#you are so tired but also you love all the abyss monsters under your care | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jeonggukingdom · 5 years ago

Text

house of cards (m)

pairing ⟶ jungkook x fem!Reader (feat. Namjoon & the rest of the boys)

synopsis ⟶ What does safe mean when you are chased by zombies, when every corner you turn could be the last one for you? What do words like home and future mean when you’re always on the run and every moment could be your last? They mean nothing and everything at the same time and Jeongguk is all of the above. He is your safe haven, he is your home and he is your future. But things like that crumble easily in your world.

genre ⟶ smut, angst, apocalypse!AU, zombie!AU

rating ⟶ 18+

word count ⟶ 17.453 words

warnings ⟶ graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, hair pulling, marking each other with admittedly too many hickeys, teasing, couch sex, fingering, dirty talk, pounding, kind of soft sex but also rough sex?, multiple orgasms, a little tiny drop of chocking because why not, oral sex (receiving) because we all know I can’t resist and have to put this literally in every fic I write lol. Death, violence, blood, gunshot wounds: all of which include graphic descriptions. [I AM TERRIBLY SORRY].

author’s note ⟶ this fic has been written for the “Bulletproof Bingo” project created by @ficswithluv! You can find the card I received here (click!) but to make things more fun and keep the surprise I blurred out all the songs except for the five songs in the same row that I’m going to write first ;) A special thank you to @inkedxclouds for reading the opening scene and encouraging me to keep on writing it! Your words (and advice!) really helped me so really, thank you again ♥

song title ⟶ House Of Cards - BTS [ lyrics that inspired the story the most: “A house made of cards, and us, inside / Even though the end is visible / Even if it’s going to collapse soon / A house made of cards, we’re like idiots / Even if it’s a vain dream, stay like this a little more / As if there’s no such thing as tomorrow / As if there’s no such thing as a “next time” / Right now, in front of my eyes, everything without you / Is a terribly pitch-black darkness” ]

tag list ⟶ @mrcleanheichou • @ayujaded • @vera6483 • @peterrogers15 • @ggukkieland

The city is on fire.

The flames dance in the air, tint everything black and red and menace to reach up the sky, bring that down as well so that truly nothing is left unscathed in the entire world. The heath burns his flesh, makes his eyes water, turns his throat dry and he doesn’t need to look behind his back to know you can feel it too, to know how fast your heart is beating inside your chest, thumping hard against your ribs like a trapped hummingbird inside a cage. He doesn’t have to look to know your chest is heaving, that fatigue and panic are taking over your entire system. He doesn’t need to, but he still tilts his head slightly to the side, fixes his gaze on your face for a whole second before turning back around to take in the destructive scenery all around you.

His legs move faster. They hit hard on the dirty and sleek bitumen, seemingly indefatigable, but the truth is that the only thing propelling him forward is self-preservation and the knowledge that if he stops, even for a second, he’ll be dead and you right along with him.

But Jeongguk is not stupid. He knows you’re both reaching your breaking point, that you won’t be able to keep on going much longer and that knowledge turns him desperate.

There has to be a way out. He refuses to believe this is the end. No, no, he will not allow it.

His fingers are wrapped tightly around yours and he tugs on them harder, pulls you closer to him so that he can feel the warmth of your body, your heavy breath hitting the back of his neck every now and then. Like this, he knows you’re alive, that you are both still here and most importantly, still human.

Neither of you dares to take a look behind your backs and truth is, you don’t even have to. All it takes is for you is to close your eyes—or even blink—to see them.

Skin of a sickly ashen grey. Eyes void like an abyss, black as coal. Mouths open wide in a perpetual silent scream that haunts both of your dreams every single night. Teeth ready to bite, rip the skin off and let the blood soil the bitumen and fill their monstrous mouths. Arms outstretched to grasp you, to pull you into them to scratch and rip the skin until nothing of you is left, not even your soul, and you are one of them. Another little piece in the ever-growing army of walking corpses.

All it took was two weeks.

Two weeks for the whole world to crumble down, splinter into tiny frail little pieces of glass and all by the hands of monsters that only used to live inside TV screens on Halloween: zombies.

Jeongguk curses under his breath, swiftly turns to the left in a vain attempt to confuse the brain-dead creatures right behind your backs but he knows it won’t work, not this time, not when there is so many of them.

He dares another look at your face and the utter terror he reads on your features turns his heart smaller inside his chest.

He swore to protect you.

One year ago, in front of your families and friends, he made his vows. What was it that he promised? To love you and cherish you until the end of his days, to protect you and grant you a happy life. And now what? What happened to all those pretty words that filled his mouth back then?

Lies. Lies. Lies.

Everyone you ever cared about and loved is gone. Everything you ever knew is gone. All in the blink of an eye. There were no goodbyes, no mourning, no nothing. And he can see the toll it has taken on you whenever he looks inside those beautiful eyes of yours. Once upon a time, they used to shine like stars in a night sky but not anymore—just another thing to add to the list of what those monsters have taken away from the both of you.

Your legs are tired. Your lungs are begging for air and all you can think about is just letting go, just let your body fall and claim the desperate rest it needs. When was the last time either of you had a proper night of sleep? When was the last time nightmares didn’t wake one of you in the middle of the night and successfully kept you awake through most of it until the sun was back up in the sky?

Jeongguk curses, his voice quivers around the edges alongside his limbs and he can hear your breath catch, get trapped inside your lungs.

Is this the end?

He gulps down heavily, bites on his bottom lip like he always does when he is focused on something, when he is so deep in thought the whole world disappears. But this time, the look on his face is one of panic and dread.

There is no way out.

Jeongguk curses under his breath again, forces you to take another swift turn to the left and you both know it’s futile and desperate but what else is left?

You don’t want to die like this, in a dark alley of a city you’ve never seen before, helplessly running away from the nightmares behind your backs. So you pray. You pray to all the deities known to mankind, even those you’ve never believed in because truthfully, this is all you have left, isn’t it? The hope for a miracle.

Jeongguk falters and you almost bump right into him. His name leaves your mouth like a shrill but it falls on deaf ears because right there, in the middle of the street, shining like a beacon, lies a car.

A car.

Amidst all the smoke and fire, standing amidst all of this wreckage with barely a single scratch on its surface, that car almost looks like a mirage, a freaking miracle. Or a curse. Too good to be true, too-fucking-good to be true. And yet, it is a chance. Perhaps your only chance. So he takes it. Because this is what your lives have been reduced to. A fucking gamble.

So he takes courage, treats this as a round at the Russian roulette where you don’t know whether you win or lose until you pull the bloody trigger and shoot yourself right on your temple. He takes courage and tugs on your arm, yanks it forward as he aims for the car ignoring both the yelp of pain and the shrill of panic that erupt from your mouth.

He ignores the way you call his name in question and horror as your eyes land on what to you looks like nothing but certain doom. He ignores the way you try to yank him in the opposite direction, the way your hand trembles in his grasp with nothing but fear, the way your breath catches as the creatures get closer and closer and closer.

You can almost feel their breath on your neck, you can almost feel their hands on your skin, their claws sinking inside the tender flesh to bring you down with them.

"Hurry!"

His shrill cuts through the air like a knife. Your heaving breaths fill the silence left in its wake and they mix with Jeongguk's and the monsters’ right behind your backs.

What happens next is nothing but a blur.

Curses and screams fill the air, your bodies pressed together inside the car as you pray to all the Gods somewhere up there in the sky to spare your life just this once, to not let the both of you die like this, in a city in ruin with not a single person you ever loved alive to mourn you.

You pray and maybe, maybe someone is really up there, listening and granting wishes because while the monsters surround you, while they shake the car and hit the glass with their fists and open mouths, Jeongguk turns the key and the engine roars to life.

An exhilarated laugh escapes his parted lips, shakes his thin body to the point he’s jolting on the seat whilst pushing with all his might on the pedal to propel the car forward.

Your hand searches his and finds it around the gearshift. Your fingers automatically lace together as if that is the very purpose they were created for and then, you close your eyes and the world turns black and subdues as you will it all away. The flames, the monsters surrounding you, the smell of fire and death that still fills your nose… they disappear just like magic as you push your thoughts far away from here.

You fill your head with images of your past life, one that almost looks like a dream now, something you’ve only seen while sleeping and not actually lived through. You fill it with laughter and kisses under the sunlight on that beach in Busan where you and Jeongguk finally confessed your feelings for each other. You fill it with the sensation of his warm hands against your naked flesh, you fill it with his beautiful, endearing smile. With the sound of his voice as he softly calls your name first thing in the morning or when he whispers it in your ears while you make love. You fill it all with him so that you can ignore the way the car shakes, the sounds of the monsters falling on the ground as the car drives into them, pushes them down on the bitumen and steps on them.

Slowly, silence envelops you whole and in return, your heart stops hammering against your chest like a caged bird and yet, it is still not enough to prompt your eyes to open because you know that the moment you do so, no matter how far away from the madness and horror you currently are, you’ll never be distant enough because this is your new life and all the happy images filling your head right now are nothing but long-gone memories.

Jeongguk’s eyes are trained on the empty street and yet he can almost see you sitting right next to him with your eyes closed and your cherry lips parted, breathing ever so softly and drifting inside your world of memories. He knows that world oh too well, being a frequent visitor himself. It’s easy to forget the nightmare when you close your eyes and just drown yourself in the past, push your entire body so down under the deep waters you can’t even hear a peep from the world raging outside. Easy and comforting.

It scares him. It scares him how effortless it is to just let go and pretend, to let your consciousness slip away long enough you could almost forget how to get back.

He calls your name ever so softly then, his voice sweet and rich just like your favourite filled chocolate doughnut—your usual breakfast on a weekend, when he’d purposefully get out of bed before you just to go buy some for the both of you to consume in the comfort and warmth of your bed.

The memory makes a small smile stretch on your lips but it quickly fades as stripes of bleeding red and violent pink start burning its edges, slowly reducing it to nothing at all.

The sun is setting in the sky, falling rapidly behind the hills ahead of you and bringing all the light right with it. An involuntary shiver runs down your spine for there is nothing you dread more than the night and the nightmares sleep always brings right along with it. Another day has passed and if only there were a set date, a fixed moment in time you know to mark the end of it all, maybe you’d be able to rejoice then but that is just another luxury you don’t have.

Jeongguk’s eyes move on your face then, just in time to catch the way your expression inevitably falls and your smile disappears as quickly as it had formed. The peaceful expression, the little glint inside your beautiful eyes still present a few seconds ago are once again broken by the cruel reality and Jeongguk hates himself a little for shattering the dream, for pulling you back inside this Hell right along with him but even that deep sense of guilt can’t overpower the relief of having you still right next to him, alive and well and… present.

So he offers you a little smile, a tug of his hand to prompt your eyes to shift away from the bleeding sky and rather fix them on him and the moment they do oh, how they make his heart beat loudly in his chest, how do they so easily bring warmth to his cheeks and limbs.

“We’ve made it, baby.”

Yes. You’re alive.

You laugh and nod your head a couple of times for him. And Jeongguk could swear you illuminate the entire car, hell, even the whole road ahead of you with that smile full of sunshine he fell in love with so many years ago, when you were still kids. And the more you look at him, at the way his eyes shine like stars and his nose scrunches up in that adorable bunny-like way of his, the bigger your smile gets and Jeongguk is certain that you, like this, are the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes on.

Deep down, you both know this is temporary, that this feeling of victory will be gone in a matter of a few hours when you’ll inevitably face another one of those monsters and yet, you allow yourselves to bask in the little joy you feel, in the glimpse of normalcy right within your grasp. For once, you decide not to care and rather live to the fullest inside this little bubble of happiness. A bubble so small and delicate even a breath could easily burst it.

“We did, didn’t we? Wow… I can’t believe it,” your voice is soft and filled with a little hint of the mirth that turned your lips upwards for the first time in days and Jeongguk can’t help but smile even further while focusing his eyes back on the road.

“Me neither,” he confesses, shaking his head a little for it does still feel absolutely incredible and so unbelievably lucky there must be a catch about the whole ordeal somewhere. He pushes those type of thoughts away with all his might, though, as he tries to enjoy the opportunity he was given to live another day right next to you because he hates this part of himself, the pessimistic side that everyday swallows a bit more of the person he used to be before this nightmare started.

It is the middle of the night when you finally come to a halt in what looks to be an abandoned city. One of many, you think to yourself as you scan your surroundings waiting for that telltale sign of danger that comes with the grunts of the famished walking corpses. The silence of the night welcomes the both of you, though, as you help yourselves out of the car and before you can even glance towards Jeongguk, he is standing right there, by your side, fingers laced around yours to keep you as close as possible. You smile at the tender gesture. It’s one of the few habits of his that hasn’t subdued just yet.

You know.

And even though most of the times you pretend you haven’t noticed the way he has changed—nor the way you have—you know he has and sometimes it is hard to ignore how empty his eyes look when they are not fixed on you, how thin his lips look now that they are always stretched into a harsh line and not pulled into a gentle smile and most importantly how often you catch his hands shaking and him balling them into fists to stop their incessant tremor.

You tug on his hand, offer him a gentle smile the second he looks at you and you imprint the sight of his smile in your memory, the way his eyes light up with a glimpse of the man you fell in love with. You map every single inch of his face just so you can remember him like this the most. Your Jeongguk, not the one the army of dead bodies has created.

You have never walked on a minefield before in your life but if you had to guess how it feels you’d bet he’d be a little like this as you walk through the empty streets in the middle of the night without having a single clue where to go, where to hide. Potentially, every turn could signify your demise. With every step you take, you feel like shrinking inside yourself, turning a little smaller inch after inch whilst your body quivers ever so slightly in fear and your heart aches as it pounds hard against your ribs.

It is Jeongguk that spots the abandoned building first.

The city has been turned to ashes, set on fire like your own and the one you saw after that, and the one after that too and so on into a trail of smoke, fire and destruction that has left barely anything unscathed. Yet this building looks somewhat decent, with the door still there—albeit swung open—and a few windows with the glass still intact to protect you from both the drop in temperatures and any unwanted guests.

A little winning smile forms on his lips then and he tugs a little on your arm so that you can hurry your steps, get to what promises to be your safe haven—at least for the night—as quickly as humanly possible without making a single sound so not to stir awake the creatures surely lurking in the dark.

Your steps are full of uncertainty and fear as you step into the abandoned building and walk on the broken tiled floor. With each step you take, you tug a little harder on Jeongguk’s hand in fear of what you might meet at the end of this long corridor and seemingly endless string of doors.

If it had been for you, you would have stopped at the first apartment with it being close enough to the exit to make a quick escape if needed. Instead, you keep walking and you only stop when there’s only a set of doors left and even though you know this is probably for the best, that it would be harder for anyone to find you here, that the brainless creatures are less likely to sense you so far away from the streets, you can’t shake the uneasiness prompted by the fear of getting trapped inside this place and not being able to leave it with your humanity still intact.

The door opens easily. Just a little tug from Jeongguk’s hand and it swings open to reveal a simple apartment with minimal and mostly-ruined furniture. The signs of struggle, of a hopeless fight, of the loss of other human lives, taint every inch and corner of this place that probably used to be filled with love and warmth once. You can almost sense the pain, the fear and horror. You can almost hear the screams as your fingers brush against the door, the walls, the little objects filled with memories on the furnishing. It’s just like echoes from ghosts that beg to be heard, to be remembered so that at least this little part of them can live on, forever human.

You gulp down heavily, force your eyes to tear away from the picture of a happy family still hanging on the wall and rather focus it on your boyfriend’s back as he walks inside the apartment just to make sure no surprises are waiting for you inside any of the empty rooms. You follow his every movement, you mirror every single step and fill your thoughts and sight with him so that it’s easier to bare everything, so that it’s easier to ignore and move on, to live and fight for your chance at survival.

His soft voice breaks the silence just to call your name and draw you next to him and you easily comply letting him lace your fingers together. He places a tender kiss on your forehead then before opening his arms to welcome you in his warm embrace. You feel your body relax into the familiar sensation of being completely engulfed by his strong arms, you feel your heart slowly melt as his scent fills your nose the instant you hide your face in his broad chest. He holds you like this for what feels like hours and he doesn’t have to utter a single word for you to know what fills his head and moves his heart. Fear, relief, love, guilt—you’ve felt them all, sometimes even all at once while looking towards him in the midst of one of your escapes and, inside this embrace, you can sense them all, hanging above your heads and weighing on his heart and shoulders.

Your arms wrap around him, tuck underneath the green jacket so that your fingers can fist the thin black shirt under it and pull him into you more so that not a single breath of air can come between your aching, broken bodies.

Jeongguk’s lips quiver, a trembling breath escapes his mouth as he lets himself break within your embrace knowing oh too well that you’ll help him put back together every single splinter of his being. He breaks without a single word or sound and yet you mend him over and over again until he’s whole once more and he can smile at you anew and mean it.

He doesn’t have to say anything. All it takes is one look from his glinting eyes and a nod of your head and in an instant, you’re sitting on the couch ignoring the ripped fabric and the dark stains on it in favour of the little food in your backpacks.

When you had it all, you had taken for granted many things: a roof on top of your head, an endless source of running water, good food on your table every single night. Now, you don’t even have half of that and yet, there’s a little smile on your face as you consume your dinner with your boyfriend sitting right next to you and that’s because even the stale bread in your hands tastes heavenly after days of pure starvation.

His mouth is still filled with bread to munch on when he fishes out the map from his backpack and his eyes start scanning the names of the cities you passed on your desperate run to safety. His eyes are eager and filled with hope and excitement and he looks so breathtakingly beautiful in this moment—even with dirt on his hands, dried blood on his clothes and dishevelled hair—that you can’t help but stare as you force down your throat the last bite of your meal.

You watch his eyes light up in recognition, you watch them scan the map again and again just to make sure and then you see his mouth open to form a little “o” of surprise and… excitement?

His beautiful eyes of coal fix on you then and the most dazzling smile twists his lips up to the side. An exhilarated laugh escapes his mouth, shakes his chest as he points at the map with the excitement of a little kid in a candy store.

“We’ve made it! Fuck, we’ve actually made it!”

You dart forward, steal the map from his hands to fix your gaze on it and see it for yourself. The safe haven, the refuge Yoongi and Hoseok had heard about and dreamed about every single night before they lost their fight is near, so fucking near you can almost see it now if you close your eyes and squeeze them hard enough.

The Refuge.

“How far is it from here?” Your voice trembles, coming out as soft as a whisper as you tilt your head a little to the side just to fix your gaze back on him.

A grin welcomes your words and you can swear stars are shining in his eyes as he bumps his shoulder into yours so that he can point at the map, show you the road you’ll have to walk on to get there.

“If we’re lucky and the car doesn’t run out of fuel we’ll be there by the end of tomorrow.”

Just a breath. That’s the fraction of a second it takes for you to lean forward and crush your lips on top of his, claim his mouth at the height of your euphoria. The colony of humans, the safe haven your friends talked about every waking hour you spent together is just miles away and the promise of safety and normalcy erases everything else in an instant.

In this moment, all that exists is you and him and the hope for a better, brighter future and with your heart beating so frantically in your chest, all you can do is get lost in him, in his sweet scent, in the heavenly sensation of his fingers wrapped around your frame and his lips roughly moving on top of yours.

You grab his face to pull him into you even more and Jeongguk gladly follows, moulds under your touch to fit on top of your body as you let yourself fall on the couch while still kissing his lovely lips. Your hands are eager, your tongue relentless as it seeks his own through his parted lips and the excitement and adrenaline mix together and build until what is driving your every movement is passion and desire and need.

A low grunt moves past his lips as you tug on the long strands of hair on the back of his head and he doesn’t have to open his eyes to know there’s a wicked smirk painted on your lips, a little knowing smile prompted by the fact that you know way too well how much he likes that, especially when he’s far deep inside of you, rocking his hips furiously to reach his high and bring you down with him.

Your fingers leave his curls in favour of his jacket to move it past his shoulders, let it fall along his arms until he’s unceremoniously throwing it away. But it is not enough to satisfy your desire of seeing him, touching him, claiming him. So your hands hook around the hem of his shirt to lift it off of his head and Jeongguk follows your desires, lets you guide him and take control over him with the barest touch of your fingers. A single brush of your digits on his feverish skin is enough to gather goosebumps on the flesh and blood deep down his crotch. His cheeks turn a lovely shade of coral under your gaze as you bite down your bottom lip while your eyes move up and down his half-naked body. It’s a sight you’ve seen countless of times before and yet, it still makes your mouth run dry and butterfly flutter in your stomach like the very first time.

A small smile spreads on your swollen lips the moment you catch sight of the necklace dangling from his neck. It glints under the artificial white lights of the streetlamps filtering through the windows, looking as if it were made of the purest glass on Earth. You reach out to touch the sharp point of the feather and then you take it within your grasp and tug on it until he’s falling back on top of you and your lips are tasting each other once more.

You drag your nails across his naked back ever so softly yet the sensation of the teasing touch makes him grunt and roll his hips into yours once in a form of retaliation that has you calling his name in a mix of a warning to stop and a plea to keep going. Jeongguk clearly decides it is the latter for he does it again, and again, and again until you’re fully whining his name inside the kiss and digging your nails harder into his naked flesh.

“You’re such a tease,” you whisper atop his mouth the instant his lips leave yours just so that he can look inside your eyes and oh, that little smirk on his lips is so enticing you have to fight against yourself not to kiss him senseless right then and there.

“Look who’s talking.” His voice is rough around the edges, laced with the desire coiling in his stomach that is making his blood boil and gather right between his legs.

You tilt your head a little to the side and let your fingers roam against his chest, stroke ever so softly the fine line of his abs just to watch them contract under your touch. You drag your hand further down his torso and you can hear the way his breath catches the moment your fingers are ghosting over his belt. Your teeth sink into the soft flesh of your bottom lip and Jeongguk curses under his breath as you let your hands move past that belt, get inside his jeans and palm his bottom cheeks through the fabric of his boxer briefs. You watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, his jaw slacks as you tug on his hips so that he can press his confined member against your aching core.

Your body seems to catch on fire, turn into liquid flames right underneath his intense gaze and it takes again all of your willpower to not strip him naked in a second and push him deep right inside of you. But no, you want to savour this moment, make it last throughout the whole night so that you can rekindle properly with each other’s bodies after spending so much time running for your lives, out in the streets, unable to let yourself go and touch each other like you used to every single day before all hell broke loose. It’s been too long. Too long without his fingers on you, without his lips on your neck, without his sex battering yours in ways bound to make you forget your own name. Too-fucking-long.

He calls your name, wets his lips and begs with his eyes to give him more, in whatever form you prefer and you grant his silent wishes with the slow drag of your hands as they inch back towards his belt in order to free him at least from the confinement of his jeans. He releases a soft breath as you unbuckle it for him and then slowly unfasten both the button and the zipper and that same breath seems to hang in the air as your fingers palm him for the first time in weeks. His eyes close in bliss, his head tilts a little back and you drink up the sight of him like this, already getting ruined before you can even touch him properly. Oh, the things you’d do to him and let him do to you all at once and until neither of you can keep on going any longer.

That’s when you attach your lips on his skin, suckle on the firm flesh of his abs until a purple rose blooms there to mark your passage, followed by another and then another until he is whining and growing stiffer under your digits.

Your hands leave his groin and far too quickly for his liking judging by the little grunt of frustration that leaves his parted mouth but that one is quickly replaced by another as you push on his chest until his back is hitting the couch instead of yours and you are the one towering over him, ready to take control.

Your mouth easily finds his weakest spot on the side of his neck and attaches right there just so you can bask in the way his body catches on fire underneath yours, in the way he can’t help but arch his back a little into you, call your name and dig his fingers on the supple curve of your ass. His skin is tender and sweet and it takes so little effort for you to mark it with your eager lips and teeth that you can’t help the deep desire of wanting to mark all of him and turning it into a painting of roses in the shape of your mouth. You close your eyes and let your lips trace every corner of his neck, his clavicles and shoulders and you almost turn deaf to his pleas and whines and sighs of ecstasy. You almost lose yourself completely in the effort of mapping every inch of his skin until nothing is left for you to claim any longer and you have no choice but start all over again.

It takes his hands tugging on your shirt to rip it off of you for you to stop and it takes his mouth on your neck, his hips twitching underneath yours, his voice calling your name, for you to subdue completely and let him strip you of all of your clothes once and for all.

