards him…. and kisses you.

The crowd gasps, and you remain frozen, wondering if you have already died and gone to the underworld. If this is the gods’ punishment for all your wickedness.

But then Beomgyu pulls back, his unmistakable dark eyes fixed on you—those eyes that even a demon cannot mimic.

“She is clean,” Beomgyu declares, his voice ringing out with a grim triumph as he turns to face the shocked crowd. “A true leader must do more than protect his people. He must have the strength to forgive those who have been led astray. He must be ruthless in guarding his own, yet merciful to those who seek redemption. She has fallen victim to their lies and deceit, but as long as she proves her loyalty to my people, I shall not cast aside one as forsaken as her. I know that pain all too well.”

His hand extends towards you, his words honeyed with pretense. “Let us join together to rebuild this tribe into something stronger, greater than ever before.”

You choke on your tears, realising the full deviance of his plans. He has exacted his revenge in its entirety. He has wiped out Kai and his family for the wrongs they committed against him. He has decimated the priest class for their deceit and greed. And he has deprived you of everyone you knew and loved, forcing you to endure the same agonies he suffered, only to claim you for himself in the end. He has made you not only accept him, but beg for him.

Tears fall freely as you nod and the crowd erupts in cheer around you—uncaring whether your tears come from joy or devastation. They don't even consider the broken body of your husband, their former leader, still lying atop the altar stone, abandoned and forgotten.

Beomgyu's grip on your waist is bruising, exerting more power than is needed to keep your crumbling body upright.

“Clean her up,” He barks the command at the servant women—the same women who prepared you for your marriage to Kai. “Today is a day of celebration.”

As they lead you away, the acrid smoke of Kai’s body still choking the sky, its bitter scent poisoning your lungs—you hear one of Beomgyu’s men mutter, “I don’t know why master hasn’t burned her. She’s one of them. She carries the sickness too.”

You bow your head. You stay silent. For the sake of the child inside you, you must survive. You must not step one foot out of line or these people will not hesitate to burn you.

He has trapped you so utterly, and left the flames as your only escape.

____________________________

Tears fall silently as the women prepare you, their hands moving with detached efficiency. They say nothing as they wipe your tears away and fix what they have ruined. They make no effort to soothe or comfort you. Gone is the teasing, the light-hearted laughter of your first wedding. Now, there is only a tense silence. They pity you, you sense it in their glances, but not one of them would lift their voice against Beomgyu. They are bound to him, as you are, and though their hearts may ache for you, none would dare save you from him.

Beomgyu weds you, proving his mercy to his people but also legitimising his ascension to power by marrying the fallen leader’s wife.

The crown of wildflowers they place on his head makes him look beautiful, boyish even—the most innocent he has ever looked when he's the most guilty. The crown on your own head feels like it should wither, for how could such delicate flowers withstand your grief?

You look around you and your crumbling heart turns to dust at the reminder of everyone that isn't here anymore—your family, your friends, Kai…. They've all been taken from you. Beomgyu has stripped you bare of everyone who has ever loved or cared for you so you would stand here alone, as he is.

He has stolen your life from you, forcing you to face the void it left behind and daring you not to succumb to it, not to fall into the same abyss he did.

Meanwhile, Beomgyu’s men are loud, their cheers roaring in the air, rising above the clink of cups, their laughter richer than the wine they drink. This bloody revolution has carried them swiftly up the ranks, granting them power and wealth they could never have dreamed of, never could have earned in a hundred lifetimes. They are drunk on their victory, intoxicated by their conquest. To them, this is their moment of glory. They are the leaders now, standing atop the ashes of those who once ruled, reigning over the ruins they have made.

The people, too, celebrate with wild abandon—their laughter spilling into the air, as they throw themselves into the revelry, eager to bask in the warmth of a new dawn. They drink deeply, their cups never empty, their hearts swollen with false euphoria. They try to lose themselves in it—the music, the dancing, the generosity of the feast. They tell themselves that they have finally broken the chains that have held them down, and now they stand free.

But beneath their drunken joy, you sense an undercurrent of fear—a fear you know too well, the fear of the man they’ve crowned, of what he is capable of, and a nagging dread that they have sacrificed too much. For all their joy, they know they are not free. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

Beomgyu does not join in the celebrations. He sits quiet, his own wine untouched, his impassive gaze sweeping over the revelers. He does not raise a cup to his victory. He does not even spare a glance towards the bride he has claimed through fire and ash. It's disquieting to be sitting next to him but not feel his steely gaze on you when you've been tormented by those same eyes every moment of your miserable existence until now— the absence of that torment as unsettling as the presence of it ever was.

Does he desire this marriage at all? For whom is it truly meant? Is this another move in his cruel game, another way to crush you, to prove his dominion over you?

He does not even linger at his own wedding for long. The ritual, the eternal binding of your soul to his, seems nothing but a mere formality—performed by one of the few remaining priests who have chosen to bend the knee in order to save their skin—as if the laws of the gods ever mattered to Beomgyu.

Once it is done, he doesn’t take long to retire to his home, dragging you along with him and leaving his men to indulge in their solitary, drunken revelry, and the people to their uneasy celebration of their new life under his rule.

In his iron grip, you feel the pretense of his indifference falter. This celebration was never for you. It wasn’t even for him. It was for them.

But now his real celebration begins.

_________________________

Beomgyu’s kisses are oppressive–all the emotion that had evaded him the entire sham wedding suddenly found and unleashed on you at once, his mouth devouring yours as his hands grab their fill of every inch of your body.

He doesn’t permit you any room to breathe, stealing the breath right out of your lungs the same way he stole everything from you.

But before your spotty vision turns to black, he pulls back, panting and frazzled as if he has snapped out of whatever madness had overcome him. But he could never part from his insanity, for it is too deeply rooted in his rotten mind.

“I've waited for this day for years.” He tells you, fingers caressing your face as his dilated pupils take you in like a lion sizing up their meal. You think you would have felt safer with a lion than the creature stood in front of you. “I knew from the start that the gods have made you to be mine. My beautiful prize for all that I have been put through.”

The gods could not have willed this. He went against them, tore down their shrines, massacred their vessels, gutted their supports. He does not deserve you or anyone else. He should have remained in loneliness and exile like he was fated to be.

But he has broken out now, carved a new cursed path for himself with the burning flesh of your fallen gods, and you must keep your mouth shut or you, too, will burn.

Beomgyu searches your face for something-–what that is, you do not know—but he doesn’t seem pleased by what he finds, the corner of his lip twitching for a moment before a light scoff leaves his mouth. “No words for me? Fine, if that is how you wish it to be.”

Wish it to be? You never wanted any part of this!

But in his infinite delusion, Beomgyu does not care, choosing to take offence to your rightful rejection of his obsessive declaration of his devotion. He presses down on your shoulders, pushing you to your knees.

“Repent, my flower.” He tells you, your line of sight directly in front of his erect member. You feel sick. You can’t believe this is happening. You can't believe you're all alone with this monster. You wish you had burned with all the others, but here you are, suffering a fate worse than death in order to protect your unborn child. It’s the last remnant you have of Kai, the last vestige of his crumbled legacy. You’ve destroyed him and his entire family with this vile creature in front of you. You owe them this.

Beomgyu pulls his cock out, brushing your hair out of your face so he can press the head of it to your lips. “Open up, my flower.”

You open your mouth a little, fighting with yourself in order to please him but that wasn’t enough for him. He pointedly presses his fingers into the hollows of your cheeks to force your mouth open wider before he shoves his cock in, already forcing you to take more than you can handle.

You instinctively raise your hands up to push him back but he smacks them away, his own hand moving from your jaw to your hair and jerking your head back roughly, forcing you to look up at him—the crown of flowers at the top of your head almost falling off at the savage motion if not for the multiple pins placed there to keep it in place.

“Do not lay your hands on me.” He hisses sharply and for a second he lets you feel the full extent of the darkness he bears in his soul. “You have not earned the right.”

You cower, quickly putting your hands behind your back and he smiles chillingly at your obedience, patting your cheek condescendingly. “Good girl. I know you can learn to be a good wife for me.”

You feel another wave of nausea overtake your body as it breaks out in a sickly sweat. Oh heavens, that's what you are now, isn't it? His wife. That or a charred corpse.

You don't have enough time to swallow down the lump in your throat before he moves to feed you his cock once more and, even though you’re better prepared for it this time, you still gag around him when he pushes in too far. “You must know how to please me. You will come to learn what I like soon enough. And I certainly like seeing you on your knees begging for my forgiveness. So go on my flower, beg with that pretty mouth of yours.”

You obediently keep your mouth open and your body still as he fucks your face and moans in appreciation every time your throat spasms around the intrusion. You can tell he likes it. He takes pleasure from hurting you in this way. Kai has never treated you this roughly. He was sweet and shy and kind, and now he’s gone because you were too selfish to sacrifice yourself to this monster.

“That's it. you were always a fast learner, my flower.” Beomgyu hums, pleased with your surrender, and for a moment you think he will be more gentle with you as he pulls back to take a brief pause, his fingers smearing your own drool across your face and his eyes glinting with thrill at the sight of your swollen lips.

For a moment he looks at you almost… tenderly—a near perfect mockery of a lover admiring their beloved.

But then he lines his cock with your mouth and slams it back in, forcing himself all the way down your throat in one go and holding you there—throat full of him and nose nestled into groin for a few moments that feel like an eternity as your throat convulses and tries to push out the intrusion.

You struggle to stay still for him, to not reach up and push him out so you can regain your breath. Your nails dig into your palms as you try to keep your hands in place and breathe through your nose so you won't suffocate.

“Yeah That's it.” He purrs, his enjoyment palpable, the taste of it bitter at the back of your throat. “I'm going to train that tight throat of yours every night until every word you speak will taste of me.”

He pulls back until just the tip is in your mouth and your jaw gapes open to suck in much needed air, but he is too cruel to allow you that, shoving his cock back in your throat right as you take in a breath. He does this again and again, his ruthless thrusts bruising the back of your throat as your scalp burns from the sting of his grip. The obscene wet sounds of his thrusts and your gagging fill the silent night and you wonder if the whole tribe can hear you— if everyone is bearing witness to your dishonour. His guards standing outside certainly do.

“Fuck, fuck, that feels too good. Stop.” He curses loudly, pulling you off his cock as if he's the one that needs the air.

The small break is like a damn breaking loose, and you sob as the night air rushes in, feeling like embers raked across your burning throat.

You cry, your sobs harsh and ugly, tears mingling with the mess of saliva dribbling down your chin and sticking your hair to your face in a disgustingly pathetic display.

The horror and disgust that fill you listening to his harrowing words know no bounds. How can anyone be so cruel as to take such pleasure from another’s suffering? Have you truly made him this way? It cannot be. No human, no matter how twisted, could ever equate this torture to the pure bliss and warmth of love. Only a creature who has never known love could believe that this—this—could ever compare.

He was born defective, and it is your own wretched fault for inviting him into your life with your misguided kindness. His intentions about you were never pure. He has always viewed you preversly and the years have allowed his lust for you to fester and grow twisted. And now you're at his mercy—his to shape, to play out whatever depraved fantasies he dreams up for you.

He tugs on your hair harshly, guiding you back to his cock and immediately resumes his unforgiving pace, letting you feel just how angry he is with you. His thrusts are rabid and at times he pushes his cock so far down your abused throat that your nose is nestled into his pelvis.

“Look at me.” He demands, holding you on his cock for so long your vision starts blackening and you can hardly see him through the darkness, but you dare not disobey him despite your tears and the dark spots almost rendering you blind. “Gods, I can cum just from the pathetic look in those eyes.”

You wish he would. Maybe if he came, he would feel satisfied enough for it to dull his wrath if even to a small degree. But he doesn’t allow this. Instead he pulls you off his cock completely, dragging it out along with a mess of your drool and his arousal that dribbles disgustingly down your chin and onto your chest.

“Filthy. Just how you should be for my cock.” He groans, his own hand moving over his cock that hangs heavily between his legs. “Should I cum on this pretty face? Or maybe these gorgeous tits?” He reaches down to play with your breasts, using the mess on your chest to wet and play with your nipples.

You squeak at the touch, disgusted by the unwelcome jolt of pleasure this sends through you. You look up at him in a panic, hoping he didn't notice but the gods weren't so kind to you. Not after everything you've done.

“Or maybe you'd prefer I cum in that needy pussy? I bet you’re fucking soaking right now. I know you have been dying to be claimed by your real lover.”

You shake your head, your nausea reaching unbearable levels at your own shameful reactions to his touches. “Please, don't–”

He slaps the protest right out of your mouth.

“Now, flower, that’s not what I’d call being a very good wife, is it? When your husband asks to be welcomed into your pretty pussy you're to lay back and spread those legs for him so he can breed you nice and good.”

What is he talking about? He knows you're already with child. What is he plotting now?

“I'm sorry.” You croak, not wanting him to hurt you or your baby.

“It's alright, my stupid little flower. You will learn soon enough.” He promises darkly, “But for now you have to prove to me that you are truly sorry for everything you’ve done to me.”

What you have done to him? He has massacred your and Kai’s entire family and everyone you knew or loved, yet you’re the one who needs to be forgiven? Is he utterly mad?

You eye him warily as he lets go of you and walks towards the soft furs laid on the ground. You wish you could spring to your feet and grab the heavy metal pot at the corner of the room and use it bash his skull in—hammer it over his head until his pretty face is a mix of red mush and dark hair.

But you know you'd be drawn and quartered if you hurt him. You'd never survive even if you escaped. That is if you even were able to get through the dark powers that protect him to lay a finger on him. No, you have to think about your child. You must not be selfish anymore.

He sits down on the furs and pats his lap. “Come, wife. Prove yourself to me. Ride my cock until you convince me to give you my seed.”

He truly is despicable. All of this is his twisted form of revenge for your rejection of him. He wants to humiliate you, to break you—and he is succeeding.

You cannot rise to your feet—you do not have the power left to do so—so you crawl slowly toward him, a sight that seems to please him more than it should. His eyes darken as you draw closer, his hand stroking his own cock in anticipation. When you are within reach, his hand shoots out to pull you onto his lap, an impatient growl escaping him. "You enjoy drawing this out, don't you?" He taunts, kneading your breasts and biting his lip at your restrained moans. "I think you like this. I think you have been purposefully teasing me so I would go crazy for you."

You have to hold yourself back from crying again at the accusation. You do not wish to upset him but you cannot fathom how wild his delusions have gotten.

His hand goes between your legs to rub coarsely at your pussy, and to your eternal shame and humiliation, he finds you wet.

“I knew it. I knew you wanted this.” He asserts and you can’t stop yourself from shaking your head. “No.” You protest weakly. “I don’t.”

“Cry more for me. Cleanse your sins with your tears, my priestess.” He moans, rubbing his hardened length along your wet pussy, soaking up all your pain and revelling in it. It seems to bring him as much pleasure as anything. So you force yourself to stop. You bite down on your tongue to keep the tears at bay.

He laughs. “Putting on a brave face now? Let's see how long you can keep that up when you're riding my cock.” He sits you up so his cock is right at your entrance.

“Come then, darling priestess, desecrate that divine body of yours.” He mocks you, not pushing you down but instead leaving you to do it yourself as if you had a choice.

But you do not have any choice. You must obey his every sick desire or you and your unborn child would perish. Is that why he hasn’t harmed your child yet? Why he hasn't he ripped it out of the safety of your womb to use in his nefarious spells? Chills run down your spine. If you do not listen to him, you may be condemning your own child to a fate too gruesome for words.

With that horrible thought in mind, you grit your teeth as you sink down on his member, feeling the plague breach you completely as your pussy gives way to his cock.

“Yes, finally.” He hisses, his face twisting in ecstacy at the feeling of his cock pressed to the hilt inside of you, your warm wet walls wrapped tightly around him.

He takes a moment to savour it, jaw held open in a silent moan as his eyes rake over your body; your crown still hanging by the flowers tangled in your hair, your dress pushes over your shoulders to unveil your breasts to his ravenous gaze.

“Move.” He finally says, giving you a small nudge with his hips.

You're scared to touch him without his permission—and you will not ask for it—so you plant your hands on either side of his body and use it as leverage to push yourself up and down, first only slightly then building up speed as your pussy quickly adapts to the intrusion—hoping to end this as quickly as you can.

“Good girl.” He praises, eyes shamelessly devouring the sight in front of him as he mistakes your urgency for desire. “You pretend to be so meek and chaste but your body is just begging to be fucked properly, isn’t it?”

He rips your dress off, completely exposing your body so he can savagely feast on it with his gaze and touch. “You can't tell me he didn't hold you down to fuck these tits every day. I know I won't be able to resist this filthy body of yours.”

Another threat you're certain he will fulfil if the way he's abusing your body is any indication.

“He didn't. He wasn’t a monster like you.” You steel your voice, attempting to defend your husband in death the way you weren’t able to defend him in life. Beomgyu is vile and rotten, and Kai was pure, lovely, and much too good for you.

But your words only make Beomgyu smile, seemingly pleased with that. “The coward couldn't appreciate what he's been gifted. That's why you've come to me.”

Each word that spills from the monster’s mouth is crafted to unmake you—to drive your mind to ruin. He knows well that you did not come to him of your own will. The only reason he holds you now is because he butchered your beloved and laid waste to all you held dear. Never would you have been his otherwise.

You bite down upon your tongue until the taste of blood fills your mouth so it would refrain from openly contradicting him, and then you continue to bite down some more. This, you think, is his aim. He wants to test you—to draw out any fight left in you so he can beat it down until you’re utterly servile to him.

“How does my cock feel? Better than his?” He continues to taunt you but you stay quiet.

That is clearly not the response he wanted, and you feel his large hand wrap around your neck. Though he does not appear strong, you know the extent of his power all too well. He could break you with the ease of a butcher wringing the neck of a pheasant. “How does it feel, flower?”

“It feels good.” You respond shakily, hoping that would be enough to stay his hand, but of course it isn’t. He tightens his grip further, waiting. You know what he wants, and you mutter a silent prayer of sorrow and shame to your departed husband before you give in.

“Better than his.” You say, the words tasting like ash on your tongue as you imagine your poor dead lover’s soul crying at the lie.

“Not perfect,” He says at last, releasing his grip with a cold smile, “but it shall suffice—for now.” His words and demeanour bring you no comfort–they promise you a future full of these humiliations until you are so thoroughly broken down, he can mould you into the grotesque vision of yourself he has long harbored. His next words leave no doubt of it. “You'll learn to do better in time. We have a whole lifetime together after all.”

You let out a wretched sob but this time, it does not seem to please him. If anything, it irritates him—like he expected you to accept the grim promise of a life filled with torment, and you’ve somehow disappointed him. He grunts unhappily, his hand coming down on your ass as he barks out an order for you to go faster.

You can barely hold yourself upright, your body and soul protesting your uncouth actions, yet you force yourself to keep going, straining your muscles to push your body up and down on his cock.

“Your belly is beginning to round." He observes, his attention fixed on it, and fear grips you.

“Don’t hurt my child.” You sputter, panicking, and his laugh rattles your bones. “Why would I hurt my own flesh and blood?”

“W-what?” You ask, your mind halting at the shock of his words but your body already senses what your mind refuses to fathom, and the suffocating grip of dread wraps itself around your failing heart.

“Oh, my poor, foolish flower,” He murmurs, a cold smile curling on his lips, his large hand settling over the slight curve of your belly—possessive, not tender. “You didn’t think this belonged to him, did you?”

No. Oh heavens, please, anything but this.

You shake your head, refusing to believe him.

"It cannot be," You swallow, your throat dry, the words catching in your chest as dark images of a shadowed figure flicker in the back of your mind. "How...?"

“Darling, I know you’re not very bright—after all if you were, none of this would have happened, but certainly even you can piece together the truth.”

You want to scream, to claw his hand away, to spit every denial in your throat into his face—but you know it would do no good. You cannot banish the doubts that have now taken a hold of your mind—the voices that tell you that the child is his. The shadow figure was real. You’re to blame for all of this.

“Remember that night I visited you?” He confirms, striking down any hope of salvation you had left, any inkling that you have not been completely corrupted by him. “Well my shadow did. You remember, right? You let me in. You remember my cock sliding into your waiting cunt the day I killed your father? You took it so well. You knew who you truly belonged to. Your waking mind didn't know it yet but your soul did. Now you get to have the real thing. All of me.”

You shake your head again, not because you don’t believe him but because you do not wish to. You try to get off him but your movements are sluggish—your body weak and weighed down by everything that has transpired while his remains strong and quick with the vitality of the dark forces coursing through his veins. He pushes you onto your back easily, the flower crown finally falling off as he climbs over you, his figure eclipsing yours as if he’s ready to devour you.

His cock had slipped out of your pussy during the short altercation, and you shiver at the empty feeling, finally able to breathe for a moment. But even these small moments of reprieve he gives you seem intentional, designed so he can lull you into a false feeling of safety so he can use your vulnerability to break you down further.

And once again your body tenses as you feel his heavy cock drag over your wet lips, his hot flesh almost branding your pussy as it rubs against you, filling the room with a nauseating sticky sound before he finally moves down to breach your hole, letting out a loud exhale at the feeling of being so completely engulfed by you once more.

“That feeble wretch could never have begotten you a child.” He growls, letting his possessiveness shine unrestrained. “This is mine. His name, his blood, his legacy—they are nothing but ash. But you, and what grows within you, will carry me forward. Only our love will remain.”

The sickness coils in your belly. You are bearing the monster’s child. Not even the pyre could cleanse you now. You’ve been defiled in body and spirit—and now heaven can never be yours.

“What are you?” You ask fearfully as he fucks you open on his cock. Surely, he is no mere human.

“I am your fate, my precious flower. I am what the gods have chosen for you. I am what loves you.”

Horror wells in your chest and your stomach turns. How can he say such things—how can he speak of love while reeking of death and fire? What twisted deity would bind you to him? What crime have you committed so grave that this... this is your punishment? Why have the heavens turned their gaze from you? Why have you been left to a creature who claims to love you while covered in the ashes of everyone you have loved, who speaks for divinity while dragging you through hell?

You want to scream, to tear your skin from your bones, to escape the vessel he claims as his own. But you can only lie there, trembling, as his cock splits you open, as he takes what he desires from you.

“You will learn to love me too.” He promises, his hand going between your legs to rub your sensitive pussy.

“Please, don’t.” You whimper, too scared to even cry anymore. You don’t want to cum. You don’t want to give him that too.

“Just let go. Give into me, my flower, and I promise to lay the world at your feet.” He coaxes, the combination of his deliberate, incessant touches on your pussy and his cock fucking in and out of you forces your body to react, and the uncomfortable heat building up in your belly threatens to spill and consume the rest of your body that is too tired to put up any defenses. You find yourself helpless to stop it and, as if he has you under his spell, it burns inside you until it’s at a fever pitch. “Surrender yourself to me.”

A loud strangled cry breaks out of you as you cum, spasming around his cock uncomfortably as he grins and fucks you through it. He doesn’t stop even when your pussy tries to push him out. He doesn’t stop even after your body stills. He doesn’t stop even as you begin to cry again from the overstimulation.

“Please, no more.” You weep, hating the way he’s looking at you like your tears are sustaining him.

“But I haven’t released yet. Surely, my beautiful wife can’t be that selfish as to take all the pleasure just for herself.”

Pleasure? You feel nothing of the sort. You hate him. You hate yourself.

“Then fucking cum.” You hiss, the tide of revulsion momentarily rising higher than your fear of him.

“Do you want it?” He asks eagerly, eyes gleaming with a twisted hunger. You realize with a sickening lurch that this is what he wants—not just to claim you, but to make you beg for it.

And you will. Because you're exhausted. Because you want it to stop. You just want this nightmare to end.

“Yes.”

He leans in closer, unsatisfied. “Yes, what?” He presses, savoring your shame.

“I want you,” You force out, the words scraping against your throat.

He studies you, like a cat toying with its prey. “Are you certain? You don’t sound sure.”

“I want you!” You cry out for him. Anything to end this. “Want you to fill me up. Want you to breed my pussy until it knows nothing but your cock, until I’ve given you the family you’ve always wanted.”

“That’s it. Fuck…” He throws his head back, shuddering at the pleas he has all put in your mouth. His thrusts grow even harsher and more erratic as he finally allows his control to slip, filling the quiet night with his primal moans as he fucks you like a wild animal. “I’m going to give it to you. I’ll make sure that you’re only mine.”

At last, he releases inside you, his cum branding you from inside, searing his name into your flesh. His breathing comes out ragged, his gaze fixed on your face with something close to reverence — but it is much too dark. The look he gives you as he commits this moment to his memory takes you back to that moment that now feels like a lifetime ago—the moment he had first claimed you. Though the eyes he wears now are brown, they bear the same coldness those icy blue eyes did.