Jeongguk’s fingers tremble with the excitement growing stronger and stronger in his system and they turn rough on your tender skin as they finally get the chance to stroke and pull and feel it under his digits. It’s your turn to close your eyes and tilt your head back, it’s your turn to surrender to his desire-driven touches and mould and melt underneath it. It is your turn to whine and sigh and call his name and Jeongguk drinks up every second of it just like you did and the more he watches you like this, the more he touches you like this, the drunker he feels and the drunker he wants to get because hell, he had almost forgotten how sweet you taste on his lips, how heavenly you feel tightly wrapped around him, how breathtakingly beautiful you are like this, towering over him with nothing but desire filling your gaze.

The bare thought of your walls squeezing him oh so blissfully is enough to make him groan and claim your lips once more while his hands start inching down to where you desire them the most. The touch is simple and slow and yet you arch your back for him, roll your hips on top of his just to feel his length brush against your sleek core. His teeth grasp your bottom lip, pull it down in a way that has you hissing in both pain and excitement and you can’t help but roll your hips once more, bask in the sensation of his turgid member right between your southern lips. You tilt your head back as his lips find your neck once more, attach to the soft spot underneath your jawline to leave his mark there—something he knows to be your utter weakness.

A breathy sigh of elation escapes from your lips and you feel him smile against your skin, you feel his teeth dragging across your neck just so he can playfully bite your jawline next and tease you further. You whisper his name and it sounds like a plea to his ears and one that he is more than glad to take on because damn, he has missed touching you like this more than he even realized. The more his mouth kisses you, the more his fingers brush against your delicate flesh, the more he feels compelled to. So he explores your body more, basks in the way you sigh for him, arch your back, roll your hips, call his name and abandon yourself to his every touch. It is at the apex of your arousal and frustration that his fingers finally find the treasure right between your legs, the sweet spot he had been craving all this time.

The pads of his fingers brush against the sleek skin to gather your juices and slowly bring them up to his mouth so that he can taste them and hum as he sucks his own digits like he would if they were covered with honey instead. The scene is so lewd it prompts a grunt to leave your parted lips while the arousal deepens right between your legs, coiling down to his own turgid member. You watch his eyes zone in onto your dripping sex, you watch them light up with wanton desire and it is then that you beg him, truthfully beg him to lay his hands on you.

“Touch me, please.”

The plea is nothing more than a pained whimper and yet it rings loud and clear into his ears and, oh God does it work because in a fraction of a second, those fingers that were inside his mouth find your core again and this time, they are there to stay. His digits press hard against your swollen clit and draw deep circles onto it while his eyes fix on your face to catch the way it morphs with pleasure.

He drinks up every little whine, every flutter of the eyes, every tilt of the head, every single bite of the lips, every little quiver of your body on top of his.

“Lift your hips, baby.” His voice is hoarse as he speaks those words, laced with all the arousal clouding all of his thoughts and the fire you can see in his eyes makes your head spin and your mouth run dry. The way he wants you, the way he plans to claim you over and over again on this ragged couch are so clear in his gaze you can’t help but whine in utter anticipation and follow his every instruction.

So you leave his neglected cock and lift your hips high enough for him to drag down his fingers and play with your folds instead. His touch is soft at first, tentative even, but all the more enticing. It makes your desire grow deeper, it makes your body quiver with impatience and expectancy and he loves every little second of it. To torture you like this, to slowly drive you insane before throwing you over the edge of utter bliss makes him feel absolutely dizzy and just like an addict, it keeps him wanting more of it.

“You’re so wet,” he mutters under his breath and you let out a strangled whine in response that has him chuckling lightly underneath you. The teasing glint in his eyes, that little smirk that pulls his lips slightly upwards to the side make you want to lean forward and kiss him until you run out of breath but oh, that thought gets swiped away in an instant by the sudden intrusion of two of his fingers right inside your sex.

Your head falls backwards, your muscles tense and your jaw slacks as your walls contract around his heavenly fingers, adjusting to the stretch so quickly he has another finger plunged deep inside of you in an instant. You call his name once more, let a trembling breath escape your parted lips and Jeongguk takes that as an encouragement to pump his fingers in and out of you. The pace is torturously slow and it has you wetting your lips over and over again whilst your arousal grows bigger and bigger, trailing down your thighs.

His fingers curl into you and you hiss, bite your bottom lip and go rigid on top of him and the sight is so beautiful he does it again and then once more just to see you crumble and tremble and give in into the impossible pleasure spreading through your limbs like liquid fire.

He lifts himself up enough to bring his mouth to your naked breasts and envelope one of your nipples with his soft rosy lips. You gulp down heavily and find purchase onto his raven locks with one of your hands while the other one ventures out between your lifted legs to seek his erection and brush your fingers against it.

The little grunt of appreciation that comes with the simple touch spreads a smile on your lips, encourages you to wrap your fingers around it to pump it a few times, spreading your juices all over his hard length.

“I want to feel you,” you mutter under your breath and Jeongguk’s teeth pull a little on your turgid bud making you hiss in both pleasure and pain.

When his eyes fix on you, a long shiver runs down your spine. Goosebumps gather on your flesh and your heart turns rampant in your chest, “Then ride me, baby.”

The pressure of his fingers inside your core disappears as quickly as it came and it leaves you startled, contracting around nothing but thin air and mourning the sudden loss. His invitation, though, hangs in the air heavy like stones and thick like fog. And it is that invitation, the temptation in taking the lead that prompts both of your hands to push on his chest until he’s flat on the couch once more, looking up to you with all the desire burning deep inside his stomach.

It is still him that guides you, though, encourages you to take command and make him yours. It’s his fingers that wrap around his length to align himself to your dripping sex. It’s his free arm that wraps around your stomach and pulls you down so that you can finally meet his member and it’s still him that pushes you down just enough for the tip of his cock to brush against your sleek folds.

Wetting your lips, with your eyes pointedly fixed on his, you sink onto him then, ever so slowly, just so you can bask in the sensation of being filled up to the brim for the first time in weeks and let it last for as long as possible. Jeongguk lets out a sigh underneath you, his eyes closing as he lets go to the blissful sensation that is your walls contracting around him, welcoming him back with a tight embrace that already menaces to cut his oxygen intake short.

His free hand finds the supple curve of your ass and wraps around it as you sink completely onto him and let out a pleased sigh at the sensation of him filling you whole. You find purchase on his chest as you lift your hips back up ever so slightly and when his eyes find yours once more and lock you there, you start moving on top of him.

The lewd sound of skin slapping on skin fills the empty apartment, quickly followed by your soft sighs, readily amplified by both of his hands squeezing your bottom cheeks.

Jeongguk’s mouth hangs open, his eyes fixed on your face as you quicken your pace on top of him, rolling your hips every now and then just to hear his grunts, just to feel his nails dig into your flesh more and in a way that is bound to leave half-moon shaped marks scattered across it.

You arch your back a little and lean back to rest your hands on his knees instead and roll into him faster, pushing him deeper until he’s brushing against your cervix in that delicious way that always brings you crumbling down in the span of a few minutes. The guttural sound that escapes from deep down your throat makes him desperate to hear more and to feel the delectable way your walls would squeeze him at the apex of your high. It is then that one of his hands leaves your bottom cheeks in favour of your swollen bud, the very trigger of your pleasure.

The way you call his name then drives him absolutely insane, convinces him that his name has never sounded so beautiful before and oh, it turns his fingers fervent, prompts his hips to roll up into you to meet you halfway, faster and deeper and that’s how you lose your battle for control, that is how you end up giving in to him and letting him claim you with everything he has to offer.

Jeongguk’s hips snap into yours in time with the furious pace of his digits atop your clit, drawing perfect circles on to it that turn you blind and deaf to your own screams and mewls of ecstasy. He calls your name with a deep grunt but you cannot hear it when your ears are ringing so loudly, when your heart is beating so fast inside your chest it might explode soon, when your vision completely disappears and your body starts to quiver on top of his as you lose control.

The pleasure hits you like an unexpected wave of cold water and it steals your breath and sanity away. You come all around him mewling out loud his name and in that moment it doesn’t matter that you might stir awake some monster, that you might reveal your location to the nightmares waiting for you, no, all that matters is the pleasure and how absolutely paradisaical this moment feels.

Jeongguk’s eyes of charcoal are the first thing you see when you finally open yours, when the pleasure subdues and you come back down on Earth, to the here and now. And it’s those eyes of fire that make you rock your hips into him, that make you lift your ass and slap it back onto his thighs hard and fast.

The sounds that erupt from his mouth are like music to your ears and they guide your every movement and oh, you’d bring him down with you like this over and over again but Jeongguk begs you to slow down, to let him enjoy this moment a little bit longer until he has no choice but to paint your walls white.

“Turn around, baby,” he instructs after wetting his lips, his voice deep and hoarse and filled with the passion and desire driving his every movement, his every word.

His legs spread to welcome your ass right between them and as you find purchase on the couch, you let your sex sink back onto him, rejoicing in the new stretch this position provides.

A string of curses escapes his mouth drawing a little wicked smirk on your lips and prompting your hips to snap into his harder. Your hands are both sprawled on the couch to keep yourself standing enough to keep this perfect angle that is bound to turn the both of you absolutely insane. Your body is still quivering with the aftermath of your first orgasm and the lightheaded sensation that still lingers in your system makes your hips move furiously on top of his, drawing all kind of beautiful sounds from his parted lips.

You turn your head back enough to fix your eyes on his face, watch the way it morphs with pleasure. You call his name once, twice in a row and Jeongguk grunts and snaps his hips back into you, hard and fast to the point he’s about to erupt deep inside of you. You can see it in his eyes: the desire, the wanton need, the desperate search for his own release and the more you look at him like this, the more he fucks into you like this, the faster your heart beats, the harder your blood flows in your veins.

Jeongguk’s hips slow down, his bottom lip trembles with the breath that escapes from his lungs and he doesn’t have enough time to utter his next words, to explicitly say what he so desperately desires from you because you push your hips back once more, roll them onto his turgid shaft and fuck yourself on him, impale yourself on his cock until you are crumbling, breaking to tiny pieces right within his grasp. Jeongguk can’t take his eyes off of your quivering limbs, off of your ass still bouncing up and down in front of him, off of his cock plunging deep in and out of you. It is then that he takes the lead once more, pushes you flat on the couch so that he can stand on his knees and pound deep inside of you.

His hips snap into yours so hard and fast you don’t have a spare second to catch your breath, to allow yourself to come down from this impossible high. You mewl his name as his hands find purchase on the small of your back and he roughens up his pace, grunts your name in a row, tells you how impossibly good you feel so tight around him, squeezing him to madness. And you drink up all those words, eat them up like a famished woman on a deserted island and oh, do you galvanize him even further with your sighs of ecstasy, with your pleas for him to fuck you harder, faster, stronger.

If you close your eyes you can almost see his luscious thighs, the way his ass snaps with his hips as he pushes deep inside of you, the way his back contracts with the effort of keeping himself standing right above you, the way sweat shines on his golden skin like fine pearls. You can almost see his raven hair getting wet and stick to his forehead and to his neck and oh, how you’d love to tug on those strands, elicit a hiss out of him and throw him over the edge just like that but instead, it’s Jeongguk that leans forward to grasp your hair, tug on it until you have no choice but arch your back and tilt your head back.

Your eyes open to bore into his as you bite your bottom lip for him, heave out a sigh of ecstasy that is quickly followed by a string of pleas for him to cum right inside of you like this, fill you up to the brim on this ragged couch inside an apartment that isn’t your own, in a city you have never seen before.

Jeongguk grasps your neck then, pushes his fingers on the soft skin deep enough to cut the oxygen intake in half and then he kisses you fully on the mouth, claims your lips with the same ferocity set right between your legs and just like that, you come once more and as your orgasm coils down your thighs and soils the couch further, he shoots his pleasure deep inside of you. You feel his hips snap and still as he lets out a deep grunt of liberation, you feel his hands quiver on your neck and on the small of your back, you hear the stream of little curses that leave his mouth as his orgasm just keeps on coming and coming and coming and you don’t have to look to know his eyes are trained on your sex, dripping with the mixture of both of your pleasures.

The sight of you like this leaves Jeongguk breathless, it leaves him wanting more of this, more of you, it leaves him wishing he could fuck you just like this for the rest of your lives without having to think about anything else outside those four walls. His fingers leave your neck then, allow you to breathe in freely as he slowly drags his cock out of you in favour of his mouth because hell, ever since you started undressing him, this is all he could think about. His tongue brushes against your sleek folds and a deep shiver runs down your spine, followed by a whimper. You call his name softly in question, you tilt your head a little to the side just so you can glimpse at his face but Jeongguk’s answer comes in the form of his tongue flattening completely atop your sex and in the deep grunt that erupts from deep within his throat. The taste of your pleasure mixed with his own is inebriating, quite potentially addicting and so very sweet he just can’t help but gather it all on the tip of his tongue, careful not to waste a single drop of it.

“You taste so good, baby,” he mutters under his breath and you shiver at the lewd words, at the way his eyes are still trained on your sex with all that passion burning deep inside of them. Your body falls completely on the couch then, your ass slightly tilted upwards to offer him the perfect view and angle to keep tasting you like this with his relentless tongue. He laps at your folds, lets his tongue move right between them to gather the nectar he so desperately craves right from the source, oh so delectably deep within you and when you start trembling slightly, when soft sighs start leaving your pretty and swollen lips, he decides to attack your clit too, suckle on the sensitive bud until you are fisting the couch beneath you and begging him to keep on going even though you know you cannot take much more, even though literally every single muscle in your body is aching right about now.

His hands grasp your hips, keep you perfectly still as he devours you whole and he doesn’t stop, not even to catch his breath, until you’re a quivering mess all over again, mewling his name and coming all over his face. And Jeongguk, oh, he loves every second of it and still makes sure to welcome every drop of your pleasure on his tongue to gulp it down and feed on its sweet and sour taste as if this were the very first time.

Your body gives out and you let yourself go completely, close your eyes while coming down from your high and every word that leaves his mouth is muffled by the loud ringing in your ears, by the heavy breaths that leave your heaving chest, by the loud drumming of your heart.

It’s the tenderness of his touch, the way his arms envelop you whole that bring you back to the present, to the empty apartment and it’s his lovely lips on your forehead as he pulls you up to welcome you in his tight embrace that keeps you from falling into a deep slumber.

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep,” he whispers, chuckling slightly at the way you hum while closing your eyes, genuinely fighting against the need to just shut down and recharge.

He hums then, places another soft kiss on your temple and tangles your limbs together while making himself comfortable on the raggedy couch.

“Sleep then, baby. We have a big day ahead of us and I want to leave as soon as we can after going out to find some food.”

A smile forms on your lips then and you nod your head a couple of times. Yes, for a second you almost forgot about your dream and how it’s about to become reality, how close you are, at last to the final destination.

So tonight, you fall asleep with no fear of tomorrow, you fall asleep in the blink of an eye without having to trick yourself into closing your eyes and shutting down all of your thoughts. Tonight, for the first time in weeks, you sleep peacefully in his arms without a single nightmare coming to haunt your dreams. Tonight, the happy memories running through your head behind those closed lids do not burn and turn to ashes, no, they shine brighter than a thousand suns because, for the first time in weeks, you actually believe they could turn into reality soon.

There are some things you can feel in your guts long before they happen. They just sit there, on the pit of your stomach, to make you nervous, nauseous and restless even though you don’t know what they are just yet.

When you wake up and lift your head from his naked chest just so you can stare at his beautiful, peaceful face, you instantly know it’s one of those days. The nervousness sips into your system all at once, cutting your breath short, turning your heart into a caged bird eager to escape. Yet, you don’t utter a single word because today it’s a big day. The day.

You don’t say a word when he kisses you as soon as he wakes up nor when he makes plans for your departure. You don’t even say anything when he puts his almost-empty bag behind his back and walks out the door to scout for some food to bring with you on your trip to salvation.

A lot of words are wasted and gulped down, trapped in the deepest recess of your being where no one can see them or hear them except yourself. And those words menace to choke you, to burn you and consume you until nothing but ashes are left as you wait for him sitting on that same couch you made love on top of last night.

You wait. And wait. And the seconds tick by turning into minutes that turn into hours and the longer you wait, the worse you feel and it’s when your head is starting to spin, when it becomes too hard for you to breathe, when it’s impossible for you to focus on anything else that isn’t the worst-case scenario that you finally get up from the damn couch, pull the backpack on your shoulders and leave the apartment.

Smoke welcomes you back into the real world outside your happy bubble. It stings your eyes, it makes them water and has you coughing out in desperate need of clean air and you know the wiser thing would be to run back to the relative safety of the apartment but the uneasiness in your stomach grows bigger and bigger, dilating like oil at sea, menacing to take over every single cell you’re made of. So, you walk. Walk away from your pretty perfect house, the one you built out of cards last night even though you knew it was going to inevitably collapse soon, the one where you sought peace and happiness and hope for a bright future. You leave it all behind because you have no other choice but to.

The eerie silence of the city is one you’ve experienced countless of times before and therefore you know it’s nothing but the quiet before the storm hits, a trap to make you lower your guard enough for the monsters to attack and take you down with them and as you walk through the deserted and unknown alleys, the feeling of being followed and watched takes over, prompts your legs to move faster just in case you need to start running for your life.

You’ve never been out on your own before. You always had Jeongguk to guide you, to protect you. It takes just a few minutes on your own out there to realise how much you depend on him, how bloody helpless you are on your own out here in the real world where nothing goes according to plan and you can’t count on anyone except for yourself. Again, you realise how lucky you had been all your life, how many little things you took for granted and it makes you wonder if this isn’t some sort of punishment or even a lesson being taught to whole humanity so that one day, the few survivors can learn from it and not repeat the same damn mistakes they’ve made before.

The sound of your name breaks the silence, cuts it in half, rips it to shreds. You whip your head around in the direction of the sound and it’s Jeongguk that you see right there, running through the wreckage the monsters have left behind in that unmistakable way that can only mean one thing: run or perish. So you outstretch your arm for him, lace your fingers together and start running right alongside him without asking a single question and without even looking behind your back.

Your heart soars with relief and gratitude for his salvation and that emotion slightly subdues the uneasiness in your stomach, slowly puts it to sleep as your feet hit hard on the bitumen while you trace your steps back to the apartment, its four safe walls and most importantly the car waiting for you there, that very car that promises to take you the hell away from all of this once and for all. Your grasp around his fingers tightens and as it does, his eyes land on you and that little smile of his twists his lips, at last, to bring warmth to your heart and body, to bring peace to the raging war inside your head.

The apartment’s door slams shut behind your backs and you both press your bodies on it to keep it firmly shut as you try and catch your breath. It is only when you feel his body relax against yours that the words come out.

“What happened?”

Jeongguk grimaces, shakes his head while closing his eyes while a little sigh escapes his lips, “I let my guard down. I was so sure those fuckers were far away deep down the city’s core I was surrounded in an instant. There were so fucking many…”

Your hand comes to his cheek and he leans into the touch immediately, without even noticing. The warmth of your touch placates his heart and brings his eyes on you. They are sweet and filled with love and you can’t help but lean in to kiss his lips.

“It’s ok. We’re alive and we’re about to get the hell away from here.”

Jeongguk smiles at you, nods his head a couple of times before pulling you fully into him, wrapping his loving arms around you and then resting his head in the crook of your neck. He insists that your perfume still lingers there up to this day and it doesn’t matter how much you tell him it is not possible, that any trace of your favourite perfume has long gone, he still claims that as his favourite spot that tastes and smells just like you.

Your fingers find purchase on his shirt, tug on it to bring him even closer, so close there is not a single inch of your bodies that is not touching and it’s right then that the bubble bursts, at last. It takes nothing more than a small touch, a little brush of your fingers against his skin.

Jeongguk hisses in pain and your heart stops.

Jeongguk releases you from his embrace and his eyes full of horror and dread fix on your face, cutting the air out of your lungs.

Jeongguk lifts his shirt up to reveal a red, bloodied mark on his left hip and your world crumbles for the second time in just two weeks.

Jeongguk takes in a sharp, trembling breath and tears start rolling down your cheeks as you furiously shake your head, frantically denying to yourself the truth laid out right before your eyes.

Jeongguk calls your name, puts both of his hands on your cheeks to brush the tears away but it’s a lost battle when they keep coming and coming like water pouring out of a splintered dike.

Tears fall from his eyes too. Thick as pearls, clear as glass, rare as diamonds. And you hate them because the more you look at them rolling down his cheeks, the more real it gets.

“N-no, no, Jeonggukie, no,” your bottom lip quivers, your voice breaks, your body trembles under his gaze as if an earthquake has been trapped right inside of you and it’s now breaking loose, erupting deep within you. You choke on your tears as you grab both of his arms with all the strength you have left in you, pull him into you as if that would stop the venom from spreading and taking his beautiful heart away, “Please.”

You don’t know if your plea is for him to tell you that it’s going to be ok, that this is just a nightmare, nothing to be scared of when you’ll soon open your eyes anyways and realise how stupid you were being or if it’s for some deity up there to help you, to grant you another miracle.

You don’t know but either way, it falls on deaf ears and it doesn’t matter how much you cry and scream and beg and pull him into you, nothing changes. You had your chance, didn’t you? You were granted a wish, a proper miracle back inside that car less than twenty-four hours ago. That was it, that was your first and final ticket and you carelessly used it, without even thinking, without even… You break. There are a million tiny pieces of yourself right there on the ground, sprawled across the dirty floor like an impossible puzzle to rearrange.

“Baby.” His voice is soft. No trace of the fear he feels right inside his heart, not a single trace of the anger and despair running through his veins. His last gift to you, the only thing he has to offer, it would seem, is his feigned peace of heart and mind, “Baby, listen to me.”

You don’t want to listen because deep down, you already know what he’s going to say and you do not want to hear those words, you don’t want to have to remember them ever leaving his mouth. So you fight him, yank away from his arms, try to run from him and the new reality that you’ve been thrown into but there is no hiding, no running this time. It’s game over, right there above your heads, written in crooked and red all caps.

“Listen to me!”

It would be easy to close your eyes and let yourself drift inside that happy land full of memories you retract to whenever things get too intense and heavy but his eyes are filled with raging fire, dancing flames of coal that hold your gaze on him, trap you there so that you can’t escape, not even for a second, not this time.

“There is a gun inside my bag, I want you to take it and—”

“NO!” The scream that erupts from your mouth scratches your throat, burns you from the inside out with the same force of those flames still trapping you there, within the tight grasp of his hands on your shoulders.

“Please, baby,” one of his hands moves to caress the top of your head and you close your eyes to relish into the touch knowing it will probably be your last. You lean into his hand as it reaches one of your cheeks once more and the softest sob escapes your parted lips as you try with all your might to deny the fact that it is over, that this is it and there is no going back.

“Please don’t make me do it,” your voice breaks, quivers helplessly as you open your eyes once more, fix them back into his beautiful, shining ones. You can see the pain there, the guilt and despair laced with the fear of doom but what you see is nowhere close what Jeongguk really feels.

He’s scared. Scared beyond belief and far more than he has ever been. He’s scared of the unknown, he’s scared of the pain, he’s scared of leaving you behind like this, of what will happen to you once he is gone and nobody is left to protect you. He is scared of what you’ll do to yourself after he… but he has no choice, he has no fucking say in all of this and he hates himself for everything. He hates himself for being weak in his final moments, for not having the courage to do it himself but most importantly for allowing this to be your last time together. It shouldn’t be like this, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But all these thoughts, all those words, they never leave his mouth. No. What comes out of his mouth is a reminder and a plea, all in one.

“You promised. We promised.”

It hits you just like a slap across the face, one so hard it would tilt your head to the side and turn the skin tender and boiling hot to the touch.

You remember that night. Sleeping under the stars in a dark alley trying to breathe as silently as possible to not gather the attention of the monsters roaming through the city, you laced your fingers together and promised with nothing but the night sky as your witness to never let yourselves become one of those soulless monsters. You promised while praying in your heart it’d never come the day either one of you would have to abide by it.

And now here you are.

“Don’t let me become one of them, baby, please. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Tears roll down his cheeks, harder and faster than ever before and each droplet breaks you a little more until truly, you feel like nothing of you is left. In this moment, you give up everything you’ve ever been. In this moment, you rip your soul to shreds and part ways with it knowing you’ll never be reunited with it in this life.

The sense of void engulfs you, swallows you whole and all you can hear are his words on repeat and oh, all you can see are those beautiful eyes of his pleading you to do it and you don’t know if it’s your hands that reach for his backpack to seize the gun nestled inside of it or if someone—or something—else is guiding your trembling fingers but, in an instant, the gun is there, right within your grasp and pointed straight to his head.