When he has given you every last bit of him, he picks up your fallen crown of wildflowers and places it upon your head, his fingers lingering as they sweep your hair from your face, the motion almost tender, but it feels grotesque—like a predator trying on the skin of the lover he has slaughtered.

“I won't always be so cruel.” He murmurs softly, almost sadly. “I wasn't always so cruel. I am what you, and everyone else, made me. But I am giving you a second chance. Use it wisely and I'll put the world at your feet. Squander it and I won't be so merciful next time.” He lets his threat linger in the air, lets you breathe it in until it settles into your bones.

“Know this.” His hand shifts, pressing firmly against your stomach, hot and possessive. “You will never escape me again. Our fates are bound together now. Our souls intertwined to create this life.”

You shudder, wondering what it is that you are carrying within you. What creature will be born of the unnatural union between yourself and his shadow? Will it bear the beauty of his sad, haunted eyes, or the cold, merciless gaze of his shadow? Will it possess the innocence of childhood or will it be born with the taste of blood on its tongue?

Gods, what have you done? What has he done to you?

_____________________

Epilogue

You've given birth to Beomgyu’s child. Despite your worries, it wasn’t a blue-eyed monster, as you had feared. Her eyes are a deep brown, like the earth, like her father’s, but you want to believe she is different. You want to let go of your ugly suspicions, but something about her is just… off.

When you lay her down beside you, she watches you with the kind of stillness that makes you want to look away. She doesn’t laugh like other babies, doesn’t cry much either. You can tell she’s not quite right. It’s not in her looks—her features are sweet, innocent like any other baby—but in the way her gaze lingers, too piercing for one so young. It’s as if she can see through you. There is a knowing look to her eyes, unnervingly intelligent, as if she understands far more than an infant should.

You’re ashamed to admit you’re scared of your own child.

Beomgyu, on the other hand, is captivated by her—a far cry from the monster you’ve come to know. When he looks at her, his face is alight with a tenderness he never shows anyone else. There are times when you catch him staring at her with a quiet awe, as if he can’t quite believe she’s real.

You haven’t seen him so unguarded, so open, since you were children. When he holds her, it’s as if all the hardness of the man he’s become slips away, and for a brief moment, you glimpse the boy you once knew—lost to the world but still buried somewhere deep inside.

Whenever you grow too weary to care for her, he takes her from you without hesitation. He does not let the servants touch her, not even for a moment. He insists on doing it all himself, bathing her, dressing her, playing with her—he does it all with a softness that makes your skin crawl, as if his hands have never stained the world with blood.

He whispers to her in soft tones, words you can’t quite make out, as though he’s sharing some secret with her, and it almost seems like she understands him...

The doubts plaguing your mind grow stronger every single day. You feel guilty—torn between a mother’s love for her child and the creeping dread that tightens around your chest every time she looks at you. When you hold her, when you feel the warmth of her tiny body against yours, a part of you wants nothing but to protect her and keep her safe from the evil world she was born into... but another part of you—the one you can’t silence—wants to pull away, to run before she grows into the monster her father is.

When you look at her, her eyes wide and unblinking, you wonder if she is truly innocent, or if she has been corrupted from the start—the product of the twisted bond between you and her father, the result of a love and power too dark to understand.

Since her birth, Beomgyu has softened, becoming almost… gentle with you. He treats you like a man ought to treat his wife. He holds you to sleep at night, his arms wrapped around you with a gentleness you once thought him incapable of. At every meal, he ensures you eat first, his voice calm as he insists you need to restore your strength. When your swollen feet ache from the remnants of pregnancy, he kneels at your feet and massages them with a care that feels almost… loving.

He acts like any of this is real, like he’s not the man who has torn your world apart—as if these small gestures could erase the horrors of what he's done, what he continues to do.

But you refuse to fall for it. You know what he is. This is just another way for him to control you, another way to bend you into his image of what your life should be. And it upsets him when you don’t play along.

He presses his lips to yours, and there is a hunger and urgency in the kiss that leaves you reeling. They build up all too quickly, almost reaching a fever pitch in just a few short moments. You can feel his desire for you burning through, but before he can take it any further, you pull away abruptly.

“No,” You tell him through gritted teeth, voice quivering yet resolute. “I’ve only just given birth to your child. I need rest. Have you not already wrecked my body enough?”

He doesn’t say anything at first, the heat in his gaze lingering, searching, perhaps for some weakness. But you stand your ground.

Your refusal of him has gone unpunished so far, and though his desire for you is unmistakable, he has yet to push too hard. Since the birth of your daughter, you’ve refused him, and while he’s used other means to release himself, you can see the frustration building beneath his calm exterior. The man who once took you whenever he wished, ravaging you relentlessly, has had to settle for what little you’ve offered—bet it your hands or your mouth.

He has let it slide until now, playing the part of the doting, concerned husband even if you won’t play the part of the loving wife, but you can feel the strain it’s causing him. His jaw tightens, his brows furrow, and you know—he’s reaching the breaking point. You brace yourself, wondering if this time, the mask will finally slip, and if the beast beneath will show itself again.

After a long, tense silence, he steps back. His frustration is palpable, simmering just below the surface, but he still holds it back. “As you wish, my flower,” He murmurs, voice tight, his fists clenched. Without another word, he turns on his heel and walks away.

For another day, he lets you be, but you know he will not remain patient forever, and the thought of him breaking, no longer willing to accept your refusals, makes your chest tighten.

As you steady your breathing, trying to collect yourself, you hear a scoff from behind. The sound is oddly sharp, grating on your nerves. You turn to find one of your servants standing with her arms crossed, an expression of barely veiled pity on her face—though it feels more like mockery than sympathy.

“You know he won’t be so patient for long.” She tells you smugly, as if she knows all about your husband. “If a man finds no satisfaction in his wife, he’ll seek it elsewhere.”

Your answering laugh is bitter, tasting of the blood and ash of everyone he’s killed. “I wish he would.”

Yet the ignorant girl has the nerve to roll her eyes at you and say, “You’re ungrateful.”

“Ungrateful?!” You hiss, fury rising in your chest. “Do you not know who he is? Do you not know what he’s done?”

Does she not know he has slaughtered everyone you hold dear? Does she not see how he has forced himself on you with the threat of fire and death?

But still, she does not flinch, and her arrogance remains unshaken. “He is the leader of our tribe—strong, capable. He pulled us from the ashes. He is what we need.”

“He’s the one who brought us hell. He’s a monster.” You hiss, not allowing her to blur the truth.

She shrugs, uncaring, her indifference stoking the flames in your chest. “It matters not. All leaders are monsters. It’s how they rule. At least he was merciful enough to make you his wife. He could have cast you to the flames like the others. Like some people had urged him to.”

Her words sear you, but your temper flares hotter. You step toward her, your hand moving without thought, striking her across the face, the sound echoing in the still air. “You have no idea what he’s done to me. Death would have been mercy.”

She stands unfazed, her cheek turning red but her grin remains cold. “Then perhaps you’ll get what you wish for.” She sneers at you.

You fall silent for a moment, studying her with growing suspicion. Why does she defend him so fiercely? What does she stand to gain from it?.… It is then that realization strikes, and a mocking laugh escapes you.

“You want him, don’t you?” You jeer, watching her response closely. Finally, your words hit their mark. Her expression shifts, and her posture stiffens. It’s almost as if you can see the walls of defense spring up to try to guard the secrets you’ve just uncovered.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She retorts, her voice brimming with pretense pride. “He’s strong, a man of power. He saved this tribe from ruin and led us toward a new dawn. He’s a king among men. And he chose you to stand beside him. I don’t know why. Perhaps he was swayed by your family’s name, your blood as a priestess. Perhaps he thought you worthy to bear his children. But he’s wrong. He should have chosen better.”

“Oh, you poor, naive thing,” You laugh bitterly, voice dripping with mockery. “Tell me, is the orphan girl jealous? Does it eat at you to know he would never look at scum like you the way he looks at me?” Your words cut deep, cruel and deliberate, twisting the knife in her wounds. You see her struggle, the way her eyes flicker with both envy and disdain

She sees herself in Beomgyu. She thinks him different—a man who has clawed his way out of the ashes of his past, who rose above the hate and exile placed upon him. In him, she sees salvation—an escape from the life she was born into.

To her, you are undeserving of him. She looks at you and sees all you’ve been born into—your family, your wealth, your status, everything that came easily to you while she has had to fight for every breath, every scrap. Her jealousy has clouded her vision, blinding her to all that you have had to endure, to the tragedies that have led you into the claws of the man she worships.

You can feel the anger building in her. You see the way her hands clench, her chest rising with each breath, knowing she longs to hurt you but she holds herself back, Because that same man she is defending so blindly could rip the skin off her body if she dares to touch you.

“He is blinded by your status,” She spits, her voice hot with jealousy. “But I know that if he had one night with me, he wouldn’t look to you for comfort anymore.”

“Well, why don’t you try for yourself then?” You offer and she frowns, caught off guard by your proposal. “I’ll let you take my place for the night. You can sleep in my bed, and I’ll sleep in yours. If you manage to win his favor, whether it’s his heart or his cock, you can keep it.” The words hang between you, dripping with disdain.

She hesitates, uncertainty flickering in her eyes. Her instincts warn her, screaming at her that something is amiss, urging her to refuse. But, she's too stupid, too greedy, to listen to them.

“Fine.” She lifts her chin, attempting to mask her doubt with defiance. “But don't come crying to me when I make him mine.”

You smile bitterly, your lips curling in silent contempt, and without another word, you turn and walk away. You let her take your place, opening your bed to her for the night. As you step outside, a knot of unease tightens in your chest. A part of you warns against playing this dangerous game, tempting the beast, but another part, louder and more reckless, speaks of relief. Relief that for just one night, you won’t have to endure the monster’s touch.

And that is a temptation you cannot bring yourself to deny.

__________________

It’s a turbulent night, one where the relief you so longed for never comes. Sleep eludes you, slipping further away the harder you try to grasp it. Though his absence allows you to breathe more easily, an unease gnaws at your thoughts. You wonder, in the quiet of the dark, what would happen if he truly chose her.

You tell yourself you wouldn’t miss his touch. You wouldn’t. But deep down, a fear stirs—what if he grows too fond of her? What if, in time, he tires of your defiance, of the constant resistance you offer, and takes her as his wife instead? What cruel fate would he devise for you then, should he decide to cast you aside?

He has already taken everything he wanted from you—Kai’s throne, your dignity, your body, your flesh and blood. And now, all that remains is your soul.

As the first light of dawn begins to creep across the sky, you rise and make your way back home, dreading what you'll find. This was a mistake. You've let yourself grow too comfortable with the monster, and forgotten that he can devour you whole at any moment.

You imagine finding them in bed together—her body draped over his, held close like a lover. You picture the evidence of his desire that you had been neglecting marking her skin like an unspoken claim…

A strange twinge of jealousy stirs within you, unbidden and unwelcome. You know you shouldn’t feel this way, but how can you not? He has stripped away everyone you knew, everyone you loved, and forced himself into their roles. Can you truly be blamed for feeling a spark of anger, a flicker of resentment, at the thought of him finding comfort in someone else—comfort that he never afforded you?

But when you step into your home, what greets you is not at all what you expected. You freeze, rooted to the spot, shock rendering you speechless.

There, in your shared bed, the servant lies bound and gagged, her face swollen with the remnants of tears. Her eyes, once full of defiance, are now empty and broken, glistening with the fear of the man she had only yesterday sang the praises of before you.

Your throat tightens, a lump rising as you gasp, barely able to form the words. “What—” You manage to choke out, the sound barely escaping your lips.

Beomgyu sits beside her, his face unreadable. In his hand, he holds a dagger, lazily pointing it in your direction, a flippant threat that sends a hot shiver down your spine. “Is this your idea, dear wife?” He asks, his voice unnervingly soft, like the calm before the storm.

You shake your head, hands trembling at your sides. “No... she—”

“So it’s her idea?” He turns towards the servant, his movements deliberate as he presses the blade to her neck.

“No, please!” You cry out. You never meant for it to get this far. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

The knife hovers above her skin, and time seems to stretch in the silent tension. He doesn’t answer immediately, his eyes flickering between you and her, pondering. A single drop of blood forms where the blade threatens to bite into her flesh. Her life hangs by the thinnest thread, every breath a risk with the dagger so close.

But, for now, he shows mercy. Slowly, he lifts the blade, and the girl, shaken and terrified, lets out a quiet sob.

“You think you can just slide off your duties to someone else?” He growls, his words like a whip against your skin.

“No.” You stammer, the world spinning around you. You’ve pushed him too far. He will punish you for this. “She told me you would grow tired of me. She said she could take you from me. I wished to prove her wrong.”

“So you did this to test me?”

“Yes.” You answer, your voice small, and he regards you in silence.

He is no fool. He sees the truth—that you did this hoping to rid yourself of your duties to him, hoping to find some fleeting relief from the chains that bind you to him.

For a long, agonizing moment, he simply sits there, his eyes never leaving you. He contemplates—whether to hurt her? Whether to hurt you? You do not know.

Then, without a word, he draws the knife and slices through the ropes binding her. His command is harsh, a sharp bark: “Leave.”

The servant scrambles from the bed, still gagged as she crawls away on her hands and feet, her legs unable to carry her, yet she is so desperate to escape him. She has barely glimpsed the darkness he harbors, and it has already shattered her. How could she, the foolish thing, ever believe she could replace you?

How could you ever think you had the strength to defy him?

Once she is gone, he walks towards you. His hands move to your face with a gentleness that feels foreign after the violence. He lifts your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze. “I want no one but you,” He says, his voice softer now, but the darkness it conceals just beneath the surface could drown you. “I will not accept anyone else. You will never be rid of me. Do you understand?”

You nod, tears gathering in your eyes. You understand now. He will have you—body, soul, and spirit. You will never be free of him.

In time, you find yourself yielding—not out of love, nor desire, but out of self-preservation. You allow him to take what he wants from you, offering yourself as a sacrifice, a supposed means of taming the beast within him. The shame of your resignation weighs on you, and the guilt eats away at your insides as you turn a blind eye to the dark rituals he performs behind closed doors, pretending not to hear the quiet chants that echo in the night, or the deeper, otherworldly voices that join him—pretending not to see the dark power that crackles and hums in the air around him. You tell yourself this is the price of survival, that the safety of everyone—yourself, your child, the people—demands this sacrifice.

But with each passing day, the line between survival and complicity grows fainter until, on a fateful night, it is no more.

You had laid your daughter down to sleep, closing her off from the horrors of Beomgyu’s nightly rituals, retreating into the fragile peace you’ve carved for the both of you. You try not to hear the dark happenings beyond the walls, hoping to shield her from the evil that swirls in the heart of your home—praying that she will be spared from the same darkness that has claimed you and her father.

But you cannot shut your ears to his sudden cry—a scream so raw and full of anguish it rends the air, followed by the sickening thud of something heavy hitting the floor. An eerie stillness fills the air, as if time itself had stopped. The abrupt silence that descends upon the house wraps around you like a suffocating shroud, and you know that whatever has happened, you cannot ignore it any longer.

Panic seizes you, and you rush toward him, dread crawling up your spine with every step. What you find stills the blood in your veins. Beomgyu lies on the floor, his body writhing, his eyes rolled back in his head, froth spilling from his lips…

No. No. This cannot be happening. He cannot leave you after all he’s done. They will tear you and your child apart and take back what he has stolen.

You kneel beside him, your hands shaking as you try to steady his convulsing body. You cradle his head in your lap, your fingers pressing down on his limbs to keep him from hurting himself. Panic claws at you from within, but you fight against it, focusing on trying to keep him safe.

But then he suddenly stills, ceasing to move entirely, his eyes open, his chest not rising…

For a long, agonizing moment, he is as still as the dead—his body limp, unresponsive—and you fear the worst. Time stretches endlessly, each moment longer than the last. Then, just when despair begins to consume you, he drags in a loud, ragged breath—the sound of a man fighting to claw his way back from death’s door.

Tears well up in your eyes, your new world trembling around you, threatening to collapse and bury you under it. You are so close to losing everything again.

Somehow, you manage to get up and drag him toward the bed, your strength waning with each step, but you don’t stop. You can’t, not until he is in your arms on your marital bed. You hold him close to you, desperate to soothe him, quieting the indecipherable grunts that rise from deep within his chest, and wondering if some being unseen is punishing him for his wickedness—praying that when it has exacted its revenge, it would be merciful enough to give him back to you. Because without him, you are lost. You know this now. He has made sure of it.

The night stretches on, a fevered blur of restless, haunted sleep. Your hold on him never falters as you grapple with the unending nightmares that ravage your mind, thrusting upon you visions of loss and torment—of what will become of you should he perish. The words of the servant girl and the man from the night Kai was sacrificed echo in your mind like a prophecy: they will burn you. They will burn your child. They will tear down everything Beomgyu has built, and take the pieces for themselves.

You are left delirious, caught between the fever of nightmare and reality, your mind unraveling in the space between both worlds. The heat of the fire in your dreams licks at your skin, scorching, just as the heat of his body against yours sears you in the waking world—both suffocating, both dangerous, yet every time your eyes blink open, your mind released from the world of nightmares for a moment, you pull him closer towards you—your nails digging into his skin, uncaring about the sweat building up between you, slick and stifling. You will not let him slip away into death for without him, you are doomed.

You remain like that, wrapped around him, until he stirs—his body shifting slowly, his breath shallow at first, then deepening, growing more deliberate. His eyes flutter open, and when he looks up at you, confusion is clouding his gaze. His lips part, and in his drowsy state, he appears innocent—almost vulnerable. For a moment, you wonder if this is what he would have looked like, had you chosen him all those years ago.

“What happened?” He asks, his voice hoarse, and you frown, all the fatigue and dread in your body quickly morphing into blame. You grit your teeth, spitting out, “What happened? You almost got yourself killed.”

But instead of responding with anger, Beomgyu surprises you with a smile—a strange, disarming smile—as if you’ve just confessed your love for him. “Were you scared for me?”

You flinch back as if the words had burned you. “No.” You retort, but the denial sounds feeble even to your own ears as you attempt to push down the confusion welling up inside you. The fear of losing him is so overwhelming that it almost feels like care, almost burns of love... “You’re still a monster. But you are my child’s father, and I won’t let you lose yourself to the same dark powers that took away everyone I loved.”

His gaze darkens, though the edges of his smile don’t fade. “Then join me. Together we can command them, wield them to build a better world for our children.”

You recoil at the thought, the very idea of joining him and using the same power that had desroyed your life filling you with disgust. “I would never.”

Beomgyu tilts his head, his expression blank but his eyes burning—not with anger but with knowing. “You almost did,” He murmurs, his voice soft but the implication as sharp as a dagger. “The slab. The power. I felt it. You didn’t finish the ritual, but it touched you. Your soul felt it, and it yearned for it.”

“I didn’t.” You shake your head, but your voice falters, betraying the very doubt you struggle to suppress. “I didn’t give in.”

“But you wanted to,” He coaxes, his fingers brushing gently along your cheek. “Even if only for a moment. You felt what it was to wield true power. Not the whispers your mother left behind, not the child's spells your elders taught you—the real power they hid behind the myths of Gija and others like him, meant to keep you from seeking it, to keep you from growing too powerful for them to control. They lied to you, sweet priestess. They were too weak, too afraid to tame the power they feared, and so they locked it away. But I found it. I wielded it. And I killed them all with it. Just as you showed me magic all those years ago, I can show you real power."

You feel sick. Must he continue to remind you of the role you played in all of this? Have you not suffered enough already?

Your skin prickles at his touch, and you instinctively back away, your heart thudding in your chest. “I don’t want it.”

His smile is small, almost pitying. “Maybe not yet but you will soon enough. I can feel it. It brews within you, just as it did in me. I know you would do anything to protect our child. To protect me.” “You don’t know me,” You whisper, but you know it’s a lie. He knows you better than you know yourself. He has seen through you at every turn. He has understood your every fear,your every weakness. It’s how he manipulated you into playing directly into his hand.

He had given you the cursed nightbloomer, knowing its effect would cloud your mind and make you vulnerable, leaving you susceptible to his dark presence to latch onto you. He forced your family into performing the ritual, manipulating them into using their magic to give shape to the very evil force he had summoned, and tethering it to the world through the sacrifice of your father.

He led your mother down the path of dark magic, knowing it would weaken her, knowing full well that you wouldn’t have the stomach to aid her in her forbidden dealings. He allowed you to wed Kai, knowing it would carry the curse into his family and tear them apart from within.

He needed you there in order to frame them. He needed you to take Kai’s family name in order to use you to steal their crown. He knew that by giving you a child, he could bind you to him in a way that no other force could. He knew you would do anything to protect it. He knew that you would come to him in a desperate attempt to save it, and that this would be the final straw that would draw Kai out, forcing him into his trap.

Every step of the way, you have done exactly what he wanted. His hands have been guiding you, pulling the strings, and you never even realized it until now.

And he knows you would do anything to not lose another family.

Beomgyu laughs. “I know exactly what you are. I’ve watched you bleed for people who would throw you to the fire without blinking. You want to hate me for what I’ve done, but you know I am the only one who has the power—the courage—to do whatever it takes to protect you. You know I would never forsake you.”

You know. You hate that you believe him. You hate that that is what you need. “I hate you.”

“You don’t. Not anymore.” He tells you, and as always, Beomgyu knows.

You don’t fight him when he kisses you. You don’t fight him when he strips your clothes off. You don’t fight him when he lays your body down and climbs on top of you, his cock easily slipping into your ready pussy—because it doesn’t take him long to prepare you anymore, your body responding to just a few touches from him—starved for any kind of human affection, even if it comes from a man who is no longer wholly human.

He leans in close, his voice soft, almost tender as he fucks you on his cock. “Let me in. Let me show you what’s beneath the power you fear. Let me give you something real. No useless protection spells. No more prayers to gods who will never answer. Blood for blood. That’s the only language real power speaks. And I know every word of it.”

His strength pulses within you, a force that intertwines with the pleasure his touch stirs. The more it spreads, the harder it becomes to resist, as your body gives way to the mixture of heat and power.

“I won’t let it hurt you. I only want to remake the world for us and our children.” He murmurs, caressing your breasts as his cock slips in and out of your fluttering pussy.

You can hardly focus on what he is saying, the pleasure making your ears ring and your vision blur. You wrap your legs around his waist and your nails dig into his back to pull him closer, urging him to stop his rambling madness and just fuck you harder—to push you over the edge and quiet your loud mind.

“Say it. Say it and it’s all yours.” But he insists, grinding his hips against yours in a way that pushes against your clit and makes your toes curl.

You close your eyes, the heat and weariness overwhelming, and when you speak again, your voice cracks. “You can’t,” You say, a quiet plea for him to stop, because you worry that you won’t be able to resist him much longer. “I don’t want it.”

“Maybe not yet,” He repeats, his words a quiet promise. “But I’m a very patient man.” You want to deny it, to push against the corrupting pull he has on you, but you know it’s futile. You have no one but him now. No one but him and the child you have together.

You have failed to save Kai. You will not fail to save your child. No matter the cost. Even if it might mean giving into him.

Beomgyu sits back on his haunches, taking your legs from around his waist and pressing your thighs to your chest, bending you in half so he can fuck you deeper, harder, the shift in position driving the head of his cock to brush against a spot deep inside you that has you gasping for air.

“Oh gods, Beomgyu!” You cry out, and he fucks you harder, pushing against that spot again and again until your body erupts in flames. “That’s right, my flower, scream my name, let heaven and hell hear who you belong to.”

Your orgasm rips through you as you scream his name, tears streaming down your face as he gives a few last thrusts before your pussy drives him to his own release, and he buries it deep inside you as if it’s his intention to give you another child.

He gently wipes the tears off your face, replacing them with tender kisses. “Hush, my priestess. I don’t wish to see you cry any longer.”

Your heart lurches in your chest—the memory of his anger still fresh in your mind. How he had seemed to feed on your pain, his fury an all-consuming fire. And yet now he’s the one comforting you. Now he wishes for your tears to cease. Now, he offers love and kindness as if he never set your world on fire.

And it makes it hard not to give into him. No blood stains his hands tonight. No fire flickers in his wake. Just the dark love in his eyes and unfathomable power he offers you in the palm of his hands.

______________________

A/N: the end. i wish this fic got more attention because I honestly think it's one of my best works and i had so much fun writing it.

if you've read all these parts, please leave me a message or a comment letting me know what you think of the ending. it would mean the world to me.

#txt smut #beomgyu smut #yandere #dark fic #kai smut #heuningkai smut #txt angst

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dumbpsique · 10 months ago

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DATING OLIVER AIKU; how it feels.

|If by a miracle you won this man's heart, what kind of boyfriend would he be?

|Red stars: NSFW

☆ I disagree with those who say that Oliver is not jealous. He is absolutely very jealous, after all, he understands very well how the male mind works.