Jeongguk is looking at you and he tries to smile, tries to regard you with all the warmth filling his heart but he can’t hide the fear that is trapping him there, cutting the air out his lungs, turning his heart restless against his ribs. He fears everything but what he fears the most is what he’ll become if he doesn’t die right here, right now. So he forces himself to smile, he forces himself to nod, he forces his eyes to close and a sigh to move past his lips.

The bang echoes in your ears.

The bullet goes right through his head and yet you can fill it stuck right inside your heart instead, twisting into the flesh until you cannot breathe or think and all that is left is the pain and the scream of agony that leaves your trembling lips.

The gun slips from your quivering hands and hits the hard ground and your eyes fix on it long enough to notice the pool of red tinting the floor, soiling the carpet, slowly reaching for your shoes.

His blood.

You fall on the ground and break into tiny frail shreds of porcelain, so sharp they could cut deep into the skin, infiltrate under it and kill you from the inside out.

Your quivering hands are lost inside your hair, fisting them so hard you might pull them from your skull but you do not care nor feel any of the pain spreading through your body. No, not now when your eyes are fixed on what remains of his beautiful face. Those eyes that used to hold galaxies in them are void now, dark and lifeless like a night sky without a single star. Those pretty rosy lips you kissed until yours ached are now pale and turning cold, stuck in a perpetual “o” of utter shock. Those warm and delicate hands that used to hold you, caress you, explore you are now grasping nothing but the thin air and you open them to lace your fingers with them one last time.

One.

Last.

Time.

The desperate cries come then.

You are deaf to your own screams, blind to the tears coiling down your face, oblivious to the way your body shakes with each strangled breath, with each inconsolable sob. You throw yourself on his motionless body, rest your head atop his chest as if he were nothing more than asleep and you cling to his shirt begging him to hug you back just like he used to, reassure you that it’s all going to be ok, that this is just another one of your crazy nightmares, that none of this is real.

But when you open your eyes he’s still lying motionless on the ground, his eyes are still void and staring up at the ceiling and his arms are still sprawled on the floor and not tucked around your body to keep you safe. And the worst part of it is that this is all because of you. You did this to him.

The bang echoes in your ears again, louder and louder with each passing second and closing your eyes doesn’t work anymore because now, all you see behind those closed lids is his dead face and those bottomless black eyes.

Everything breaks inside of you, everything shatters and falls helplessly on the soiled floor to join him and fly away with him to a place far away from here. And oh, how much you wish you could join him, that you could pick up that damn gun, point it to your head and just let the last remnants of your soul go so that you won’t have to face this or live through this a second longer but you don’t and you try to tell yourself it’s because you are a coward, that it’s because deep down you want to survive no matter what because it would be easier to accept that, it would be easier to just loathe yourself and think the most despicable things about yourself but, alas, it wouldn’t be the truth. No, even now, even when his eyes cannot see you anymore, even when his voice cannot reach you, and his hands cannot hold you, you’re still doing everything for him.

If you close your eyes, if you focus on the silence surrounding you hard enough to tune out the loud bangs ricocheting through your consciousness, you can almost hear him begging you to keep on living, to keep on fighting for your dream so that his death is not in vain, so that not everything is lost. But even still, it is not enough for you to lift yourself up, for your legs to move and bring you out of this apartment, out if this forsaken town. It is not enough for you to actually stand up and fight for your life, for a chance at survival, for an actual future. So you stay there, on the floor, with your arms wrapped around him and your head resting on his immobile chest. And you remain there for hours, crying until there are no tears left to cry, until your eyes burn and your throat aches, until the sun goes down and you are enveloped in darkness.

You stay there, motionless just like him except for the steady rise and fall of your chest and not even the noises coming down the hallway, not even the sound of steps startle you, prompt you to leave him behind and run to safety.

Your eyes move to the door as it swings open and you’re almost ready to welcome your end without even trying to put up a fight but it is not a monster that stands right there, on the edge of this apartment door. No, it’s a human and that human is pointing a gun straight to your head.

“Fuck!”

The man curses, takes a step back and pulls his gun away from your face to point it on the floor instead.

“You’re human.” He says and you notice how deep his voice is, warm like honey and comforting like a lover’s hug, “I almost shoot you in the head.”

The man’s eyes look kind even though the shock is still written all over his face but that warmness disappears in an instant as he finally takes in the scenery before him: a pool of blood, a pair of void eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, a gun abandoned on the floor not too far away from your feet.

It is clear from the way he looks at you that he’s seen this before, probably even lived through it and the tenderness in his gaze, the way he takes careful steps towards you, the way he softly calls for you with a simple ‘hey’, oh, they all bring the tears and despair back and within seconds you are sobbing all over again and so hard your body shakes and menaces to actually splinter with the force of your pain. It is then that this stranger’s arms engulf you, surround you just like the tallest and safest towers ever created by mankind and you let him because you need this, you need someone to hold you together even for just a few seconds and even if you don’t know his name and he doesn’t know yours.

“Joon, the whole floor is clear, looks like we found somewhere for a good night’s sleep tonig—oh…”

There’s another man standing at the door now, his eyes big as saucers as he takes in the scene before his very eyes and you watch how his mouth opens and closes as he struggles to put together the whole thing and honestly, if this were a movie it would almost be amusing and comical but even the hope to wake up and discover it was all part of a nightmare, a recreation of your mind after watching a stupid horror movie alone in the middle of the night is now gone, completely erased.

“Yes, bring the others in, we’re going to stay.”

The other boy looks up at the stranger still holding you—Joon?—with questioning eyes but doesn’t dare to speak a single word and instead retreats to the end of the corridor in utter silence.

“It’s just four of us,” he says then, looking down at you with a tender smile, “We need somewhere to stay for the night and you probably shouldn’t be alone right now.”

He welcomes your silence with a slight nod of his head and then his arms are gone and you almost reach out for him to beg him to keep you in his embrace until you’re sure you’re not going to break apart into thousands of pieces but you don’t. Too afraid to ask, too scared to even dare to.

“We’re headed to the Refuge. Have you heard of it? It’s quite close at this point, if the rumours are true. It’s a community of humans that has successfully kept those fuckers out.”

“We…we were going there too.” Your voice is small and croaky, barely above a whisper but in the silence of the apartment, he hears your words loud and clear and responds to them with a hum.

“You could come with us.”

His words are simple yet they startle you, they prompt your eyes to fix back on Jeongguk’s lovely face and suddenly you are hyperventilating because no, you can’t leave him behind like this, you can’t leave his body here for those monsters to feed on. You just can’t.

The stranger’s arms are around you in an instant once more, his voice is soothing in your ears as he tries to calm you down, to stop the tears and the choking sobs but all his words fall on deaf ears as you start breaking apart all over again. You scream and cry your heart out and he lets you, he doesn’t leave your side again though, no, he keeps you right there within his embrace and he doesn’t give up and it does not make sense for someone you’ve barely even met to care so much about you, to have this much patience but maybe, maybe after seeing so much horror, after parting with so many different people just like you did he decided not to leave anyone else behind if he can, not even random girls met in an empty apartment in a forsaken, nameless city on a crumpled map.

“I know it’s hard but it’s going to be ok, I promise. You can’t give up now, ok? We’re so close, so freaking close and I didn’t know him but if he cared about you just as much as you evidently care about him, I’m sure he’d want you to move on, he’d want you to fight and win this battle and survive.” His words do come through this time and they should probably soothe your heart but they break it harder because no, he didn’t know Jeongguk but then why do his words match him so well he could have said them himself? You know he’d want you to follow them, to bring yourself to salvation and wasn’t that exactly what you told yourself while embracing his dead body all those hours ago?

The stranger breaks the embrace enough to look inside your eyes, to tentatively reach out to dry your tears and there is so much affection in his gaze, in the careful way he touches you, in the little dimpled smile he shows you and you already know, you’ll never be able to thank him enough for all of this.

“Who are you?” Your question comes out as a trembling whisper yet he catches on to it and smiles harder, pulls his gaze away from your face as his cheeks turn a lovely shade of coral. What you meant to ask was if he’s an angel, someone sent from up above to save you and guide you through this difficult path and maybe he gets what you mean or maybe he doesn’t but still, he replies and it’s the easiest answer he could ever give you, “I’m Namjoon.”

It is then, as you whisper his name and get acquainted with it that the other boy returns, followed by two more young men and their belongings which, just like yours, fit all inside a single bag.

“This is Jimin,” the boy next to you points to the shortest one of the bunch and you watch him blush as he slightly bows down while chewing on his bottom lip. He was the one that found you and Namjoon on the ground and his eyes still spark with curiosity but he doesn’t dare ask any questions and you are grateful for that.

“Taehyung,” Namjoon says, pointing towards the guy standing right next to Jimin, his fingers laced around the other boy’s in an unequivocal way that reminds you in an instant of the way Jeongguk always used to hold your hand any chance he got, especially the past few weeks.

“And that is Seokjin.” The last boy waves at you and the discomfort in his features is enough for you to pull your gaze away from him and fix it back on the ground.

No matter how much you try, you can’t shake the fact that this is wrong, that all of this is just wrong. You staying here, those boys standing here all around you, invading the privacy of this place and what it holds in it and you hate that this is somewhat normal to them—and to you—that it doesn’t shock humans anymore to find others with holes in their heads or even worse.

Silence envelops you and none of them breaks it and it stretches on and on until you can’t take it anymore, until it feels like you cannot breathe anymore.

“He was bitten,” you utter then, voice trembling and tears falling on your cheeks slowly like fat, translucent pearls. “He asked me to… I had no choice but… He—His name is-was Jeongguk.”

The boys bow their heads when you lift your head up and you can see the sadness in their eyes, the recognition and understanding that comes with experiencing all of this on your own skin, with your own eyes and maybe that’s why you don’t say anything when Namjoon slowly pulls Jeongguk away from your arms, maybe that’s why you let Seokjin lift you up from the ground in favour of the couch, maybe that’s why you let them touch him, close his eyes, pull him away and clean his blood off of the floor the best they can.

“We’ll bring him with us, we’ll bring him to the Refuge and spread his ashes there, away from all of this. What do you say?”

“Why are you doing this for me?” You look up to Namjoon while you hug your legs close to your chest and in that moment you don’t realise how ungrateful you must sound to him, questioning him and his motives over and over again instead of thanking him with all that you’ve got but he doesn’t comment on it, no, he offers you a gentle smile and a little sigh that holds all the exhaustion he must feel in it.

“Because there’s too little of us left to not care about each other at this point.”

Those words warm your heart, they warm your shivering body and move you in ways you didn’t think possible anymore. That little part left of your soul holds onto his words, onto the hope he provides and it hangs on to it with both nails and teeth refusing to let go and it’s that part of you that makes you open your mouth once more but this time, it is to offer some help and not just throw more burden to the mix.

“We found a car. It still has fuel in it and we planned to use it to reach the Refuge.”

Maybe this was all meant to be. Maybe, you were meant to meet and save those boys and they were meant to find you and pull you back together in the darkest hour of your life. Yes, maybe it was all written in the stars and it might not be fair because life, you’ve learned, hardly ever is but when your eyes land on the tall white walls of a city hidden in the mountains the following night, all the puzzle pieces fit together.

You watch the flames dance, feel the warmth of the fire on your hands, rising up to your arms and slowly reach your face like comforting hands tying to caress your body.

The heat makes your eyes water, makes your skin feel impossibly hot and yet you don’t move a single inch and find yourself almost wishing those flames would actually reach out and claim you right along with him, burn you until there’s nothing but ashes to remind the world that once, you existed. But it’s not you that burns, no, it’s Jeongguk. You watch his lovely body disappear inside those flames: his strong arms that used to hold you, his rosy lips that used to kiss you and call your name so sweetly whenever you were together, those beautiful eyes of coal you always got lost in, that luscious raven locks you loved to run your fingers through or tug on depending on the mood… you watch it all burn and disappear.

There is a comforting hand on your shoulder. The touch is delicate and sweet, enough to soothe your aching soul without it being too invasive and you are glad for it, for his presence by your side. Kim Namjoon saved you in more ways than meet the eyes. He saved you two nights ago when he found you holding Jeongguk’s lifeless body, he saved you when he put you inside that car with his friends, he saved you when he successfully brought you here, to the Refuge, where you can now freely mourn your loss and do it right. This is the first proper goodbye you were granted ever since it all started and in this moment you part ways with the love of your life but also with your family and friends, with everyone you’ve ever met that turned into an impossible monster or perished before the venom could turn them into one. And you allow yourself to break a little because it’s ok, you’re allowed this one moment of weakness now, you’re allowed to cry your heart out for all the things you’ve lost during this fight.

Your knuckles turn white against the necklace around your neck. The sharp ends of the feather dig into your skin and you let it, hell, you even grasp it tighter as if trying to merge your hand with it as if that could somehow bring him back or let him live right inside of you to his fullest. The tears run faster down your cheeks because this, right within your grasp, is all there’s left of him: a necklace and your memories. Nothing more.

All that Jeongguk was, his past and present and future, they were all swept away in an instant, like dust under the force of the wind and you are the only one that remains to remember him, to tell his story to the world, to let him live on so that he won’t ever be forgotten amongst the millions of lives that were lost.

Just you, a necklace and a fist of ashes.

It’s with trembling fingers that you release them all in the air, let his entire being be swept away by wind so that it can cover the land all around you and be reborn in this field in the form of beautiful flowers, majestic trees, droplets of water to fill the river running down the hills.

The breeze is warm against your skin and if you close your eyes you can almost imagine his fingers caressing your body just like the wind is, you can almost imagine him embracing you through this air surrounding you, playing with your hair and enveloping your body.

For the first time in days, you smile. You smile at the thought of him being finally free and at peace right where he wanted to be, you smile at the thought of him looking down at you with his beautiful eyes, with pride shining in them. You smile at the thought of him nodding his head while patting yours, you smile at the idea of his fingers lacing with yours one last time as he says his goodbye with the promise of always looking down on you, of always protecting you, even from up there where nothing goes unseen. You smile and you thank him for loving you so much, for saving you countless of times even before the zombies arrived, even before you realized you were being saved and that you even needed to.

You thank him and tell him how much you love him, how you will never forget him, how you’ll keep cherishing him and keeping him right inside your heart for every second of your life from here moving forward and you repeat those promises you shared one year ago, on that altar, so that he knows you are his forever and no matter what, you’ll always belong to him just like him belonged to you until his very last breath.

When the touch of a hand warms your shoulders and brings you back on Earth, for a second you startle and foolishly hope to turn around and see him standing right there, smiling at you with his head slightly tilted to the side. But when you turn it’s not Jeongguk that welcomes you, no, it’s Namjoon with his timid smile, with eyes full of wonders and understanding and this time, your smile, incredibly, does not falter nor disappear.

Namjoon doesn’t utter a single word and he doesn’t need to because you know, even though you’ve barely met him, that he is simply there for you, that he is offering you his support and friendship amidst those difficult times and you don’t tell him how grateful and touched you are but a part of you suspects he already knows.

Your eyes drift away from his face and it is then that you notice the other three boys standing a few steps back from the two of you, their eyes fixed on you and the deserted land right behind your back.

They came.

You don’t know when they arrived or if they’ve been there the whole time but either way, you are grateful for their presence too because at least, someone else besides you is here to say goodbye to the wonderful man that was Jeon Jeongguk and it does not matter that they never met him and that they never will, they are still here to accompany his soul somewhere far away from this nightmare and the smile on your lips spreads while tears run down your cheeks once more.

You thank them, your voice nothing more than a trembling breath and they smile back at you, nod their heads and join you right there, at the edge of this green cliff where it’s easy to imagine a new world full of peace and love.

You look up at the sky once more and as the silence envelops you and the boys once more, you whimper out your farewell.

“Goodbye, Jeongguk.”

The grass is soft and ticklish under your feet as you walk through the empty path that leads to your favourite spot: the edge of the hill.

A warm smile spreads on your lips and you unconsciously fasten your pace as your eyes land on the vast sea of green, the clear sky up ahead, the dozens of flowers scattered all over the valley.

“Hey there, handsome.”

Your voice breaks the silence of the heaven-like place, gets carried away by the gust of wind that welcomes you right there, in front of the marble stone where you are bound to be found every single day, right when the sun rises up in the sky and shines brightly on everything in sight.

Your fingers reach out to caress the marble, feel the crevices that make out his name right under your digits. You’ve done this countless of times before and yet you still hope one day they’d get engraved in your digits and stay there to accompany you every single hour for the rest of your life.

You heave out a little sigh as you let your body fall on the ground to hug your knees to your chest and rest your chin on them.

You know this is futile, you know that there is absolutely nothing of him right there, under the ground, that this is just a symbol of his existence, of the fact that once, a great man named Jeon Jeongguk walked the Earth and yet, you still come here every day to talk to him, to see him and remember him like he used to be before everything crumbled down and burned.

This time, it feels different though. Your smile falters a little, you divert your gaze and fix it on the ground to play with the grass, pluck with your fingers whilst you search for the right words to speak because you know, the moment they’ll hang up in the air they’ll become real and part of you is still not ready to face it all, to embrace the inevitable change coming your way.

“Today is the day,” you say then before biting down your bottom lip whilst lifting your gaze back up. In an instant, the tombstone disappears and sitting right across from you is Jeongguk. His eyes are sparkling, his lips are twisted a little to the side in a gentle smile and he is nodding his head in encouragement, urging you to speak up.

“We’re leaving in an hour.” Your voice is small and full with the uncertainty you feel blossoming right inside your heart.

Five years have passed since that night in that city in ruin. Five years spent in this Refuge trying to save and rebuild humankind. Five years of battles and uncertainties and pain, so much pain, but also joy and relief and victories and now, now the nightmare is over and what awaits for you outside this safe haven is a world similar to the one you left behind before the zombie appeared. A normal world rebuilt by those that were left behind, a world full of normalcy and opportunities and peace.

But you are scared. Scared of the future, scared of leaving this place that has kept you alive and safe for so long, scared of leaving him behind even though there is nothing of him left in this place anyways. But Jeongguk smiles at those words and it’s one of those dazzling smiles that used to make butterflies dance in your stomach, that used to turn your heart into a hummingbird, that used to make you feel as warm as the sun itself. You can almost hear his voice then, telling you how happy he is and that you should not be afraid, that he’ll still be right here for you, watching over you every step of the way.

It’s then that the tears come and fall down your cheeks. It’s then that you nod your head and promise him you’ll be back, one day, to sit just like this on this spot of grass in front of his tombstone. It is also then that a pair of small hands comes up your face, hides the sight of Jeongguk from you, throwing you into a pitch-black darkness that instead of fear brings nothing but laughter.

“My, my, who is this? Could it be my little monkey, by any chance?”

Yoona’s laugh fills the air as you turn around and welcome her in your embrace to tickle her to the point of tears. Her eyes shine as she looks up at you and you can see so much of him in there sometimes it’s almost painful to look at her but today, today it serves as a reminder that you’ll always have a part of him right beside you, no matter what.

“I’m sorry, _______. I tried to buy you a little more time but she just wouldn’t sit still.”

Namjoon’s voice reaches you then and as you lift your eyes you watch him stand there with his apologetic smile, dimples in full display as he shakes his head while watching your daughter struggling under the torture of your fingers on her belly.

“It’s ok, don’t worry. I was done anyways.”

You smile at your kid, bump your nose together with hers and hug her tight to your chest. She’s your little miracle, the very last gift he left behind before turning into ash and when you thought all of you was gone, when you thought you’ll never be able to love anyone else anymore, she came your way and filled your heart with all the love of the world.

You hear Namjoon’s steps as he walks away, allowing you one last moment with the love of your life and this is just one thing more to add to the list you are immensely grateful to him for. At this point, you are convinced not even an entire lifetime will be enough for you to be able to repay him or thank him enough for all that he has done for you all these years.

“Are you ready to leave, baby?”

Yoona nods her head in excitement. She’s the adventurous type, just like her dad used to be, and the thought of seeing the outside world thrills her so much she could barely sleep last night. This place is all she’s ever known, all she’s ever seen but you told her about the world outside those high walls made of stone, you told her stories about faraway places that look nothing like the Refuge, you told her fairytales from your childhood but also memories of yourself, her grandparents, her father and now that this world she’s been dreaming about is suddenly within her grasp all she wants to do is reach her little arm out and grasp it with all her might.

“Are you sad, mommy?” Her little palm rests on your cheek and it is then that you realise a few tears have escaped your control once more. You quickly brush them away but that is not enough to bring the smile back on her lovely face, to erase the worried expression twisting her features. “Is it because of daddy?”

She turns around towards the tombstone then before reaching out her little arm to feel the characters that make out his name under her digits, just like you always do. You know she is caressing his face now, that she’s making sure he knows how much she loves him even though she has never seen his face before, even though she has never heard his voice before and all she can do is imagine, fantasize and dream about him.

“Will daddy be sad if we leave?”

Her voice is small and your heart breaks a little and oh, it takes all your strength to keep the tears from falling now, to hold the pain deep inside of you where she can’t see it. You tighten your grasp around her, rest your chin on her tiny little shoulder so that you can place soft kisses on her cheek and reassure her that it’s ok, that you’re going to be ok and that no matter what, he’ll always be right beside her and all she’ll ever need to do is close her eyes to see him and feel him all around her.

“No, baby girl. Daddy will always be with us, no matter where we go and he’s happy, so so happy we’re going on a little adventure.”

She smiles a little, nods her head a couple of times before diverting her gaze to the necklace around her neck. She grasps the feather with her tiny fingers, brings it to her lips to kiss it lovingly and then she turns to you and the storm seems to have passed, just like that.

“Because he’s right here, right?”

She brings the necklace towards your face and you nod a couple of times before pointing right to her heart, “And right here.”

Yoona smiles her brightest smile and untangles from your embrace in favour of the tombstone. You watch her throw her arms around the marble stone and hug it tight to her chest and then you hear her whisper her farewell words—Goodbye, daddy. I love you.—and oh, your heart breaks all over again in an instant. And you would break too, right then and there, if it weren’t for her little smile and for Namjoon’s voice pulling you out of your thoughts.

“We have to leave soon.”

His voice is apologetic and full of understanding and you offer him and your daughter a gentle smile as you finally rise up from your spot. Your baby throws her arms around your neck as you lift her up and warmth spreads through your body as you hug her closer to remind yourself why you are doing this, why you are leaving all of this behind. For Yoona.

Namjoon’s hand finds your shoulder then as he throws one of his arms around you and even though he doesn’t speak a single word, you hear all of the things he wishes he could say to you and when you look at him, you silently thank him over and over again like you have been doing every single day of these past few years.

But your last words in this place are not reserved for him, no, they are for Jeongguk and only for him to hear.

Goodbye, my love. I will always love you.

A gust of wind caresses your cheeks then and you smile at the bright sky above your head because deep down, you know this is him touching you and when you close your eyes, just for a second, you can hear his voice through the gentle breeze, whispering right inside your ears.

Don’t fear, my love. I’ll always be by your side. I love you.

#goldenclosetnet #fwlbingo #ficswithluv #jungkook smut #bangtanhq #jeongguk smut #bts smut #jungkook x reader #jeongguk x reader #bts x reader #jungkook angst #jeongguk angst #bts angts #bts ff #bts imagine #bts scenario #bts react

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gofancyninjaworld · 4 years ago

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OPM Manga Chapter 139 Review: Abyss

Story: Unexpected Blast

Perspective matters. From our perspective last chapter, the hole that should be a hole is full of a curled up figure. We start the chapter with Flashy Flash, Saitama and Manako trying to make sense of something in the blackness. Try as Manako might, she can bring no light to bear on whatever’s out there. They’re interrupted in their investigations by a voice. This voice invites them to touch the cube and let it grant them their wishes... if it wants... like the world’s worst genie.

For more see under the cut! This is a long one!

Before they can consider the terms the infernal cube is offering, what happens but your regular rip in spacetime that just so happens to deposit the much-mentioned but never seen hero, Blast? He grabs the cube, spins it on a finger and off it vanishes into another dimension, along with the outraged shrieks of the being who wasn’t finished tempting Saitama’s little troupe. Blast is nice enough to take them to the surface, although not before explaining that time is running slow in the hole. So don’t expect Flashy Flash and Saitama anytime soon.

...I must confess I’m distracted by Flashy Flash’s ass and heels.

Anyway, back to the now. Directly on the heels of Orochi being cast down, we watch the heroes who weren’t part of the monster-bashing festival acting as the rearguard, but mostly spectating. Well, Child Emperor isn’t spectating -- he’s deep in a personal crisis from having erroneously excluded Genos and Bang from participating and wants Zombieman to take over command. As Sweetmask pooh-poohs the idea, Zombieman demurs, pointing out that the boy’s ability to admit error and seek to understand make for the capacity to improve.