☆ lots of hugs in public, without caring if the entire press is pointing cameras at you.

☆ He wakes up early and plays on his cell phone, which means he will have lots of photos of you sleeping with your mouth open, drooling or even videos of you snoring.

☆ It absolutely makes you embarrassed. without wanting to? Don't be silly, it's a hobby.

☆ He eats while playing on his cell phone, so while you're complaining about all your problems, he's watching some tiktok at full volume.

☆ your dates are car trips where you can put your feet up, choose the music and adjust the air conditioning temperature.

☆ When he comes into contact with kids, he acts like an idiot, running after them, spinning them around, jumping, doing whatever they want. then you comment about wanting to start a family and he blanches "god, no."

☆ 100% needy when he wants something. holding onto your waist, sniffing your neck and whispering "pleeeeease" in your ear.

☆ calls you the most shameful petnames possible in public. Are you in front of a waiter? "my little parakeet." They are having lunch with his parents "cute baby, can you pass the salt?" Yes, he is ridiculous.

☆ He never knows how to give you gifts, he always buys the most expensive one.

☆ thinks you're the hottest woman in the world and loves showing off by your side. points to all the guys on the team "that's my girl"

☆ He stresses you out in fights because he doesn't respond to your insults. use sarcasm or just respond with "okok, if you think you're right"

☆ his parents adore him. Oliver is a natural extrovert and even gets along well with his grandparents. he talks about football, helps your mother in the kitchen, plays with your younger siblings and bothers your father.

☆ It cooks SO badly that it's depressing. Every romantic night ends with a burnt pan and a last-minute pizza order.

☆ squeeze your ass regardless of who you are in front of. zero embarrassment, every couple does this, right? in public or not, what changes?

☆ he says he's going to braid your hair (you always end up with knots, but you leave it because you think it's cute.

☆ 8 or 80. he will open the car door in a gentlemanly way or forget you outside and leave.

☆ the kind of guy who if you ask him to buy pads he will ask you what size your pussy is.

☆ makes jokes about having lovers, but would never trade you for anyone.

☆ double meaning jokes ALWAYS! this guy has no discernment of limits (he dies laughing at his own jokes.

☆ every event he takes you to, you end up on a couch with a glass of wine in your hand while cursing everyone there.

☆ he enjoys semi-public sex, he feels turned on by the fact that he can be caught or that he can hear you melting for him.

☆ tags you anywhere you consider hot. his fingers are marked on her waist, bites on her neck and breasts. That's why he thinks he's exceptional.

☆ "do you like this? oh you do, look at the way you're whining." damn, he's dirty.

☆ it will break your ego painfully, denying you orgasm and making you beg for it.

☆ I would ask to record. no one is made of iron, what would he do when he was horny and in another country without you? having videos made everthing easier.

☆ have rough sex and sleep spooning FR

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bamfkeeper · 11 months ago

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Parents.

Kurt Wagner x F!reader

RQ: 'CAN WE PLS GET MORE DAD!KURT HC'S??? PLS I BEG' - @thel0v3hashira143

Warnings: Baby themes, mentions of breastfeeding and other recovery things from birth and pregnancy.

A/N: Pleaseee I love Kurt as a dad <3 Dad!Kurt has to have a goatee I don't make the rules 😩

Kurt loves being a dad. He's always wanted to be a father and he was so excited when you got pregnant and gave birth. He was so attentive to you, and during labor and the birthing process, he was there helping as much as possible.

When it was the first night home from the hospital, he made sure you got your baby inside safely and you got to bed right away. He didn't want you moving around too much. He had already prepped the bedroom, the bassinet was beside the bed for you to easily reach for your baby at night for feedings.

He had water, cream, medicine, everything you needed. He popped up at night when he felt you move, checking on you nearly every hour.

If you wanted to only breastfeed, he'd absolutely be okay with that, and he'd make sure you were alright doing so. He would help you pump and offer bottles if you needed, but he'd mostly try to respect your wants.

I don't think Kurt would care what gender the baby is. He'd love it no matter what. I always had a feeling that if he had a boy he'd name it Gabriel.

Names in general can be played with. You can imagine him going the religious route, or the German route, or if you have a name you like from your own culture, then you could choose that. Kurt is just happy you're having a baby, the name isn't something he's going to argue about with you.

Kurt is absolutely super protective over the baby and you, especially fresh from the hospital. He advocates your wishes to all your friends and family. No visitors, no pictures, no holding the newborn, etc. whatever rules you have.

You love watching him hold your baby, how he cradles them in his arms and hums so sweetly. He gently rubs his nose into the baby's tiny one, he's so gentle with them.

He kisses your baby's feet, listening to the sweet giggles because his beard tickles their toes. He loves to give them raspberries too.

He likes to sing German lullabies or songs to your baby. His singing voice is actually really good.

You thought Kurt was protective before, but once your baby moves around more often, he becomes even more so. Anyone says anything about your baby's appearance or yours after your pregnancy, he loses it. You didn't think that would get you going but...damn.

Your baby would be bilingual. They'd learn English and German growing up.

Walking is fun. With the tiny tail your baby has, balance is much easier, so your baby is walking long before normal babies walk.

As your baby grows, their little voice develops an accent in both languages, and you both adore it. Kurt is so proud of your little one, going on and on about how smart they are and how they get it from you.

Kurt loves dressing your baby too, he definitely puts them in little overalls or lederhosen.

Kurt plays with your little one all the time, especially at parks, he loves pushing them in the swing and sliding down the slide with them in his lap. He absolutely makes up extravagant make believe scenarios about sailing the seas on a big pirate ship, aka the couch.

Speaking of...pirate costumes for Halloween is a MUST.

Also let's not forget the spoiling your child will endure. Kurt gets them whatever they want. Stuffed animals, toys, clothes, sweets, within reason of course. But he can't resist.

Kurt loves to cook German dishes for you and your child, it makes him happy to do and it connects you and your child closer to his roots.

Bedtime stories are big for Kurt too. The showman he is, he tells the stories in different voices, he completely acts out the parts to make your child giggle and laugh. He tucks your little one in and gives them a kiss, a soft lullaby, then it's off to dreamland.

You adore seeing this side of Kurt, he's grown into a wonderful parent, even if he did have some worries before. He is absolutely perfect. A perfect father and a perfect husband.

Dividers by @/adornedwithlight

Cover images: Immortal X-Men #7 (2022), Pinterest for others

#kurt wagner #nightcrawler #kurt wagner x reader #nightcrawler x reader #xmen #x men #x men 97 #🎠my works

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meiguicha · 6 months ago

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Would You Fall in Love with Me Again?

Mydei x Reader - Reincarnation AU

No matter how, where or when, you'll always be his greatest love.

Extra

cw: major character deaths, descriptions of wounds and illness, spoilers for Mydei's backstory, mild allusions to sex, cussing, ten million liberties taken and written pre 3.1

//happy cny have a borderline thesis. reader has like three thousand past lives/j so i named them for my own convenience (and symbolism but who cares in this economy). n e ways. mydei really reminds me of mobe-- *im immediately knocked out and taken to the back

The inability to die is oftentimes the answer many offer when asked that ridiculous question.

It's easier to sensationalise it, to imagine the feats one could achieve without the fear of death rather than consider the suffering and agony of a feeling body. Though the flesh is willing, what occurs to the mind is far more detrimental than the sensation of pain.

Perhaps for those with a weaker will that is so, but Mydei is not the kind to linger on the hopelessness nor the what-ifs of impossibility. He can endure the hardships those cannot, so even if he has experienced ten thousand deaths, he will keep pushing on.

Though, just like a man, and no matter how much they might spin the tales, he is still a man, within his damned beating heart springs forward a doubt at every turn of the decade.

In countless lives, on countless battlefields, it is always you who wrests that uneasy hesitation from somewhere long forgotten.

Soldier, healer, scholar.

Kremnos, Okhema, Aidonia.

He could count the lives you spent by his side, the names you have taken, the forms you have borne. Yet such trivial things did not matter, inevitably you would learn of him and you would return to his side. And somehow, perhaps through some ancestral wiles, you would coax his very soul around yours, make your very being an integral pillar to his life and cruel as you are, it is only you who could make his head bow.

The first of your lives was advantageous to your nascent mission, the child of a Kremnoan sergeant who served as a childhood playmate. Androphonos, your mother named you. Androphonos, your father declared you.

Fleet footed and much so of wit, he remembers those eyes that bore the flames of day, bands of gold decorating lean arms and that voice akin to the howling wind. Your smile that could assail a thousand men, your parents named you well, for even the sight of it seemed to thrust a great lance into his heart. And yet still, he will never forget the look you gave him when he bested you in combat, the joy and relief on your face when it was he who pinned you unmoving, for that was what struck that final blow of this battle they call love.

“I’m glad it's you,” Admitted to him in the quiet of the afterglow, you had pressed a soft kiss to his palm just before, and though the years have passed, he still remembers your warm breath against him.

He kept his own voice murmuring, carefully returning your affections with a cradle of your jaw, “You are? What kind of people have you been surrounded with that you’d prefer me?”

Your gentle touch was so foreign to him, he couldn’t understand what you saw in him. There was nothing but conflict that predated and awaited him, and if you joined him, you would only scorn this life. The extent of your affection seemed cursory, a kind of obligation rather than true desire. It had troubled him at first, but your words truly held a persuasion unlike any other.

You had only laughed at his response, the ends of your eyes crinkling together as you bared teeth and mirth. Like a teenage boy, the scene of you bathed in warm light, draped in crimson robes and hair undone, had made him feel ever more aware of you, of himself.

“I’ll take no one else, I’d rather die than to be deprived of you.”

Warm as the great skies and embracing as so, the eyes in which he looked upon you could no doubt be described as nothing more than reverent as you pressed kiss after kiss along muscle and sinew. You yielded to him once more, providing little protest as every breath from your lips were more like whisperings of greater divine.

Hands that have ripped the flesh of mortals clawed and drew blood, yet what you left were not scars of shame but that of pride, proof of your conquest. No matter that they were temporary, you merely left more in their wake. He pushed and prodded until even the stars of Kephale bore themselves in your vision, wherein just the sight of your dishevelled and splayed bliss had him comprehend Nikador’s infatuation with Bepsis.

No, though he has never laid sight upon her, he knew you were more beautiful then.

Androphonos they called you, and were it possible, he’d lay dead at your feet for even the thought of your returned ardour was more powerful than any weapon.

Androphonos, a name he thought of within that cell.

The jail of the palace was decrepit, damp and worn. Prisoners did not remain here long, and though he remained undying, that did not mean he did not worry for those beyond it. He has grown weak from weariness and exhaustion, now even copper could restrain him without fault.

That man has gone mad with delusion and paranoia, it seemed he was keen on following after their god along a treacherous path.

From afar his ears picked up on rushed steps against stone, fabric rushing along the wind before all that filled his senses were the swift fall of armour clanging against the floor. The cry of slain guards accompanied the symphony of combat and perhaps to another, this would not be a sound as comforting. But the winds favoured one, the fleet footed and the lean armed.

It was you who appeared before him, a shield and spear in arm with eyes blazing with fury. Breaking open the door with a simple slam of your shield, you had rushed in with little explanation and set to work.

“There’s arrangements for you outside the walls,” Your voice was harsh, yet still you refuse to let your affections be absent. As you released him from his binds, your hands moved swiftly as you wrapped your cloak around him. “I’ll remain here to buy you time.”

To stay there would be the same as a death sentence, and though glory only awaited those who perished in battle, he did not wish for you to pass on away from him. Not in such a dishonourable place, not if he must leave you like a coward to fight his battles.

“Do you think you're invincible?!” Mydeimos retorted back, pulling down your spear as he forced you to face him.

He had not seen sorrow so palatable on your face before. Though tears did not fall from your flaming eyes, the severe furrow of your brow and the grip of your calloused hands were all he needed.

Your free hand, wet with the blood of faithless men, held his face. This body of his cursed to suffer a thousand deaths, his path bathed in blood and fraught with hardships, he should have foreseen your own would be drowned with it. Yet even then, you will hold him as though the most precious thing in this world.

A smile tinged your lips, flesh pulling wide like a mockery of joy. “My love, I will not be killed so easily.”

“Your people need you, you must go.”

He doesn’t know when you dropped your weapon, but the clatter of it meant little in comparison to your touch. So gentle, you were so gentle with him no matter the strength you bore. Chapped lips pressed against his own as iron filled his taste buds, yet you would not let him have this moment any longer, pulling away before he could even convince you otherwise.

“I’ll be with you soon, and if not, I will not join Nikador until I find you in my next life,” your last words to him were whispered against his lips, a quiet promise.

Your laughter is the last thing he hears before you shoved him away, howling in the rushing wind as you bear your spear and shield once more.

Mydeimos would not let you have that last word, and before he escaped, he had yelled, trying desperately to reach you in your fervour, “You won’t die, don’t say as if it's so!”

You did not hear him.

Killer of men. The historians will not write down your name nor your feats, but he will chisel your very being into his memory.

The second of your lives tucked you away in the steppes of Cypris, a healer amidst the townsfolk fleeing from the black tide. Eleemon, the children dubbed you. Eleemon, the soldiers cried for you.

Slender handed and poison tongued, you shielded yourself with a veil, legs akin to a hind and a temper to match. Your reputation preceded you, but nothing could have prepared him for the fire in your eyes when you first forced his gaze. It was not humour that greeted him, not even curiosity, nothing but pitiful vexation.

“You are a fool,” Spat to him in your private tent, you had sat him down atop a makeshift bed to conduct a checkup. Even now he remembers the cool of your palm, nails dragging along his skin as you surveyed his form.

Mydei only retorted back, and in that time he had not known why he found himself unwilling to let the brash bite of his words stain his voice, “And so are you for thinking I need your help.”

He had never met a healer as audacious as you, uncaring of class nor occupation and critical of all. With the detachment only having just been born, taking in the survivors of Cypris was foolish but the sight of your shrouded form enticed the final decision. It was purely logical but not even logic could explain the familiarity in your eyes nor the weight of your speech.

“Not so much as you,” Sneering, your acerbic spite was bared through teeth and a slight mirth. And as you regarded him with a glare that could only rival Nikador’s, he felt some part of Kremnos remained with you.

“Only the foolish think themselves unnecessary of rest.”

The days of travel grew weary on all, wearing down on morale yet you would not allow for even a minute of complaint. Your own pouch of water hung noticeably lighter than the soldiers’ when rest was needed, portions of rations smaller than the children’s, yet you denied the care of your elder and your assistant.

In a past life, he promised to care for you as you would him, so no matter that your lips spewed poison upon each proprietary act of service, he could ignore the flush on your ears for the sake of your fragile pride. If you did truly mind after all, you would not hunch yourself so protectively over his form when the rest hours fell.

He knew you meant it when you declared that you would find him in your next life.

Eleemon they called you, if the gods above were anything like you, perhaps Amphoreus would have no need for Chrysos Heirs like him.

Eleemon, a name he thought of when a youth handed him a cup of wine.

The goblet was made of copper, he remembers, a knuckle’s worth of deep red wine sloshing in the vessel. Your elder had decidedly presented it as celebration when the bright light of Kephale’s gifts grew ever closer. Not even you were immune to the solemn look of the older man, perhaps you had long known he wouldn’t be able to bask beneath the warm sun once more.

You were quiet when your assistant handed him the cup, eyes narrowed at the contents before they directed themselves to your own.

There was that look in your eyes, spiteful and vexed, yet you said nothing, merely pursed your lips and set your drink in front of him. Instead, you busied yourself with pushing his own further and further away from his grasp, and when he shot you a look, you persisted.

“Do you want to deprive me of drink?” Mydei snorted at your almost feline display.

With a sneer, you simply hissed, “Don’t touch it.”

He followed the direction of your gaze, and when all he was greeted was with the back of your assistant, you snatched the copper goblet from the makeshift table to dump out its contents. There at the very bottom were ground up leaves, stained red and certainly not part of the wine if he considered your unusually irate expression.

You never told him what it was, but for the rest of that meal, you spent it staring at that youth.

Far sooner than he imagined, he was left bereft of your snarky comments and acerbic smirk, slinking away from his side with nothing but a tap of his arm. Though he supposed when the target of your withering glares disappeared in the afterglow of festivity, you would be foolish enough to give chase.

Yes, foolish indeed.

When he had finally managed to follow after your tail, you were already in your tent, voices raised to a pitch that even from afar he could hear your enraged roar. You who was so often described as mercurial and high-strung, whose words were already armed with barbs, was truly and utterly wrathful. Tearing into whoever was idiotic enough to incur your already short impatience without care for reason.

Yet, with how grave your expression was before you left, even though he knew you were more than capable, worry still crept up on him. The last time you ran off, far away from his sight, from his grasp, you left him. And now? Hearing the shuffle of limbs and the crash of items, something roiled in his veins.

If anything happened while you were just within reach, he thought, he really would have failed you again.

As he stepped closer towards the entrance of the tent, a familiar voice threw accusation after accusation at you without recourse. Muffled by the light cloth, it did nothing to hide the disgust in their tone, dripping with palatable odium.

“Even now you defend him? What has that patricidal coward done to you?”

Though he couldn’t see your expression, he imagined you were sneering again, baring teeth and pride, “Says you! What have you to your name beyond attempting to kill the man delivering us?!”

“Just because you laid with him does not mean we are happy with this!” They hissed and as though picking up something, you rushed to hinder their path. Even then, this person pleaded, begged, “Don’t you see that it is their god that harms us?”

“Elis!”

That person barely managed to enact their rampage before being swiftly put down, knife thrown off to some distant place and arms dislocated. What happened to them, he doesn’t remember more so than the thudding in his chest, his heart attempting mutiny on his ribs as he rushed into your tent.

He hated that you were always quiet about your grievances. You never let a peep out when you were lacking in food or drink, injured or exhausted. If something bothered you, you’d merely up and leave to sort it out yourself.

Mydei hated it most at that very moment.

He could care less what others did to him. Cut his stomach open, leave hemlock in his cup, curse and call him every name under skies. Nothing could possibly hurt him more knowing that you would take that same suffering in stride, that you would not even tell him.

Even in this life, you were the one protecting him.

Hand held limply over your abdomen, you sent him a weak jibe, devoid of any actual mocking. Your anger and your regret melted away as easily as your strength.

“It's too late, don’t bother,” Murmured through your obvious pain, you made a weak attempt at batting him away as he approached.

“You’re a fool,” He gritted through his teeth, arms desperately scooping your limp form into his embrace. The ceding heat of your limbs was too quick, the spillage of your life more so. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Shaking your head, you refuted him again. “Elis wouldn’t have listened otherwise.”

“I have suffered through worse, a stab would be nothing.”

If he had not known you as well as he did, he could not have possibly discerned what emotion blinked in your glassy eyes.

Sorrow. It was always sorrow.

With a strength that did not belong to you, you squeezed his arm as you forced him to look at you, forced him to look away from your organs spilling out. Still so stubborn in the face of death, he still doesn’t know why you were so wilful, why you refused to even let him help.

“Don’t let them burn my body,” your voice waned.

“They won’t, there will be no body.”

“I wanted to see Okhema, bury me there.”

“You’ll be there to see it, just shut up and stay awake.”

“Mydei.”

That simple call of his name snapped him out of whatever delusion he had entrapped himself with.

“I really….” A strangled laugh wheezed from your throat, your fingers loosened their grip from his arm and even then he could not find the strength to let you lie so defeatedly, holding your hand in his as he watched your eyes cloud. “..liked you.”

And as you reached out to cradle his face, sticky with your own blood, he let himself lean into the last part of you he had. You were gentle, so gentle. He didn’t deserve your gentleness, he’d rather your anger and your poison once more. Maybe then, it wouldn’t have hurt that much.

A tear he had not even known existed fell on your mouth, your lips lifted as you used what little energy left to curse him one last time.

“... don’t look so sad, I’ll be back to torment you before you know it.”

The merciful. Cypris is a name devoured by the black tide and the sands of time, but you will live on in the prayers of countless.

Your most recent life placed you closer still, an Okheman scholar who found the research of Castrum Kremnos life work. Ambologera, your peers sighed. Ambologera, your neighbours laughed.

Fair faced and soft hearted, you bore the mind rivalling Cerces, fingers littered with rings and form almost vulpine like in movement. He heard your name first before all else, the moment the detachment returned to the eternal city, the exasperated groans uttered alongside the call was all he knew of you. And from the roofs of red tiles and billowing silks was you, as though a gift from the heavens presented straight to his hands.

“To think you all would keep me from seeing him!” The incredulity of your tone was exaggerated, offended even at the idea. How could anyone possibly think of stopping you on your endeavours when you…

…when you could only bring blessings upon those you favoured?

With little care for the procession of homecoming, you leaped down from your perch to squeeze your way to the front. Dancing between the tight lineup of armoured soldiers, it proved such a simple task for you to emerge in his vision, effortlessly keeping up with the pace despite one trait he had neglected to consider.

You appeared older, noticeably so. Light wrinkles decorated the ends of your eyes, grey hair peppered amongst your bound braid, and yet he could not tear away that image of you. It had brought such an odd giddiness that for a sparse minute, he believed himself poisoned.

“My lord, it would be my honour if you would spare me some of your time!” Offering a bright smile, the excitement on your face was like pure adrenaline through his veins. A joyous lilt tinged the end of your words as you mused, “I wish to hear everything of the Castrum Kremnos, everything you know!”

Involuntarily, the corner of his lips had quirked at your antics. You were so spirited, for a resident of Okhema to not only greet the Kremnoan procession with little more than genuine enthusiasm but to approach the very leader of it as though little more than a random stranger on the street. It was still you.

At that very moment, just before he could reach for you, a youth rushed out from the alleys to pull you away, then another and another. Despite your age, it seemed as if an entire village was required to hold you back. You would not even allow them to take you back quietly, chiding them for not respecting their elders and still desperately trying to catch the prince’s attention.

Yet, they had such a striking resemblance to you that in that very moment, fear struck far more lethal than any possible mortal weapon. Was it possible that this time, you had finally decided to give up on him? Or had he taken too long?

A treacherous thought surfaced then, whoever it was that married you, could they possibly be more powerful than he?

Within a few days, you appeared before him again, furiously scrawling notes above the marketplace. The sight of him returned the levity of your mood far swifter than any arrow, far swifter than a stranger should. You forced him to join you, and without any more delay, set to questioning on this and that, who takes on the dominant role in households, what materials were most abundant, how trade operated without much farm land. He could have talked of the number of steps in the palace and you would have still made him tell you the exact floor plan of the room.

Odd. You really were odd. But you meant it, you meant your curse.

As if to make up for the lost time, you would find some manner of requesting his presence at all times of the day. Dragging him to here or there, yapping his ears off with talks of your research and any idle old topic, smiling and laughing at him so sweetly that every night he’d dream of you. Your nieces and nephews could have glared at him until Okhema fell to the darkness and still then he believed he would have rather been struck dead that very moment than leave your side.

Torment was a light definition for the ache that lingered at every thought you occupied.

Ambologera they called you, and were it possible, he’d have liked for it to be true if only to spend more of this odd life with you.

Ambologera, a name he dreaded to hear when he returned.

He had been set to engage in another campaign, and though he worried, no, all but agonised over the state of your health, you would not let yourself be part of his hesitation. Mydei took your energy for granted, he hadn’t thought that though the threat of external conflict was absent, there was one foe even he could not defeat with his own hands.

Your house was quiet when he returned, devoid of your usual chaos filling the rooms, and though your nephew had greeted him with a solemn nod, it was cold comfort. He wasn’t used to it, to the silence that seemed to cling to the white walls or the tidy corners of every room he passed. Your bedroom loomed closer and closer, and though he had seen sights that would turn the stomach of even the most grizzled of soldiers, seeing you so weak, so helpless, brought a sliver of despair onto the fortress of his affections.

The windows were wide open, letting in the warm sunlight to wash over your form. Your hands, still adorned, lacked the strength to even wave at him, all you could offer was a tip of your head and that smile of yours. Beckoning him over, he could do nothing but indulge your request, more so when you asked to see the marketplace from the roofs once more, the same roof you leapt off of, the same roof you admitted your illness to him.

You were so light, bundled even in blankets and coats, you were so light. And when you tugged them closer to your form, he simply held you closer. Even as he trekked past curious bystanders, your silence was deafening.

Having settled you comfortably, he watched your hand pull out a small vessel, and when you struggled to open it, he took it off your hands to pop the cork off. The smell that greeted him was acidic, cloyingly sweet and burning his senses all at once.

Mydei scrunched his nose at the item, directing a furrowed brow and grimace at your grinning face. “Should you really be having alcohol in this state?”

“I haven’t had wine in forever, least of all my niece’s,” You just laughed, gesturing for the bottle and taking a swig from it as carefully as you could.

A swig was an understatement, you drank from it as if it was the life-giving waters, anymore and he worried you would have tumbled down from the heights in drunken confusion. You let him snatch the copper vessel away with little protest, and suddenly the action felt so wrong.

“You can’t have more than this.”

“I’ve got the whole amphora in my kitchen, give it to your men, they’d like it.”

He didn’t have the heart to look at you after that exchange, and were it not for the hushed breath ridden with rue, he wonders even now whether you would have known how much it pained to even see you lose your will to fight with him.

A light poke at his arm pulled him from the momentary lament, and your eyes, your bright eyes that had still yet to lose its brilliance crinkled together in an approximation of reassurance.

Reaching back into the depths of wherever you pulled the wine from again, you hummed, “I have something for you.”

“Is it more wine?”

It was not more wine, but rather a hefty bundle of letters, tied up in golden thread. Your handwriting littered the outside, detailing dates and times neatly at first until he got to the last few, lines shakier and less steady. The dates started the day he agreed to help you with his research, but your eyes rifled through the bunch until you pointed out a few.

“Could you read these first? You can read the rest when I’m gone.” He listened, gingerly removing them from the rest and unfurling it.

Parting hour’s second quint, tenth month

‘I dreamt of Kremnos last night, I don’t know whether it was a part of my dream but it felt like it was. I was younger, I could run so much faster and I could do so much more. You were younger too, but you were chained up in a cell and I had to come to your rescue. Could you believe that? Me? Saving you?

You looked so angry but I couldn’t hear you. I can’t remember much but I remember crying a lot, cursing while I fought off guards? I think they were guards, you’ll have to tell me what Kremnoan guards wore when you come back. My back hurts a little bit, my body probably thinks I was actually hurt.

Praise be to Kephale, wishing you safety upon your journey.’

Entry hour’s first quint, tenth month

‘I dreamt of you again. Maybe this is a sign of me missing you? This dream felt real, I think I’ve had it many times before but this was the only time I could recognise who was there with me. Did you know I wanted to be a doctor when I was younger? I only curse my vanity for my being a scholar now.

You were holding me so tightly while I said things, I don’t remember but I know you kept telling me to stay awake. I wish you were here, maybe I could see how you would react to these ridiculous dreams. Would you tell me I have a hyperactive imagination? Only the gods know how many times I’ve heard that from Potnia in my youth. I have a feeling you would indulge me just a little bit though.

Praise be to Kephale, wishing you a most swift return’

Curtain-fall hour’s fourth quint, eleventh month

‘I can’t sleep and I hadn’t the energy to write this morn so I thought to do so now, funny because Skotia keeps telling me I need to do more than sleep the day away. I remembered hearing a debate between my peers arguing on the matter of the afterlife back in my schooling days. One of them said all souls join our gods but another said that souls must return to the living, otherwise our lands would grow barren of life. They argued like that for about an hour until they were forced to leave. I completely forgot about it but with so much time alone, I couldn’t help but to think about it.

I keep seeing you in my dreams, myself as a warrior or a healer, but you remain the same. I dreamt of marrying you beneath the warmth of Kremnos one night, and I dreamt of carrying a young child through the mountains with you on another. The details are consistent, and I can only surmise that perhaps my peer had been correct about reincarnation.

When you come back, I want to know about the beaches of Cypris and the courting traditions of Kremnos. You should know, right? It's okay if you don’t remember, I just want to talk to someone for longer than an hour again.

Praise be to Kephale, I wish to see you most soon’

Gripping onto the furled scrolls, he managed to meet your eyes, gentle. Still so gentle.

“How did you know?”

With a wistful sigh, you dropped your gaze to your hands, flexing them as your rings glinted in the light. “I recognised the architecture, it really was as beautiful as you say.”

“My third life huh… Who else can say that?”

“I want to have more time with you. Maybe fourth time’s the charm.”

“Maybe next time you won’t get a wrinkly old thing like me,” You sounded so amused, yet your voice carried that undertone of remorse.

Next time? He never knows whether there’ll ever be a next time.

Outrage– no. Rage was an emotion too simple for what he felt then. It was fear, desperation, regret and guilt all honed into one lethal lance to be thrust into him, and such a wound was not one that could be utilised against the wielder, for one could not tear the machinations of death.

His voice trembled, and those walls crumbled ever more in the face of your acceptance, “Don’t say that, no matter what form you take, I’ll–”

“You don’t have to lie to old me.”

“You’re not that old,” Mydei insisted, pulling you closer when a shiver wracked through your form. He wanted to bring you back to your room, how the mildest of winds could dissuade you, but even now he knew you would have fought him on this one decision.

As though playing along with a young child, you shook your head and smiled, “Yes, yes, I’m as youthful as you and beautiful as Bepsis.”

“You are,” He insisted once more. “There is no one more beautiful than you.”

It was clear you still didn’t believe him and maybe if you’d have more time together, he would have spent more effort convincing you otherwise. He settled for the softening of your features, even after the passing of the years, you still looked as radiant as the day you fell from the skies.

Resting your head against his shoulder, your voice grew quieter.

“I feel like I could make you do anything now.”

“Will you find me? Next time we meet?”

“No matter where you are, I will bring you back.”

“Then, will you marry me when you do?”

“If you wish so, we can get married as soon as I find you.”

“Will you–” Usually so eloquent, your words lodged in your throat as you turned away from him. “Would you really keep loving me? Even if I change?”

He took your hands in his own, pressing a kiss to each of your palms and drank in the sight of your widened eyes and parted lips.

“I will sooner die than ever stop.”

For all his years in your presence, that rendered you speechless. And so you resorted to merely lying against him, muttering in rambled pace as you asked him about cremation or burial, on eulogies and your will to him. When the descent hour eventually fell, and so did your last words from your lips, Mydei could only tuck you closer into his embrace.

Delayer of old age. Your work will be tucked away in the shelves of great libraries, but it is only your most private writings that will remain immortal.

This time, he’ll be one who searches for you. He had nothing, for all he knows, you could have been reborn in Janusopolis or some long thrown region like Cytheri. Even then, he was willing to traverse the whole of Amphoreus if it meant he would be able to see you once more.

But Mydei finds you, far easier than he had expected, in the depths of the Marmoreal Palace just as the crimson thief star falls. That feeling that tugged at his tendons and played with his heart grew harder to ignore as he wandered sleepless amidst the ivory halls, and though he knew what it meant, he did not know where to go.

Tucked away amongst shelves and shelves of records with the hum of flowing waters to accompany him, that rush in his veins came to a stand still all of a sudden. Hunched over a random table and multiple open scrolls, he supposes that he’ll have to keep his first impression of you drooling onto what seemed like important accounts to himself.

It was endearing, he had to admit. Lashes fluttering as you babbled some nonsense he couldn’t quite hear, he took a few steps closer and your hands swatted at the dust around you. Anyone could have just snatched you away and you would have none the wiser. He stayed, somewhere further of course, otherwise who knows who might come to rob you naked.

And if the sight of seeing you resting so peacefully helped his own slumber, he won’t tell.

Child of Aidonia, follower of none, sharp witted and deathly reticent. Eye bags hanging ever present, arms constantly holding onto baskets of scrolls and ever ready to abandon your duties for a quick nap, the chief accountant is a position few envied and for good reason.

There was only one matter that troubled him, and that was exactly the nature of your job that meant seeking you out would be out of the ordinary. For what reason could he possibly devise to approach you? You reported directly to Aglaea and the council elders, all inquiries were directed to your subordinates and unless it was a matter that was urgent and required utmost discretion, you hid yourself away within the confines of your work desk.

He had once debated requesting your services to directly manage the accounts under his name, but when he thought of your drowsing form still writing and babbling about your work, he decided against it.

As the entry hour welcomes the new day, Mydei thought he got his chance when he saw you scampering towards Demetria with your basket, hair half done and the scowl on your face all but indicative of the current state you were operating in. The transaction is quick, barely any words exchanged as the older woman drops two pomegranates into your basket of scrolls while you drop a sack of balance coins by a crate.

Your scampering grows louder and louder, and perhaps he shouldn’t have been so entranced with even that sight of you since his first real, proper greeting is a hard thump into his shoulder. The contact does little but to send the contents of your basket flying, and though he has the reflexes to catch a few of your documents and the fruit, not everything is so lucky.

Dropping to your knees, your hands flew across the ground to gather everything back as you yammered, “I am– I am so sorry. I wasn’t– I haven’t–”

And when he offers what he has on hand, you snatch them back just as quick, blanching at him before rushing off, at least not before wheezing out a pathetic, “Sorry!”

You’re skinnier, he belatedly notices. Your face should not look so gaunt, nor should your grip be so weak. It was as if the mildest of winds could have drifted you away if you weren’t paying attention.

The thought of how to approach you lingers in his thoughts even as the Chrysos Heirs gather to discuss the state of their mission. He can’t even properly retort when Phainon says something ridiculous, offering a weak remark about how he’s not a single good thing in that head of his rather than scathing snark.

There isn’t much information recent nor shocking enough that he feels the need to fully push you away from his internal contemplation. Tribbie is about to say something when there’s a rhythmic thump that cuts through the air, and yet despite the interruption, no one pays you much mind when you all but slip yourself to the front, arms still filled with that basket.

“Lady Aglaea, I apologise for my interrupting but I have the reports you required.” Your voice is soft, marred with some elements of sleep but still reaching the ears of your intended. “I will leave them by the table if that is okay.”

“It is quite alright. Now that it has come to this, I believe we can bring this meeting to an end.”

Though everyone else trickles out of the room with varying levels of enthusiasm, he finds that he can’t tear his eyes away from you, even as an aggrieved expression crosses your face, the sight a fleeting minute but more than enough to spark a streak reserved for you. The grimace barely lasts, but it doesn’t diminish the desire to remove the source of your troubles yet still.

As you’re looking around, shiftily, as though you’ve done something wrong, your eyes meet his in a misplaced act of carelessness. In an instant, your tendons and ligaments shrink as you visibly tense at the brief eye contact. He wants to apologise, but then the thought of scaring you even more springs up on him far more shameful than any trap and so he doesn’t.

The goldweaver is quick to usher you away to somewhere more private, your tucked in shoulders only further highlighting the difference in your states. It was as if you were trying to make yourself smaller, trying to make yourself near unobservable to anyone else.

An approach of familiar steps is what ultimately snaps him out of his foolish trance, humour and some hint of disquiet seeps into a man’s voice, and when he brings himself to consider another presence beyond your own, he is graced with the deliverer’s amused grin.

The young man muses to no one in particular, blue eyes sparkling with mischief, “This is the first time you’ve lingered so long after a meeting.”

“That’s none of your business.” Biting back, he averts his gaze from your now laxed form. The diversion lasts but a second, before from the corner of his perception, he catches how the resigned breath that leaves your lips as you slip back out from whence you came.

Phainon follows after his abandoned trail with ventured interest. “Who knew that you of all people could get so googly eyed at…” Yet it is only when he gets a proper look at who exactly has captured the attention of his companion, his voice trickles off to little else but confusion, “The chief accountant?”

A huff escapes him, now that you have left, there was no point remaining here. “I’m leaving.”

Metal thumps against marble floors, for someone to slink out of his awareness so quickly, let alone you, would be impressive if not for the fact that he really still has no clue how he was going to talk to you without somehow upsetting your seemingly skittish senses.

“Hey! Wait!” Chasing after him with the fervor of a loyal dog, the only clue of how far exactly his search for you has taken him is by Phainon’s unprepared wheeze that even he has to admit, forced an even smaller snort out of the Kremnoan prince.

“If you really want to talk to them, I can get you just that.”

Mydei has the decency to face him, a brow cocking up in disbelief as he urgently suppresses that ugly feeling he only knew existed a few decades ago. “You? How would you even be able to do that?”

“You’d be surprised by the kinds of deals they cut,” The youth smiles, still panting as he slaps a friendly hand over his shoulder, a move that he doesn’t push off as the younger man begins his ‘master plan’.

Phainon’s plan sucks.

The warm light from hanging vessels of ever flame shine upon your features, bound up hair absorbing the light as you lead him through desks and shelves of sprawled books and people alike. Hands move at a pace bordering languid scrawl and eyes heavy with listlessness scan across multiple rows of work. Yet when they notice his towering form following after yours, their idle activity picks up to a peak, a notion that seems to surprise you judging by your raised brows.

You’ve exchanged little else but pleasantries the moment you saw who had called upon you, and once more he curses that white-haired idiot in his head for not even telling you. For someone so brilliant, this was the best he could come up with? He could have sworn he was lying but when he insisted up and down, swore on his name that he was telling the truth, far more desperately than he’s ever seen now that he looks back in hindsight, he relented.

You keep a steady stride despite the way your hands pick at your nails, and though you remained silent for what seems like the entire walk, you deign to give a younger man some matter of note as you draw closer to what appeared to be your office.

As Mydei is ushered in, the feeling of being trapped closes down onto him before anything else. The room is upsettingly small, made only more so with the looming bookshelves filled to the brim with records and books. He barely has the space to fully stretch out his limbs unless he wants to knock some important matter or two out of its place, and if he does, he has no doubt you would boycott any further interactions with him for life.

Beyond that, this pathetic excuse you called an office only had one other chair, a poor little thing he had to shift baskets upon baskets just to sit properly on.

You couldn’t seriously live like this, could you?

You don’t seem to mind any of it, settling down into your own seat as you hum to yourself, “Having someone they actually respect is the only way they’ll listen nowadays, they’re certainly doing much better with you here than when Lord Phainon offers his services.”

“You make it sound as if you’re being tortured,” All he manages is a brash riposte, and for a quick moment he almost believed you would shirk from his presence again.

Yet, you do little else than to bark out a sharp laugh, shaking your head as you murmur some incomprehensible vent. Glancing at him from beneath your lashes, your attention now fully directed to the sprawling scrolls across your desk, you tip your head to the side to urge his heed.

“Anyhow, I have food on the platter by my desk if you get peckish and an amphora of water on the shelves.”

“If you’d like, you can wander around though there isn’t much to see.”

For the next four hours, you’ve essentially shut him out from your perceptions as you pour over documents with names that did not belong to you, calculate matters as big as annual tax rates and small as the price of the ambrosia served in the palace.

There’s little else for him to do beyond reminding you to drink water, a notion you only mildly indulge him in, and glaring at any slacking fool that comes looking to dump more work on you. The only person who he lets come in is the youth from before, a young blond who only periodically drops by to take baskets of completed work off your hands.

The distress of your working conditions, and living conditions now that he’s been privy to many more of your little life within the marble walls, haunts him for days. It appeared that you weren’t the only one plagued with such woes, but you are certainly the one most affected by the inefficiency that infected your department. And yet, you did nothing to counter it, allowing your meagre office to grow so encroached with the faults of others all the while you smile and suck it up.

Another issue that can’t be solved with his hands.

When the hours grow late and the thief stars threaten to race across the bright skies once more, he finds the opportunity to ask you. The response hurts him more than he would like it to, and he wishes more than anything that he could take this suffering from you.

“Does it not bother you? That you have to do all the work?”

You smile at his question, the corners of your eyes crinkle together as a sardonic smile tugs at your lips. The flames of light dances within them, infusing your weary features with a spirited edge. In these quiet little moments where your every expression belongs only to him, no matter what emotion you present to him, he selfishly indulges in every inch of annoyance and mile of rue.

Vexation of the utmost resignation falls from your lips, droplets of water clinging to the soft skin. “I have little say over it, and it seems like with every new person that gets added to my team, my pay gets lower and my work gets heavier all because some old coots want their perfect little children to have the joy of a prestigious job without any of the miseries.”

“Do I look happy?” You hum.

Of course you don’t. He’s known you couldn’t possibly be happy the first time he’s laid eyes on you. But foolishly, he had hoped that you could find some sliver of joy from your work.

You are about to return to your work when he gingerly rises from his seat, offering an open palm to you. Your face twists, but it brings your hand to a standstill.

Mydei offers once more, “Come.”

“What?” Despite your confusion, you put down your pen and take his hand. Your palm is warm, slotting perfectly in his as he waits for you to straighten yourself out.

“I’m going out for something other than recycled air, and you look like you need a break from your self mutilation.”

A smile, one devoid of your neverending complaint or your heavy burden, blooms across your lips. And so he spirits you away from these walls of shelves and marble, jewellery and fabric dancing behind your rushed steps as though two lovers eloping from the eyes of the world. When you are eventually unable to keep up with him, he hefts you over his shoulder with nothing more than a brief stop, returning back to your fleet-footed journey.

The squeak that leaves your lips and the giggled mirth falling as easily as rain against him sends pleasant shivers through his bones, and he’s certain that he’ll think of those sweet sounds when you must eventually part.

He only sets you down when you’ve reached a garden hidden away from anyone who could possibly disturb you. Surrounded by the virtue of life, basking under the grace of heavenly light, free from those confines, he thinks he’s fallen in love all over again.

There stands you, leaning over marble railings and smiling at him, and now he’s all too aware of every movement he makes, every little twitch of your fingers and every inflection in your voice.

“I think I would’ve fallen dead over my desk if you didn’t drag me out here,” You laugh, joy and relief flickering in your eyes as you urge him over.

He listens. Of course he does. You could have him leap off this ledge and he would have done so if it means pleasing you.

You talk of everything and nothing. Your work, your meals, the pleasant conversation you’ve had with Phainon, how sweet the cloying wine you sneaked one night was. You spoke as if given a deadline on your life, and he held onto each and every piece you would give him, even as you devolved into petered silence.

That wretched star appears across the west, Mydei leans closer. “If there’s anything you want done, tell me.”

You only brush him off, as if indulging a child, “I couldn’t, you’ve done so much for me already.”

How can he tell you that he wants to be your shield and your spear? How can he tell you that beyond anything else, he wants to ensure that every waking day you spend, it is one that is filled with nothing but felicity. And if you would let him, how can he tell you that he wants nothing more than to lay by your side once more?

“Okhema would probably collapse if you die, and I can’t have that,” He continues, and you only laugh once more.

Perhaps not Okhema, but he would.

That too, he keeps to himself.

‘Got the day off and they’re doing a promo on those pancakes, you want?’

When Mydei’s teleslate lights up with your name decorating its screen, he scarcely has to even read before he’s racing off to your side.

The face you give him when he does appear, in front of a plate of golden honeycakes and a chalice of what he knows is apple juice, could only be described as incredulous. No matter that this must be the thousandth time he’s done so, you always act as if it was the first.

“You’re here fast,” You hummed with a pleasant squeeze of your eyes.

“You asked me out, and knowing you, you’d probably have to abandon ship to get back to work.”

He delights in the mock offence that immediately twists your features, the dramatic show of your arms, you even go so far as to hold a finger up, sipping from your cup before continuing. “Don’t curse me, I’m really looking forward to these.”

It's cute, he is certain you don’t realise that your dramatics are something he looks forward to even now.

Picking up your fork with poorly hidden anticipation, the metal surface spreads an even amount of sweet fruit syrup over the tower of cakes, and as you cut away a small piece, your teleslate rings to life upon the table.

A glower pulls onto his face, and what feels like the nth time, he understands in his gut how annoyed you must have been the first time this happened. His own irritation could not possibly compare to that of your own, the sheer chagrin that manifests in every limb is only masked by the sufferance you’ve honed so long ago.

As you pick up the call, your eyes close and your fingers press against your temple. “Hel– Hey!”

Still careful to not accidentally yank too hard, he snatches the device from your hand and checks the contact. Not Adon. Free game.

“They’re with me, if you have anything important it can wait until tomorrow,” Hissing into the speaker, he hears the person on the other end sputter out some remark about ‘unfinished reports’ and ‘mistaken data’ before he merely snorts and hangs up.

As if you were the one making some asinine mistakes easily fixed, you leap out of your skin, stealing your teleslate back before rushing to pack up. “I don’t even know who that was! Shit! I have to go back, I’m sorry but–”

Mydei has to grab you by the arm before you start running off on him again, an act that has you staring at him wide-eyed and betrayed.

“You said so yourself, you have the day off. And you’re spending it without worrying about what some freeloading idiot’s dad thinks,” He says, as clear as day and obvious as the skies.

“If anyone has a problem with that, they can talk to me.”

It takes a little more than that to convince you to stay, in fact, it requires footing your bill and being fed more than half of your pancakes for you to not go running off without his discretion again. But, there’s a noticeable lightness to your shoulders, and watching you eat so well is more than enough for him.

The descent hour has fallen upon this day, and your eyes keep glancing between him and the passing folk, then lower and back to the streets. You tense again, shrinking within yourself when he meets your gaze with little more than a raised brow. Acting as if you’ve been caught stealing, your ears flush hot as you rush to break the eye contact between you two.

Mydei leans closer to you, he notices some remnants of red syrup clinging to your lip, “What?”

“Nothing! I was just…” You swallow hard. “...just thinking about what to gift my cousin for their wedding.”

Somehow, he doubts that but he’d sooner drop dead than get you to admit what goes on in that head of yours. Instead, he settles for wiping off the stain of sweet fruit from your bottom lip with his thumb, licking it off when he pulls away. That only worsens the burning beneath your skin, and for the rest of your time together, all he gets from you is wide-eyed stares and rambled sputtering.

The Kremnoan leaves you at your doorstep that day, pomegranates pushed into his hands and a very, very oddly, high pitched farewell.

For the days following up to an annual get together, your actions have only gotten more and more odd to him. It isn’t quite the same in which you used to be, bothering him for this and that despite being able to ask anyone else, no. This course of mannerism you have chosen to go with is odd in the sense that it's confusing.

Although Mydei still joins you in your office whenever he has the chance, your voice doesn’t fill his ears quite as much. He has grown so used to your hushed mutterings of percentages and one sided conversations that now, he absolutely hates only being able to hear your writing. Every now and then, you would glance up at him and look away, murmuring beneath your breath before you’d squeeze your non-dominant hand tight.

He writes off your new behaviour as the effect of an overloaded workload. You’re still asking him to join you on your days off, you’re still staining your hands red with fruit to give him, you’re still welcoming his presence. He can accept that.

Your absence from his side during said get together is the only thing that worries him most, the glimpses he gets of you from afar just barely satiates that hunger to see you, to be near you. There’s still that flush aglow beneath your skin, your eyes crinkling together as you smile and laugh along to whatever it is that blond assistant of yours said. The warm lights cast a radiance onto your features, onto the valleys of your chest and the curves of your shoulders, a sight that once belonged to only him. Your lips wet and plied with drink, your tongue swipes over them but even that sends a heat through his form.

It's an ugly feeling, worse than anger or regret. Those had reason to exist, could be made into something bigger than petty disgust, but this… whatever this emotion is, can only be left to stew. He thinks he hates it more than anything else.

The prince must force himself to look away from you, an agonising feat he hadn’t even thought was possible until now. He makes that treacherous mind of his listen to the conversation to be had, endures Phainon’s teasing and the curious looks, anything to shift those thoughts of you out of his head. He makes himself smirk at snide remarks and offers advice, he makes himself ignore the intrigued look on that white-haired idiot’s face when he follows after his meandering gaze.

It doesn’t work, of course it doesn’t work. It is as if every part of him was made to search for you, and just sitting here knowing that you are but a few metres away is a torment he would not wish on anyone. He would rather you claw his heart with your own two hands than this, at least then you would be pouring your undivided emotion into him, at least then he would be the only one to have this part of you.

You’re the last remaining by the time the gathering dies down, with Adon trying and failing to pull you out of your seat, your hands waving him away as you mumble out something. And as he approaches you, you seem to perk up at his presence, a matter that he preens at internally.

Smiling at him, baring teeth and joy, you gesture for him to come closer with little care for your assistant’s nagging. “You’re here.”

A glance is all it takes for the blonde to throw in the towel, shrugging his shoulders before slinking out. Mydei takes this opportunity to bask under your gaze far swifter than logic should dictate, his form sidling to sit beside you and yet, you are faster, pressing yourself to his side as a strap upon your shoulder slips down.

“And you’re sitting here like you’ve been abandoned, because?” He manages a response, shooting his eyes upwards as he tentatively pulls up your fallen strap.

You don’t seem to notice, your arms drape around him as the weight of your body slumps, “I’m sleepy. And wine makes me say things people don’t like.”

He can feel your chest pressing into his arm, he can feel everything if he was to be honest with himself. Your gentle touch dancing on his skin, the warm breath from your lips, his every vein and bone, he’s so keenly aware of it all that he’s certain that a weaker man would have been rendered dead by your feet.

Your wide eyes meet his, watery with slumber and fiery with something distantly related to reliance.

“...come, I’ll take you back.”

Just like a time long before, he scoops you into his embrace and carries you through marble walls and flowing waters. Your feet dangle and kick along your mirth, and when you shiver from the wind, he simply holds you closer. This pleases you ever more, and knowing that even that could elicit such sweet sounds from you forced a flush of his own onto his cheeks.