AND THEN! FATALITY! Zombieman shoves Child Emperor out of the way just in time to catch the fireballs of Homeless Emperor, ugh.

The rearguard is under attack, but unfortunately no help is forthcoming as everyone else is transfixed (metaphorically) by Tatsumaki transfixing (literally) Orochi using the former Subterranean city as a skewer. It drives Orochi into the earth, twisting and smearing him as it goes, until he finally expires in front of an altar where there’s a mural depicting a suspiciously Orochi-like figure receiving sacrifices. Gee, I wonder what that means? Orochi dying where he was born, always sweet.

Well, the scumtastic monsters collectively known as the cadre are finally bubbling up to the surface. They’ve conveniently waited until their boss has taken the punishment and tired out the really big scary heroes they don’t want to tangle with. This is going to get nasty.

Meta: Evil Space Lawyers and other beasts

You didn’t read the small print

I don’t know the anon who wrote to me to point out that the confiscation that ‘God’ spoke of is exactly the same as the word used when He took away Homeless Emperor’s powers and that it’s a legal term He used. Evil Space Lawyer indeed. Setting up and executing unilateral contracts without notice.

We don’t know much about God yet, but so far, the people who we do know He’s ‘helped’ have been exceptionally homicidal freaks acting out of a deep-seated hatred of humanity who’ve been all too willing to use their powers to inflict sickening harm on the world.

Keep spoiling his fun, Blast!

You know, I’m pleased to meet the coolest uncle in the world, Blast, but honestly, there isn’t much *to* him. At least, not yet. Sure he’s cool. It’s great to see that Blast really is an exceptional hero who can spoil ‘God’s’ fun -- at least better than he can kill off giant monsters. Yes, it’s neat to see that he has a means to get around to the unlikeliest of places. Yes, it’s nice to look at his eyes and realise that Blue is telling no more than the truth (characters in OPM usually are). But okay, and? So? I’m sure that he’ll be back, and when he is, we’ll have more reason to care.

I do enjoy the detail of showing how he’s been ageing over time through the discrepancies between characters’ memories of him and how he is in the present day.

Sitch really was just telling the truth when he said that Blast was someone who wouldn’t be ordered around. I’m not wondering either at Sekingar saying that Blast is semi-retired and only a handful of executives can get hold of him. It all fits.

I freaking love that the various jack-in-the-box reveals are being destroyed and turned into more organic story-telling. ONE has the space, he may as well, as it also clears the way to do deeper storytelling about both the OPM world and its denizens.

Sit down, be humble

Man, the small but interesting changes between how Flashy Flash’s Very Bad No Good Day unfolded in the webcomic and the manga continue to amuse me. He’s been buried in an undignified position and dug out by a pair of clowns. His beloved Instakill has been murdered by a hyperactive midget with a twitchy index finger. And now the worst thing of all, not feeling like he’s the fastest thing on the planet has happened now once, but TWICE.

Heh, I wonder who Flashy Flash will take his wounded ninja pride out on.

Oh, the humanity!

Parentification is when a child is pressed into the role of taking on adult responsibilities to make up for unreliable adults. It’s been a big problem that Child Emperor has been struggling with and I was both heartbroken and hopeful to see Child Emperor admit that the impossible position he was in was, in fact, impossible. I wouldn’t call his decisions bad -- under the circumstances, with no one by him to advise, they were the best decisions he could make. The outcome of the decision was just very unhelpful.

I was more than a little sad when the upshot of Zombieman’s kind words boiled down to Child Emperor still being left carrying the can.

Speaking of humanity, it’s a gimme for web comic readers that Amai Mask is speaking without turning his head to look at Zombieman. So far, he’s been able to hide his shame from everyone, that he’s turning into a real monster. But for how much longer?

In passing

Fun little thing. As Manako lights up the world, just look at Flashy Flash’s body:

A second fun thing: Child Emperor’s memory of Genos being a mix of actual observation -- the lack of spikes -- and what he preferred to remember. Choosing not to remember that he was naked, good boy!

Btw, between Flashy Flash, Saitama, and Blast, that’s three of the four known cape-wearing heroes in one room. Nice!

#OPM #meta #long #review #Blast #Saitama #Flashy Flash #Child Emperor #Zombieman #Amai Mask #'God'#the mystery of the cube has an answer #and it's good to meet the character Blast behind the mystique

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walker-journal · 4 years ago

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Bellyflop into the Abyss (Dave, Mina, Adam- POTW)

Characters: Adam Walker (Hunter-Tapir), Wilhelmina Fitzroy (Nix-Virginia), David Herring (Selkie-Immo)

Summary: Seeking ways to combat the rifts opening across White Crest, Adam and Mina meet with Dave and dive into the sea of a Demon Dimension in search of answers

Content Warnings: Head Trauma, Parental Death mention, Gun Use

Adam’s shoes sloshed on the partially flooded floor of the empty convention center, beckoning for Mina to follow. Deluges of water expelled from the dimensional rift in the Common had begun to create pools of standing water around White Crest’s greenspace, gradually rising and spreading to the ground floors of nearby buildings.

“So I’ve set up a meeting with another hunter who's been fighting underwater monsters for a long tide,” Adam explained as he waded through the strangely colored waters from another world towards a staircase. “Before the portal opens we’ll probably want any advice we can get y’know?”

The water was high enough that Mina had simply taken off her shoes and left them in her car before she and Adam had made it to the common. It wasn’t like there was anything in the water that could hurt her before the water itself healed her. She couldn’t afford to ruin or lose another pair of shoes, seeing as how she… kept ruining and losing her shoes. She’d been sleeping (in the loosest sense of the word) in the woods more and more, and that was more detrimental to her footwear than she’d imagined.

“That works for me,” Mina said, nodding as she looked around in the water, watching out for creatures that might pop out. Mina agreed to this because she couldn’t not. She wanted to help people. She wanted to protect people. She wanted to feel useful. “What, exactly, are we looking for in the portal? Just a way to close it, right?”

Of course all hell had broken loose while Dave had been locked up in Rio’s scribary. If he hadn’t already been in a piss poor mood thanks to the lancing pain where his arm was healing, one of the hell dimensions looked like it might even be fun. But with a firm warning from the doctor that he could lose the rest of the functionality in his arm if he didn’t let it heal, Dave knew better than seeking out new hunts in new waters while under the weather. When Adam had approached him with ideas for a frogman mission, the best he could offer was the equipment to keep anyone else from drowning.

Dave had set up his gear on the roof, considering the rumours of how high the tide would come in, and it kept him out of sight of wandering eyes. His pelt was carefully folded to the side, constantly in sight. Just in case it was needed, considering how much faster. It was a sign of trust that might well go right over the young hunter’s head, but Dave didn’t mind that so much.

At the vibrations of footsteps heading up the water-soaked stairs, Dave turned to the emergency exit door he’d wedged open. He raised his less injured arm to greet Adam, but his features dropped into a frown as a second figure followed him through. Fuck. Mina. The last time he’d seen her, he’d nearly crushed the life out of her. Dave took a step away from the gear behind him, hoping that having one arm in a loose wrist sling would make him look less threatening. “Hey.” He said gruffly, his tone contrite. “Not gonna hurt you again. I was sick. I’m sorry.” Better to get that out of the way before she freaked out.

“Yeah some clue to what caused it to open, maybe what’ll close it,” Adam continued as they walked into the room, the Hunter’s shoe’s squelching from the trip through the sudden bottom floor.

“Yo! Professor Porpoise! This is Mina and she…”

Adam paused midsentence, brown eyes flicking between Mina and an apparently contrition-struck Dave.

Aw shit, bad blood with the Scuba Hunters. Adam swallowed and looked over his shoulder at Mina, wondering if he just walked her into a meeting with her mom’s sealy exboyfriend who ruined the Atlantis family through bad self-care or something.

“Alright, good,” Mina said, structuring everything into mission objectives in her head as she followed Adam up to the roof. “Find out what’s happening, make it stop, keep the Commons from becoming the next Dark Score Lake. Sounds--” She stopped in her tracks when she saw Dave, though.

Mina’s first thought was to make sure that Adam knew the danger and then get them both out of there, as against the idea as the other hunter might be. But Dave… wasn’t attempting to hurt either of them. She let her eyes scan over the selkie, taking in his posture, his facial expressions, his arm in a sling. And his words were confirmation of what she’d thought, that something had been wrong. (She still remembered his words, how he’d thought she was a monster, how he’d broken her like it was nothing.)

“Hi,” Mina said, her tone cautious, but there was relief there, too. She’d been right when she thought that something was wrong. And, besides, there was no one to stop her for forgiving him. He’d been sick. Something in him had seen her as a threat, as prey. Something had been wrong. She couldn’t fault him for that. He’d been kind to her, before, and she could see proof of that man standing before her. “I thought-- I thought something was wrong with you, then.” She cleared her throat. “So, ah, Professor Porpoise, was it?” She felt strange joking, still a little on edge, but she was trying. “I take it you’re our equipment expert, then?”

The air saturated with a pregnant pause as Mina weighed him up. Dave waited, quietly, for her reaction. He nodded in confirmation, gesturing to the slowly healing bite on his injured arm. Too slowly. Every bad incident was taking too long, and even with the infection cleaned out of his system and the rest he was careful to give it now, the joint of his elbow wouldn’t be the same. And then the moment passed as she repeated Walker’s newest nickname for him.

“Not sure if that’s better or worse than what I was being called before,” Dave eventually settled on gruffly, without a lick of heat to it, there was even a twitch of a smile. It was a good nickname, all things considered. He did love word play, even if he was considering finding some land mammal comparisons for the two of them.

“Something like that.” He looked over Adam and Mina’s gear with a critical eye. Mina wouldn’t need scuba gear, so her wet suit would have to do, and Adam’s scuba gear was recognisably combat oriented, with a rebreather, but limited. “Looks like you won’t be needing any knives between the pair of you. Take your pick of the rest of this. We’ll start with these,” Dave said, with small boards that could be clipped onto wetsuits, each featuring a clock, underwater compass, diver’s white board and small computer with depth sensors and tracking devices. “At the very least it should help the pair of you find each other if you get seperated, and if the portal plays nice with the comms, should help you get back here too. This,” Dave gestured to a streamlined black propellor with handles, “will let you,” Dave pointed to Adam, “keep up with you,” this to Mina, “and get away from some of the gnarly things in there. Pretty damn quiet, never had anyone have an issue with it that they wouldn’t have had without it.”

“As for what weapons you’ll need,” Dave gestured at a few options of underwater pistols, rifles, bangsticks and explosives, “it’s really gonna depend on how much time you want to spend killing things while in there. Firearms and bangsticks are a good call for merms, grindys and dievalves, but a bootstrap worm washed up here this last night. If you catch a hint of those, the better call is to swim away.” Dave rubbed his jaw. “The deeper you go, the weirder shit gets. Don’t go too deep.”

Adam knelt besides the black propeller and squinted at it. “This’ll be interesting.” It really hadn’t occurred to him yet that down in the depths he’d be the slow one. It was a weird feeling being the liability here. “Aww sweet bangsticks,” the Hunter looked at the explosives with affectionate reassurance, as if being able to blow things up made the prospect of diving into a alien world less unsure.

“How deep are you comfortable with going Mina?”

Taking one of the small boards Dave offered, Mina clipped it to her suit, checking to make sure that all of the components were working. Everything appeared to be in working order, though it wasn’t like she knew how to work half of the devices on it. She probably wouldn’t need to. Before, she might have been interested, might have wanted to know how all of the different parts worked so that she could explain them to Bex in a way that made this seem less like a life or death situation and more interesting, like a learning experience. Now, she just wanted to do her duty and exhaust herself and try to sleep.

Grabbing a few bangsticks, Mina looked at the firearms and decided against them. She was a terrible shot. She could only imagine that it’d be worse underwater. She looked at Adam. She was so tired but determined. “However deep it takes. We’re looking for something, right? We stay down until we find it.” She looked at his equipment.” Or until you run out of air.”

“Just keep factoring in decompression time the deeper you go. Hunter healing only accounts for so much,” Dave replied grimly. “Tide washes in through the portal for three hours and thirteen minutes each day, try not to miss getting back.” He had no doubt Adam knew the limits of the equipment he used like the back of his hand, but he also knew how hunters could get around their own bodies. He’d learned that first hand. There were a dozen more likely ways either of them could die, but the bends was a shitty way to go.

“If you’re within three to four hundred feet of the portal, I might be able to help if something goes wrong.” Dave held out a small ziplock bag with a slime covered mother of Pearl, handing it to Adam. Best not to ask what the slime was. “Spellcaster magic. You swallow it and it’ll put a few minutes oxygen in your blood. Hurts like hell and I only have the one.” A payment for the kind of job that had left Dave feeling like it’d be better if he could peel off his human skin too. If they were deep enough, that Pearl wouldn’t matter if some monster punctured Adam’s gear. If they were far enough, his pelt wouldn’t either. He looked from one to the other, determined, young faces, and hated what had bitten him just a little more.

“Three hours huh,” Adam repeated. It wasn't exactly a big window considering how broad their objective was here. They’d both have to economize their time in the portal, but Adam doubted splitting up would be a good idea in a Hell Dimension. The Hunter frowned at the puzzle, trying process what Mina and Dave were saying while trying to get a firm vision of what needed to be done.

The sheer impossibility of his calling, of holding back entire universes from encroaching on Earth, was crushing in its weight. The inevitability of everything being swallowed up in the Hells, how frail and tiny we all were in the grand scheme of things, yawned in the back of Adam’s mind. Not for the first time, Adam Walker secretly wished he’d never been shown the truth, that he could just be playing ball, blissfully unaware of how precariously Earth teetered to a vast uncaring abyss.

So Adam did what he always did when the cosmic insignificance got a little too real: He grinned and played the fool. It felt good, comfortable. It was the only way he could stay sane sometimes.

“Aw sweet! Sea witch jizz!” Adam guffawed and poked the bag experimentally. The fraternity boy let his mind drift away from the fact that he was about to plunge into an alien universe full of hazards humanity had never evolved to face, away from the inevitability that he’d keep doing this again and again until one day he didn’t come back. No one would ever know how, or where he died, or that it’d been for their sakes. Just like Dad.

It felt good to be funny, everything was fine if he made it funny.

“We’re looking for like...something to close the rift,” Adam replied to Mina with a confident nod and smile. When others were struggling you needed to be strong for them. A lifetime of athletics, drills, and just generally being an extrovert had acquainted Adam with the self-fulfilling nature of confidence, that lie you wore outwardly until it became real inwardly. “Like I dunno ..an off switch?” He shrugged nonchalantly. “We’ll figure it out y’know? But yeah def’ no going till we run outta air, I want to make it to date night with Nell.”

It was a cheerful lie of course. Adam never scheduled anything after Hunts. Surviving was a privilege not an assumption.

Mina couldn’t help but snort a little bit at Adam’s comment before she turned back to the task at hand. It was good. It was funny. It was nice to laugh. But they had work to do. She just wanted to do something good. Maybe this was her proving herself to herself. She wanted to prove that she could protect people. She wanted to prove that so much that it ached like a bruise. And maybe no one else would know but the three of them, but she didn’t care. She needed this.

“Okay, then we go only long enough to where we can make it back before the portal closes from no matter where we are with… at least ten minutes to spare. In case something goes wrong.” Mina set a timer on her board that she’d start as soon as she went in. She shot Adam a warning look, one laced with fondness. “And you, don’t pull out any short of heroics if things start falling apart within the last minute, alright? Of the two of us, I can survive if I get stuck in there.” Probably. “So you’re getting out first.”

She almost made him promise, but she didn’t want him to get hurt worse if he did try and pull something.

Looking back at Dave, Mina added, “Please get him out first if something goes wrong.” She shot Adam a smile. It was almost genuine. “Nell would have my head if you missed date night, after all.” But she went over the objectives: go in, find an off switch, whatever that meant, and get out. Whatever destruction was caused along the way would be dealt with as it came.

Even Dave’s lips quirked as he rolled his eyes at Adam’s antics, good-naturedly grumpy at the way his gift was being treated. In the face of… extraordinarily fucked bullshit, what else was there other than to laugh in the face of it. Adam had done this on the catfish hunt too. Even if his confidence in finding a magical off switch was a little too much even for Dave. Learning anything from the portal would be a win, even if it was somewhere to rig explosive or steel guards to stop some of the monsters coming through. But Dave knew he was too cynical and too old, and dampening that hope was a dick move. Hell, it wasn’t even his mission. The more the two of them got ready to go, the more Dave itched to ditch the sling and the constricting human clothes, fit in his better skin and be more fucking useful than playing a discount Q in this Mission Impossible.

The information that Adam was dating the dimension breaking spellcaster barely had a second to set in before Mina was giving Dave instructions on who to save. Enhanced healing or not, Adam was the fragile one here. And the one Dave knew better. But it wasn’t a promise he could keep. In the dark, deep water, it wasn’t a question of choosing, it was a question of who he reached first. He couldn’t distinguish between two swimming human sized forms until he was too close to change his mind. He nodded curtly. “Let’s not let it get that close,” was all he said.

He looked out to the portal, a icy chill spilling down his spine. That was the creeping dread of being somewhere he’d been before. Dave always got older, but no hunter aged with him for long. It still felt wrong to send folks who had barely touched adulthood into those unknown depths. What he wouldn’t give right now to be diving with them rather than sending them off without him. The first splash of water bubbled over the edge, spilling a clump of algae onto the ground. “It’s time. Try not to get eaten this time around,” Dave teased wryly.

Adam hadn’t been raised with any notions of male disposability, where the loss of a woman was somehow more emotionally significant then that of a man, thus obligating him to assume Mina’s life had more gendered importance then his own. Like most Hunter families, the Walkers didn’t see the gender of their children as relevant when training humanity’s protectors, and Adam fought alongside his sisters, aunts, and fem-cousins without any assumptions that he’d need to do a square-jawed Hollywood leading man sacrifice for their sake.

Nevertheless Mina’s insistence that he go out first and not try any heroics still bit at Adam in a way that had nothing to do with chivalry. It gnawed at him even as he smiled and nodded noncommittally at her good-natured implorement.

Why? Did he feel inadequate being the weak one here? Maybe? How’d that make sense though? He’d asked Mina to accompany him for exactly this reason. This was her speciality and everything she’d just said made logical sense. The tactical part of Adam’s brain had accepted that and already moved on.

Then...why had it tilted him so much?

Dave’s gentle ribbing and announcement of the portal opening came as a relief of sorts from the unwelcome thoughts sneaking their way into Adam’s head. Adam drew in a deep breath and let out a long exhale, broad shoulders rising and falling as the athlete put himself in the zone. This was the good part, that high you got right before the game started where everything started to make a simple violent sense. Adrenaline began to transmute anxiety in a peaked awareness of his own body and surroundings, climbing in euphoric intensity as Adam looked out the window to see a churning whirlpool pour open into thin air above the Common greens.

Adrenaline and Adam were old friends. It was the only drug he’d ever needed.

“Fuck yeah!” The Hunter grinned. “Nah don’t worry Professor Porpoise being swallowed is actually like...way more horrible than it looks in the movies, easy one outta ten won’t repeat. C’mon Mina! Let’s get flushed by the universe!”

Adam had begun the boot camp hustle down the stairs, laden with equipment, when he turned back to look up at his pelagic benefactor.

“Hey Dave, thanks man, like seriously, I owe you man this wouldn't be possible with you.”

“Flushed by the universe,” Mina said quietly as she followed after Adam, webbing already forming itself between her fingers. Scales formed on her arms, on her legs where the wetsuit ended on her calves. Her gills opened on her neck, ready to take in water. “Might as well be flushed by the universe, I suppose.” At this point, why not?

She followed at a more controlled pace than Adam, but Mina was practically buzzing with adrenaline, with energy. She was ready. She was so tired, but she was ready. Her body may have not been made for hunting, but it had been trained for it, and there was nothing she was more prepared for than this. For once, she would be the one with the speed, the healing, the capabilities. She was ready.

Looking back at Dave, Mina gave him a wary smile and said, “Who knows? This could go quicker than we think. We could be in and out of this within fifteen minutes.” Nevermind that neither of them knew how to close the portal, nor did they know what would happen when it closed. She was just hoping they didn’t get stuck in there.

Don’t thank me, Dave wanted to say. The weight of their debts, in Dave’s mind, was stacked in Adam’s favour. His life had hinged on Adam’s decisions plenty of times already. But he knew it might be the last time Adam got to say. The last time Mina would stand on firm soil, maybe. His heart twinged, and Dave quieted it. “I expect anything that doesn’t get used up back at the end of this,” he said instead, his voice so hard it could have been mistaken for brittle.

“Wouldn’t that be something,” Dave replied to Mina with a raised eyebrow, then shrugged. “I’ll be here, waiting for as long as it takes. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” The third wave spilled over the portal into the common, and a young, small karkinoid lay in the grass on its back, wriggling as it tried to right itself again. A few days of this had left everyone evacuated from outside the flood zone with cordons keeping people away, but denial was a powerful drug, and a couple people were straying a little close. Dave sat on the roof, peering into the portal. He started his timer. Don’t die, was what he’d wanted to say.

Adam looked up at the portal churning a few feet above the green, trying to hold his ground as strangely water burst out of thin air as if reality were a dike that’d busted a whole. Doubts snuck their way into the Hunter’s brain as another water nearly knocked him off his feet.

So Adam decided to spit in fear’s face and defdefiantlyinately turned his back on the portal and gave Mina a thumbs up.

“See you in Atlantis Fitzroy,” he assured before jumping into the spatial tear backwards like it was a water park slide.

Then Adam’s body was being torn apart, for hours and just moments he was shredded down to the molecules in a space between spaces. He was completely conscious yet also obliterated.

So it took Adam a bit too realize he was now screaming and flailing like a dumbass in the deep.

There was no up or down, no sky, shore, or trench bottom. Adam squinted through the beam of his diving lantern light at an ecosystem that was entirely marine, a universe of endless water where his own branch of evolution had never taken place. He was just thankful that whatever otherworldly rules of water pressure existed here hadn’t crushed him immediately.

Stars didn’t exist here, but there was no shortage of light. Immense islands of bioluminescent coral drifted in the deep. Rainbows of biological light permeated through water from three-dimensional reefs ranging from glowing boulders to entire archipelagos of riotously colored polyps and anemones on the aqueous horizon. Adam glimpsed drifting forests of alien kelp, their slimy shadows hiding arboreal ecosystems of flowering growth and predation the naturalists of Earth could scarcely imagine. Currents of cold rippled through the water occasionally from submerged icebergs that had been hollowed out with caverns by the locals. Warmer currents were thick with shining heavenly cloudscapes that turned out to be bizarre forms of jellyfish on closer inspection. Some of the extraterrestrial Medusozoa shimmered with their own electrical charge, lighting arching within the colossal jellyfish flows like tentacled storm-clouds.

At first Adam thought he was in some kind of underwater aurora from all the waves of color shimmering around him. But as the Hunter’s eyes adjusted he realized there were actually tiny plankton-like creatures all around him, their bodies fluctuating together through spectrums of bioluminescent color as if it were some kind of eusocial communication.

“Hey...Mina,” Adam tried the coms as he looked around. “Can you hear me?”

Unlike Adam, Mina wanted to see exactly what it was that they were flinging themselves into. Even after Adam jumped in, she stayed back and stared, her heart beating rapidly. But she steeled her resolve and gave a nod to Dave before she dove in, hoping to have some sort of control over her descent.

No such thing. The moment Mina hit the water, she was in a current that even she couldn’t fight off. She tumbled through the water, moving so fast that it took the oxygen from her lungs even when it was supposed to be filtered in. She was disoriented and confused, but she adjusted. She was back in the headspace she’d held for twenty-something years, and that meant to be prepared for less than ideal situations. That meant being able to adjust to a world that was only water, and light came in a multitude of colors that took even her eyes a bit to adjust too, and that meant an immediate catalogue of her surroundings and person.

She hadn’t lost any of her gear, though it wasn’t like she had much in the first place. Adam was nearby, looking disoriented as he adjusted himself to wherever it was that the portal spit them out. Looking around, Mina couldn’t help but be slightly in awe of how beautiful it was. A world of endless water, no sign of the surface. She wondered if this was what the bottom of the ocean looked like. She wondered if it was better. But those weren’t the kind of thoughts she needed to have. She needed to focus. They had a mission.

Hearing Adam’s voice in her ear, Mina looked over to the other hunter. There wasn’t really anyway for her to talk back to him since she wasn’t wearing a mouthpiece, and it was likely that the sound of her voice would get lost underwater, but she gave him a thumbs up. Yes, she could hear them. Hopefully, they would have no trouble communicating back and forth with gestures.

Adam looked over the expanse of luminous plankton aurora, reef islands, and kelp forests. It was an entire universe of monster-infested haystack to search for a needle that might not even exist.

Adam felt the constriction of despairing panic at this impossible task grip his gut. But the Hunter took deep breaths that sounded thunderous in the diving mask.

Focus. The town is in danger. No second thoughts. Focus.

Ironically, the gift that made Adam valuable, the ability to sense any kind of supernatural creature was useless here. Every lifeform here was supernatural and the water was absolutely saturated with alien varieties of kelp and plankton. It was just dull static in the back of his head from so many Hunter vibes.

Kay, so the lead wouldn’t come from him. That meant…

“Hey Mina,” Adam began swimming down to her, leaving a small stream of bubbles in his wave. “We are looking for something that like...vibrates or gives off vibes similar to the portal.” Adam jerked a thumb back at the churning whirlpool in the distance that’d flung them into this universe. “Any chance you might feel a pull or like some vibrations in the water,” he asked, wishing they’d had time for Dave to give a course refresher on that particular bit of Aquaman wisdom. “It doesn’t matter how small it is,” he answered, “anything that tugs at your instincts.”

Mina’s eyes were designed to see in water, even without the aid of the luminous sea life around them. She could see the look on Adam’s face as he got closer, the look of being impossibly overwhelmed. She recognized it. She saw it in a mirror almost every time she looked. But they didn’t have time to be overwhelmed. Every minute that they were in the portal counted and had to be utilized to finding what it was that they were looking for.

She could feel vibrations, certainly, but Mina wondered if it was vibrations that she needed to be sensing at all. This was a supernatural artifact, something similar to the portal. A portal that opened up and let monsters loose. There had to be something about it that drew creatures to it, which meant, at least to her, that the key, whatever it might be, was something similar. It drew supernaturals to it. She would prefer if it was some sort of deterrent, but she couldn’t see that being the case. So she wasn’t trying to listen, to sense the key itself. She was headed towards something big. Something major.

There was a lot going on in one direction. She looked at the compass on her board. West. There was a lot of activity to the west. She pointed in that direction, hoping that she was right. If nothing else, they were in for an interesting time. There was something big down there.

Adam nodded and twisted the knob on the black water scooter that Dave had provided. The propeller churned to life and Adam felt a kinetic lurch as he surged forward through the water. Damn this thing had kick.

Silver light illuminated the deep growing brighter and brighter as they drew closer. Passing through another kelp forest, the Hunter pushed fronds out the way to see an incandescent sphere on the horizon. At first Adam had the crazy thought that it might be a submerged moon or even a star. Demon dimensions didn’t play by the same rules of physics as Earth after all.

But as they drew closer that ‘moon’ turned out to be an enormous pearl the width of a football stadium. It was nestled within an even larger clam, whose open ridged shell towered higher than most Earthen skyscrapers. The great pearl shone with its own inner light, casting the surrounding seas in a brilliant argent hues as if Mina and Adam were swimming through molten silver.

“Damn, got any vibes what we are looking for here,” Adam asked before seeing some scaffolding at the bottom of the pearl. Altars and tents made of seaweed formed a camp on the fleshy surface of the giant oyster’s interior. “Looks like the pearl has...uh ..worshippers?”

Keeping up with Adam’s water scooter was surprisingly easy; Mina never really knew how fast she swam. There was no one for her to race against, and she’d never utilized what she was for a hunt before. Being a nix and being a hunter had never correlated before. She was kind of glad to be useful for what she was, for this aspect of her life.

The Pearl was mesmerizing. Mina almost couldn’t look away from it. She looked at her hands, at the way the silver of her scales reflected in the silver of the pearl’s light, and she thought that she probably belonged in a place like this more than she did somewhere like White Crest. She could just… stay, make sure Adam got out with the key and closed the portal for good. Wouldn’t that be better for her? Wouldn’t she belong here?

Mina shook those thoughts away. Mission. They had a mission. And she still had a home and a life and people, even if she was distancing herself from people. More than that, she was there to do her job. That was what mattered. The job.

The pearl was definitely an epicenter of sorts for activity. Clearly, whatever intelligent life forms loved in this world had made the surrounding areas into some sort of temple. But there was no one around them, and that worried Mina they needed to be looking for a lot of life, and this place almost seemed abandoned.

Mina pointed again. Further. They needed to keep swimming.

“Careful,” murmured Adam as pressure suddenly began to build in the back of the Hunter’s head. “I’m getting like ...huge vibes here.”

The shape that first emerged from the murk appeared to be a tampa drill shell the size of an aircraft carrier, it’s ridged spire bearing spiraling designs that evoked a language Adam didn't understand. However its contours were a bit too smooth, with walkways and portholes grown into the structure of itself that no snail or oyster would ever need. It was then that Adam realized that this wasn’t the cast-off shell of a marine animal, but rather a submarine vessel that’d been grown by intelligent beings.

More of these massive organic submarines of calcium carbonate and chiten became visible as the divers pressed forward. Some types of shells were recognizable, while other ships were crafted from strange nautiloids and even submarines that appeared to be immense plants or a few titanic demonic fish that seemed perfectly alive despite the crew of lesser demons working inside their hollowed flesh. All the marvels of demonic biotechnology were connected together by enormous pyrosome colonies that formed long luminous tubes, perhaps to allow easy passage between ships.

“It’s like...a dockyard,” observed Adam, “for these demon shell ships.”

Mina was also picking up vibes, but they weren’t Fae vibes, hunter vibes. She felt ill at ease, like she had back when that creature had been loose in the lake. The two of them were small and insignificant in this vast, fathomless world with life that was possibly just as intelligent as life was in the place that they came from.

It felt like Mina’s stomach was trying to sink to the bottom of this bottomless place. Maybe Adam was onto something about Hellmouths ripping themselves open. She gave Adam a nod as he pointed out that this was some kind of dockyard. This was a horrifying place.

There was still a part of her that was aware that she could disappear here and stay.

They needed to steer clear of this area, but… the more Mina looked around, the more she felt like this was where they needed to go. Something was drawing her towards this area, something primal that she’d rather avoid. In a place like this, she believed, rather unfortunately, that places that she wanted to avoid were the very ones that they should head into. They needed to be quick about this. They needed to be careful about this.

Adam noticed a slight thinness in his breath as they passed under one of the behemoth shell vessels. His air supply was probably at the halfway point, but Adam felt like bringing that up would be counterproductive when they had a lead.

The each horned prong of the shell above them could’ve skewered earthly ships on its glossy spiral. Occasionally there were windows in the bio-vessel’s sides, not of glass, but made from translucent filmy slime stressed across the opening. Adam pressed a hand against one of the portholes and found the slime substance yielding and permeable.

“I think we can get in from here.”

Mina’s two main worries about this whole situation, as she looked at the strange ship, were knowing how much time they had left to do this and making sure she remembered the right direction to get back to the portal. That was what mattered. She needed to remember how to get them back to the portal. Or maybe Adam had some sort of gps machinery on his diving board. She wasn’t bothering with hers too much, trying instead to mesh hunter thoughts with nix thoughts in order to navigate this strange land. Find some sort of key. Get back. Insure they both survive. Close the portal. That was what mattered.

Wrinkling her nose a bit at the weird slimy material, Mina put her hand against it and pushed through. It wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d touched by far, but it still wasn’t pleasant. She was most worried about whatever sort of creatures they were going to run into. It’d been ominously quiet since they jumped in.

Adam wiped slime off his goggles as they drifted through the portal into the demon vessel. In some superficial ways the interior resembled that of an Earthly sea shell. A central columbell pillar ran through the shell from aft to its spiked stern. Whorls and sweeping structures expanded outward from the central columbella axis, forming great sloping charmpers with slickly smooth walls that were all linked by spiraling curvatures and twists rather than doors.

What furniture existed was grown out straight from the central coiling axis, though Adam couldn’t really guess what ergonomic purpose most of these chitin groves and indentations served.

Two creatures that appeared to be human sized moray eels covered in glowing pustules glided out from along a curving wall. Long sinuous strands extended eel demons’ pustules like seaweed wart hairs. These hairs caressed strange pearls and mussel clusters inset into the shell vessel’s walls, as if they were operating equipment of some kind.

Multiple sets of yellow eyes with large black pupils swiveled in their rows of sockets down the eel demons’ body to regard Adam and Mina. Both the head and apparent tails of the eel demons opened to reveal rows of glass-like teeth as they zipped through the water towards the intruders.

Mina would have been lying if she said that she wasn’t a little disappointed that the first creatures that they came into contact with weren’t mermaids. She really wanted to rip into a mermaid. It might be nice. It might get a lot of frustration out. But eels were fine, too.

Ducking out of the way as the creatures headed towards them, Mina considered the best course of action in dealing with them. She didn’t want to touch anything on them that glowed, fearing some sort of electrical backlash, and she didn’t want to touch those strange hairs, either. But she didn’t have any sort of ranged weapons, nothing that would help in a situation like this. As one of the creatures approached, she moved to the side and raked her claws against its smooth hide, causing the bulbous head with its mouthful of sharp teeth to turn back in her.

Mina jabbed the bangstick into the eel’s face and fired. Even creatures from whatever sort of Black Lagoon horror dimension this was didn’t enjoy a bullet to the face. There was the bang, and dark blood exited where the bullet went in, the creature’s body still floating even in death. Mina turned to Adam, hoping he was faring well. They needed to get moving. They had work to do.

Adam slid a still twitching demon off a long silver-tipped spear that had jutted out from what’d looked like a small baton. The human was less graceful in the water than his fey counterpart and red electrical burn marks stood out from long slices the demonic spine-hairs had seared through his diving suit. However Adam had apparently jutted the telescopic spear’s baton up against the thing grappling him and released a pressured seal that sent the silver spear straight through the demon’s innards.

Adam tried to keep focus as they swam through the smooth twisting gyres of the shell-ship. He would occasionally warn of presences beyond the next curve or loop, holding back as school of eel-demons, Vodnik, and even stranger creatures went about doing whatever inscrutable processes maintained a bio-tech vessel like this. It was tense business, ducking patrols and trying not to lose ones’ way in dizzying chambers of chitinous spirals that didn’t resemble any human norm of architecture or even up and down. The burning lashes across his chest throbbed and the air in his tank became ever thinner, but Adam kept his head on the mission. Surrendering to nervousness would likely be a death sentence here.

It was on reaching a porthole leading out into one of the Pyrosomes tubes that Adam discerned something resembling a central meeting point.

Pyrosomes were actually colony structures made from tiny organisms about a few millimeters in size. They often looked like cylindrical tubes of a gauzy texture that glowed with bioluminescence. But while Pyrosomes could get to about eighteen meters long on Earth, whatever extraterrestrial zooids these things were made of allowed the Water-Hell Pyrosomes to grow to far larger. Adam guessed they might even intentionally cultivated that way using whatever weird sciences the demons had at their disposal.

Glowing pyrosome tubes, some many hundreds of feet in length and wide enough to drive semi-trucks through, extended from each of the behemoth shell-submarines. Many of the pyrosomes linked the ships together in pulsating networks, perhaps to exchange crew and cargo. However, Adam saw a great many pyrosome tunnels extended towards a central point, a great helical axis of coral that this vast hell armada seemed tethered around.

“See that coral island that looks like a helix? I think whatever’s on there drew the demons here,” Adam theorized. “It might be what we’re looking for.”

They needed to hurry. That was all Mina could think about as they moved through these strange ships, this strange world. Adam was looking worse for wear, thick marks in his suit showing burned skin, and she knew they were running out of time. His tank wouldn’t last that long. Mina needed to get him out of there. She should have just come alone. She wouldn’t have had to worry about air supply or another person. Adam was one of the few hunters in the entire world that tolerated her, liked her, too. She didn’t want to lose that, especially not here in this underwater hell.

Eyes following where Adam pointed, Mina looked towards the helix. Even she could feel… something. A draw, a pull, a desire to head in that direction. She had no doubt that every creature near them felt that pull, too. That was the most dangerous area. That was, she was sure, where they needed to go. She hated that. She really, really hated that.

Mina nodded to Adam and pointed towards the glowing tube that would take them down to the helix. That’s what they needed to do, right? They needed to go down there, take whatever they found, and hoped that it helped the Common stop flooding with monsters every day. Taking a bit of initiative, she headed to the tube and, before she could think twice about it, got in it and hoped for the best.

It wasn’t like Mina meant to let out the slight scream as she was rocketed down the tube. She hadn’t. She was usually more composed. But she hadn’t been prepared for the speed, and she hadn’t been prepared for the tumble she took as she came out on the other end, and she hadn’t been prepared for the glowing sight that awaited them. This was where they were supposed to be.

And it was filled with monsters.

Adam caught his bearings and took in their surroundings. The stony spirals rotated parallel to one another. One was comprised of scarlet Precious coral and the other of aquamarine Octocoral. Though separate, these colony structures orbited each other in the pattern of a helix by some quirk of gravitation Adam couldn’t comprehend. But the source became clear as Adam perceived two glowing coral keys of the same respective coral types nestled on the spiraling ridges. They filled the water with conflicting hues of red and blue, blending into livid purples in some places at the helix's’ center. Light seemed to warp around them, twisting into strange flares and halos around the keys. Adam had a gut instinct that it was their power that was causing this helical gravity and had drawn the demonic armada here.

Unfortunately, the stares from an aquatic school of luminous eyes, antennas, and blind tentacle feelers extended their direction gave Adam the feeling that sheer surprise was the only reason and Mina weren’t already dead.

“Mine, grab the blue key!” Adam shot up towards the scarlet key, stabbing the silver spear through a giant brain covered in spines that’d tried to impale him against the reef.

There were the mermaids. Mina had been wondering when she’d see them. While Adam was dealing with something that looked like a creature out of some sort of science fiction movie, Mina had something a little more understandable to deal with, and, as one of the mermaids came at her, she went straight for the lure before aiming low, ripping into the creature’s head with her knives. And another one. And another one. She could feel their teeth tearing at her wetsuit, tearing holes in it and her skin. She wasn’t safe there just because she was a water dweller as well. Food was food.

Mina wasn’t food. She was claws and blades and so much pent up aggression. She wanted to fight. She just wanted to fight. So she did, against mermaids and Vodniks and creatures that she didn’t even have names for. All the way to the blue key that Adam mentioned.

It was so bright. It’s glow filled the whole space, blending with the other key’s shades of red. It was so nice to look at, so pretty. Mina was drawn into the soft blue colors, wanting to bask in them for as long as possible. No. Focus. She needed to focus. She had to focus. She snatched up the key, washed in a blue glow. The key’s glow dimmed, and it was warm in hand. So warm. She wrapped her hand around it tighter and and started swimming to Adam. They needed to go. They needed to go soon. The creatures were turning to look at her, drawn to the glow in her hand. They needed to go.

Adam skewered an eel demon to the coral with the spear in one hand while reached towards the scarlet key with the other. He squinted past the ruby halos and flaring star-like lights in the water, hand straining towards the key resting on the opalescent curves of a hollow shell, like on idol on an altar.

Adam’s hand closed around the key, and the world exploded in pain and blood.

A spine projectile punched through Adam’s back and out the front of his chest like a surgical bullet. The brain urchin creature had drifted dying in the water from Adam’s spear, but had sent a departing gift after its slayer in the moment of victory.

Everything was agony as Adam’s vision was rimmed as darkness as he fumbled at the controls of the water scooter. “C’mon,” he gasped, rapidly losing blood and air as hungry demons closed in.

Adam flicked the water scooter up to its threshold speed and held on as they tore into the deep towards the whirlpool between worlds.

Mina screamed as she watched Adam get skewered by one of those creatures. No. No. He had to get out. He was supposed to get out. He couldn’t die here. She started swimming after him as fast as she could, easily keeping up with the water scooter as she guarded their backs.

With each creature that got too close, Mina slashed out at them, baring sharp teeth and wielding sharper knives. Go go go. They had to go. They had to get to the portal and get out. She finally looked up at it, watching with horror as it got smaller even though they were getting closer.

The journey to the keys had taken too long, but the journey back to the portal was an ascent. Mina knew they were going to get there before Adam ran out of air. At least, she hoped. She just didn’t know if they were going to make it before blood loss became a problem. The blood spilling into the water like an ink trail was attracting all the monsters, making them swarm.

The portal was close. In her head, Mina said, Fuck it, as she turned to Adam and grabbed him before swimming them both as fast as she could through the portal. The exit was as rough as the entry, spitting them back in White Crest. Mina was gasping as she breathed straight air instead of water, as she dragged Adam with her towards where they’d left Dave. “Still with me, Walker? Come on, come on, come on. You’ve got things to do, you know.”

Somewhere they tore past the sun-like radiance of the giant pearl temple, Adam had slipped into darkness. He drifted down into himself, everything was so peaceful and numb. Soon even the hiss of the air tank became muted in some inner distance. There was no duty. No pain. Nobody to save and suffer for. It was just Adam in the undemanding dark.

How long he drifted like that Adam couldn’t really say.

An exhausted part him wanted to stay, but Adam knew that other people were gave everything meaning, and they weren’t in here.

So Adam forced his eyes open, shuddering and coughing and he coughed up blood and hell water on the Commons grass. The agony and color came rushing back like a punch to the solar plexus. He just lay there for a bit, the Earth’s grass reassuringly familiar.

The rough coal edges of the key bit into the skin of Adam’s palm, reminded himself that it all hadn’t just been a nightmare.

“So Mina,” Adam rasped grinning blearily up at his hunting partner. “How’d ya like Atlantis?”

The longer Dave watched the portal, the longer he itched to jump in it. For them, and for the simple siren call of water he wasn’t acquainted with yet.Each tide brought the swirling vibrations of their bodies moving through the water until one wave he couldn’t feel them at all. Instead the waves brought monsters, some which could be deterred by firing backsticks into their heads and some that Dave couldn’t hunt so easily with one arm in a sling. He kept people away instead, all the while making sure he had skin in the water, as the minutes went by and threatened to become hours, until the tide began to ebb.

Dave’s heart stayed in his throat until he felt the vibrations of the pair returning, racing through the water and a little closer with each wave. He turned as the next wave rushed through the portal, and spat out the pair of them with it. Alive, gasping for air. Dave couldn’t help his relieved grin. They filled the air with the stench of quickly spilling blood, freshwater algae and eel slick. His smile slid off his face as he saw the injuries that were becoming a staple of hunts with Walker, and hurried over to meet them. The first aid kit in his bag wasn’t going to cut it.

#gun use tw #parental death tw #head trauma tw #potw #Portal Combat #seizethecarpe #drowningisinevitable #walkerjournal

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wafflewarriors · 4 years ago

Text

A Rewrite of History

Chapter 11—Bugs (Part 2)

The Winchesters had been generous compared to this guy. If you had been cramped before, this was suffocating. You were in the passenger seat, with a gag pulling tight on your lips.

To even consider fighting against him was a joke.

Your nose flared as you breathed heavily—as it was taking all your focus not to puke all over yourself and the van (considering you had a gag in your mouth—gross).

You grimaced, tteeth grinding against the wet rag. Your headache was killer, and even though this was supposed to be a traumatizing event, you could feel yourself on the verge of passing out.

You sure put the nap in 'kidnapped'.

The Winchesters had probably found your little crime scene already. They both were as quick as a whip, so it wouldn't be long until they figured it all out and came for you. That is, if you were important enough to look for.

You'd like to believe you were a little more valuable than a map to find John, now. You had planted your little hints—little bits of the future for them to digest. That had to be enough to intrigue anyone. Especially the Winchesters.

It would be stupid on their end to just let you go.

The van lurched to a stop and you threw your eyes open, not even realizing they'd drifted shut.

You were so tired.

Your vision was fuzzy and it hurt your head to squint into the night. You were miserable. But you watched as the demon left, and you did a double take as he walked over to a familiar vehicle, instead.

That's my car.

It was enough to get you to press your face closer to the window. A figure emerged from behind the car.

Meg.

You watched, dumbfounded, as she approached the demon. Didn’t she first appear in Scarecrow? That was at least a few episodes away.

You tensed as she pointed in your direction. The other demon nodded, approaching the van again.

What are they saying about me?

When he threw open the car door, you fell with it, falling down onto the gravel without any way to break your fall.

“Well,” Meg scoffed, kicking at you, "this is disappointing. This is supposed to be 'the one'? She’s a twig.”

Other Demon™ wrenched you upward—seriously, could we please stop with all the sudden movements?—and ripped the gag from your mouth. It left a line of saliva down your chin, but you were too miserable to care.

You snorted. “Angels tell you that? Because they never lie.”

Other threw your back into the van, and your vision grayed out.

Shit.

You blacked out—only long enough for your knees to buckle, and for you to choke under Other's iron hold—and then you were back. You were barely able to shuffle back on your feet, sputtering.

The ringing in your ears was gradually drowned out by a buzzing, and everyone paused.

“You,” you coughed wetly, “hear that too?”

Everyone turned to watch as a great swarm blocked out the moon and stars, and you barely had enough conscience to feel fear.

Bugs.

You slid down the side of the van, alone.

Light swam over the area. The buzzing faded.

Was it them?

Shouting. Shouting and light.

Had they come for you?

You felt your eyelids flutter.

You shuddered, sobbing into the dirt when you couldn’t move.

Your panic attack still crushed your lungs as you were forcefully shaken, and, terrified, you gawked into the green eyes of a cross Dean Winchester.

You tried to push him away, but he just pinned you down, scowling and shouting some more.

“—drove—?”

"—what else—?—is there—"

“—her—all we know—”

"—did you—left—should have—"

They were talking about you, but you couldn’t give a damn.

You were so so tired.

"—concuss—"

"—don't let—"

"—know!"

"—dead?"

"—!—"

Without warning, the light around you brightened to become one blindingly white abyss. When you blinked, Dean's face was all but gone, replaced by Castiel.

"Where am I?" you asked. There was no pain. Where had your pain gone?

"Heaven," he said. He left you no time for questions before his hand reached up, caressing—

You woke abruptly to a hard slap on your face.

You gasped—you could breathe!—and your eyes shot open.

Your headache had melted away, your aches were no more, and the rings of torn flesh around your wrists were gone, as well as your handcuffs.

You were healed.

You blinked, feeling weirdly refreshed as you looked past Dean, as if to catch a glimpse of Castiel behind him. But there was nothing. Meg was gone. Other was gone. There was just a wash of light over gravel where they had all been.

“Whatcha' looking at?”

You looked him dead in the eyes and answered, “A bitch.”

Dean frowned. “Funny,” he said, wrenching you up by the arm and pulling you away from the van. “Thought you were dead for a good minute there."

“Not dead,” you replied, "but that was horrible."

“I don’t know, it looked like fun.”

You rolled your eyes. Asshole.

Dean still had you by the arm, pulling you toward Sam, who emerged from behind your car.

"Entire car was invested," said Sam as he approached, your bag in his hands. "Got us some weapons, though."

Sam dropped the bag and out rolled the jar of peanut butter and your loaf of bread, which was crawling with bugs.

The last of my food.

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Peanut butter and bread? You live like this?" He kicked the bag away like it was repulsive.

Well, screw you too, Dean.

"Also…" Sam trailed off as he grabbed a weapon. The angel blade. "What is this?"

"It's a knife," you said innocently.

Sam's expression pinched. "Yeah, I can see that," he said. "I mean, what does it do? What is it made of? And can it kill you?"

How ironic, considering you'd died a minute ago (or… you were pretty sure, anyway). It clearly didn't take much to kill you, and that blade wouldn't be an exception.

But they didn't need to know that.

"We could always just see for ourselves." Dean shrugged when you didn't reply.

You snapped at him, "If you wanted to, you'd have done it already. You need me alive." Man, you were beginning to sound like the typical monster. That was depressing. "And it's just a fancy knife. I stole it, okay?"

"You stole our gun too," Sam said as he pulled out their gun from your backpack. "And our dad's journal. You’re quite the thief."

You scoffed. "You're one to talk, Mr.CreditCardFraud. You both love to judge me for everything you guys do daily."

Sam's expression hardened. "Oh, right, because we kill innocents and work with demons."

You gaped at him. "Are you kidding me? You thought that entire kidnapping was me working with them?!" You were on the verge of hysteria. "And I'm sure you thought all those restraints were just funhousing, right? Good times with my demonic pals?"

"Not sure what you're talking about."

You frowned. "I mean just now. Big, burly guy? Ring any bells?" You didn't feel like mentioning Meg.