With you like this, he can pretend that you’ve accepted these feelings for you the moment you met. He can pretend that he’s carrying you back to your shared home where he can place you into your sleepwear and lay next to you. He can pretend that what you feel for him is more than cursory friendship.

You wave at those sacked with the late shift all the while you babble about this and that, of your increased salary and the new flavour he must try when you get your next chance. There was no rhyme or reason to your rambling, but it is still yours, and so selfishly, he takes it. The Kremnoan man tries his best to respond, humming along to your prattle or offering an answer to your rhetorical questions, and even if your pace simply outpaces his own, he can’t help but to indulge you.

“Y’know, my family keeps asking me when I’m going to get married. But they don't even know that the only people I see consistently are my staff, Lady Algaea and you and I can’t possibly get married to any of you!” Your voice is louder than usual, as though scared he wouldn’t listen.

“And sure sometimes I dream of you and we’re always doing some sappy bullshit but those are dreams y’know? I’m pretty sure it's some weird past life thing but that feels worse. So there’s no way you could possibly love me when you have a face as handsome as that but every time I wake up it feels so nice so when I see you in my office I pretend you really are in love with me.”

You close your eyes, he’s not sure whether the glow on your cheeks is from the alcohol or emotion, and you giggle into your hands, “I had this dream you even took me once! No way is that happening!”

He can barely believe his ears at this moment, barely process your speech. His brain has almost likened your drunken chatter for a different tongue that he can’t even muster a response. All he manages is a choked out, “You…”

“Ahh, it's fine. I’m sure you’ll get tired of me one day, they always do.” Resting your head as casually as if uttering the weather rather than implying he could do anything other than love you, you turn those watery eyes onto him again, and like a death sentence, he feels his heart ache. “If I fall asleep, can you stay? I’d feel bad if you didn't.”

Mydei doesn’t get the chance to respond, still too struck with the weight of your words to realise you’ve fallen to slumber in his embrace.

‘...I pretend you really are in love with me.’

Pretend. How foolish of the both of you, that two separate minds would both desire the other’s love yet be too cowardly to seek it out, to pretend that the other is in love with you.

Then the next part fully registers in his head, and then the last.

He opens the door to your house, closing it behind him as he settles you into your bed. The prince is half tempted to steal into the night, but when his eyes inevitably drift to your sleeping form, drool leaking onto your pillow as you mutter nonsense to yourself, he can’t bring himself to leave you.

How could he ever grow tired of you? If anything, with every passing day he spends in your very existence, he falls deeper into the abyss called love. He can scarcely remember what your past lives looked like anymore, in his memories they all have your face and your voice, and he wonders now how much of it is because of this ache in his chest.

Your gentle touches, your barking laughter, your sharp remarks, your rambling speeches. The way you look at him as if he is nothing more than a mortal man.

In your befuddled slumber, his name falls from your lips, again and again until something he never thought he’d ever hear comes tumbling out, “...I love you too, Mydeimos.”

He wants nothing more than just to be a mortal man who loves you.

That him of the past that once said torment was to be in the same room with you yet unable to be by your side could not possibly have known that there is greater affliction.

He awoke in your house with the sunlight streaming through your window and your blanket carefully draped over him, the smell of your soap clinging to the fabric and his senses. There was a cup of water on your bedside table, left there with nothing to accompany it. He half expected to hear you shuffling back in or your faucet running from somewhere, and yet there was no one but him left alone once more.

Every morning he passes by the fruit vendor, Demetria is bound to ask about your wellbeing and not even he can find the heart to tell her. So he affirms her theory of your rush and takes your pomegranates, leaving the exact amount needed to pay despite her protests.

Every morning he is barred entry from your office, and all he can do is leave your fruit in Adon's hands.

You’re cruel. To have offered all your love onto a golden platter then snatched it away the moment he thought he could finally have it. He’d rather never have your love than to never see you again.

Since becoming so keenly intertwined with your life, he waits until the thief star appears upon the eastern skies to find you. He knows there won’t be anyone, and foolishly, he hopes that means you’ll be honest with him.

“As I’ve said, they aren’t currently taking visitors right now. Not only that, but it's literally the crack ass of curtain-fall, go back.”

But as always with you, it seems that Adon is somehow always there to be his obstacle. The youth is obstinate in his insistence that Mydei not even be allowed to leave a message, and for a man who has rarely ever wished violence on those undeserving, he’s starting to wonder how much you pay him if it means that lap dog would stop his path so earnestly and whether its worth it.

With closed eyes and an exhausted sigh, you emerge from your office reprimanding the blond, “Adon, who the hell are you arguing with? Just because Lord Mydei hasn’t been h–”

You must have been expecting someone else to so easily hang his name by his lips, but it's clear that his appearance is not one you appreciate right now.

The first thing he notices is the tear tracks down your face, akin to fiery magma when illuminated by the torches hanging above. They’re fresh, still dripping from your lashes as you gape at him. Your lips have been bitten entirely raw and bloody, crimson staining beneath your nails.

Your assistant scowls and twists to shove you back in, but you catch him before he can do so, averting your eyes as you hiss, “Let him in.”

Only then does the blond relent, still sending him a nasty look before you send the youth one yourself, effectively hushing Adon.

Your office somehow feels even smaller than it did when you first met. You seemed to have abandoned the thought of organisation as now even the floor is littered with scrolls and baskets. He, and you, have but a small patch of clear space, an arm’s length away.

There is no pomegranate by your desk, not even the carcass of one at this late hour.

Faced with your back, with your clear sorrow and misery, the thought of spilling his most vulnerable emotions vacates.

“You’ve been crying.”

“You’d cry too if you had to do what I’m doing.” You only retort, voice barely above a whisper as though to not betray that facade you always put up, “Is that all you came to say?”

You won’t look at him.

Mydei calls your name and your shoulders shrink onto themselves, a repressed weep wracking through your form. He calls for you again, “Is someone bullying you? Who is it?”

You still won’t look at him.

He wants to throw his pride off this ledge, he wants to lay his head by your feet, he just wants to bring your face into his hands and take your suffering from you. Because if Nikador has cursed him with this undying body, then let him put it into good use for you.

Not daring to reach for you, his voice fractures at its very foundations, “Please. Tell me what is bothering you, if I have done anything to wrong you–”

“Wrong me? Mydei,” You rasp, words all too shaky as your eyes spill more of your salient despair. “It is exactly because you didn’t that I can’t stand looking at you.”

You’ve never been particularly eloquent, not with him, not now. Not as you choke on your own emotion and words, pawing at your bloodshot eyes and clawing at your scalp. “I– I can’t– I’m not– why are you—”

Your knees weaken, and before they can give out on you, he reaches forward to soften your fall. Mydei pays no mind to the brief shock of pain that comes from the sudden action, instead focusing on how much harder your chest heaves and your desperation for breath as you collapse into yourself. It only worsens when you see him by your side, when you realise what he’s done for you.

“Breathe, you have time.” He forces you to sit up, keeping his distance despite how badly he wants to hold you.

You shake your head, trying your best to speak as clearly as possible, “I can’t– I’m not– the kind of person people like you should care about.”

“And why not? Do you think I would be so cruel to you?” He asks, like an idiot.

“I don’t know!” You snap, because really, your patience for him should only go this far. “I can’t throw myself into glorious battle for you, or protect you. I can’t do anything for you! For all I know, the only reason you’re even here is so you can fulfill what a version of me wants.”

“But guess what? That me is dead! Every single version of me you love is dead! And all you have now is a pathetic fool who thought they could have that too!”

He stares at you, your wet eyes and wet anger, your humiliation he now understands burning at every single rational thought that could possibly cross your mind.

Mydei has failed you.

You’re finally looking at him but your sorrow shrouds you, you still won’t look at him.

He doesn’t know what to say, he knows that at this very moment you might not believe him but you have time, you have time together and that’s all he needs.

Inching closer, he takes your lack of movement as a sign of acceptance.

“I could care less about what you can or can’t do for me, I love you no matter who you are, regardless of who you were.”

They’re warm, he finds your hands and cradles them within his own and he can feel every line and scar that has marred the soft skin. The soft act rips another flinch from you, but you don’t move away, staring at him with wide eyes and quivering lips.

He presses his lips to your non-dominant hand, littering gentle kisses along each and every bloodied mark as he murmurs, “You could tear every tendon from my body and I would still crawl back to you.”

Your dominant hand, the one that wields a weapon far more lethal than any lance, is most deserving of this. “If you think my love for you is that shallow, I am willing to spend the rest of our lives proving otherwise over and over again.”

More tears only streamed down your cheeks when he finishes, but the way you lean closer into him, it is as if you’re all he can see and all he will know. He would like that, for the world to fall away for just this moment so that he can show you how much he adores you on his knees.

“Would you…?” You don’t finish your question. You don’t need to.

‘You’re beautiful here, under warm lights and with wet eyes, in your too small office and your undone hair’, Mydei thinks, selfishly, ‘and in his arms’.

He holds you against him as tight as he can, as if slackening his hold would let you slip away from him. The arms that drape themselves atop his shoulders seem to share that very same fear, and when a hand of his slings itself on your hip, a soft sob escapes your sweet mouth. Your body is still twisted in some odd angle, spine trying to compensate for the distortion before he simply shifts your legs proper himself.

Your eyes upon him, reflection bearing only him, you’re looking at him. Before he can say anything, you lean in for a clumsy kiss.

Teeth clack together as the taste of your blood and tears fill his senses, his lip catches on your canines at times but you’re quick to correct course, adjusting your head to avoid nipping him anymore. He responds in kind, squeezing his arms around you harder as he presses into the kiss.

You kiss like a starved man, taking everything he gives you as if he’d take it back the next. The prince yields to you, providing little protest in a way he will only ever for you.

Murmuring against your bloodied lips and sharp teeth, he promises to you, “...over and over again, as long as you let me.”

Adon received the title of vice-chief the day a few days after your honest confrontation. You had vouched for the young man in an effort to reward the new talent but based on the youth's horror struck face, you’re half certain that he’s been cursing you out in his head since the revelation.

Anyhow, with Adon being able to exercise a higher degree of power and the threat of actually being sacked hanging above some staff’s heads, you happily filed a request for leave and immediately took off the moment it got approved.

At least, that must be what your love was hoping for.

Kneeling by the desk of your office, you gestured towards a few baskets surrounding it as your eyes darted between the documents on the table and Adon’s dying hope. “These need to be done and in Lady Aglaea’s hands before I get back, if not, we’re all going to get it.”

“Yeah, yeah, congratulations on your wedding too, don’t die I guess,” Without wasting a minute, he rolls his eyes as his hands start the first few stages of preparation. And as if you were deaf, he mutters under his breath, “What kind of world are we living in that you get married within three months?”

“A nice one that rewards people who get work done.”

The blond just sneers, “Pah, if I didn’t know better I’d ask which old bag you shacked up with to be looking like this.”

There was a kernel of truth to such an acerbic statement, truth be told ever since your feelings have been pitched down by the weight of your lover’s clarity, you’ve had the excess time to put more effort into your appearance. Well, effort is an understatement as now you’ve been receiving and wearing the many gifts as per customary of the wedding process. Golden hairpieces, necklaces with deep sapphires, rings to adorn your fingers, robes of smooth sheen draped over your shoulders, to the untrained eye, you appeared more of a nobleman’s spoiled wife than the chief accountant of the Marmoreal Palace.

“And if you did know better you wouldn’t have said that,” Your voice comes out a hum, less interested in disturbing the boy from his work than waiting for a certain someone.

When the sounds of chatter die and the scrawl of writing starts, you still feel lightheaded at the thought of him, at the sight of him. Striding amidst the now hard at work, a smile breaks onto your face as you urge for him to come closer.

“My love!”

Mydei sends a triumphant glance at the now grimacing Adon as he enters the cramped room, ignoring the fake gagging and retching with an open hand offered to you. “Have you sorted everything? Or will you leave me high and dry for the palace’s ‘negative’ cash flow again?”

“That was one time!”

“Of course, as you say,” He only raises a brow and grins at your rebuttal.

You’ll dig yourself out of any grave for him. Thanatos will have to fight you tooth and claw for you to consider ever leaving him again. How could you possibly leave him here? Even thinking about it spirits you.

You want to spend the rest of your days with him under the bright light of day, you want to fuss and talk his ears off as he looks at you with those lovestruck eyes, you want to return to his homeland and learn all there is about him. You want to be a person who loves him more than ever.

Taking his hand into yours, you bring it up to press a soft kiss to his palm, gentle and cherished. A small smile is all you can muster, “You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want to get rid of me now.”

“As if I could ever.”

Mydei leans closer, as though fettering himself to you for the rest of time untold.

“Can you two get out?!”

#honkai star rail #hsr #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #hsr mydei #mydei #mydeimos #mydei x reader #x reader

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riahreadz · 8 months ago

Text

Okay ideal Teen Wolf fanfic pack Take 2! 🎬 Sterek✨️

If Derek is Alpha, then obviously Stiles is Pack Mom and Alpha Mate.

All the good fics have Peter as a good little wolf or at least relatively good to the Hale Pack whilst protecting them doing some dirty work as the Left Hand. Peter and Stiles, as best friends, 🤌🏼✨️ is just t it's golden. Derek honestly gets scared when they team up - he knows it'll never end well, especially if Erica is involved. Peter supplies Stiles with all the family heirloom books and artifacts or from his own personal collections.

Stiles just has a habit of collecting Hales, first Derek, then Peter, Cora, and even Malia.

And in the rarity that I read a fic where Ell isn't Stiles's son well Stiles took one look at the kid (maybe before he even knew Eli was Derek's) and filed him under Lost (Hale) PuppyTM Derek is particularly fond of Stiles's seemingly sixth sense when it comes to protecting the Hales. Despite also yelling at the younger man who can't get it through his thick skull that putting himself in the line of danger won't help Derek losing him anymore than losing another Hale.

Somewhere along the way, Peter gets back together with Chris cause, yes, they dated as teens with an unfortunate near 20-year pause due to the Argent/Hale shit show extravaganza. They are raising their teen/young adult daughters Allison and Malia as sisters - bonus points if Jackson and Malia are twins.

Now I can't for some reason ever really see Allison and Isaac being romantically involved after her death and resurrection. Usually, Stiles figures some way to bring her back,and going forward, she gets back with Scott, Issac becomes dependent on Chris as a father figure, so Allison and Issac are just good friends once she's back. OR he sees Derek as a brother or father figure kinda situation being the Alpha that originally turned him, and skips over the emotional attachment to Chris all together.

Malia and Kira make for an interesting side ship that I never saw coming but a cute addition lol

Boyd and Erica are mates, obviously. Erica is a little shit just like Stiles and especially teaming up with Stiles, but Boyd balances her crazy. Crazy fun that iS.

I do love a good fic with Cora being involved. The dynamic of her and Derek finding their footing once again as siblings just makes me super emotional, okay? Plus, Cora and Isaac make for a good couple/mates.

Given that I love a good bad friend Scott fic, Isaac has pulled away from following Scott like a lost puppy. His lost puppy status belongs to Cora or Derek, depending on whose good side he's trying to get on that day. But back to Scott - his main roll usually is to tear down Stiles or attempt to anyway. Usually, Allison is there to gather his wits back together and reel him back into being a good friend. I'im game with a good redemption arc for him, but it ain't required.

Lydia and Stiles make a good team, and she makes a damn good motivational ass kicker when Stiles needs one, which is usually at least once in every fic, let's be honest. She's either with Jackson or just a bad ass that doesn't need a partner to ground her. Jackson is still an asshole - it's why we love him. But he and Stiles develop a pretty decent friendship when they bond over healing from losing control from the Kanima and Void. He'd kill to protect Stiles. They all would. He's with Lydia, Danny, or Ethan.

Now we can't forget Sheriff Stilinski, rather his name is Noah or John, he's a big player in this pack. Despite being only human, he has a lot of sway when it comes to this rag-tag group of puppies and puppy adjacents. Derek and him make for a good team in the fics. Derek is a deputy. Or just the Sheriff adopting Derek as an unofficial Stilinski once he realizes his son won't ever let go of the Hales but especially one Derek Hale - plus it's easier to expain to his across-the-street-neighbor that Derek is family rather than filter through the panicked 911 calls of astrange man in a black leather jacket climbing once again through his son's bedroom window. Cause the Hales don't know how to use front doors - a trait they passed along to the whole pack like a worst kept secret family tradition.

Oh, and it's recently been brought to my attention that the Sheriff is in a secret relationship with his deputy Jordan and eventually gets exposed by Stiles seeing them on a date. Bonus points if it turns into a double date. Didn't know I needed this one until I needed it. However, I'm down for seeing him with Melissa or even a thropple with Chris and Peter. If he's with Melissa, then Scott has to have a redemption arc, or he was the good best friend/step brother all along.

And last but certainly not least, Eli Hale or shall I say Eli Stilinski-Hale or Hale-Stilinski? Doesn't matter as long as we all can agree that Elis Stiles's son. l'm not picky on whether it's adoption, mpreg, or Stiles and Derek got together after Eliwas born. Stiles. Is. Eli's. Father.

If some of this seems repeated from my Steter Ideal Pack - well, that's cause it is, lol. I wrote this first but finished Steter before Sterek. I'll probably rewrite this cause it's rushed, but I need to get it out to link for my Secret Santa in the Sterek Exchange.

✋️🛑 Now, all of this is just my personal preference on fics I've read. A lot of these obviously stray from the actual character on the show but 🤷🏻‍♀️ show canon meet 🫱🏻‍🫲🏽 one person's fanfic canon. All respect and rights for the cast and crew in bringing these characters to life, though. Also, I'm not saying that I won't read fics that don't include this stuff - like I've mentioned just some stuff I've read over the years and liked. ✋️🛑

#teen wolf #sterek #derek x stiles #stiles stilinski #derek hale #peter hale #chris argent #isaac lahey #lydia martin #allison argent #scott mccall #cora hale #malia tate #jackson whittemore #erica reyes #vernon boyd #eli hale

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atoltia · 10 months ago

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We all make our choices (don't go too far)

Eiland finds the farmer injured and bleeding at the entrance of the mines.

TW: blood, panic attack

Tags: angst with good ending

Eiland x gender neutral farmer

-0-

It was his fault.

He didn't know it would come down to something like this, didn't really think about the consequences of his decisions.

It was just so exciting at first. They'd finally have a chance to open the mines again. It just made sense in his mind. Despite the destruction the earthquake caused, it also shifted the land so much that artifacts and hidden ruins that were once completely hidden were much easier to find.

And that was great, no? Their museum needed that, needed new things to make it a place where people all around Aldaria would come to visit and be happy. Mistria definitely needed it, needed that sort of attention since he knew how much of a challenge it was just to get some of the scraps from the Capital, even with their mother and father's influence.

He just wanted what was best for Mistria, wanted what he knew would bolster their renown tenfold. It was for knowledge, it was for truth. It was selfless.

He was selfish.

He should've known, should've known, should've known. Should have listened to Errol when the man aired his concerns. Should have done more research about the mines that they had. Should have asked Olric about the things that lurked there.

But he didn't.

And you had to pay for it.

-0-

It was like any other day for you.

You did your morning chores, did your daily greetings, did your daily deliveries. You remembered spending a few minutes hanging out with Reina at the inn, with her talking about the latest recipe she was developing.

She gave you some, of course. She always made sure to save you a serving to take to the mines since it wouldn't do anyone good if you went hungry there.

And it wasn't like you'd ever refuse, even though you did think it was unnecessary. You know that you have a good head on your shoulders and wouldn't put yourself in any needless risk. Yes, accidents can happen but you've assured Dr. Valen multiple times that you'd get out of the mines the moment you get into trouble.

Yeah, you were in big trouble this time.

You remembered a rather peculiar mound of dirt at the thirty-fifth floor of the mines the last time you were there. It wasn't like you didn't see mounds of dirt anywhere else, but you knew, just knew it in your gut that there was something special there.

An artifact, maybe? It's been a while since you've gotten a legitimate artifact. The Caldosian sword that you've given to the museum was the last one and it's already been several months since you've found another one like it.

You hoped to find another one, even if it was a small piece of pottery or a broken stone tablet. You like seeing the museum fill up with artifacts from a different time, a different age. It was wonderful.

(And it also didn't hurt that it made Eiland ridiculously happy.)

It took a while for you to admit it. You didn't even want to think of it the first time you had the smallest inkling of it. You didn't come here for romance, not really. Retirement. That was the plan. To have a place to call your own, to earn an honest living without the stress and dangers of mercenary life. The mines provided enough thrill for when you needed it, anyway.

But there was something, a tiny little thing, whenever you see Eiland smile. There was that shine in his eyes that just blew away all the shadows that lodged in your heart. There was a melody to his laugh that you found you couldn't get enough of, couldn't get out of your mind. It made you go insane.

And you tried, didn't you? Tried so damn hard to just forget it, forget him, and just focus on your damn self.

Of course, we both know just how weak you are to such things.

He was just so goddamned earnest whenever he talked to you, whenever he rambled on about the history of an artifact that you've brought, of the history of this place, of the several nuances in the transitions from age to age - you didn't stand a chance.

So there you were, deep into the mines with a shovel and brush in hand, carefully extracting a broken piece of pottery engraved with words that you didn't understand.

Really, it was your fault for not fully clearing the area before you decided to dig.

You barely noticed it, barely heard the sound of the... blob? slime? heading straight towards you as you still had both hands deep into the dirt. But you felt it, though. You sure as hell felt it when a projectile the size of a fist hit you straight in the chest, hurting like a bitch.

Your sword was in your hand, quickly parrying the projectiles to send them back as you know it to be the most effective way to kill those blobs. But the throbbing at your chest distracted you too much, the blinding white of the pain making you blind.

You didn't see the other one.

It happened so fast you barely even felt it. You just knew that you fell back into the rocks, knew that you couldn't see a damned thing, and knew you had to get the fuck away.

The handles for the elevator levers were slick. It took several tries, several pulls before you were able to jumpstart the mechanism, wincing as several more projectiles hurled at your already battered body.

It took a minute. Sixty agonizing seconds before you finally reached the top of the mineshaft. Just get out, just get out, just get the fuck out and get some help.

You made it a few steps, one foot after the other, which in itself was a testament to your strength of will. Breathing was difficult and you could barely see as the world kept spinning, swaying, doubling and tripling.

You swore as your leg gave way, and once again you fell down, down to the ground as the cavern kept moving under your gaze, your hand the only thing to catch your fall. Just needed to get back, needed to get help, needed to -

The sight of your hand perplexed you.

It was like as it was normally, more scratched, dirt underneath your fingernails. But there was a slick to it, trailing down, down, dripping onto the floor.

You didn't realize your breath pick up, didn't realize the way your heart started beating wildly as you turned your eyes from your hand to your waist.

And then you saw nothing else.

-0-

He didn't know what he would have done if he didn't convince Errol to take that walk with him.

It was a cool night, the crisp autumn air a refreshing sensation against their skin as it blew away the slight inebriation they had after a few glasses of wine at the inn.

It wasn't all that late into the evening. The other townspeople would most likely still be at it for a few more hours yet. He knew that Adeline wanted him to take another hour more to just enjoy the merriment of the place, but he was just so ecstatic at the find he and Errol unearthed at the Western dig site.

Errol humored him, as he always did, and he did admit that he also wanted to get in a few more hours of work on the thing before heading to bed.

"I can't believe winter's coming around." The wind blew at Eiland's cape, rustling against his covered body. His soft, bubblegum pink hair dancing amidst the evening chill. "Adeline's already started with the logistics for this year winter festival with Nora, so we'll probably gonna be busy in the next couple of months."

He laughed, playfully nudging Errol at the next gust of wind when he stopped, raised a brow.

Eiland looked around, his brows furrowing as he turned. Errol stopped along with him, frowned as his companion did.

"Is there something wrong?"

"I think I saw something." Eiland kept turning, looking, his hands now pulling his cape closer to his body. "I think-"

He gasped, blinked, when he thought he saw the wind and leaves assemble themselves into the visage of a dragon. It held his gaze for a heartbeat, and then another, before rushing into the cave entrance.

Eiland followed without a moment's hesitation.

And almost gagged.

He saw you on the ground, eyes turning glassy as you weakly attempted to staunch your own wound.

There was blood, there was blood, there was so much blood as he stood there, eyes wide, body frozen. It was so dark, so dark and yet he could still see the glint of the one eye that peaked out from beneath your hair, the shine of it dulling by the second.

He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what to do, didn't know what to do please someone help, he didn't know what to do-

Eiland was pushed aside rather harshly as Errol stepped into the entrance, already pulling out a clean kerchief from his coat pocket. "Pull yourself together, Eiland!"

Dazed, still confused, Eiland stumbled forward to where you laid, choking in a sob when those blinking eyes of yours focused slightly the moment he got into your space, your bruised and bleeding lips quirking upwards into a soft, somewhat cocky smile at the mere sight of him.

"Don't look too good there, Pink."

"Don't talk," Eiland whispered as he desperately tried to apply pressure onto your wound. "Please." He tried hard to concentrate on the task at hand, pointedly ignored the heat of your blood on his hands. "Please just don't talk."

"Let's get them to Valen." And in one swift motion, Errol muscled you onto his wide, wide shoulders, marching as fast as he could towards town.

And still, the thick scent of iron never left his senses.

-0-

It was close to dawn when Eiland came back to the manor.

Yet the sun hasn't peaked through the horizon yet, hasn't broken the tight clutches of the night.

There were bags underneath his eyes, a paleness to his otherwise rich brown skin. His soft, pink hair mussed from being tugged at too many times that night.

The usual bounce that pepped his step was gone. That bright, enigmatic energy that bounded with him whenever he walked was nowhere to be seen.

It was touch and go, the doctor said. Minutes. It all came down to minutes. If he and Errol were a mere five minutes too late...

His legs buckled, his exhausted body hitting the wall with a loud thud, his elbow rapping against the stone when his hand wasn't fast enough to brace him.

The sharpness of the pain jolted him, woke him, pulled him back to reality as he felt the burn of the bile that he's been holding all night tickle at the back of his throat.

You almost died. He saw it clearly on Valen's face when she tended to you, saw the way her eyes turned stony when those deft hands of hers worked on you.

There was a grimness to it. Those first two hours were the slowest of his life as he waited for Valen's word. As he waited with baited breath, waited, prayed to the dragon that oversaw the ancient people of the land from a time long gone.

The dragon was there. He saw it. So he prayed to just- please, please, please wherever it was, he just pleaded for it to watch over you.

He clutched his chest, those long fingers of his tugging, his hands pushing at his chest with the heel of his palm as he just couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe-

Eyes, bright with panic, looked around desperately, looking for something to hold on to, something to help, someone to help. But there wasn't. He was alone, he was alone, he was alone and there was no one else there everyone else was already asleep he had no one there at the time oh god please please please just help him up just help him up please it was his fault it was his fault it was his fault he knew that it was his fault that you almost died please it hurts it hurts it hurts so much please-

"Eiland!"

He choked, tears falling down his face like a violent torrent as slender arms reached over, encircling them around his waist. Smaller, firmer hands pulling him into a comforting embrace as the other rubbed at his back.

"A-adeline?"

"I've got you."

She lowered his head onto her shoulders and just rocked him, rocked him until his body unclenched, until his breathing evened out. It didn't matter how long. Didn't matter how hard he clawed at the carpet. Her brother was in trouble. That was the only thing that she needed to know.

She smelled like the plum blossom perfume that she loved, the sweetness of his evident on her being. And yet it couldn't replace smell of iron on his nose, couldn't distract him from the shaking of his hands as he remembered your blood, slick and hot, painting them with a horrifying red.

It was there, it was there, it was still there no matter how hard he scrubbed them away to the point where his hands were rubbed raw.

Not even the visage of his beloved sister could take away the image of your broken body laying just a few feet away from the mines elevator, your blood pooling around your body as your one visible eye stared at him as if it was you who came to save him instead.

It was his fault, it was his fault, it was his fault.

"No," Adeline said as she shushed him, maneuvering his body into a more comfortable position while they sat on the floor, the light of dawn slowly breaking through the massive windows. "No, it's not."

"I pushed for the mines to open, it was my fault. I almost killed-"

"You did no such thing!"

"How do you know?" His voice was barely a whisper, a pathetic blow of air as he drenched his sister's shoulder with his tears. The hands that were clawing at the carpet, now ruined with his own blood, gripped at Adeline's dress. "How do you know?"

"I just do." The way his brother cried devastated her. In all the years that they've lived together, in the years that they grew up together, she's never seen him this way and it just tore her to shred.

She tugged him up. "You need sleep."

He didn't resist. Not even when she hauled him to his bedroom, not when she removed his cape, not when she urged him to take his boots off, not when she tucked him under the covers.

"I'll be here, " she assured him as she pulled a chair over. "Just go to sleep."

He fell asleep in seconds.

-0-

Eiland sprinted to the clinic by mid afternoon.

He just woke up and without any other thought, just bolted out of bed to go to you. He didn't know what time it was, found that he didn't care. He just knew that he needed to get to you.

He quickly rapped at the door, his bandaged fingers stinging, as he looked around the window, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of you.

Valen opened the door, and Eiland noted the bags under her eyes, but she smiled at him as she let him in, chuckling as he headed straight towards the single private room she had at the clinic.

He did his best to be quiet as he peered through the door, fully expecting you to be fast asleep.

You weren't, to his dismay, if the flutter to your eyes at the sound of his footsteps was an indication.

You've been in and out of sleep for the past few hours. Doctor Valen assured you that everything was going well, though you weren't sure if that was the truth or if she just didn't want to scare you any further.

There was barely any memory of that night. You remembered that you were getting artifacts, remembered that you got attacked. But other than that? Nothing.

So to wake up at the clinic was a surprise, if a little terrifying. You weren't really the type to be fond of clinics and hospitals, even though you should have been used to it given the requirement of it ordered by your guild.

You just had to suck it up since you were already there. You weren't stubborn enough to ignore an injury, especially when said injury left you bedridden for the whole damned day.

It was boring here, too. Maybe you could borrow a book from Valen later, but other than that, there was nothing else that you could do except for maybe sleeping another ten hours away.

So to have Eiland peep through the door was a welcome distraction.

And yet you frowned. His hair was in disarray. Exhaustion was evident on his face and there was a hollowness to his expression that upset you.

You didn't like that expression on his. Didn't like it one bit.

"How are you?"

There was a smile on that tired face, and you were a little relieved to see that it reached Eiland's eyes.

"I wanna go home," you said a little cheekily. "I hurt like hell and I wanna sleep on my own bed."

The chuckle that Eiland gave was all the lift you needed, ecstatic that it seemed to push the dark cloud over the man's head away. But it seemed to have come back just as quickly.

Eiland tried to hold it together, did his best to not show you just how terrified he was. But seeing you on the bed, with flecks of dried blood on your face and fingers, with bruises that littered your body, was very close to breaking him.

He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes as his fingers clutched at your bedsheets. His lips trembled so much that he bit it. Hard. But still it didn't stop the tears from flowing.

"I'm sorry."

You frowned. "What for?"

"It's just-" he looked away, tried to reach for the composure that was ingrained in him since a very young age. "I'll talk about it later, okay? After you've been discharged."

It upset you to not know what was hurting him like this, but seeing how he seemed like he was only being held together by a single thread, you let it go.

"Come here," you said when Eiland kept quiet. You took his hand when he reached over, tugged him closer to you, holding his trembling hand in yours.

"I was so scared," Eiland murmured as he massaged the back of your hand. "I was so scared that I-" He caught himself, inhaled. Looked away.

"I thought I was going to lose you."

You blinked at him. And it clicked.

You smiled.

"You won't. I promise."

And you held each other's hand even though the day grew long, even when Valen asked if Eiland would stay the night.

He did, of course. He wasn't going to leave you anytime soon.

---

Check out my masterlist! and feel free to send requests in if you like haha

So I thoroughly enjoyed writing the entirety of this lmao

angst is just so fun to write.

#fields of mistria #fields of mistria eiland #fieldsofmistria #fom #fom eiland #fields of mistria farmer #fields of mistria eiland x farmer #fom eiland x farmer #fields of mistria errol #fields of mistria valen #fields of mistria adeline #my writing #atoltia writes in mistria #angst #angst with a happy ending

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imaginesmai · 1 year ago

Text

His precious treasure - Eris Vanserra

First time writing for Eris! Let me know what you think

Plot: Beron manages to ask the right questions at the wrong moment, making Eris suspicious of your safety. His hidden treasure in the forest, where he cannot get fast enough.

Warnings: mention of torture, death and blood.

His steps resonated through the long corridor, servants and guards bowing to his presence. They never met his eyes, not even when he was just a young prince who barely reached their waists. He used to fool himself thinking it was out of respect, out of fear. But Eris had learned that it was easier to ignore the problems of their loved court, the abuse, when they didn’t look at him.

Countless times he had walked down those corridors with blood streaming down his face, bloody nose and bruised eyes. Burned flesh and peeled skin. It used to bother him their indifference, but that day, he barely paid them any attention.

All his focus was set in leaving the palace he called home as soon as possible without looking suspicious, without letting anyone know the terror that threatened to paralyze him.

Eris could feel his eye bruising, the burn marks on his back and chest from his father later outburst. He didn’t mind the abuse, could endure it just fine. What was breaking his soul in two were the answers his father looked with that abuse, and that he had managed to hide. But Beron was asking questions he shouldn’t have been formulating.

“Tell me, my son. Why do I keep receiving notices of your disappearances? Why are my guards worried that you might be lacking in your efforts to keep this court standing?” Beron had asked before backhanding Eris in his office. “Should I be worried about your not-so-subtle trips to the forests?”

The excuse had fallen from his mouth naturally, like he had always planned. Testing the borders for possible threats, assuring the outer posts were functioning correctly, searching the ground with his hounds.

Eris had swallowed every hit and humiliation with a tight jaw, only answering when he was spoken to. He had closed you off the bond and hoped to be strong enough for you not to notice. Then, Beron’s had asked him that damned question and his resolution had cracked.

“You look distracted lately, maybe that’s why you keep forgetting to update me about your whereabouts” Beron snarled, as if the sight of the blood spilled by his hand unsettled him. Then, he locked his eyes with Eris and fire danced behind them, and he smiled. “Maybe it’s the recent lack of servants what has your mind busy. Strange and unexplained disappearances, right?”

He was sure Beron had bought his indifference, or he wouldn’t have let him go. But he still raced through the hallways, a bad feeling twisting his gut. Running would catch too much attention, yet he knew leaving after his father’s questions was an answer by itself.

Eris prayed to the Cauldron, to whoever had unanswered his prayers through his life, that he arrived to the cabin with enough time to make things right. If Beron was asking about missing servants, he could only be talking about you. The kind-hearted lesser fae who had the misfortune of being his mate.

Three years ago, Eris had almost burnt down the entire court one of his brothers got a little too handsy with you. As a servant, you were supposed to endure it and be thankful for his attention. But your heart belonged to Eris Vanserra in secret for almost a century, and you had denied his unrespectful advantages. That earned you a beating that had left you unconscious in the middle of the backyard, where Eris’ hounds had found you.

After weeks of healing in secret and convincing him not to slaughter his own court and find death at the hands of his father, only the promise of your safety had kept him still. He had taken you away to his hidden cabin, where you had been staying part of a cozy side-town, where no one recognized you.

Thoughts of the last three years flooded his mind as he jogged the last steps of the castle, quickly hoisting himself up in his horse and riding off into the forest. He pushed his mare to her limits, until the ground and the trees were nothing but blurry colors.

He wouldn’t waste time thinking why his father hadn’t acted yet, why he had been granted those few minutes to try and save you. The answer was clear when he smelt the uncharacteristic trace of blood in the quiet village.

Eris dismounted without stopping, his mare moving restlessly in the familiar cottage. His heart pushed furiously against his chest, blood rushing to his ears when he noticed the door hanging open by an unnatural angle. Male scents and horses’ prints were all over your hidden cabin.

“Y/N!” he screamed your name, not caring about anything but your safety. With everything about to change, he could throw secrecy as the last of his priorities. “My love, where are you?”

No answer came from the outskirts of the house, and Eris all but threw himself inside. The beating he had just endured almost sent him stumbling to the ground.

The insides of the cabin were a mess, just like his soul. Scattered papers and wooden furniture, broken plates, shattered windows. Fire embers started to fill the messy space as his laborious breathing turned panicked. He leaned against the wall where pictures lay now crooked, and tried to think what to do.

Where to look, who to kill, how to survive knowing his worst nightmare had come true. Eris had always feared having a mate, having someone to love and that loved him back, because he knew the world would take it away cruelly.

What he didn’t expect was the stairs creaking under your weight, and your disheveled head poking through the stairwell. Your eyes widened, at his state, his presence, or his blood. But he didn’t consider much apart from the fact that you were still breathing, somehow, and alive enough to be standing.

His body gravitated forward until you collided into his arms, the composure he had kept during the last hour crumbling like paper against water.

“Eris” you whispered against his chest and his breath hitched, your voice so concerned and soft against his worries. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“You’re alive. You’re alive” he repeated, twice, and willed himself to believe it. “I thought – the door was open, and you didn’t answer. Why didn’t you answer? I called. Didn’t you – didn’t –“

“I didn’t know if it was you. It’s been…”

You trailed off, it wasn’t necessary to acknowledge the obvious mess. Eris pressed you tighter against his chest. Just like those nights where nightmares consumed him, where his father’s reign of terror was too much, he hugged you so tight that your bones creaked under the pressure. You didn’t mind when it was the only thing holding him together.

It was silent for no longer than three seconds, the amount of time it took for the first and only tear to roll down his bruised cheek. If he let himself any more time, if he let his guard down, none of you would make it out of there alive.

Eris ignored the rough phantoms hands he could still feel on his body, the feeling of his father’s fingers tugging on his hair and crushing his throat. His touch was soft and careful as he pulled you away and inspected you with bright eyes. Only a gash on your cheek and a light limp on your left foot. Even if your dress was stained, he didn’t find any threatening injury.

He pushed the anger once more down his chest, until he turned it into resolution.

“How many?”

“Three of Beron’s personal guard. Rookie heard them before they came and I could hide” you motioned with your chin to the enormous dog that guarded the back door, on four and alert. “She took care of the first one, and the other two… it was them or me”

“You did well” Eris whispered, cupping your cheek and brushing his thumb under the bleeding wound. “Where are the bodies?”

Those deaths would haunt you for a while. His innocent, kind mate who had been the only one brave enough to risk sending him pain tonics after his father’s beatings. Who took care of his dogs when he couldn’t leave the bed, and stubbornly stayed by his side as he pushed you away.

Eris followed you silently to the first floor, to your bedroom. Where you had spent so many nights tangled together, now three bloodied bodies stood. He could identify which one had been finished by Rookie, their face unrecognizable. His father’s personal guard embroidery stood bright on their uniform, and it threatened to make him vomit.

He fished their bodies for weapons, ignoring the urge to kill them all over again slower a crueler. When he finished gathering what was worthy, he guided you out of the room, his arm around your shoulder.

“Don’t look” he advised you, pressing you tighter when your body trembled. “We’ll be okay”

You had talked about that outcome for three years, and you had spent each borrowed minute like the last one. It wouldn’t be forever, you understood, so you had crafted a plan. An emergency plan that you needed to carry out.

Eris didn’t let you take anything and you didn’t stop to grab your belongings as he lit fire to the cabin behind you. Each step you took made your knees tremble, knowing that Beron had once more managed to drown any hope in your life for your relationship.

Heat scorched both your backs as you exited the cabin, now full ablaze. Eris’ mare was dutifully waiting at the entrance, with the dozens of neighbors that were gathered in a half-circle. They all scattered when Eris walked out, and didn’t get to see how your knees finally gave out. With just one arm, he managed to keep you standing against his chest and grab the reins.

His whole body tensed under the weight of your sobs, that racked your body in sadness. Twice now, he had seen your life crumble because of him, because of who you loved and loved you back. Until Beron was dead, until his body was cold and forgotten, there wouldn’t be a place in Prythian safe from his hands.

And no matter how much it pained, only one was safe enough to last until he killed his father. Or died trying to.

“Y/N” he whispered against your sobs, against your desperation. He held you firmly as you shook your head in denial without looking up from his chest. “It’s time, my love. We don’t have much time”

Maybe his father was stupid enough to think three men were enough to kill you, but they hadn’t returned and Eris had left – and, surely, his father himself would come to end with his son’s happiness and will to live.

Shadows gathered around his feet, but he didn’t look to the owner nor acknowledge the new presences in his court, in his forest. He had long ago granted them access for that day, had supplied them information for his part of the bargain.

Rhysand and his court had kept their promise.

“I don’t want to” you cried, so hard and fearful that his resolve shook. Yet your safety, your life, had always been his one priority.

“It’s for the best. Look at me, Y/N” his voice didn’t harden, he didn’t slip into the mask he wore around them for your sake. “Y/N”

His own voice was broken too, with despair and agony. He too dreamed for a world where he could hold you freely, where he didn’t need his worst’s enemies help to keep his mate alive. But those dreams were not for people like him. Still, he held onto that thread of hope that he would make it through tonight. That, tomorrow, he would comfort you like you deserve, endure your berating about his selflessness and kiss your tears away.

When you finally looked at him, he smiled, ignoring the surprise radiating from his unusual partners. Eris waited until your sobs subsided and you calmed enough to accept the next step.

In silence, he let his eyes tell you everything he didn’t allow himself to say. How grateful he was for your soft hand when no one else dared to help you, for your patience words against his lashings when you helped him. How sorry for each and every scar you carried from his court, his brothers and father, and for not being able to give you the life you deserved.

How much he loved you, witch every fiber of his being, until he was nothing more than embers and ashes, and beyond.

Eris pressed his lips wordlessly against your forehead, his hands holding your head in place. Your own circled his scarred wrists. With the glamour off, everyone could see the scars and marks on his body. You caressed the rough skin and held him tight, until he tore apart.

“I love you. And if I die tonight, know that your love was what has kept me alive for so long” he watched your glossy eyes, your shaky lips. “I only burn for you, my little fox”

“They’re here” Azriel talked, his voice breaking your daydreaming.

A soft spark of proudness lighted in his chest when Azriel tried to gently guide you back and you brushed him off with a stern look. Your eyes, kind and loving for him, were hard and unforgiving for the spymaster. Eris knew they would treat you well, would take care of you, and was sure you would give them hell for him.

You looked at him one last time, sad resolution in your eyes, and kissed the edge of his lips before stepping away. With your torn dress and blood over you, you looked like every inch of mate he adored and cherished.

Azriel finally gripped your wrist with an annoyed frown, and shadows swarmed both your beings just as the first group of soldiers rounded the edge of the town. They wouldn’t be the problem, but the High Lord who rode behind. Eris didn’t allow any of his fears or worries show when he kept eye contact as you disappeared with Azriel.

“Come back for me” you begged him one last time, cracking once more his already broken heart. “Please, my prince. Come back”

“I love you”

He let those words be the last thing you heard from him. Eris was powerful, but his father could crush him like a leave under a boot. Maybe Rhysand would keep to his promise and keep you safe – and still loose you against his father’s armies. Eris was just happy knowing he would die knowing what being loved by you felt. How your arms felt around his shoulders, your breath against his neck.

Eris would die happy because you had chosen him when even he hadn’t chosen himself.

The sound of horses and men screaming got more intense when you disappeared, and the prince prepared himself to face one last battle. His fists lighted up with bright fire, his body vibrating with energy.

He expected a wave of angry soldiers from his right.

Not a stony-face Rhysand looking at him with a raised brow.

“You do love” he proclaimed, his voice laced with curiosity and something else. “I was tempted to believe she was just another one of your tricks. One that assured you your climb to the throne”

“I have business to attended, in case you can’t tell” Eris grumbled, letting loose the rage and anger. “So if you would be so kind, please fuck off”

The first round of autumn males broke through the left with raised swords and angry scowls. Some of them had fought by Eris’ side in the last war, some of them had been by his father’s side as he beat him.

Neither of their faces was marked in Eris’ memory, as they all vanished away to a terrible darkness that swept them off. As if they had never existed at all. The prince’s fire died down a bit as he looked at the High Lord, who had taken his hands out of his pocket and whose violet eyes were shinning dangerously.

For all explanation, Rhysand shrugged and gave away no intention of leaving with Azriel and his court.

“I made a bet on you when we made that bargain. A bet on a new high lord that would change things with me” Rhysand stared at him and Eris didn’t break eye contact, too stunned to speak. “Wasn’t certain it was the right bet, but now I am. I hope we both get to withdraw the price”

Without another word, the world was consumed in a wave of darkness, Beron’s power emerging not so far away. Eris let himself become fire in the dark, brighter than ever, and with the memory of your last smile and the possible hope of a world with you, he launched himself into battle.

Want to read more? Check out my side blog @imaginesmaimasterlists, where I keep all the masterlists! Feedback is always appreciated

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bradleysass · 5 months ago

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Five - @black-brothers-microfic - wc: 1k - i apologize this got away from me.

CW: grief, loss

Regulus never imagined he would end up here. Not in a million dreams did he think he'd be sitting in a circle of five strangers, in the dimly lit basement of some community center, discussing loss as if grief could be measured and dissected. Yet, here he was—knees together, hands clenched, his brother sitting stiffly beside him, as though he were ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

Sirius hadn't spoken much since they arrived, which was a relief. He had his own grief, but his presence alone made Regulus feel as though he weren’t drowning entirely. The others had spoken in hushed voices, sharing stories about mothers, fathers, siblings, lovers. And Regulus? He had remained silent, staring at the empty chair next to him.

Because James Potter had claimed it as his own.

No one else could see him. No one noticed the way James lounged in the chair, drumming his fingers against the armrest as if he were meant to be there. His posture was lazy, effortless—like he wasn’t a ghost, like he wasn’t supposed to be dead.

Regulus refused to look at him.

"Regulus," the group leader said softly, drawing his attention away from the impossible weight beside him. "Do you want to share?"

He didn't. He wanted to stand up and walk out, but Sirius' presence held him there. His brother had dragged him here in the first place, thinking it would help, and maybe—just maybe—he didn’t want to disappoint him.

Regulus exhaled slowly. "I lost someone," he said, voice rough. "A long time ago. But it doesn’t feel long. It feels like yesterday. It feels like right now."

James hummed. "I like that. Poetic. You always had a way with words, Reggie."

Regulus' hands clenched, nails digging into his palm. "I thought it would get easier. I thought time would make it better. But it hasn’t. It’s only stretched out the pain, made it something I carry every single day."

The woman across from him, the one who had lost her husband, nodded sympathetically. "It doesn't get easier. It just gets different."

Regulus nearly scoffed. Different. Sure. Different in the way that James was still here, still a presence lingering at the edge of his vision. Different in the way that he could still hear him, still see his crooked grin and those damned glasses perched on his nose. Different in the way that Regulus could never let him go because James refused to leave.

Sirius shifted beside him, uncomfortable. He had no idea. No one did.

James leaned forward, elbows on his knees, close enough that if he had been real, Regulus could have felt his breath against his skin. "Tell them about me."

Regulus inhaled sharply, shaking his head. "I can’t. I don’t even know where to begin."

The group leader frowned. "Can’t what?"

James tilted his head, amused. "Can’t tell them, or can’t admit it to yourself?"

Regulus' throat felt tight. He stared down at his hands. "I can’t forget him. I don’t know how. I don’t think I ever will."

The group was silent for a moment, absorbing his words in the way only people who have known loss could. There was a kind of understanding in their eyes, but none of them could truly know. None of them had to sit next to their ghost every single day.

James smiled, gentle and knowing. "I know." He leaned back in his chair, utterly at peace with his place in Regulus' life. "And I’m not going anywhere."

Regulus swallowed past the ache in his chest. He already knew that. He had known it for years, ever since James had died and left a chasm in his life that no amount of time could fill. He had tried everything—distraction, denial, even outright anger. But nothing ever made the weight of James' absence any lighter.

The group leader gave him a small, encouraging nod. "Holding on to the memory of someone you love is natural. Sometimes, our grief takes form in ways we don’t expect."

Regulus almost laughed. If only she knew.

"He’s here," he whispered before he could stop himself.

Sirius turned sharply, eyes narrowing. "Regulus—"

James, unbothered, smirked. "Go on. Tell them."

Regulus swallowed. "I mean, it feels like he’s here. Always. Everywhere. Like I can still hear him, still see him, still feel him next to me. As if he never left at all."

The woman who had lost her husband gave him a knowing look. "That’s normal," she said gently. "Sometimes, love is so strong that it doesn’t leave us, even when the person does."

James snorted. "See? I’m not a ghost. I’m just persistent."

Regulus clenched his jaw. "You’re not real."

"I’m real to you," James countered, grin softening. "And isn’t that enough?"

It should have been. It should have been comforting, having James so close, so unchanged, so effortlessly present. But it wasn’t. It was a cruel reminder that no matter how much he held on, James would never be truly there. He would never laugh the way he used to, never ruffle Regulus’ hair, never pull him into his orbit with that same gravitational force.

And yet, Regulus could not bring himself to let go.

He let out a shaky breath. "I don’t know if I want to move on."

"Then don’t," James said simply. "Not yet."