"Uh… no. Nobody was here but you."

You blinked.

What.

You glanced between the two of them. “But… there was sulfur left behind, wasn’t there?”

“Doesn’t mean anything," Dean denied.

"Because you think I'm a demon. Then why haven't you tested me with holy water yet?"

"We did. Earlier. When I knocked you out. But just because it didn't burn you, doesn't mean you're not something else."

"Either I left the sulfur, or I didn't. You can't simultaneously believe I'm a demon and something else," you said, exasperated.

"Watch me."

"The van, then. The demon drove the van.”

"You hotwired it," he said easily. "See, you left a ton of blood behind—definitely enough to kill a person, mind you. When we found you, you still had blood pooling out of your stomach. And then, magically, you healed. Not a scratch on you."

Blood pooling from your..? What were they talking about? He was exaggerating, probably.

You could see where he was going. And it wasn't helping your case. "Do a blood test, then. That blood on the sidewalk won’t match with mine."

Dean leaned back, tilting his head in consideration before nodding to Sam. "Fine."

Sam reached over, slammed the handcuffs back on your wrists, and lifted you over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

“Kinky," you wheezed.

Sam ignored you.

You couldn’t deny that you kinda had a good view of that booty though… and his toned back and broad shoulders.

Not the time, brain. Shut up.

Sam threw you in the Impala, and it was deja vu. Back at square one.

Slumping into the seat, you took some time to reflect.

Had you hallucinated Meg and Other?

No, you couldn't have. How else could you explain finding your car? How else could you explain the hallucinations, other than from the brain damage you got from Other repeatedly bashing your poor head on walls and sidewalks?

Your memories were a garbled mess. Like a dream confused with reality.

Then there was the whole heaven thing. Had he interfered? Was the light—instead of headlights—actually Heaven saving you? You lingered on the idea. That meant Castiel was looking out for you, at least.

There were so many things you couldn't explain yourself, much less to the Winchesters.

And Sam… Sam was going to be a hassle.

Older Sam would have tried to understand you by now. He was more level-headed. Monsters weren't all black and white in his eyes—mostly because he knew what being the monster was like.

But this Sam? He was so freaking young. Naive, grieving, and angry. Not to mention, he blamed you for the death of his girlfriend, which was setting him back on his ability to empathize with you. He absolutely hated you.

After all, instead of evidence to prove your innocence, the Winchesters instead kept finding the complete opposite. Every good deed you did was tainted by either the heaven's bloodthirsty intervention, or just your own naiveté.

Your guilt was climbing so high that you were beginning to agree with the Winchesters. You were the monster—I mean, look at all the times I'd screwed up!

Your presence was killing people. Whether it was your intention or not.

You sighed.

Sam was twirling the angel blade in the car, getting a feel for the weapon. He said, “You know, when I said you were 'working with demons', I actually meant the one from a few weeks ago—the Bloody Mary case."

"You mean the demon I killed? Because that totally sounds like I was scheming with demons.”

Sam paused. "You killed it with this knife, right?"

You went quiet. Damn.

He twirled it again. "Thought so. So it is more than a 'fancy knife'. Makes me wonder what else you're lying about."

"As if you wouldn't be lying your head off if you were in my position. I forgot how honest you two are." You snorted. "You two have no problem lying to each other. Like, seriously? Dean, you lied to Sam about the demon knowing about Jessica's death. On your, what, fourth hunt with him since he'd gone to college?"

Hypocrites. Both of them.

The statement made Sam squint. "How the hell would you ever know?"

"Uh, I was with you? On the plane?" Anxiety pooled in your stomach.

"No, you vanished into thin air before that conversation ever happened," Dean accused. "Another reason to believe you aren't human."

"I have my sources." Sources. Right. What sources?

"And what the hell are your sources?"

Supernatural, you wanted to say, the television show that ruined my life. But how could you tell them that?

You couldn't tell them you were a demon, either. Not only because you weren't—but that would just spell out a whole lot of trouble for you. Not to mention they now possessed your angel blade.

And you most definitely couldn't tell them the truth.

So you did the insane.

"I'm psychic."

///

Tags: @megamindsdespondentcousin @depressedunicorn43 , @rosaren2498 , @pillowjj , @busy-bee-angel-misska , @elliotts-world , @dagnylokisdottir , @omg-we-really-doo , @millieccino , @regainedworld , @badgal-jackie , @postcardsfromliterallynowhere , @super-calithehamm , @teresa-67 , @ofthedewthesunlight , @dream-believe-and-love

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maybe-your-left · 4 years ago

Text

A Case In Need: Control Freak

Here is a link to my Masterlist that has all the chapters and my WIP!

TW/CW: NSFW, allusions to violence, drinking, and some breath play! Ren’s a nasty boy and FUCK is it good.

Also super sorry about it being a while since I updated, I just started some new anti depressants and they threw me for a loop but I'm back on track now and feeling better than ever.

It had been two weeks since Ren had bought you your ‘gifts’.

Scratch that.

Two weeks since a giant monster of a man had removed you from your home, took away your valuables, hid your favorite blanket somewhere, he wouldn’t say where, and gave you a full swat team of bodyguards whenever you were out of his sight. Two full fucking weeks since he started keeping tabs on where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with.

It was exhausting being his ‘lover’. If you could still be classified as that, it was starting to feel like a hostage situation, whenever the two of you weren’t in the office together he would send you texts or phone calls that you were required to answer. He had even gotten a spare cell phone to call you from so it was separate from his personal calls, and you presumed to keep Rey oblivious. Which oddly enough had been working, she had really no idea what was going on. She would visit him at work throughout the day and give him a small kiss on the cheek and always insisted on hugging you before leaving. At some point, she must’ve hounded him for your phone number because now here you were meeting her for lunch hours after Ren left your, ‘our’ as he liked to call it, apartment.

Before he left he had laid out an outfit for you to wear along with an outline of talking points you were ‘allowed’ to bring up with her during the lunch. You had rolled your eyes at him and ensured that you weren’t going to reveal anything to her, you didn’t really want your relationship with Ren to end. You just were getting tired of the short leash he kept you on. After getting dressed, and inspected by Ren, he had pulled you into a long slow kiss and whispered in your ear, “I’ll miss you Angel,” and then he was gone.

Huffing you messed with your hair a little more and straightened out the dress he had chosen for you. Even though he was being a psychopath for control you were surprised to see that he was being generous in the gifts he bought you. The day after moving Ren had taken you to a couture mall in Manhattan and lavished you with thousands of dollars worth of clothes, jewelry, and home goods. He had insisted on keeping the house in a monotone color scheme but he did budge on your wardrobe, he knew that you liked having some pops of color and truth be told you noticed that he enjoyed, a little too much, the baby pink sets you chose at the lingerie stores. He had even gone so far to get you a custom made necklace* that was engraved with his initials, with a ruby inlay, that he wanted you to wear all the time.

Grabbing your purse and slipping on your black strappy heels you heard your phone go off. You searched your purse for the damned contraption, even though it was a small bag it was almost like a Mary Poppins never-ending abyss when you threw things in it. Jingling out your keys you locked the front door and made it down the steps and finally snatched out the phone.

Vicrul and Ushar will be escorting you today. Don’t be difficult with them or you’ll be in trouble.

Ugh, he was never going to let you live that down. You stood outside and waited for their black SUV to pull up while you contemplated messaging him back. You didn’t really feel the need to be escorted to lunch with Rey, wouldn’t she think it’s weird that her husband’s men were driving you? Did she get escorted like that with the other beastie boys? It’s not like you weren’t fond of them, truth be told you liked the guys, they were always posted outside your house when Ren was gone. Usually, it was Ushar who took care of you unless it was a super public gathering then one of the other men would join in. But it had been a while since Vircul had watched you, the last time Ren had let them take you to a spa to get your nails and hair done and you had been in a bratty mood. One thing had led to another and it ended with you screaming that you were being ‘attacked’ because the men would not fucking stop hovering. The spa did not think it was funny however and Ren had to bribe the police officers who were 100% ready to arrest Vicrul because he was pinning you to the salon chair.

The black SUV slinked up to the sidewalk and out of the passenger side came Ushar. “Hello Miss (Y/N),” he opened the back door for you, “Confirming that you are headed to lunch with Lady Ren?”.

“Yes Ushar,” you rolled your eyes behind your sunglasses, “He already said I could go.” The men always did this with you, whenever he was gone they would double, even triple-check that you knew where you were going and any special instructions Ren had laid out for you. It was almost like you were a child stuck in the middle of a custody battle, each side was trying to make sure you knew all the rules and what you were allowed to say or do, it was getting really old.

“Hi Vic,” you cooed trying to get a rise out of him, “It’s been a while hasn’t it?”

Vicrul let out a low chuckle, “Not long enough Angel, not long enough.”

You hummed back at him and settled in so they could whisk you away to probably the worst lunch of your life. You decided to play nice and shoot Ren a text to let him know you were with the guys, but you also wanted to push his buttons.

Don’t worry Daddy. I’ll play nice.

The drive took a little over fifteen minutes, Vicrul parked up front and Ushar quickly opened your door and held his elbow out for you to take. You grabbed it, thankful for the support since you weren’t sure what to expect. The two of you began into the large building, with Vic jogging up close behind. Climbing into the elevator you noticed the other patrons were scooting away from you. Being as you were a small woman being flanked by two men who looked like they wrestled bears for a living, it was a natural response. Most people had hopped off before you hit the rooftop for your ‘date’.

Stepping out you scanned the area and immediately noticed another hulking group of men in pitch black suits. Ahh, so the others are here too, of course, Rey would have her own guards. You let the guys lead the way and soon you were a group of six men hovering by the hostess stand. Looking around you couldn’t find Rey, she wasn’t any smaller than you, she hadn't gotten far especially with four guys flanking her…

“Ugh there you are!” she squealed before pulling you into a tight hug, effectively pinning your arms to your sides. “I thought you got lost, Kylo told me he sent the Knights to come get you but I was so afraid you stood me up!”

“The Knights,” you whispered, still in her boney clutches.

“Yes, the Knights,” she released you and grabbed your hands in hers, “They are the bodyguards we use!”

Oh. The Knights. That’s what Ren called them, well it made sense, they were fucking huge and seemed like they did anything for their ‘master’.

“Are you ready to eat? I got us a lovely table out on the balcony,” Rey smiled at you.

“Oh yes, of course,” you tried to match her enthusiasm, “Let’s go.”

-----

After the two of you were seated the Knights had flanked you both on your sides, leaving about a 6-foot circle for the waiter and other servers to talk to you.

“So (Y/N),” Rey grinned at you, “How are you liking work? Kylo says you’re doing an excellent job.”

You blushed, “Oh thank you, he’s never mentioned that.”

“Oh, that’s just because he’s bad at giving affection, we’ve been married for almost 10 years and he still rarely says ‘I love you”,” she giggled and started drinking her cosmo. What an awkward turn this lunch had gone, and right at the fucking beginning. It didn’t shock you that Ren was weird with affection and compliments in front of people but you assumed that after ten years he would at least show something toward Rey. Your heart sank, what if he never returned feelings to you? You had been seeing each other for almost a month, and even though you knew it was wrong, you had started feeling ‘feelings’ for him. The PDA was okay, you weren’t a huge fan of it, but even at the mall he had held your hand and kissed your forehead when you found something he liked. It was strange and new for you, and being told that he wasn’t like that with his wife made you ill.

“Let’s talk about something else,” you spit out, “Sorry, it’s just I’m at work all week so maybe we talk about something different?”

“Oh of course,” she took another swig of her drink, “I can’t tell you the last time I hung out with a girlfriend.” another drink, “Probably since before I got married!”

“What?”

“It’s true,” she sighed.

“What do you do all day then?”

“This and that,” she motioned for the waiter to get her another, “Usually I go and play tennis at the country clubs, join in at the book club I’m a part of, you know domestic things.” She looked almost sad, you wondered if Ren was the reason she had nothing to do, or maybe she was just that boring.

“Well,” you tried to soothe her, “What do you like to do?”

She inhaled deeply and looked out at the skyline, “I really enjoyed being in school. Learning, reading, doing something. But I don’t anymore, women in my situation aren’t expected to have those kinds of hobbies.”

“Situation?”

“You know,” she looked back at you and dabbed her lash line, “Being married to a powerful man, I’m expected to hold a certain standard.” She sniffled and you resisted the urge to reach across the table until one single rule from the outline stood out in your mind, ‘Under no circumstance are you to soothe her, she is dramatic at times and I don’t need you falling into a trap’.

A server thankfully interrupted your pity party, leaving your dishes and a quick message about ‘if you need anything else just call’. Rey had seemed to reign herself back in and turned back to you with her trademark smile.

“What about you?”

“Oh um,” you paused to bite into your salad, “I don’t really do much. I usually go out to bars and stuff on weekends. Or my friends and I have wine and cheese nights!” You smiled at her, it had been about two weeks since your last meeting. Finn and Rose were super confused when you told them you moved but you convinced them that with your new salary you could afford some new things. You actually were supposed to meet them in a couple of days at your new apartment for drinking.

“Ugh that sounds so fun,” Rey almost screamed, maybe she was drinking too much. You weren’t sure what her tolerance was but you were sure that Ren probably monitored her drinking. “I used to do that in college with one of my friends.”

“Oh? Where did you go to college?”

“The same one as you!” she squealed, “Sorry, I saw on your resume where you went to school. I’m pretty sure we were in the same class.”

“Oh no shit,” you giggled back at her, you tried to remember if you knew her. The only people you hung around were Finn and Rose, sometimes Poe who had moved across the country after graduating. He was the ambitious one out of the group, he had joined the Air Force before school and became a pilot.

Rey started giggling uncontrollably, you could feel the Knights start to shift towards her. Especially Vicrul who seemed to be keeping a very sharp eye on her. “Yeah, we both used to hang out with Rose,” she said over her glass.

You froze. Rose? Your Rose? How did she know her? You were sure Rose didn’t know Rey, and if she had wouldn’t you have known Rey too. Now all the Knights were closing in on you two, you could feel the mood shifting to a topic Ren probably didn’t want you to have. “How… How do you know Rose?”

“Oh, it was way back when,” she flung her hand out to somehow calm you, “back when I was hooking up with this guy Finn.”

“I think that’s enough Lady Ren,” Vicrul grunted while reaching for her drink.

“Hey,” she shouted, “I’m a grown woman Vic. I can drink whatever I want!” She was starting to cause a scene, you turned and noticed other patrons looking your way. And what a sight it was, little Rey holding a half drank cosmo as high as she could away from the Knights.

Vicrul got closer to her and almost growled, “Don’t make me call him.”

Rey narrowed her eyes, “Do it, pussy.”

And then all hell broke loose, Rey had launched from the table, effectively throwing her drink on Vicrul. In her haste she had also thrown the food all over you, your pretty new dress now soiled by the salmon salad you ordered. Ushar had rushed to your side and grabbed you by the shoulders and was attempting to pull you from the scene. But you couldn’t just sit and watch, Rey was sobbing and screaming at Vircul to let go of her, even going as far to bite his arm that corralled her to his chest. You couldn’t help but cry too, this poor woman, she was truly a prisoner. She had so many friends at some point, maybe even was your friend, and then she was thrown into a world she didn’t seem to enjoy with a husband who only cared about her appearance.

Suddenly everything stopped, the Knights were silent and lined up by the table, aside from Ushar and Vicrul. You swallowed your tears and you heard footsteps. Slow and methodical steps coming towards you. Waves of dread began to fill your stomach while the aura of danger was licking between your legs. You cowered into Ushar’s chest, you didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to be at the end of his wrath.

“How strange it is,” he boomed from your left side, “that here, in our favorite restaurant, you decide to make a scene.” He stalked towards Rey, slow steps, each one growing louder than the last. He had his hands clasped behind his back and although you couldn’t see his face you knew that it was tense. You could practically hear his jaw popping in and out of place. He cracked his knuckles before bringing his hands up to his neck. “I expected more from you,” he spat out and began to crack his neck. Each pop was like a nail in Rey’s coffin, you couldn’t help the little whimper that rose from your throat which caught his attention.

Ren whipped around and was in front of you instantly. His fists clenched at his sides and his breathing shallow. He was waiting for you to meet his gaze, almost taunting you to stare back. You gulped and squeezed your eyes shut. You didn’t want this. You didn’t want him to blame you, if he would just calm down you could explain what she had said, no one had told you that she got so emotional when she had cocktails. It wasn’t in the outline briefing he had given you this morning. So really it was his fault.

“Take her away,” he snarled at Ushar, who suddenly picked you up and rushed you out of the restaurant. Peeking over his shoulder you witnessed Ren closing in on Rey. When the elevator doors shut you hoped that the pained screaming you heard wasn’t what you thought they were.

The drive back was silent. Neither you nor Ushar said a word. You barely remembered to breathe, you were petrified. How could lunch have gone so wrong so fast? You just wanted to get to know her, get an understanding of who she was. You didn’t think she was going to launch into a speech about how much she hated her life. And what was the whole Finn and Rose thing about? Not once had they mentioned that they knew her, other than when Finn told you about the Ren incident. But you didn’t think that meant Rey and Finn hooked up in college. It was all too familiar and uncomfortable, you needed answers and unfortunately, there was only one person who could give them to you.

-----

You waited. Paced, bit your nails in anticipation for him to come to you. He hadn’t told you this morning when he would be back, but he always would come around in the evening to drop off food and watch a movie with you. Or give you feedback on something at work, or fuck you on any surface he could find. But he never stayed too long, which should be normal, he did have a wife who would probably be suspicious if he was gone overnight.

After about 5 hours you had decided that he wasn’t coming. So you stripped down and started a bath, throwing in a black glitter bath bomb that was supposed to help soothe the body and soul. After it was just the right temperature you grabbed a glass of wine and turned on some Netflix to drown out your wandering brain. Sinking in you enjoyed the stillness, you didn’t get this luxury at your old apartment and now you were being spoiled rotten with all these new features. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you could live somewhere like this, or wear the clothes that you had hanging in the closet. You hummed to yourself and started drinking and began to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of Fraiser coming from your laptop.

You were pulled from your sleep to the sound of a door slamming shut. Followed by grunting which you assumed was someone taking off their shoes, and another series of slamming noises. Guess someone decided to pay you a visit, you groaned and drank some more of your wine, preparing for his royal asshole to grace you with his presence.

You heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, your master bedroom doors swinging open and closed until the man, the myth, the legend, was now standing in your bathroom. Fully clothed aside from his shoes being gone. “Well hi,” you said to him.

He grunted at you and made his way into ‘his closet’, which was filled with clothes of his own that he bought on your shopping trip. He reemerged completely naked with a black robe draped over his forearm.

“Why is the water black,” he grumbled before swinging a leg across from you.

“What do you think you’re doing Ren?”

“Don’t be difficult Angel. I’ve had a long fucking day,” he snapped at you, “Now is this water going to stain me, or am I good to get in?” he stared at you. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched like he was getting ready to attack his prey. You tried to keep your face neutral, not letting him know that you were still slightly scared of him after the display this afternoon. You slowly scrunched your legs to your chest as a nonverbal way of telling him he could join in. Once you moved he brought both legs in and sank into the tub.

You both were very lucky that this was a large bath since Ren’s legs took up about 75% of the space in it, leaving you to stretch out on top of him. Your feet placed on his abs while he sunk lower and lower until his head was resting on the lip of the tub.

“What’s in your glass,” he practically moaned at you with his eyes shut. He looked super uncomfortable but you could tell he was trying really hard to relax. Which seemed to never be his natural state.

“It’s a Cab*, the one with the lion on it.”

Ren snatched it out of your hand without even looking and chugged the rest of it. “We’re going to need more of that,” he rolled slightly to his right and pressed an intercom button.

“Whoever the fuck is downstairs will you bring up the Juggernaut bottle,” he barked into the speaker. Assuming that one of the Knights was going to follow his order. Within minutes one of them came in and gave Ren the bottle which he immediately started chugging from.

“Ren,” you reached out and pulled the bottle from him, “Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened earlier? Or are we just going to drink?”

“Can we not do both?”

You exhaled loudly, trying to get your point across that you needed to talk to him. He groaned and started rubbing his face. “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me. She is my wife and what we do in our personal lives is none of your business.”

“Are you serious,” you snapped at him, “Ren I am fucking you. You’ve been calling the shots of my life for almost a month, you bought me an apartment, car and new clothes and made me go to lunch with her and now it’s none of my business?”

He crossed his arms and looked away from you, trying to focus on your laptop even though it was paused from watching too many episodes.

“Kylo,” you barked, “I’m fucking talking to you.”

“Don’t you dare call me that,” he yelled, raising a finger at you.

Bringing the bottle to your lips you waited for him to continue. Interesting that he allows Rey to call him that but not you, this was something you were going to have to explore.

“Is it because you’re ashamed, Ren,” you cooed at him, “Ashamed that I saw how out of control she is. Or that I know you beat her.”

Suddenly he was on top of you, his hands around your throat. Teeth snapping in your face like a wild dog. “Don’t you ever accuse me of that,” he seethed and released you enough so you could breathe again, “I’ve never laid a finger on her in my life. You don’t know anything about me little girl.”

You had dropped the bottle in the tub, the red liquid pouring out and mixing into the black water. Almost like there had been blood spilled between the two of you. You grasped onto his forearms to try and anchor him off of you but were getting nowhere. “That’s hard to believe,” you gasped, “When you’re currently choking me to death.”

“Oh Angel,” his face softened to a less dangerous one but more one of mischief, “That’s because I know you like it when I’m rough with you.” You inhaled sharply, and Ren pushed you up further against the tub. Effectively pinning you in place while his knees knocked yours to accommodate him.

“Like right now,” he came closer to you, “I know that your pretty little cunt is sopping because of me. It’s okay to be afraid, I won’t hurt you.” One of his hands dropped into the water, “That much.”

Suddenly he had you flipped around, on your knees with your chest and face pressed up against the end of the tub. Water sloshing between you two while he pressed his hips into yours. Revealing a once well-hidden erection that was now skimming your folds. He brought one hand down between your legs, lightly petting at you. Humming when he felt your arousal mixed with the water. You moaned and tried to press your hips back into him, desperate for friction. “No, no Angel, you’ve been a bad girl.”

You froze and felt him line himself up at your entrance, usually he worked you open so it wouldn’t be so painful when he pushed into you, but it was clear that right now Ren wanted you to feel the pain. His other hand came up and gripped to your hair, successfully knotting it in his fist.

“Tell me, Sweetheart, do you know how long you can hold your breath?”

You craned your neck to try and look at him, you were obviously confused.

“Let’s find out.”

Ren pushed into you and suddenly you were dunked underwater. You thrashed and screamed under the black mess while he started pumping into you. Each thrust was harder than the last, he was determined to make you know how much he could hurt you. You tried to push yourself back up to the surface but he had you pinned, after what felt like hours he pulled you back up and you choked on the water.

Gasping and gagging you started sobbing while Ren was laughing like the Joker. “I think we can do better than that,” and he had you under the water again, his pace far more crucial, he was chasing a high that he didn’t know he had. The amount of power he held over you now was unbearable. This man, who you had grown to like more and more, was now holding you hostage under the water and the sick part was that you didn’t want him to stop.

He pulled you back up and pinned your face to the side and thrust in more and more, grunting and groaning at the clenching of your walls around his cock. The hand holding your hip hostage slid down and started rubbing tight circles around your clit causing you to moan. “That feels good doesn’t it Angel, I can feel you, you love it when I fuck you like this.”

Gagging again you responded, “I do I love it, Ren, please don’t fucking stop.”

“You want to cum don’t you,” he leaned to your ear and continued his brutal pace, “Cum all over my cock? Even though I almost drowned you?”

You screamed as his circle grew faster and faster over your nub, you couldn’t help clenching around him. You felt so close to your orgasm, you just needed a little bit more.

“Tell me you like it, Angel,” he huffed before stopping to take a bite out of your shoulder, “You like it when I control you. You need it don’t you dirty slut, someone to keep you in check.”

“Yes Ren I love it, please please let me cum,” you begged him.

“After you cum you’re going to thank me for everything I’ve done for you, do you understand whore? I own you. I own your mouth, your tight little cunt, even your thoughts.”

You were bucking back into his thrusts, desperately chasing your release, “All yours Ren, please I need it.”

He stilled his movements and turned your head to try and face him, “Take a deep breath and cum Angel.”

And you did just that as he dunked you back under the water, pinning you flat against the bottom while his fingers rubbed your clit in sync with his cock. You were clenching and desperately trying to hold your breath until you felt him empty inside you. Hot sticky cum painted your insides as his grip on your loosened, you took the chance to lift out of the water and gasp for air while Ren slumped against you. His chest flush with your back while his cock was still squirting into your tired pussy.

His arms came around you and pulled you up with him so now you were on top of him while he buried his face into your neck. Lazy and sloppy kisses were placed all over the crook of your neck up towards your jaw, his hands were slowly petting your breasts in a way to calm your breathing. Finally, he took in a deep breath and stood with you clutched to his chest.

Treating you like you would porcelain he stepped out of the tub and turned to the shower, quickly rinsing the two of you off before leaning you against the wall. You couldn’t even move, your body went into fight or flight every time he shoved you under the water. You were so sure he was going to kill you, but each time he was sure to pull you back up and prepare you for the next blow. It was almost considerate, given the circumstances, that he even let you cum with him. You stared at the man who was washing both of your bodies of the glitter, wine, and cum. He looked so focused on piecing you back together even though he had been the one to break you in the first place.

He shut the water off and stepped out, quickly drying himself off and getting in his robe before reaching his hand out for yours.

“Come on Angel, you’re shivering,” he whispered to you, afraid to command you after what had happened. You grabbed his hand and walked out of the shower where he again dried you off and wrapped you in your black robe too. Once you were bundled he picked you up and you wrapped your arms and legs around him, desperate for him to stay with you.

He brought you to the bedroom, pulling down the sheets with his right hand while still cradling you with his other. Bending over to place you down you squeezed him harder, “Please don’t go,” you whispered in his ear.

“I’m not going anywhere (Y/N), not anymore.”

You released him and watched him go back to the bathroom and shut off the lights before coming back and climbing into bed fully naked. Ren came up behind you and started to pull off your robe, kissing your bare skin when it came into contact with the room's cold air.

“I promise (Y/N), never again” he cooed before pulling you into his embrace and the two of you were lulled to sleep.

TAGLIST: @finn-ray-nal-beads @morby @kirah36 @onlykyloscenes @clumsycopy @candycanes19 @desiraypark @direnightshade

*Here is our necklace from Tiffany: https://www.tiffany.com/jewelry/necklaces-pendants/elsa-peretti-color-by-the-yard-pendant-62464399/

**Here is the wine we are having, it’s my sister’s favorite red wine and it's honestly not that bad: https://www.wine.com/product/juggernaut-hillside-cabernet-sauvignon-2017/532155?state=CA&s=GoogleBase_CSE_532155_type_Wine_RedWine_CabernetSauvignon_261&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Google_Shopping_Smart_CA_Relaunch&showpromo=true&promo=PSCASE10&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpNr4BRDYARIsAADIx9wTNMJgAuhl1zWgoZEny8NAfa4vYZmIzTH446JIQfJ5NE9upZGPAGgaAk0eEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds#promoBarModal

#adam driver #adamdriver #kylo ren #kylo trash #kylo x reader #modern kylo ren #clyde logan #flip zimmerman #phillip altman #toby grisoni #jamie massey

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lesbianpjohooimagines · 5 years ago

Text

Oops, I Got Hurt

Thalia x Reader

Anonymous said:

hey would u be able to write a thalia x reader where the reader got hurt in battle or something?

A/N: But of course I can! I hope you like it!

***

“This is gonna be an interesting battle. How in the world does a minor god date a giant and not know he’s a giant?” I asked, rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation. Thalia chuckled as the thought crossed her.

She sighed as she looked through her binoculars at the base of the monster camp. “It’s too open. There’s no way we could sneak in undetected and even though Annabeth could technically go in with her hat, going in alone would be reckless and suicide. So we have to in guns blazing.”

I nodded, refraining myself from telling her that we didn’t have guns and that they did. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight and yet, here we were.

I only hoped that all of us would come out of this battle alive, especially Thalia. She was just so...amazing and after knowing her for years, I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like if she passed before I did. I tried not to imagine how it would feel like if the Hunters visited camp without her there leading them.

I sighed shakily, which caught the attention of Thalia, who studied me with a worried expression. “You good, nugget? Your face just went from determined to dark in less than a second.”

I smirked and looked down at the army knife turning with careful precision between my fingers. “You still haven’t found a better nickname than nugget, bub?”

“Nope. Nor will I ever until you find a better nickname than bub.” She shot back.

I gasped in fake exasperation. “You take that back!”

“You first.”

“...”

“...I would just like to point out that I didn’t say anything that I could possibly take back.” Thalia playfully glared at me like she wanted to punt me off of a cliff. She acted like she hated my matter-of-fact statements but I knew she found them funny, not that she would ever admit it.

“Seriously, Y/n, what got you down so quickly?” She asked, studying me.

I swallowed down my nerves and said, “I thought about you not...being here with us anymore. Not being here with me. We just lost Jason and the thought of losing you messes with me a lot. I try to stay positive, since that’s what I’m known for, but it’s been hard lately. And not only that, now we have no choice but to charge head-first into this battle with a high possibility of losing someone because we have no immediate cover.”

She nodded, still studying me with an intense expression that I couldn’t read. “I understand, Y/n. I know we’re at high risk right now, but with the right formation, we also have a high probability of everybody living to see another day. We just have to watch each other’s backs and do our thing carefully. I’m not going anywhere and I’ll be damned by all the gods if you do. We’ve got this, nugget. Just stand by me when I propose this plan to the campers, please? We need them to do this. The Hunters may be strong, but there’s a lot of monsters in there.”

I met her electric eyes and gave her a small smile, putting away my knife. We both got up and clasped hands as an agreement. “I’ll always stand by your side, Thalia. I’ve got your back.”

She smiled back and looked as if she was going to say something, but quickly changed her mind and jerked her head toward our small campsite. “Let’s go deliver the plan.”

And off we went.

***

So needless to say, the campers didn’t need much convincing and our plan worked flawlessly until we got the center of the monster hideout. We’d cleared over half of it as it was the size of two football fields, but some of us were getting tired as more and more monsters kept jumping out at us. We were bound to have a serious injury at the very least and it unfortunately came.

Thalia and I were fighting our way through their training grounds when a loud shot rang out, the first of many. She and I ran to cover once we spotted the gunner, and while that monster was dealt with by an arrow, I discovered that I was hit in the chest. I knew it hit an artery or something because blood started seeping out of my mouth and made me panic a little.

“T-Thalia. Thalia, I’m hit.” The words that none of us hoped to hear or say and yet, I was saying them. Thalia’s head snapped in my direction and saw the blood flowing out of my chest rapidly. She ripped off one of her shirt sleeves and pressed it on my wound, trying to slow the bleeding, but it didn’t seem to work. I grunted in pain, but then the pain started dissolving and I grew tired. I knew better than to go to “sleep”, but by the gods, I couldn’t stop the urge.

I could faintly hear Thalia shouting through her earpiece for medical help, but her voice was fading out. No. No no no, I couldn’t go out like this. I had to stay by her side until the fight was over.

But sleeping was the one thing I could never resist. My godly parent wasn’t Hypnos, but I slept A LOT and this was one of those times where sleeping was inevitable.

As my eyes closed, I could just make out Thalia pleading with me to stay with her. However, the fight in me disappeared and I had no other option but to let the final wave come over me. She said something right before things turned dark, but I didn’t make it out in time.

I was pulled into the abyss.

***

‘Beep...beep....beep’

What the fuck happened and why is it so hard to open my eyes?! I breathed in a deep breath and started coughing, as if I breathed in freezing air. There was a weight on my arm that was immediately lifted once I started.

“Y/n?! Breathe, breathe. Take it easy, okay?” It was my bub. I listened to her and once my breathing was under control, I opened my eyes and was met with a distraught-looking Thalia. Her eyes had a red tint to them, which I assumed was either from her crying or was the result of getting pepper sprayed.

I almost guessed it was from pepper spray, until I realized that I was in Camp Half-Blood’s Med Bay, hooked up to a couple of monitoring machines. Was she crying because I ended up here?

Thalia left the room to get a one of the medics and surprisingly, Apollo himself came in as cheerful as ever. “How’re you feeling, kid? Do you have any chest pains while breathing?”

I shook my head. “I feel fi-” I started coughing uncontrollably from how dry my throat was. A cup of water was put up to my lips and I chugged it, still coughing, but it ceased after a few minutes. “What happened? How long have I been here?”

Thalia sat next to me in the chair she’d been sitting in before I woke up. “Three days...you shouldn’t have woken up so soon.” When I frowned in confusion at her, she looked away. That’s when I noticed the bags under eyes from an obvious lack of sleep.

Apollo chimed in when he realized Thalia wasn’t going to explain. “Your heart stopped four times. If it wasn’t for this lieutenant these past few days, you wouldn’t have made it, Y/n. She refused to leave your side and when we were going to give up, she convinced us to keep trying. I’m...not exactly sure how you’re up now, but it’s definitely a good thing. It’s just worrying considering how you were not fine last night.” He sighed and continued, “I’m going to do more tests before I let you go. I’ll be back in a few.”

After he walked out, Thalia held my hand and put her head down on the bed. I squeezed it, making her look up at me and give me a small smile.

“Thank you, bub.” I said in the most sincere tone I’ve ever used. “I appreciate you staying with me through this. I...you’re...” I got tongue-tied trying to come up with the words to tell her how much I cared, how much I loved her. But as it would turn out, I didn’t need to exactly.

Soft lips pressed into mine gently. At first, I was thrown off by the action, but then I went for it and kissed her back with just as much tenderness. A few seconds went by before we pulled away for air. Thalia took a couple breaths and started laughing, me joining in soon after.

“You know, I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” Our eyes met after she said that and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like an idiot. “Over the years, I kept trying to tell you about my feelings but I always chickened out. I even did while we were scouting the camp, but once I saw your eyes go from excited to lifeless in the span of a minute...I realized that even though we may be immortals, we don’t have all the time in the world to do or say certain things.”

Her eyes teared up a little as she said those six words that I’d been dying to hear for years. “I am...I’m in love with you, Y/n. Ever since I met you, I knew. I knew that you were the one.”

I pulled her into a tight hug like my life depended on it and sighed, “I can’t believe it took me almost dying for you to say that sentence to me, Lightning-Lady.”

She punched my arm as I stifled a laugh in her neck.

“Dingus.”

(A/N: I really apologize for how long this is and how long it took, but I work in retail and I’ve been super tired lately with this Rona panic. My store is an essential store so we can’t close and my store is so intent on making money that they refuse to at least close for a few hours. So yeah, I’m exhausted. But writing these imagines keeps me sane among other things :) Have a good day and stay safe everyone!)

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toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account · 4 years ago

Text

your hair looks just like starlight

Words: 3287

Summary: Jaskier finds out about what gave Geralt his unique hair and eyes, and he takes it upon himself to point out the beauty he finds in those things in hopes that, despite the excruciating processes they came from, his White Wolf may find beauty in them too.

A/N: The title is inspired by a line from “Howl’s Moving Castle”. I imagined Jaskier telling Geralt his hair looks like starlight and... this happened.

[TW for mentions of child abuse (i.e. Witcher Trials/Mutations)]

After Jaskier became Geralt’s travel companion, it wasn’t long before he learned about his Witcher’s mutations, and what he went through to become... well, a Witcher; the absolutely agonizing process he underwent as a child to become what he was.

No, who he was.

Not a what.

A who.

That’s who he was to Jaskier. Not a monster, or a beast, or an animal, or anything one would refer to using the word what, but a person. His person.

And Jaskier was horrified to know how much pain his person went through.

He had no idea some of the things he loved so much about Geralt - his white hair, so astoundingly beautiful when it wasn’t covered in the blood and/or guts of monsters, and his yellow eyes, kept in a steely gaze most of the time, but soft when he let them be - were products of what Jaskier couldn’t think of as any less than torture. Of course, he still loved those things about his Witcher - if gazing at his hair and eyes became punishable by death, he’d finalize his last will and testament posthaste - but knowing what he’d gone through to have them, the horrors he was subjected to… it still didn’t sit right with the bard.

So, he did what any other lovestruck bard would do; he resolved to find the most lovely ways to describe those characteristics, and express them to his Witcher as best he could. He may not have been able to reverse all the horrible things Geralt went through, but he could point out the beauty in the features that came from them.

(Keep reading below or on AO3)

The first time he did this was during a night under the stars. Geralt slayed a monster, as Geralts do, and now, he and Jaskier were on their way back to some unimportant town to collect their coin (and hope that Geralt’s contractor wouldn’t underpay him). Roach was too tired, poor girl, to get to the nearest inn, so the White Wolf and the relentless lark resolved to make camp in a small clearing in the woods.

It was a peaceful night, and thankfully, it wasn’t one that Geralt was going to spend covered in monster guts. The only gruesome… evidence that his target was destroyed lay splattered across his Witcher armor, and such was a problem that was easily resolved by removing it and cleaning off the substance.

“You know,” Jaskier proposed, “I could always make quick work of removing your armor, if you just say the word.”

“No.”

“Well, that’s not exactly the word I was looking for.” Jaskier resigned with a shivering sigh. As peaceful as this night was, the drizzling rain made it a little chilly.

“If you want to make quick work of something, you could make quick work of getting some firewood.” Geralt retorted in that gruff, just-above-a-growl voice of his as his gaze - and his focus - never strayed from his armor.

"Well, I could ." Jaskier took his lute off his back and held it in a playing position as he leaned against a tree. “Buuut I’d hate to get sap on my hands, not to mention that your valiant act of Witchery heroism back there left me with quite a bit of inspiration for my next ballad,” he swept his hand out in front of his face as if to visualize the song itself, “yes, “The White Wolf Versus the… the… the Whatever That Monster Was”, so I should probably just get to work on that.”

“It can wait, Jaskier.” Geralt rolled his eyes. Despite the darkness of the night, this was still noticeable thanks to the moonlight. “Unless you want me to make quick work of your lute instead. Should make good enough firewood.”

Jaskier gasped at his incredulous threat (that the Witcher would never actually carry out) and went to gather firewood.

Geralt had a fire going in minutes. Warmth spread around the little camp, and the flame set a soft glow onto everything around it, like Roach lazily chewing on some grass, Jaskier strumming on his not-used-as-firewood lute as he mumbled lyrics-to-be under his breath, and the Witcher himself cleaning and sharpening his swords.

Sitting with his back up against a tree, Jaskier was in the middle of trying to compose the refrain of his ballad-in-progress when he stopped and looked across the camp, laying his eyes on Geralt. He didn’t return the lark’s gaze, apparently unaware of it as he struck one of his swords with a whetstone, but that didn’t stop the ever-so-enamored bard from from staring; Jaskier could barely take his eyes off his hair, especially how the firelight cast an impossibly golden glow on the impossibly white locks. A few of those locks hung loose from the Witcher’s hair tie that held the sides of his hair back, and they instead fell around his face.

“Your hair looks just like starlight.”

Geralt lifted his head and looked in Jaskier’s direction, and the buttercup could tell by his slightly widened eyes and raised eyebrows that he was surprised by the statement. With a painful tug in his chest, Jaskier began to wonder if that was the first time that anyone ever directly complimented Geralt on his hair.

The sentence fell from Jaskier’s lips without Jaskier himself putting much thought into it. The little thought that went into what he said was only this; My Witcher may have gone through hell, and his white hair may be but one of the many things he has to show for it, but damn it if I’m not going to tell him it’s beautiful.

“...Very forward tonight, hm?”

“It’s true!” Jaskier blurted again, “I… I…” He glanced at the cloudless, starry sky for a moment. “I look up at the stars, and as lovely as they are, their light is nothing compared to what I see in your hair. It’s like someone just-”

He reached into the air, grasped at something intangible...

“-took light straight from the stars-”

… pulled his closed hand back down…

“-made it a thousand times lovelier than it already was-”

… and opened it in Geralt’s direction, as if to sprinkle something at him.

“-and put it on your scalp!”

As he said this, watching Geralt’s eyebrow go from a surprised raise to a confused furrow, Jaskier realized this was far less charismatic than the stuff of his songs. That was alright. He’d gladly trade charisma for authenticity; he’d gladly sound like an idiot and be completely, unfabricatingly honest than try to work his feelings into a lyric for the sake of charisma. He was sure that he probably sounded idiotic to Geralt either way, so he might as well sound like an idiot because of something completely from the heart, unhindered by the need for meter or rhyme.

After a moment of stunned silence, Geralt looked back to his sword with a classic hum.

“It’s getting late, Jaskier. You should get to sleep before you start rambling about anything weirder than you already are.”

Yep. Just as Jaskier thought; he sounded like an idiot.

The second time Jaskier pointed out the beauty in what came of Geralt’s mutations was a few days later, and, in very similar fashion to the first one, after he fulfilled a contract. This time, Jaskier stayed at their camp with Roach while his Witcher took care of a… well, he couldn’t quite remember. Bruxa? Kikimora? Wyvern? Whatever it was, he was more than happy to stay behind with Roach when Geralt told him to. The bard saw him swallow down one of his… well, witchery potions before he went out of sight, so he figured that one of two things would happen.

One, Geralt would come back to camp all pale, veiny, and with those pitch black eyes. Sexy.

Two, Geralt would wait until the potion ran its course before coming back to camp, eyes as yellow as usual. Exquisite.

Jaskier, sitting against a sleeping Roach’s belly, didn’t quite have a preference. Black as night, yellow as daylight; as long as Geralt came back in one relatively-uninjured piece, the bard would be content.

As expected, the Witcher came back unharmed. Exhausted in every sense of the word, but unharmed. He huffed as his head hung low, a fitting accompaniment to his sagging shoulders. His hair tie must’ve come loose during his fight with whatever monster he fought, forever lost to the abyss of Geralt’s Fallen Hair Accessories as the mane it was meant to hold back fell all around his face.

“Geralt! You’re back!” Jaskier made no effort whatsoever to keep his joy out of his voice; he wanted his Witcher to know that he was happy to see him return from a hunt. “That beast was no match for a mighty Witcher, eh?”

“Too easy. A waste of a damn potion.” Geralt sighed, lifted his head a bit, and eyed Jaskier with perfectly yellow, non-potioned eyes. Internally, the bard sighed in relief; he had no objections to seeing Geralt while he underwent the effects of his potions, but he also knew how they weren’t the most… comfortable for his Witcher, so he was glad to know that whatever potion Geralt chugged had probably worn off.

“‘S worn off, hasn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Geralt sat on his bedroll. Jaskier was fluent enough in Geralt’s hums to know that was a yes.

“Ah, right. Good. I figured.” he noted with a few nods. “Your eyes are back to normal. All… sunshiney-like.”

Geralt looked at Jaskier again, this time with exasperation. Jaskier didn’t blame him; that wasn’t exactly one of his best-worded compliments.

“Well, they are. They’re like…” The poet looked up at the sky as if to find something better to compare Geralt’s eyes to - as if it were hiding among the stars.

His own eyes lit up when he finally thought of one.

“...Tea! Yes. Lemon tea… with honey!” he smiled to himself. “Ah, that was-”

A loud snore cut him off. Jaskier took his gaze off the night sky and put it on Geralt, who now lay sideways on his bedroll, sound asleep. He must have laid down and passed out for the night, the bard realized with a resigned sigh.

“-That was my favorite drink, back… back in Lettenhove.”

He was going to say “back home”, but he stopped himself. It may have been where he grew up, but his home wasn’t Lettenhove. No, his home lay a few feet away from him, white hair in tangles over his face, yellow eyes shielded by lids that wouldn’t open until morning, and far too exhausted by his fight to take off his armor before he fell asleep.

Jaskier sighed again before he went to his own bedroll and fell asleep for the night.

The topic of Jaskier’s bizarre compliments didn’t make it’s return until the next night, after he and Geralt returned to the town whose monster he slayed. Thankfully, the mayor was rather appreciative of the Witcher’s work - in no small part due to Jaskier’s help in changing his reputation through a certain coin-tossing ballad - and paid him in full. Both Geralt and Jaskier had grown tired of unceasing nights spent in clearings (and Roach was more than content to spend a night in a nice stable) so Geralt spent some of his newly-acquired earnings almost immediately on a room in the town’s inn.

Of course, there was only one bed, but such was rarely a problem for the Witcher and his songbird. The latter snuggled into it almost immediately - promptly after taking off his shoes and doublet, of course - while the former sat in a nearby chair about six feet away and cleaned off his swords. This would’ve been all fine and well, had it not been for the fact that Geralt had already cleaned off his swords first thing that morning; they were squeaky clean!

Jaskier sighed.

“Those look pretty clean to me, you know.” he remarked, using one arm to support himself as he lay on his stomach. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you look like you’re trying to distract yourself from something.”

“You don’t know better.” the Witcher grumbled as he kept cleaning his already clean swords.

“So you are?”

Geralt finally looked up from his swords to meet Jaskier’s gaze. It was a mystery to the Witcher as to how he did it, but somehow, Jaskier saw through Geralt’s horseshit like it was a perfectly clean window.

“Not to say your mysterious, edgy brooding isn’t part of your charm, but…” The bard repositioned himself so his head was resting on his hand, the rest of his body lying along its side. “Talk to me, Geralt.”

The Witcher sighed.

“What’s with all the strange shit you’ve been saying the past few days?” Before Jaskier had the chance to play dumb, he elaborated. “The stuff about my hair, and my eyes. All that about starlight, and sunshine, and…” He looked down as if one particular part of his memory was foggy. “...Tea?”

“Come on, Jaskier. You didn’t start saying this shit until…"

Jaskier sighed. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to explain his reasoning to Geralt; in an ideal situation, he would have believed in all the lovely things Jaskier tried to say to him, rather than be confused. Indeed, in a perfect world, Geralt would’ve seen himself the way Jaskier saw him; beautiful.

His eyes widened a fraction as his jaw slackened almost unnoticeably. Before he even said the rest of his sentence, he knew why Jaskier started doing this.

But that didn’t stop the bard from finishing his sentence.

“...Until after I found out about the Trial.” He sat up and swallowed, despite his dry throat. “And your other mutations… and… and the hell you were put through.”

As Geralt’s brow furrowed and he tilted his head, Jaskier started to feel like the idiot he obviously must’ve sounded like. As the Witcher approached him, he shrunk in on himself.

“I - Geralt, you went through something no child should ever have to endure. I know there’s not much I can do to reverse that, or… or make that pain go away, but - but those things that came from them - your eyes, your hair… I still think they’re beautiful, even if they came from something terrible, so I… I thought…”

Jaskier hung his head. This was stupid. All of it. He never should’ve just started blurting idiotic things out of nowhere.

“...What about my voice?”

Jaskier lifted his head back up and looked at Geralt, brows furrowed in confusion. The aforementioned Witcher had his arms crossed as he looked down at the bard, and it wasn’t exactly clear whether or not he wanted a real answer.

“Oh, I… I thought your voice was just like that on it’s own.”

Geralt shooks his head.

“Potion.”

Jaskier looked back down for a moment. Geralt was almost sure he'd have nothing good to say about his voice, until…

"It's soothing."

He was stunned.

“...What?”

“It’s soothing.” Jaskier repeated, “I know you probably expect something more poetic at this point, but… it’s soothing. Whenever you start talking to Roach, or try to warn me about certain monsters so I don’t get my ass handed to me, it… I don’t know, it’s relaxing. Sometimes…” he huffed through his nose at the absurdity of what he was about to say, “...it even helps me fall asleep.”

Jaskier started to fidget - drumming the fingers of one hand against the other, rubbing his fingers together, wrapping them around one another, all normal fidgety things - as he let his awkward but nonetheless heartfelt words hang in the air, staring down at Geralt’s feet until he saw them move as he bent down. The bard was confused about the Witcher’s reason for this, and that confusion grew when Geralt took his hands, held them in his own and stood back up.

“I like your hands.”

Now, as he looked up at his Witcher, arms relaxed as he let him hold his hands, it was Jaskier’s turn to be stunned. He knew how difficult it was for Geralt to express himself at all, let alone about something he liked. The sentence was blunt and simple, and from anyone else, it probably would’ve been nonchalant. But from Geralt, it was like he just recited the most tender, heartfelt poem Jaskier ever heard.

“They’re soft. Gentle. These callouses…” He ran his thumb across Jaskier’s fingertips. “They show how much love you put into your music. Why you waste your talent and passion on me is something I’ll never know.”

“I don’t waste anything, love.” Jaskier retorted with a soft smile. “I know there will always be people who see you as a monster, and that no amount of ballads will make the whole world see you the way I do, as much as I want it to.”

Geralt cast his gaze elsewhere. Jaskier gripped his Witcher’s hands just a little tighter in reassurance, as if it were an attempt to physically send his love into the Witcher through his fingertips.