Sirius, beside him, had gone still. He knew that look on Regulus' face—had seen it before in the mirror when he had first escaped Grimmauld Place, when he had left behind the ghosts of his own past. But this was different. This was Regulus still carrying a ghost on his shoulder, letting it guide him, keep him from moving forward.

"Regulus," Sirius said, his voice quieter now, cautious. "He wouldn't want you to be stuck like this."

James smirked. "How do you know what I’d want, Pads?"

Regulus sucked in a breath at the old nickname, at the way James' voice was so full of fondness, the way he still spoke like he belonged here. Maybe he did. Maybe Regulus wanted him to.

The session continued around him, people sharing their stories, their pain, their longing. But Regulus remained trapped between what was real and what wasn’t, between the past and the future, between holding on and letting go.

James, ever patient, just sat beside him, waiting for him to decide.

@accio-sriracha @leeny-leens @rosiesangel

#black brothers microfic #marauders #jegulus #starchaser #sunseeker #james potter #regulus black #sirius black #microfic

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hiraethwa · 1 year ago

Text

one summer day

06 saturn ii. where ushijima’s words take you by surprise.

<< 05 saturn i. | >> 07 sun and moon.

pairing: ushijima wakatoshi x reader a/n: i am back from my trip now, i will be posting more regularly again, thank you for staying! i loved reading the tags on your reblogs of one summer day, they make my heart go WAHHH! my inbox is always open if you want to chat <3 - ave word count: 1.5k warnings: angst, childhood trauma, parental neglect/verbal abuse, past death of a family member

april, second year

“you don’t have to be the person in your house with me.”

since he stayed with you that night, there has been a medley of conflicting feelings swirling in you. you had felt embarrassed in the morning, but also relieved for his presence. and this burning shame in your chest whenever you see him and his eyes seem to ask, are you alright?

you could tell he wants to ask so many questions, but he is holding himself back, waiting for you to tell him yourself. worst of all, you wanted to tell him, consequences be damned. but you were afraid he would see you differently. you don’t think you could bear the person who’s seen you at your worst decide you were not worth his time. but if you wait any longer, perhaps he would decide that anyway.

“what i mean is, you can be yourself around me, always.” you know that. deep down, you feel it.

“ushijima–” you start, staring down at your shoes, thinking about how to explain that day to him without trauma dumping on him.

he corrects you, “wakatoshi”

your cheeks color, testing the way his name rolls off your tongue, “wakatoshi… i owe you an explanation…”

you decide it is easier to start from the day everything changed. so you tell him what you haven’t been able to tell any of your friends since that day eight years ago. about your sister, akiko’s death anniversary. that she passed away in an accident, and that it was your fault for leaving her outside the house when your mother tasked you to look after her. that even though eight year old you went in to get some water for the both of you playing outside, it was still your fault. that she had ran out after a stray cat and did not see the car coming. that it was your fault.

“am i a terrible person?”

and then you hold your breath, knowing there is a possibility that he would have that accusing look in his warm brown eyes. beautiful with tiny flecks of greens and golds. you think those are your favorite features of him. and fuck, it would hurt like hell if that is the way he looks at you from now on. but you had taken a leap of faith, all you can do is hope for the best. hope that the feeling in your gut is not wrong.

“and your parents, why weren’t they around?” for their daughter’s death anniversary goes unspoken. of all the questions he could have asked, he sure did pick the most difficult one, you thought.

“let’s just say we all cope in our own ways. akiko’s death… it changed our family for the worse. my father threw himself into work to forget about it… my mother… her grief made her meaner, colder, it changed her.”

he gives you a concerned look, causing you to hurriedly explain that your mother is not abusive. “she’s just different than the mother i had when akiko was still here. she cared less about us, her words became sharp, like knives designed to hurt, especially when it comes to me, but she never laid a hand on us. i think her grief morphed into anger, and she never stopped blaming me for that day.”

“it isn’t your fault, you know that, right?” he grabs your wrist, turning you around to look at him.

your next words comes out in a whisper. “i know, but if i hadn’t left her, akiko would still be here. if i had done what i was supposed to, my parents wouldn’t have lost their daughter, and we could have been happy,” your voice cracks.

“you were a child. it wasn’t your fault. do you understand?” his strong grip on your shoulders forces you to look into his eyes. there was no judgement in them. no accusing look, no blame, only resolution. and they made you feel safe. “you cannot be blamed for your parent’s decisions, and it was their responsibility to look after their children’s well-being, not an eight year old child. your only duty was to grow up.”

an unidentifiable feeling overwhelms you, welling up tears in your eyes. what is it about me and crying in front of ushijima? you had been fine, just fine before he came along and messed up your coping system. every year before this on that day, you wouldn’t even cry, believing that all your tears had been spent when you were eight. that all you could do is feel empty and sad and self-destructive on that day while lying in your bed, staring at the ceiling until the sun comes up.

oh gods, you were eight, and you had believed that it was your fault your family lost a sister, a daughter, and your mother let you believe it. she never let you forget it. all the hurtful words hurled at you. all the pain you swallowed and carefully locked away in a box.

your home stopped being a home that day.

home should feel safe. home should be a place you long to be after a long day, not somewhere you dreaded. home should feel like a warm blanket on cold winter days, not a house that is a place to eat and sleep. home should feel safe. but it doesn’t.

you had known it for a long time. but you had been running away, refusing to face the fact. that maybe if you pretended hard enough, it would all go away. all this heartbreak that you had hidden away would vanish.

“i don’t think my mother fully forgave me for it. i don’t think she forgave herself either.” but you were only a child. and all you wanted was her love, and approval, and support, and presence in your life.

you look up at the stars shining in the dark sky, wondering if your sister is one of the millions smiling down at you from a far away distance. “she would have been in junior high if she was still here.” you smile sadly at the stars, thinking of the life that she could have had ahead of her. all taken away in one unfortunate moment.

“your sister would want you to be happy, to live for yourself. i think she would find solace in that.”

you turn sharply to look at ushijima. “i–i have been doing my best to survive.”

his voice turns gentle, “but not truly living.”

“have you spoken to anyone about this?” he inquires, though you think he knows the answer.

you clench your fists, looking away, a rising feeling in your chest that you identify as discomfort. oh, he is safe, but he is not afraid to tell you the truth, no matter how much it hurts. “you’re the first.”

no one would understand anyway. not your parents, if they even cared enough to listen to you. not your brother, who had pushed you to open up, he lost his sister that night too.

“then you no longer carry the burden by your lonesome. live, y/n, for you and your sister.”

live. he says it like it is so easy. as if living in that house doesn’t make you gasp for breath. if only your house did not also feel like your prison. if only being alive when your sister no longer breathes does not feel like a sin. as if everyday does not feel like being trapped in the past.

and then with excruciating realization, you admit it. “i don’t know how.”

the recognition leaves your head spinning, and you seek the comfort that you had felt in his arms. looping your arms around his torso, you bury your head into his chest. how do i do this how do i do this how do–

“you take it day by day. one foot in front of you at a time. and you keep looking forward.” he tilts your chin up, searching your eyes. “i will be right next to you.” he promises.

“don’t say things you don’t mean.” please don’t make promises you can’t keep.

“y/n, i only say things i mean.” you hope he sees the gratitude in your eyes. you really hope he means it. because you think you can make it, with him by your side. when you’re with ushijima, you can truly breathe. with him by your side, you can see a glimpse of your future tonight. maybe not tomorrow, not a month from now, but one day, you could be happy.

akiko, did you send him to me? thank you. i love you. i miss you. i miss you so much. but i think i need to learn to let you go now.

reblogs and comments are appreciated!

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rollinouttahere-writes · 1 year ago

Note

Listen in my defence Garp is a Dilf or a Gilf depending on the time line XD

Maybe Garp (or Sanji if writing Garp makes you uncomfortable) S , K , I , W , H

Congratulations! You got six letters because I accidentally did V instead of W at first!

Also I will write for any character from One Piece (barring child characters given that this alphabet is inherently more mature) so long as I've gotten to them in the show, so you don't have to worry about me not wanting to write for a certain character. Like I would write for Blackbeard if someone requested him.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Given Garp's insane strength, it would be very easy for him to hurt you even just accidentally. He never sets out to hurt you. With his power and his connections, there's no real need for violence. However, if you catch him in a bad mood and really push your luck, he might grab you too tight and effortlessly break your arm. He realizes what he's done the second he hears the snap and immediately regrets it. You'll be hauled off to see a doctor immediately and he spends the next month spoiling you in an attempt to make you forget about what happened. All that being said, upsetting him to this point is borderline impossible, so this is very unlikely to happen.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

All that he wants is someone to have by his side for the rest of his life. Ideally, someone that isn't going to raise his blood pressure like the rest of his family does. He just wants to be able to relax and have fun with his darling in his down time. You guys are going to get married, but it'll likely be no more than a marriage certificate unless you really push for a wedding. He's too old and set in his ways to care that much about ceremonies and "superficial shit", as he puts it.

Don't worry about children. This man has adult grandchildren. He's good. He really does not want to be starting over with a baby at his age. Not to mention the fact that everyone in his family is a damn criminal. He does not want to see another descendant on a wanted poster before his deathbed, thank you very much.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Presuming that you two have a significant age gap, Garp is usually mistaken for being your father. He isn't a particularly romantic man (no one in this family is), so very little about his behavior would make people think that you're a couple. In public, he'll be walking beside you, but usually isn't touching you beyond brief touches to get your attention. He's talking loudly (usually lightheartedly complaining about his family) and making dumb jokes.

In private, he's a bit more affectionate, but most of the time it's in an annoying way. He's like a young boy that thinks the only way to get his crush's attention is by being a nuisance. Except you're married and he's in his seventies. He'll be pranking you and going out of his way to do things that'll get a rise out of you. He can be normally affectionate with quick kisses on the cheek before he leaves the home, or by picking you up in a hug and spinning you around.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Desperation for a normal family member combined with his devil-may-care attitude. If he finds someone that he likes well enough to pursue a relationship with, why shouldn't he go after them just as strongly as he would a pirate? What's so wrong about him wanting to have some company on lonely nights? He's a marine. He's a good man. You'll come around and learn to appreciate this arrangement.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

You have three options with Garp:

1: If he isn't bringing you with him on his ship while he's working, you have all of that time to make a break for it. It might be tricky giving the marine base he keeps you at the slip, but it's much easier than trying to run away from him directly. These escapes will be short lived. Maybe a week into your freedom, Garp will rock up wearing a hawaiian shirt and carrying a suitcase while asking why you went on vacation without him.

2: You have three step-grandchildren that would be eager to get involved. You don't even need to convince them that you're here against your will. All you have to do is ask if they want to piss off their grandfather and they'll be on their way to wherever you are to begin the game of darling-keep-away.

3: Assuming there's a big age gap here... you could also just wait him out. Sure, it'll probably take a couple of decades for him to finally kick the bucket. He isn't the type of yandere to kill his darling so he can "take them with him", so you'll still have the rest of your life left. It'll be easy to afford a therapist for everything you went through after you cash in on your late husband's pension and life insurance policy, so at least you have that to look forward to.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

As discussed in H, yes, but it's accidental. He genuinely has no desire to harm his darling. His attitude is too carefree and lax with you to become violent without several other extreme factors being at play.

#monkey d garp #monkey d garp x reader #one piece #yandere one piece #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #one piece x you #yandere #yandere alphabet #reader insert #x reader

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ego-sum-deus-fractus · 6 months ago

Text

Nero's Imperial Household HCS

⚠️ Anything about the Gods that are written about here refers specifically to the RRverse. I am in no way talking about the actual deities themselves.

• Son of Hermes

- I'm calling him Dolios for now because it's an epithet of Hermes and it makes it easier to remember him.

- Son of Hermes, either one of the athletic epithets or the Psychopomp epithets.

- About 18 years old? Honestly what even was the age limit of Nero's stepchildren?

- Ok so I'm still confused as to what his powers would be but I'm leaning into the psychopomp side of Hermes. Although I'm also leaning on him being stronger than the average person because there's no way Nero didn't teach his step children to defend themselves without using their powers (Also Hermes is the god of Athletes sooo)

- I headcanon the Hermes kid as the oldest, partially because I don't know who else to make the oldest stepchild of Nero, and partly because I have a feeling that Nero would make the "calmer" cabins (AKA Cabin 11 and Cabin 7) really really feral just so he can showcase his strength in a "Hey I made the kids from the calmer cabins really feral HAHA IMAGINE WHAT I CAN DO" kind of way and also because he's an asshole and can't let kids be kids. Also because Nero's a furry.

• Nero definitely gave all of his stepchildren jewellery that represented their godly parent btw. I headcanon Dolios to have something like this.

Because why not? (And no this is not an excuse to show literally every piece of jewellery I have saved in my pinterest board) Meg has half-moon shaped rings that turn to scimitars but I have no idea what weapon these earrings would turn to so if y'all have any ideas tell me!!

• Lucius

- Nero really wanted the entire world to know who his step childrens' godly parent was huh 😭 Anyways onto his character!

- Son of Apollo, specifically Apollo Nomios.

- 16 to 17 years old (probably).

- LISTEN. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT THERE AREN'T CHILDREN OF APOLLO WHO HAVE SHEPHERDS AS THEIR MORTAL PARENT. HOW DARE RICK FORGET ABOUT BRANCHUS MY BABY. Anyways in my head Lucius's mortal father was a shepherd which is how he attracted Apollo. Again, I'm not sure what powers he would have but he definitely knows how to fight (because like I said, there's no way Nero didn't teach his stepchildren to defend themselves without using their powers). Also he can talk to ravens. And crows. And sheep. Because how come Percy is the only one that can talk to his father's sacred animals? That's unfair!

- I'm pretty sure he is one of the oldest demigods in Nero's Imperial Household? In my mind he's the second oldest out of them all.

• His jewellery is probably something like this bracelet.

It turns into a Gladiator btw. Not sure how that works but then again we have no idea how Meg's rings work either so yeah.

Also a bow and arrow seemed way too basic to me. Like may the Gods forbid that their children use anything other than the ones their godly parents use.

• Aemilia

- At first I got really confused over what godly parent she could have but then I searched up the meaning of her name and.... yeah.

- Daughter of Athena, not sure which epithet tho.

- Same age as Lucius, about 17 years old.

- Oh gods I know damn well that Nero made this girl suffer. Like you already have people having high expectations about Athena kids and then your step parent is NERO. Like this girl was probably given some big ass sum to solve at the age of 7 or something ( WISDOM IS NOT THE SAME AS KNOWLEDGE NERO). Oh my poor little girl. We know next to nothing about her but I'm gonna make her and Lucius my pookies.

- Either the third oldest stepchild in Nero's Imperial Household or the same age as Lucius.

- Not sure what jewellery Nero would give her tho. An owl necklace? Something that looks like this?

What weapon could this even turn into? A shield maybe? Y'know the thing with Medusa? (RR messed up her myth so bad in PJO that now I'm confused as to whether it's following the Greek or Roman myth).

• Hunter of Artemis

- I have absolutely no hcs about her whatsoever because I'm still confused as to who her godly parent could be. Like we know that Meg is supposed to replace Demeter which means that his other stepchildren are also mostly the children of the god they're supposed to replace.

- Still, I'm gonna have to make her a daughter of Diomedes and an ex hunter of Artemis otherwise I don't know how it'll work. I'm not sure about her name either.

- Younger than Aemilia and Lucius by a year or two, so that makes her 15 to 16 years old.

- She and Lucius are probably always paired together since Artemis & Apollo are twins. I'm not sure what power I want to give her so I'd love to know what you guys want her powers to be!

- Third oldest stepchild of Nero.

- Her jewellery turns into a bow and arrow because that's usually the weapon that the Hunters of Artemis use. I HC it to look something like these two.

How would this turn into a bow and arrow you ask? I have no idea!

These are only for the four oldest demigods, if you guys want I'll make one for the others too! (I've basically divided it into 3 parts, there are 4 children in each group and the groups are -Oldest, Middle and Youngest, the same way Apollo divided them)

Tagging- @actual-gremlin @arihuntress @humburgercheeseburger @sahebro-apollosangel @lesbianbanana @whats-a-lester @please-be-nice-im-sensitive me if any of you want me to remove you next time!

, ╱|、

(˚ˎ 。7

|、˜〵

じしˍ,)ノ

I'd really appreciate it if y'all actually read it tho....

Please don't let this flop I beg you pls

#spirit posts ༄˖°.𑁍.ೃ࿔*:･#spirit does not know what she's saying જ⁀➴ ♡#spirit yaps 𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊 #trials of apollo #toa #lester papadopoulos #pjo hoo toa #pjo #Nero's Imperial Household #the tower of nero #tower of nero #the dark prophecy #meg mccaffrey #Lucius pjo #Cassius pjo #Aemilia pjo #gods they make me so feral #please don't mind the jewellery part

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cookie-gal · 4 months ago

Text

A mini-chapter of The Faint hearted King (my EPIC AU)

No more hiding

His feet were aching so much but he knew if he stopped, SHE would catch him

Odysseus' anxiety starts spiraling, making his heart race in the process, his breathing also feels more rapid than before, He clenches the held small child on his shoulder tightly, arms trembling too

The child slowly opened their eyes

"Dad, when are we going ever going to play hide and seek? You promised we would."

"W-what..?"

Hide and seek? He promised Telemachus that they would play hide and seek together, but... he's seems to have forgotten?

Wow, such a awful father forgetting a child's game?! What kind of father are you? Why are you hopeless

"Dad, can we please play hide and seek now?"

"Hide and... O-of course Tel-Telemachus! I.. just u-uhm I.."

A soft gasp came out, as Odysseus spots a familiar small bedroom, Telemachus' bedroom. The cautious father gently pulls the doors open, sitting the small toddler in the middle of the carpet

"Dad, am I going to be the one that's seeking you?"

"I... Y-yes, yeah, of course s-son!"

Stop stuttering so damn much he's gonna noticed something's wrong!

"Hey Tele... can you do something for me?"

"What's that dad?"

"Can you.....cover your ears while you count?"

"What, why?"

"W-well, it's easier to y-you know concentrate."

"Ohh okay! How long do you want me to count dad?"

"Can you count to..100? P-please..!"

"I'll try my best to dad!"

Telemachus counted, slightly stuttering on certain numbers but still continued as Odysseus gives him a soft smile slowly closing the door. The nice tranquility feeling instantaneously stopped, all what was left was nothing but dread-like atmosphere and then, a haunting voice echoing in the halls her, voice..

"OH ODYSSEUS OF ITHACA!!"

"Oh no..!"

He didn't really have time to fully react to anything else, as soon as he made his way near the corner, his wrists are quickly yanked by someone

"C-Calypso!"

"Ody, y'know that I sharpened my toy to play with you~"

She says as she pulls out the old rustic bloodied dagger pointing it towards his neck, making Odysseus feel a painful lump in his throat

"How's about we test it out today~"

"No..N-no please, I don't..want to!"

"I'm not waiting any longer old king!"

"W-what are you.? GAH!!"

Slid him onto the cold floor stomping on his back, causing him to shake in pain. Odysseus felt like his ribs were getting crushed, there was too much pressure on his back. His struggling was making things worse for him as Calypso called out to the others presumably to make his pain worse than it already was

"HEY LADIES GET OVER HERE! IT'S TIME TO PLAY!"

"NO PLEASE DON'T!"

Calypso skids Odysseus right towards the dining room door, he frantically tried to get up before anything else bad could happened but it was too late, Calypso shoves Odysseus back to the floor making his back pain more painful

"There's no point fighting back, y'know you're so weak, so malnourished to do anything. And if you do try, I can just stab you up and put you out of your misery"

She's right, she's always right about you.. You're so weak how can you even call yourself a king? How are you even still alive

Sinister smiles were revealed once the door was opened, tears welled up in Odysseus' eyes as the Suitress grabbed both of his arms pinning him down on the big long metal table

"Agh, g-gods please... Please let me go! Why are you always doing this to me!"

"Isn't it simple? You just have to learn?"

"What?"

"Like she said, we're just teaching you some lessons.."

Calypso entered the room walking right on top of where the sad king was being held down, Practically towering over him

Her speech continued

"If you really are a man, and a great king like you say you are even though, YOU refused to go to war...and let your wife take your place. Then you're able to handle all of this ache and scars like a true man is able to."

"That's, that's not true, that's not right either! I didn't make Penelope go.."

"That was her own choice-"

Calypso jabs her dagger almost near Odysseus' ear, making him flinch

"HER CHOICE?? HER CHOICE WAS MADE BECAUSE YOU'RE SUCH A PATHETIC MAN! HELL, NO WONDER YOU'RE QUEEN LEFT YOU! OH MAN, NOW YOU'RE A EVEN BETTER LESSON!"

"NO, NO PLEASE! I.."

"Then again, I'm getting tired of playing this game. Instead of his arm how about we stab somewhere else"

"Wh-what do you mean- AH!"

No longer on laying on his pained back but on his stomach at this point, Odysseus knew what was about to happen next he tries escaping the suitress' grasp when something catches his eye.

A knife sharp or not, it's his way out of this torture

C'mon just need to r-reach!

"AGH!"

Odysseus felt a sudden pain pull from his arm. He couldn't really turn his head to see what was happening but he could feel. They were pulling his arms back his struggling wasn't really helping himself it was making it more painful than before

"AGH PLEASE STOP! IT HURTS, IT HURTS SO MUCH!"

"Your pain wouldn't be as bad as you're making it if you weren't resisting so much."

"That's enough, ladies I think I can handle this by myself"

The two Suitress looked at each other then shrugged, giving Calypso space, letting go of Odysseus' weakened frail arms. Calypso stomped right on Odysseus making him cry out painfully. And then, feeling a sharp pain in his back Odysseus screamed. His frantic clawing on the table made him almost forget what he was after while trying to escape his torment, the knife

His vision was blurry through the tears but still slightly visible and there it was, the knife right in his shakey hand. Odysseus takes action, in attempt to stab Calypso

"LEAVE. ME. ALONE!!"

Odysseus cried out stabbing his abuser's arm causing, her to cringe in pain, making Odysseus sorta slowly escape towards the door

"GAH DAMMIT AFTER HIM NOW!"

Calypso shouted, holding her stabbed arm

Odysseus, hands trembling with the knife in his trying not to cry nor look more vulnerable

"ST-STAY BACK!"

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, WHY DID YOU STUTTER?!

The nervous man points the knife viciously at the two women.. That is until one of the two women got closer to him and grips the held knife. The realization started to kick in..

"This is a damn butter knife!"

The Suitress commented

The two baffled Suitress turned to Calypso confused by how she was stabbed in the first place

"What?"

She asked with annoyance and confusion in her voice

Awkward silence filled in the room, after the silence, the 3 of them realized that Odysseus was gone.. Before anything else could happen Calypso stopped the two girls

"Let'em go, he's been through enough torture for tonight. He's got enough mental scars and physical scars from us~"

Calypso smiles licking the blood off her dagger

It was over, atleast for now... Odysseus couldn't tell if he was feeling exhausted or relieved as he limped around the corridor, stopping by at a door and then collapsing

Telemachus, after hours of counting and repeatedly stuttering on certain numbers finally has to seek for his father.. The little boy seeked, and searched to only find bathroom door and a small trail of red beneath the door..

The small child gently opened the door to see his father hugging himself shaking alot and mumbling quietly

"Dad, are you okay?"

Telemachus asked softly

#epic the musical #the faint hearted king au #warrior penelope au #odysseus #telemachus #calypso #suitress #penelope #someone give this sad man a hug #epic the musical fic

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itsyouch · 3 months ago

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I wish I was illiterate.

I'm going to hit my head with a pan so hard that I get a concussion and forget the English language. And I'm going to make sure I learn a language that this book isn't translated in and never read this book again. Istg

I'VE BEEN SOBBING FOR 5 HOURS. GOD DAMN SOMEONE HELP ME. MY CHEEKS HAS BEEN ERODED FROM TEARS. IT BURRNSS MY EYES BURRN.

I CAN'T DO THIS! HES DEAD. DRAKE IS DEAD OHH OHWWWW HELP ME. MY HEART IS ABOUTA BLOW UP. OOOOOOOWWW

MY JOY. MY JOY IS GONE!! DRAKE, MY SWEET NOOOO!! HE DIED IN A MEANINGFUL WAY OOOH. MY NUMBER 1 WEAKNESS AAAAAAAHH!!!

every single one of his words hit so hard.

EVERYONE in a hundred mile radius was in danger when I read this. HIS LITTLE HOUSE IN THE VALLEY. THE NECKLACE. THOSE WHERE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WHOLESOME SCENES WITH DRAKE EVER. AND THEY GOT TURNED EVEN SADDER IN HIS DEATH.

"Give Rachle the necklace. Tell her.... tell her I'm sorry. Tell her..... I wanted to show her... my little valley. Tell her I tried."

that has me so bad.... oh haha, woopsies I'm abouta start balling again..... uuhmm.... I don't wanna finish Beyonders... oomf said if only gets worse, and that if I'm reacting like this over Drake's death.... then I'm cook so bad......

THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND ME THO. EVEN IF IT GETS WORSE. DRAKE'S DEATH IS ALWAYS GONNA BE NUMBER 1. HE WAS MY ONLY CHARACTER IM HYPERFIXATING ON. AND ALL I HAVE THAT SLIGHTLY CLOSE TO DRAKE, IF FERRIN. HE'S NOT HELPING THO. NOTHING CAN REPLACE DRAKE. AND AND OOOH SHOOT

RACHEL!!! SHE'S GONNA FIND OUT ABOUT DRAKE'S DEATH.

All the bonding between them, Drake teaching Rachel Edomic, Drake promising Rachel to take her to his old house in the valley, the necklace. THEY... ok lemme calm down.... they never got to say goodbye properly, Rachel literally voiced her concern that she might not see Drake again after they split up. She made Drake promise that he would come back, that they would make it out

Oh there I go, balling for the 11th time today....

IM NEVER GONNA GET TO READ DRAKE AND RACHEL TALK EVER AGAIN, NEVER INTERACT, BANTER PLAYFULLY, DRAKE IS NEVER GONNA RUSTLE HER HAIR. HER ADOPTED FATHER IS DEAD. SHES GONNA HAVE TO FIND OUT.

"I've done this before.... I'm past the reach of medicine" BECAUSE HE'S DIED BEFORE. HE KNOWS THE FEELING, HE KNOWS ITS OVER.

Him telling Farfalee he loved her too is so sad, they've been doing nothing but sibling bantering.

In the first chapters when they were getting ready to separate, Rachel found Drake trying to leave without saying goodbye

"It can be easier that way" hits so hard, Drake is an Amar Kabal, they aren't used to saying goodbyes because they always come back. Amar Kabals aren't used to death or loosing someone permanently. It happens, some die permanently, but when they do, I like to think Amar Kabal take last lifes more seriously/emotionally then others.

Drake not saying goodbye because he hopes he can make it back to Rachel, but at the same time, i think he knew he would die and just wanted to save both of them from having to say goodbye forever. I think he wouldn't of really made an effort of coming back if Rachel didn't ask him to. He would want to die for the prophecy, to use his last life for something useful but changed his mind after Rachel told him to take care. He planned on seeing her again, even going out of his way to grab her a gift in hopes of giving it to her when they saw each other again, but maybe that was a bit too hopeful of Drake.

Even though every one of Drake's last words meant something, it's his very last that hit like a bullet train. "where's my amar?" He was slowly forgetting parts of his memory, he forgot that he threw away his amar because he needed to blend in when they were sneaking in to the village, I hate seeing the effects of death, I hate it when they slowly forget familiar faces, or where they are, making them die in confusion.

GOD DAMNT IT IM SONBBING AGAIN. I CAN'T SEE. EVERYTHING IS BLURY!! IM SO FRUSTRATED BECAUSE I HAVE SO MANY THINGS IN MY MIND BUT MY STUPID DUMB SELF DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO SAY IT.

I'll come back to this when my head is a bit clearer....

#drake the beyonders trilogy #the beyonders trilogy #the beyonders trilogy drake #brandon mull #book fandom #book fantasy #im gonna scream #im not overreacting.... oh god I know I am....

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stabbyfoxandrew · 4 months ago

Note

imma ask a few for the oc question thing 👀:

Jace - Ghost

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

Jace's father got murdered in front of him when he was very small. So... that. He was only four years old when it happened but he still feels guilty, like he could've done something to stop it and didn't. His memory of it is thankfully quite fuzzy and he doesn't even remember what his dad's voice sounded like, but he still has nightmares from time to time. (And sometimes his subconscious changes it up a little to make Leander the one who is in danger and Jace is not strong enough to save him. Those are really fun for him.) (NOT.)

To live with it, Jace tries to pretend he never had a dad in the first place. He doesn't like to think of him and it's not like he remembers him that well. So, besides the lava lamp in his bedroom (his dad's) he basically just... pretends he never existed. It's easier for him that way, even if it's not healthy at all. Also, Jace's older brothers blame him for their dad's death when he was just a child who wanted to play in the woods. Like it's not his fault some crazy ass vampires were out there, but it's his 'fault' he and his dad were. So yeah, GUILT. (Also his brothers are just jerks in general, but yeah.)

He runs himself ragged trying to be everywhere at once, believing that he can protect everyone he cares about now. When he's reminded he's not as strong as he thought, it sort of breaks him. And he tries even harder to take care of everyone. He does not take care of himself very well. He's got the stupidest Chia Pet in the history of Chia Pets (Leander) and he intends to keep the damn thing alive no matter what. He regularly shows up at Leander's place with food because Leander forgets to eat. He bowls a homophobic bully down the school hallway on multiple occasions. And he drives Leander's car- it is a piece of shit and also Jace has better reflexes, especially before Leander's creechur side starts coming out.

Anyway, Jace thinks he can keep people alive through sheer force of will and it's very unhealthy but it's the best he can do. His mentor (Isa, by the way) really would like to knock some sense into him, but unfortunately Jace just knocks it right back out every time! So... yeah. Jace wants to push Leander into therapy but won't deal with his own shit. At all.

His shit isn't even real. Like... Come on, he's normal. He's well-adjusted. He's not the one who's daring vampires to kill him at any given chance and he remembers to feed himself. So like... suck it, Leander. YOU are the one with a problem, not Jace.

#ty for all the questions anon i appreciate it! :D #answered #anon #ask game #oc: jace underwood #aerie's ocs

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bittiebunnie9232 · 7 months ago

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Merry Christmas @evacrazyfandomlover !!

TW: Mental illness, mentions of Dazai-typical suicide, self harm, guns (not used, mentioned)

@bungostraydogs-secret-santa

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Winter was always an awful time of year, and Christmas was the worst of it. Never once did he understand the “holiday cheer” everyone always droned on about. Everything was done up in pretty lights and covered in snow but… it wasn’t right. The whole holiday felt so artificial, so utterly pointless. As lackluster as the metal of his shipping container, the whole concept of Christmas seemed like a distant shiny dream- like suicide. So far beyond his grasp, but right there, brushing the edges of his finger tips but never within reach. It was like life taunted him with the things he could have, what could make him want to live, but dangled them just outside of his reach to lead him by the nose into misery.

Melancholy came around this time of year, everyone knew it. Seasonal depression (or in Dazai’s case, just depression) didn’t go away because of the twinkling colored lights, and warm drinks. The cakes were always better this time of year, the apples were too. Yet he couldn’t stand to stomach such menial things, the only time Osamu ever really ate was when Odasaku forced him to- and even then it wasn’t much. It was like his body just rejected winter, it rejected care and loving and he was stuck with the cold of the season. The warmth of the holidays was a fleeting dream that haunted him as much as this stupid shipping container he called a home.

The whole thing was another reminder that he wasn’t human- just a crude mimicry of something he was born as. Nothing could be more of a slap in the face as being faced with his own inhumanity every year when people were the most outwardly cheerful. How could something actually inhuman be more human than him, and at the same time enjoy the warmth and light of the season where he could barely hope for a draft to not enter his shipping container. Osamu would rather be at work than in this damned drafty lump of scrap metal, freezing and shivering in what little heat his blanket provided, but he couldn’t. Mori gave everyone the holidays off, as a gift for the year- it was more like a facade of an excuse so he could spoil Elise with no one around for the next three days, the greedy bastard.

Walking about the warm stores sounded good, until he had to take into account having to act all cheerful like everyone else so no one would approach him. All the people and their happiness was like a poison, it made him want to die more than sitting here in the cold with nothing but a lamp to light up the space a little. Maybe he could spend the next several days sleeping away the time off he had, at least he wouldn’t feel so cold then.

Laying down, curling up and keeping the blanket over him, Dazai closed his eyes and tried to will sleep to overtake him. Nothing would be better than simply being unconscious right now. Sleep wouldn’t come either, memories taunted him instead. Memories of his early childhood, before the mafia, always flooded him. Flashing images of people he’d much rather forget completely, times in his childhood where he was certain that he was nothing more than an after thought. His mother, and how coldly she looked at him, she had no love for him and it was obvious. Father wasn’t any better, he may as well have left them behind, even if he was around he was like a ghost in Osamu’s life. The times he was around weren’t any better, it was easier when he was a living phantom.

Warmth trailed his face, over the ridge of his nose and down his cheeks leaving an icy chill in its place. Curling in on himself tighter, he tried to drown out the pain spiking in his chest. It wasn’t real, it was just the cold. Maybe if he abandoned his impossible quest for heat, there would be enough cold to just disengage entirely. Trying to numb himself inside would help by being numb on the outside too. He could be as weak as to be crying over something as silly as a stupid holiday that was all saccharine smiles, trees and stupid multicolor lights in the darkness of winter. Damn Mori, damn winter, damn holiday… a soft sob left his lips, the palm of his hand scrubbing at his closed eyes. The stinging of tears was too familiar, as much as he swept a blanket of snow over his emotions, somehow the holidays came to stab at his chest with everything he could’ve had.

Why did it hurt so much? He should have been numb to it all after so many years. All the hurt, was usually gone, stuffed away to the back of his mind in ice where it chilled him from the inside out. The ice helped him, it numbed all the emotions, and it made him work better. The colder he was inside, the more demanding and cold he could be on the outside too- it made sense, after all keeping up his demon prodigy persona was difficult. It wasn’t easy to keep up a cold uncaring act unless he truly was cold and uncaring- and sure, he didn’t understand people despite being able to predict them, he didn’t understand emotions or anything beyond how to make someone feel them, but it worked. Results were all that mattered, and the one place he wanted results was the place Dazai always failed the most. Suicide.

When the blanket of ice didn’t help, the melting of his frozen inside would always be a dreadful thing, the heat helped. As much as he tried to feel the cold nothingness inside of him, the void of a snowy landscape that contained his emotions prickling at his skin with annoyance, sometimes the ice wasn’t strong enough. The pain consumed his mind, until it was pushing pushing pushing at every button it could get its sticky little fingers on. How many times had the ice melted and he cried until he threw up what little was in his stomach? The prickling pain poked needles into his brain until it was too much to bear, sometimes heat washed it all away. The heat that filled his body with warm euphoria every time he did it, every bit of hot red linings his thighs, his arms, the evidence left on his chest. As much as they stung and itched and pulled on his skin later the relief, euphoria, numbing heat always made the prickling stop until the ice helped again.

CLANG

Freezing for a split second, Dazai listened to the sounds outside his little slice of hell. Sometimes the wind would make things bang against each other, and when everything was made of metal and pure silence drifted over the yard of containers any small noise was amplified. So far, he could only he hear his breathing and soft sniffles, only silence awaited him in the dark of the outside world. At least the noise had broken him out of the spiral that his mind let whirl until he crashed. Taking a breath, he tried to force his body to relax. Despite his paranoid mind, there was probably nothing outside, nothing was ever outside. Anyone who knew about him living here avoided him like the plague, and Mori would just call him. Maybe a stray dog was walking around or something.

After a few more moments of silence, he finally tried to close his eyes and let his breathing level out. Nobody was around, so the sinking shameful feeling that came with crying wasn’t as heavy. There was no one to hide the fact he actually had feelings from, what harm could be done from crying in the dead emptiness of his own home? That’s what any rational person would think, but Osamu wasn’t being rational. Instead the disgust he always felt with himself writhed in his chest, a snake made of his flaws that always coiled around him to whisper every sin his ever committed in his ear. Maybe-

CLANG

Something wasn’t right, there was no way in all the silence and cold that was this time of year that something would be banging around outside! Clearly, the wind was messing with him, some dumb kid must have thought it was funny to hang up a stick by a container so it would make a banging sound every time the wind blew. Honestly, what stupid kids decided to even come here?

BANG BANG

That wasn’t the same. Sitting up quickly, Dazai came to the very easy conclusion that this noise- as it repeated again- was someone knocking on his shipping container. Who would venture all the way out to this dump, and dare to knock on his (was it even a door? Entrance? Wall?) door? Hearing a voice just outside of the thin metal sheet grumbling about something- he could have sworn he heard his name- Dazai got up. Abandoning his blanket on the mattress, and scrubbing off his face the best he could- which was to say his eyes were still red rimmed and he looked like shit- he grabbed his gun, and went up to the door.

Swinging open the entrance to a cold chill he had been trying to keep away, Osamu’s hand gripped the pistol a little tighter. What he hadn’t been expecting to see at his door, was a bright head of red hair. The boy had something in his hands, though he was clearly a bit warmer than Dazai, bundled up in a coat and scarf.

“Chuuya?” His fingers loosened on the gun, clearly there wasn’t a threat. Sure, his dog could be annoying, but Chuuya wasn’t actually going to hurt him. Ignore that- who told the shorty where he lived? He had kept that hidden on purpose, it wasn’t like he wanted visits from his partner at random! The burning of shame flushed through his stomach, churning around in small spirals.

Chuuya looked at Dazai in shock, as if he couldn’t believe he was actually seeing him. When he had been told that the great demon prodigy lived in a shipping container in the middle of nowhere, he was sure the whole thing was a prank. He had come so close to just punching the guy, until Ane-san confirmed herself that Dazai lived here. What kind of dumbass would go and decide to live in a shipping container in the middle of an abandoned area? Looking at the boy he knew something was off immediately- Dazai always looked kind of wrong but this time it was more obvious. He looked too thin, especially without that overcoat, but now that he was down to his usual button up and a very thin pair of sweatpants it was more obvious. Surely this must be a hallucination, there was no way Dazai was shivering- the subtlety of it was astounding, but Chuuya could tell. Had he been crying?

Seeing Chuuya now wasn’t expected- though it wasn’t like Dazai was expecting much of anything right now. How was it that a boy managed to make snow look so beautiful behind him? The bright warm red looking like flames in the low light of the moon bouncing against what little snow dusted the ground. He was beautiful, like an angel in his element, his beauty glowing against the dull world that Osamu hated. Salvation wasn’t what he was looking for, he was far too much of a sinner- the kind of sin that taints your skin and spreads to blacken your heart- but perhaps he could let himself believe if just for a moment that Chuuya was an angel sent to save him.

“Damn Dazai, you look like shit.” Yeah, that thing he thought about angels? Take it all back, the boy was nothing more than an ill mannered pet, there was a flaw in Dazai’s brain if he thought the boy would be angelic. Even if he knew the chill was setting in- he was so cold that his bones hurt- there some odd heating flooding his chest.

“Hah? What are you doing here?” Snarky, as always when it came to the other mafioso, Dazai tried to hold up his facade. The ice came back in a whim, but it was like the first frost over a lake. Thing and creaking ice that could shatter at any moment and threaten to plunge him into the deadly waters beneath. Even Chuuya could see the growing cracks in his mask, it was first time he’d seen it. Usually when Osamu let his mask fall a little, everyone was far away from him, an arms length away.

“I’m here to give you a gift dumbass!” Looking around, Chuuya caught a glance of inside the container. It was desolate and lifeless, metal walls with no pictures on the walls, no space heater, just a futon and a blanket piled on top of the bare mattress. A table and a lamp were the only things besides what little things were thrown haphazardly in the corner. Was this how Dazai lived?

“Chibi got me a gift? What is it?” His usual saccharine cheer fell a little flat, the usual void of his eyes sparking with something that couldn’t be placed. Everything felt wrong, nobody had ever given him a gift before, not even his parents (who forgot the holiday existed). Dazai leaned side to side to try and see what was in Chuuya’s hands, held behind his back to keep the wrapped box hidden.

“Are you gonna invite me in first? Kind of rude to have me standing out in the cold.” Damn it; this whole thing was a source of shame. Damn Mori, damn this shipping container, damn his parents. There was nothing more Dazai wanted than to send Chuuya away- or better yet to have him never arrive. Standing back, he sighed and dropped the handgun on the table. He waved the short mafioso in, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, as if this whole thing wasn’t a great hurt, not that his living situation was truly a secret.

Once Chuuya stepped inside, he glanced around and realized that what he saw from the door was all it was. Dazai really lived inside a sad little shopping container, with a lone futon, a lamp on a table with a laptop on it (but no outlet to plug it into) and a small pile of clothes in the corner. Inside of the metal cage it was slightly warmer than outside, only thanks to the fact the wind wasn’t directly hitting their skin. How did Osamu live this way?

“So… who told you where I live?” The question was awkward, as if he didn’t know exactly how to ask. For a boy who was always so blunt when he wanted things, even if he always did in that stupid mess with mind way. The ominous creak of ice that was about to shatter echoes in the far reaches of Osamu’s mind.

“I asked around.” All the ginger could get through his mind was the fact that Dazai didn’t look good- not that the bean pole ever looked like the picture of health to begin with. The barely-there trembling of his whole body, his pale face with red rimmed eyes, and the streaks of faint lines down his cheeks, it didn’t feel right to see him so… fragile.

There had been times where Chuuya outright sobbed into Dazai’s chest, gripping at his shirt with such desperation that he was sure the cold mafioso would push him away. Even if he hated to share his own emotions, the mystery of a boy could be exceedingly soft at times. He may be uncomfortable with anyone else, but Chuuya pressed all those buttons. He was more than willing to return the favor. How many nights had he relied on a short phone call to the boy he said he hated? How many times had he had a break down in the privacy of his own apartment only to have Dazai there to drag him back up from his own misery?

“Fuck who snitched, you’re coming with me.” A split second decision that left Dazai fumbling. First Chuuya had shown up out of nowhere, and now he was being taken somewhere with no warning. Honestly, he had expected to do what he usually does during the holidays for the next three days- wallow in his own misery and pretend it doesn’t exist while sobbing his heart out into a very well worn pillow.

“Where-“

“Shut up and put on your shoes and coat, idiot. I’m taking you somewhere.” Confused, Dazai put on his shoes- he was already wearing socks to keep his feet at least bearable levels of cold- and threw on his usual black overcoat. A thin thing that Mori had given him years ago, yet he didn’t own a coat. He looked odd and mismatched, wearing his usual attire except with faded blue pajama pants.

Being dragged- mostly by foot mind you, everyone was off for the holidays- through town in the snow with nothing but two thin layers, and pajama pants was embarrassing. Normally Osamu wouldn’t have cared about such trivial things- he was the demon prodigy he would wear whatever he wanted and no one would say anything- but the dam was crumbling. Seeing all the lights in person, all the chattering, couples out at night, while freezing his ass off… it hurt. Ignoring it all, Dazai kept his eyes on Chuuya until they arrived at his apartment- one of the nice ones in a building owned by the Port.

It was warm inside, not the warmth he got from a blanket or stepping into a shop whose door was always letting in cold air, actually warm. The whole place lacked Christmas lights, but that was so much better than having to be taunted by the things inside too. Taking off his overcoat and shoes at the door, he just raised a brow at the shorter boy, who was doing the same thing. The nice interior screamed of Chuuya’s doing, there was no one else he knew who would choose such a nice couch in black, with smooth touches that showed care. Not to mention the slowly growing collections of little knickknacks along the walls, each and everyone reflecting who he was as a person.

“Go shower, it’ll warm you up.”

“… huh?” Usually Dazai was more one for elegant and well thought out responses. Had the snow froze his brain too? Chuuya had to try his hardest not to laugh, though that feeling faded when he saw the dullness in Dazai’s eyes.

“Go shower, I’ll get you a shirt that’s more comfortable too.” Something soft stirred in Chuuya’s chest, seeing how distant his friend was. He knew the boy kept everyone at an arm’s length, but this was like he was retreating inside his mind. Pulling himself together, he turned around and let Dazai figure things out while he prepared something.

Slowly, Dazai’s thoughts began to settle the moment hot water touched his skin. Chuuya was right, it was a great way to warm up- and it also forced him to wash up since he continually stole this shower, or Oda’s. The whole walk here, even starting the shower and stepping into it felt vague in his mind. His thoughts had been pulling him under too hard, freezing the outside world but leaving his brain a torrential mess of barely frozen water. As he began washing himself off, one thought that repeated through his mind, {Chuuya shouldn’t have to see me like this}.

His shower was fairly quick, the sensation of water pouring down his back and over the healing scabs over his arms and thighs was quickly too much. Especially with how they burned in the head of the water, it was clean, it felt clean, but it still tainted him in a way he refused to look at. Carefully he wrapped the bandages around his body, winding them tight enough to be snug. Going to grab his clothes, he noticed that his typical button up had been replaced- when had Chuuya opened the door?- with a loose band-T.

Opening the door, Dazai was greeted with Chuuya’s empty bedroom, with a perfectly made bed and the sound of humming from the next room over. Walking to the living-room in a mild daze, the first thing he saw was Chuuya sitting by the low table in the center of the room, humming some kind of Christmas song. It didn’t sound familiar, but then again Dazai didn’t know any of the songs, just that he hated them. Sitting on the table was two cups, and a bowl, both with steam coming from them.

“What’s this?” Chuuya’s eyes flicked over to Dazai, scrutinizing him until something unknown in the mafioso was satisfied. He had no clue what the ginger could possibly be looking for, but it seemed he had it.

“Crab and cider. Eat and we can chat.” Why would he bother? Chuuya didn’t like crab that much, it was crazy he even had any. The moment he took a bite, his stomach rumbled. How long had it been since he ate? Dazai never caught the little smile the ginger gave when he started eating. Tapping his hand on the table, Chuuya couldn’t help but ask a few questions. “Are you doing okay?”

He could have facepalmed the moment the question left his mouth. Obviously not, but it wasn’t like Dazai would ever say it. There were so many other ways he could have asked, but he wasn’t going to take any of Osamu’s bullshit. Dazai’s furrowed brows made him swallow, he knew where this was going.

“‘M fine, chibi.” Muttering around a mouthful of food, his eyes never met Chuuya’s. After the shower his face was less obviously tear-stained, but the image of a red eyed Osamu tiredly standing in an empty shipping container, shivering in the cold, wouldn’t leave his mind.

“Don’t bullshit me, Osamu. You’re hiding it, but I know you’re upset. You can talk to me, you never tell anyone anything. You’re there for me, let me be here for you now.” The chopsticks froze midway to his mouth, everything about him holding still- even his breath. The creaking sound growing louder inside his mind, the currents beneath the ice rocking and growing stronger.

“I just don’t like the holidays.” His voice was barely above a whisper, the response was just what Chuuya expected. Something vague, with the way that he always evaded real answers, but clearly making him talk about it was only going to make it worse. The two sat quietly while Dazai finished his food, the peace a little strained.

Whenever Dazai got like this, Chuuya knew he wouldn’t say anything more. For someone who knew so many words, it was like they were locked away in his brain. The best thing Chuuya could do was what they always did when he knew Osamu was feeling sensitive- movies and no pressure. Even if words were never said, he always knew what the other boy needed.

A few movies in, and Osamu hadn’t said a word since dinner. They were pressed together, Dazai’s head laid on Chuuya’s shoulder, his eyes tiredly closing for longer and longer. Their silent harmony more comforting than any words or gestures that anyone could come up with, his soul was more at ease with Chuuya. Being near someone who human, who was so adamant he should live and be human too, was a balm of cool moss over his mind. The churning waters of his mind slowed to steady waves, the thin ice healing the cracks.

“Dazai, do you want to open your gift now?” He had forgotten about the thing Chuuya was trying to hand him at the beginning of the night, the offer was tempting. Rubbing his sensitive eyes, he nodded slowly, the call of sleep just starting to fade.

The gift was shoved into his hands, something small and rectangular wrapped in bright red and gold paper. Tearing the paper, Dazai was hesitant to see what was inside, gifts he had gotten were never truly gifts. Yet, seeing the red peak through, his heart started beating rapidly.

The paper was set aside, and he was holding a book he had wanted for so long in his hands. The thin book with a red cover, the Complete Guide to Suicide. How had he known this was the only thing Osamu wanted? The creaking of the ice finally reached a critical point, the only gift he had gotten since he was a child, before then even, and it was so warming. Unlike the melting that he felt earlier, the ice shattered with a rush of water.

“Dazai! What’s wrong?” Chuuya put a hand on his shoulder, and that’s when it finally hit him. Heat was streaking down his cheeks, his breath was wavering and unsteady- small huffs of air left him in a way that shook his shoulders. Crying, or rather sobbing- tears dropped down as he set aside the book, loud sniffles only making the tears worse.

For the first time since they had met, Dazai was crying in front of Chuuya. His hands gripped the soft fabric of an old T-shirt, his tears and sobs bring muffled by the warm chest of a boy shorter than him. Everything he had been numbing and shoving away finally hit him, and all Dazai could do was sob while steady arms held him close.

For the first year, maybe Christmas was worth sticking around for. He’d have to get Chibi a gift too, eventually.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bunnie post #secret santa #bsd secret santa

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