“...Still, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try, does it? It got us here, didn’t it?” He tilted his head a few times as he glanced around the room. “A steady amount of contracts, more people treating you decently than not, and… a half-lovely room at an inn.”

Geralt nodded a barely noticeable nod, but Jaskier could tell there was more that needed to be said; more he needed his Witcher to know.

“You’re good, Geralt. You’ve spent so long saving the lives of ungrateful, desperate humans, even though so many of them turn right back around and spit at your feet. They may say you’re a monster, but you have more humanity in one finger than most of them have in their entire bodies."

“So,” he continued, “I don’t expect to easily change how you see yourself with a few bizarre compliments, but trust me when I say there’s no way I’d rather spend my life than with you…”

He pulled one of his hands away, only to reach up to Geralt’s face.

“Running my fingers through your hair…”

He brushed a few loose locks of lightning white hair behind Geralt’s ear.

“Gazing into those eyes of yours…”

He slowly dragged his knuckle down the side of Geralt’s face, from his temple down to his jaw, until he dragged it down his neck.

“...and listening to your voice.”

Jaskier could tell by the look in Geralt’s eye that he would be blushing right now if he could. The ever-so-romantic lark put his hand back in his.

“If you ever came to see in yourself what I see in you, you’d never doubt your beauty, my wolf.” The lark tilted his head, staring dreamily into those yellow eyes. “I know that day may not come for a very long time, so I can only hope you’ll trust me when I say that there’s nothing else I’d rather do with my hands…”

Jaskier repositioned his hands so his fingers were interlocked with Geralt’s, fitting perfectly in the gaps between his love's fingers.

“...Than this.”

They stayed like that for a moment, eyes as yellow as sunshine staring into eyes as blue as the ocean. It wasn’t long until Jaskier noticed how heavy those yellow eyes were.

“You’re exhausted, Dear Heart. I can tell.” Jaskier interrupted himself with a yawn, pulling one of his hands away to cover his mouth as he began to feel his own eyelids droop. “I think it’s high time you stop pretending to clean your swords and help me get our coin’s worth out of this…” He gestured to the mattress underneath him. “... luxurious bed for the night, hm?”

That’s exactly what Geralt did.

#the witcher #witcher #witcher fic #witcher fanfic #fanfic #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #julian alfred pankratz #geralt #geralt/jaskier #my writing #the witcher fanfic #the witcher fic #mine

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miracvlovs · 4 years ago

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✗✗✗ you see [ kaleb yıldırım ] around lately? yeah i heard that the [ cis male ] is up to no good. [ he / him ] has been here for [ five years ] now but they’re still pretty [ abrasive ] which is fine because they’re also [ debonair ] so it balances out. the [ twenty-eight ] year old [ hitman for hire ] actually looks like a lot like [ alperen duymaz ], don’t you think? it’s best to watch out, though, because it’s been said that they’re really into [ strong cigarettes & even stronger whiskey ].

hey, hello, hi, bonjour! s’up buttercups? ‘tis i, your friendly neighbourhood loser chrissie ( a.k.a an irish doofus who is utter plot trash and the actual WORST at keeping track with discord messages, oops ) and i’m super duper excited to be here among you fab human beings! anywho, this is my first kiddo kaleb and he is … how do you say … morally grey. basically his morals are very questionable in every aspect. but! on the plus side, he’s very talented and good at his job even if he is ruthless and callous, oop. he is … the worst and also lowkey messed up inside tbh so pls excuse his blunt and sarcastic nature. plot-wise i’m open to literally anything and everything so come at me with any ideas ya got! i’m always diggity down to spit ball ideas and form some dope connections so pls feel free to invade my ims or hmu on le cord ( chrissie.#9606 ) and we can brainstorm until our heart’s content! if ya wanna, go ahead and light that lil grey heart up red and i’ll shimmy my butt your way for all of the good stuff. anywho, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we?

fundamentals.

KALEB EMER YILDIRIM — twenty-eight, hitman for hire, + one snarky son of a gun / troubled dude with daddy issues / all issues tbh !

aesthetics ➤ dried blood caked into the grooves of cut knuckles, the lingering scent of smoke and gasoline, silver slivers of past scarring, five o’clock shadow peppering a blunt jawline, discolourations of blue and purple decorating battered hands, a subtle smirk etched upon a devious countenance, calloused fingertips riddled with small paper cuts, dark circles under almost-black eyes, the noise of screeching tires in the middle of the night, a tall stature adorned in all-black attire, ghosts of bruises staining calloused skin green, a scuffed zippo lighter in a pack of marlboros containing only one cigarette, white shirts with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a sly grin under stormy dark eyes, a sniper on the roof of a deserted building, the roar of a car engine, & clenched, white-knuckled fists.

nicknames. kal.

date of birth. november third.

gender. cis male.

pronouns. he + him.

birthplace. manhattan, nyc.

orientation. bisexual + aromantic.

education. bachelor of music degree obtained from manhattan school of music.

spoken languages. can speak fluent english, turkish, spanish, & french.

negative traits. haughty, abrasive, enigmatic, cynical, temperamental, calculating, hedonistic, distant, sarcastic, & volatile.

positive traits. adept, diligent, charming, resilient, candid, adept, charming, audacious, determined, & resourceful.

strengths. efficient, energetic, self-confident, strong-willed, strategic thinker, charismatic, & inspiring.

weaknesses. stubborn, dominant, intolerant, impatient, arrogant, poor handling of emotions, cold, & ruthless.

talents. piano, retaining information, memory recall, lock-picking, carjacking, hand-to-hand combat, automobile knowledge, tracking people down, & excellent problem-solving abilities.

physiology. dark brown eyes. dark brown hair. six feet, one inch tall. of a lean, broad stature with a straight posture and evident height. has a few silvery scars littered across his skin. has a few tattoos in a few less visible places. is ambidextrous.

psychology. scorpio zodiac. water element. slytherin house. entj-a. chaotic neutral. type eight enneagram. choleric temperament. interpersonal intelligence type. addicted to alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, cocaine, and cannabis. suffers from addiction and insomnia. his vices are lust, wrath and pride. his virtues are ... honestly, probably just diligence tbh.

background.

possible triggers : infidelity, divorce, alcoholism, drug abuse, cancer, death, car crash, funeral, blood, murder, suicide mention, gun mention, & various references to death and murder.

a synopsis. ah, here he is—my tol, troubled, grouchy son : ' ) don't u just adore ur resident trashy, snarky, but precious and sad fuckboi muse? bc i know I DO! anyways, before i digress, i'll cut to the chase. so, waaay before he blessed the universe with his presence, his mother ( who was originally from turkey ) moved to the states where she met one alexander hale. you can probably guess the rest: the pair married, they had children, everything seemed to be going swimmingly, yada yada. here’s a lil background: the hale family—a line of manhattan-born businessmen / lawyers / diplomats etc. they're dripping in wealth, not always as squeaky clean as they portray themselves as to be. kaleb’s dad was a douche, expected both of his sons to follow in his shadow and become lawyers, ran around behind his wife's back: the whole shoot and shebang of a classic a-hole. he always kind of ignored kaleb in favour of his eldest son joshua so kaleb kinda became hard-hearted and resentful due to the lack of his father's attention. skip a few years and he spied his dad cheating on his mother with his secretary though he refused to tell another soul for fear of any potential backlash. soon enough, his mother found this out for herself, their argument ruined his thirteenth birthday party then they divorced soon after. his mother fell off the wagon, became terminally ill—all while his father was remarrying and expecting a daughter with his secretary. it was a hella rough two years for kaleb. it got even worse. eventually, his mother passed away and his step-mother divorced his father to breeze off into the sunset with her new lover; leaving her daughter with her piss-poor excuse of a dad. at this point, kaleb was lonely and angry but adopted the role of his step-sister's protector, shielding her from their father's increasing substance abuse induced violence. just before his seventeenth birthday, his father died in a car crash. of course, he didn't entirely mourn the loss. almost immediately, he and his younger sister moved in with their elder brother who helped kaleb get into university. with dear ole dad out of the picture, he could finally pursue his interest and flair for music. after he graduated, he moved to santa ysabel with his brother and brother's family. in the beginning, things were going fine. yeah, sure, he was struggling for work and felt bad that his brother had to keep him afloat. normal stuff. then, one day, things quickly turned sour in his world. [ TRIGGER FOR GORE, BLOOD, SUICIDE MENTION, GUN MENTION, MURDER, DEATH ] he’d came home to find the locks on the doors busted, advancing into the house carefully only to find his brother’s lifeless corpse crumbled on the kitchen tiles: his throat and wrists slashed, posed as a suicide. of course, kaleb knew better. he knew his brother; knew he would never leave him or his family. upon further inspection of the house, he’d discovered the body of his wife upstairs: a bullet hole between her eyes. [ TRIGGER OVER ] the whole ordeal was enough to turn his stomach but once the sickness had subsided, all kaleb felt was a strong thirst for blood. sure, it was pretty damn stupid to try and seek revenge or whatnot ... but kaleb had always been one to let his heart guide his brain. anyways, time skip now to the moment he’d uncovered his brother’s entanglement with some dodgy loan shark, drug dealing criminals who were responsible for his murder. in the end, he’d hunted them down and eradicated them one by one, over a span of weeks. at first, he hated himself and what his desire for vengeance had turned him into but he kept going until he’d got them all: until he’d grown numb. truthfully, how he wound up taking lives for a living is beyond him. he woke up one day, found himself hired by some big-wig businessman who wanted rid of his business partner and et voilà, he was tangled up in the dark side of existence. i mean, was he blackmailed into doing his first paid hit? yes. but who can blame him? especially when they claimed to have intel regarding the sudden demise of a prominent figure in the criminal underbelly of the city, a.k.a his brother’s killer. it was a risk kaleb simply couldn’t take. he prefers to keep himself anonymous, hidden behind shadows, unsuspecting. death has become a job. nothing more. nothing less. it’s simply the algorithm of his existence: receive a dossier, take care of the target, get paid a hefty lump sum. and all just for enacting a stranger’s revenge in the blood of another. he moves like a deadly phantom, his footsteps light as a feather, whipping through the night like a bullet through a target’s skull. sartre claims that hell is other people. and if you were to stare into kaleb’s eyes—eyes eerily similar to having been cut from coal—you might just see hell and everyone in it staring right back at you. as nietzsche wrote: “ he who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. and if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. ”

random extras.

he has a lot of small scars over his body, most of which he can’t account for or has forgotten about.

owns and drives a black 1969 boss 429 mustang which he loves arguably more than he loves himself.

speaking of, he actually is full of self-hatred so don’t let the haughtiness fool you.

trusts nobody but himself and is loyal to nobody but himself.

has a lot of anger issues so often ends up taking part in underground fights.

he rates around a solid three on the kinsey scale.

is a distant person; closed-off emotionally and prefers to keep himself to himself.

when it comes to whether or not he is morally decent or an extremely bad person, he is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

he isn’t heartless but he isn’t exactly compassionate either.

kind of shady but knows how to pass himself as charming.

has been thru sum shit n seen sum shit so he’s v messed up inside.

though he does have a soft spot for animals and children.

his marksmanship is impeccable.

he’s naturally gifted with firearms and his shot is always on point.

dark eyes and bruised knuckles are his ultimate aesthetic tbh.

actually really appreciates classical music, though he’ll never tell. blame it on his piano lessons from childhood.

speaking of piano, he’s low key gifted at playing although he rarely does these days.

has a very short fuse and can lose his temper quite easily.

he has a good heart and good intentions when it comes to those he actually cares about although he’ll never let this show.

favourite coping mechanism? isolation.

a bit of a lone wolf. he keeps people at arm’s length but acts in a way where people are under the illusion he’s their friend.

basically the tall, dark and handsome trope: ( most of the tall, dark and handsome men display aloof, cold and distant personality but they do have a gentle and caring side. )

is a little snarky and grumpy but if you manage to break this exterior, you’ll find he’s quite witty and easy going.

he got into fighting at a young age. it was the only way to try and learn how to defend himself against his father.

sleep?? he doesn’t know her.

tends to repress his emotions until he explodes.

healthy coping mechanisms?? he doesn’t know them either.

is prone to pushing the self destruct button.

you can find a pinterest board for him by clicking anywhere here.

#hey hi hello happy to be here !!!#this is my son kal n he's ... A LOT.#show this some luv n i'll come atcha for plots !!!#indulgence.intro

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writingonacloudblog · 3 years ago

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I Will Always be His Daughter

I remember when I was six-years old, my father would deadbolt the doors so no one could get in, but also so I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t go outside to play with the other kids or even run around in the backyard. I always wondered why he did that but even when I was a teenager, I never had the courage to ask. Mostly because my father looked at me like I was a monster he was required to live with. I always thought he would kill me one day, but I actually came out of that house alive. I saved up all the money I could find around the house as my father drank his life away and promised I would never see him again. And if he died, I wouldn’t care.

As I sit in my kitchen with a cup of coffee in my hand, I can’t help but think of what my father is doing right at this moment. Mostly because it’s been twenty years since we last seen each other, and I remember that day vividly. I was sixteen years old at the time and I finally saved up enough to leave his house for good. So, I grabbed 2 outfits and put them into a small trash bag to go on my own journey to find my identity. Sadly, it was a special day for me, the mother I lost, and a tragic day for him.

“You ungrateful little bitch…” He mumbled under his breath as I walked into the living room with my bag in hand. Even though I was 16 I knew I needed to act like an adult and take my life into my own hands. I needed to make sure the life I was given isn’t wasted away on a drunk old man who can’t remember he has a daughter to take care of. I wanted the life I would see on all the TV shows like My Wife and Kids and Good Times where the family would laugh with each other and be understanding even when there are struggles. I wanted a family that would love me unconditionally and not push me towards a dark abyss of depression.

I looked at him with tears in my eyes trying to keep them from cascading down my face. I didn’t want to show weakness as I was about to leave. I wanted show that I was stronger than what he thought I was. I wanted to show him the “monster” that he didn’t create.

“So, you want to leave? You are just like your mother you know?” He laughed as he took another swig of whiskey.

“How can I be someone I never met? She died before I was born, or did you forget? Are you that drunk that you can’t remember that? That drunk that you can’t for a second remember her!” I asked feeling the suppressed frustration being released for the first time. I could feel tension in the room as I said these things most 16-year-olds wouldn’t mouth to their parents. It’s always respect your elders but never respect children as well.

“You should ask yourself that question. Don’t you realize everything I have done for you? The long nights I have worked to make sure you had food or the clothes you are wearing, “

“You made that money so you could drink it away. I am not that innocent child anymore. I know exactly what you have done for me! Nothing. All you have done for me is make me resent you,”

“LAYLA MARIE!”

“You have no right to call me by my name. No right to have kept me locked up in this house. And the audacity to call me the name that my mother gave me? You are a real piece of work.”

“Watch your mouth…”

“No, I won’t. I am tired of not living my life! I have no one here. I am alone here. I am tired of being treated like I am some murderer!” I yelled with every breath I had left. I remember feeling my throat become scratchy from all the yelling. I remember clenching my fist wanting to harm him in some way. I remember hearing him laugh at me and mocking me with a smile like a Cheshire Cat.

“I should have let her give you up you know. Because if you weren’t here, SHEwould be here!” He yelled at me his smile changing like the weather. From sunshine to a thunderstorm his whole demeanor became dark. This man was my father and I had to get away.

________________________________________________________

I put my coffee cup down into the sink and go into the fridge to grab the cupcake with a candle on top that I bought after work. When I place it on the counter all the memories of my father flash before my eyes. Him sitting in his recliner after he got off work, watching the NBA playoffs as I sat in my room wondering why I wasn’t allowed to eat that night. The smell of whiskey and cigarettes in the living room wafting up my nose even though I am in my own house, like my father was right beside me. I lit the candle on the cupcake with my lighter thinking of all the birthdays I had before. They weren’t happy at all.

“Happy Birthday Layla….” I say to myself before I blow out the candle not making a wish. I never made one in the past so why make one now. I could hear my phone ring in the other room. I check the time on the oven and it’s too late for anyone to call me. I have no friends or a lover. Its just me against the world as it should be. But for some odd reason I get a feeling that I should answer immediately. Like my world will crumble if I don’t. So, I walk into the other room and pick up my cell phone, hesitant to answer.

“Hello?” asked the voice on the other line. The words wouldn’t form from my mouth.

“Hello? Is this Layla Jones? I am calling about your father, Fredrick Jones,” Hearing his name for the first time in years made my heartbeat rapidly like a drum. Why am I getting a call about him?

“Y yes this is her. Who am I speaking to?”

“I am a nurse at Matagorda General Hospital. I am sorry to inform you of this news, but your father passed away this morning.”

My heart and time stopped. I didn’t know whether to celebrate or to cry. I didn’t know whether to tell her to go away and leave me alone or to cry and ask if she is lying. 20 years later and no call or an apology from him. And now he’s gone from this earth.

“I’m so sorry Ms. Jones. If you would like I can connect you to,”

“No no that won’t be necessary. Thank you for letting me know,” I said before hanging up the phone and sitting on the floor staring at the wall. I knew I have to go back home and bury him since he didn’t have anyone else. At least that’s how I left him. I left him there with his whiskey in hand drunk like he always was.

I take few deeps breaths to calm my nerves and get up from the floor to pack my suitcase for my flight back home. I know don’t have a ticket, but I know that I can get one for 2 days later. I grab my nice black suitcase with leather handles and grab the clothing that is suitable for the humid weather that makes your hair frizz up into an afro. I close my suitcase up after getting everything packed away neatly and set it to the side in my room. I always thought one day I would have to face him, but I didn’t think I would be facing him in a coffin.

________________________________________________________

A few days later, I landed in my hometown feeling a sense of myself again. The humidity embraced me into a tight hug as I placed my bags into the car I rented for the few days I would be here. I put my old home’s address into the GPS hoping that when I arrive my father still hadn’t moved out. Driving down these small-town roads and seeing places I never got to explore like the schools or the small shopping center, makes me feel like I don’t know this place at all. The only place I remember is my fathers’ house and the airport. The only memory being my father and that’s all.

I pulled up to the house and saw about ten cars parked on the side of the road along with 3 cars parked in the driveway including my dad’s old 1990 Chevrolet Impala. I didn’t think my dad had anyone in his life when I left. He never had friends that came over to watch the game or have a couple drinks. He never really talked about his family or my mom’s family since he was practically disowned, and he felt a lot of guilt about my mother’s death that he never told them that I was still alive.

I got out of my car and locked it, walking up to the front door that has changed since I was last here. I remember staring at the old front door analyzing the rusted screws and the dents on the top and bottom. Now it has changed to a door as white as dove with bronze screws and a beautiful flower wreath that makes me think of the gates to heaven. I try to calm myself taking a few deep breaths as I lift my hand to knock on the door wondering who I will face.

A woman opens the door staring at me, and I don’t recognize her. She was about 5’5’’ with a salt and pepper braided bun greased down to perfection, her eyes red but her demeanor stronger than a bull. I could smell her perfume and felt a sense of nostalgia to the old ladies in church who would always sit in the front of service and fan themselves while singing every church hymn loud for everyone to hear.

“Can I help you?” She asked staring me down like I was a threat to her.

“Yes, ma’am I am just wondering if I am at the right place actually.” I said looking past her and seeing about 20 people in a house with a changed interior from what I left it. The recliner he used to sit in is gone. The smell of smoke and whiskey doesn’t waft towards my nose anymore, but a scent of lavender incense mixed with this woman’s perfume surrounds me.

“Well, I can only tell you if you let me know what you are looking for chile,” She placed her hands on her hips and stared at me like she was trying to figure out who I was.

“A man I used to know lived here and I heard he passed away, so I came to pay respects. But I think I might be at the wrong place,” I stared at the ground and sighed preparing to be on my way to the hotel I booked. I could feel her eyes analyzing my face and my clothing wondering if I was some good for nothing child who is looking for trouble. Most likely asking herself why I had showed up at her house?

“Well, the only man who stayed here was my husband, Fredrick. Are you a friend of his from his old job? Or from the grocery store?” She asked, her eyebrow arched up. I couldn’t tell her I was his daughter because I doubt he ever mentioned me. His daughter who left him behind to find her own life. And imagine being the wife of a man who had daughter you didn’t know about?

“Yes, ma’am I knew him from the grocery store. I am sorry for you’re lost.”

“This gathering is only for family but thank you for the condolences. I am sure Freddie is in a better place.”

“Mom” a feminine yet bright voice called from behind her. When the older woman turned around, I caught glimpse of a girl who looked similar my dad with light brown eyes and his nose. She looked to be in her early twenties with a beautiful black designer dress you would see in Vogue magazine. She must be my fathers’ pride and joy since she doesn’t look like she has suffered at all.

“Yes Kayla?” the older woman asked back.

“Who’s at the door?” Kayla asked catching a glimpse of me before I put my head down looking at the ground, praying to God that I can just run back to my car and get the hell out of here.

“Just a bagger from the grocery store baby girl.”

“Well Aunt Shelly needs help with the potato salad she’s about to put raisins in it again.”

“I swear this woman is gonna make me lose my damn mind…” She mumbled as she turned to look at me. “Thanks again for coming by Honey, we all appreciate it. These last 2 days have been very hard on us. I used to go to the hospital everyday to go check up on him and it hurt me to see him in pain. I am just glad he is back home with the lord. He was such as good father and an even greater husband you know?” She tried to hold back her tears. I couldn’t agree on anything she was saying at all. The father I had was not good at all. He wasn’t some angel sent from heaven, but I guess that’s just her view of a devil in disguise.

As she and I said our goodbyes and the door closed in front of me, I regretted going back to my father’s home. I got back into my car with my suitcase in the trunk and drove back to the airport. There was no reason for me stay there when I’m not his family anyway. The way he treated me I shouldn’t want to pay respects to him at all. He had a new wife and daughter while I was struggling to come to terms that I never will have a sitcom relationship with him. I had to go to therapy and find love within myself because I lacked the love and support of a parental figure. He made me look like a fool again except in death.

I drove back to the airport straight from the funeral. I didn’t care how much a plane ticket would cost me, I just wanted to go back to my life again. I wanted to leave the past behind and pay attention to my future again. I sat in the waiting area and all I could do is stare at the carpet, watching the patterns expecting it to change and have some type of relief. I remember sitting in this airport with a trash bag, a plane ticket, and no plan, crying for someone to save me from him. I begged God to end my suffering and let me be with my mother. Yet, he was a good father?

When I got on the plane, all the comprehension of what just occurred just wouldn’t add up to me. He had a whole replacement family that doesn’t even know about me. I bet they don’t know about my mother or how he was a useless drunk so many years ago. The man who I begged to be my father for years until I had enough.

When I arrived back at my condo from my overnight flight back, I went to check my mailbox for my usual credit card bills and rent reminder. But instead, there was an envelope with a scent I knew too well. I looked at the envelope and read Fredrick Jones on the left-hand corner. A part of me wanted to burn the letter in the fireplace, especially since I wasted a trip to be confronted by his new family that he most likely treated in the way I always hoped he would treat me. But the other side of me wanted to open the letter carefully and cry until my eyes became sore. I wanted to open and see an apology for the way he treated me all those years. I wanted to finally hear him say that I am not a disappointment or a murderer.

So many things in one letter that I wanted to be said so I can cry until I can’t cry anymore. The years of hatred I had for this man and the love I was looking for in this man will be buried 6 feet under. But I will never open this letter. I will never forget my father and I know I will always be his daughter.

#shorts #original work

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impishnature · 5 years ago

Text

Unexpected Playmate

AO3 Fandom: Don’t Starve Rating: T (Warnings for Don’t Starve levels of game violence) Summary: Maxwell learns some lessons from the most unlikely of places. A/N: A birthday gift for my lovely @atlasioh who wanted some hurt/comfort and I could not resist the idea once it took me <3

"...Such a strange child."

The words left him in a soft hush, blanketed and muffled by the inky pitch black around the fire.

Maxwell blinked, sitting up straighter as he brought himself back out of his reverie. He was meant to be on watch for the rest of their rag tag camp, not zoning out with odd lingering thoughts. He hadn't even meant to say anything, amusement colouring his mind as well as fascinated befuddlement.

Luckily, the rest of the camp were already mostly asleep, or not paying attention to him anyway. There was still a strained relationship to the whole affair, but at least they trusted him enough with this that he felt less like he might be stabbed in the night.

It was probably this trust that had led him to people watch. After all, he had done many dastardly things to this group and yet once he had fallen from grace they had accepted him into their camp with minimal resistance. He hadn't ever expected that, not in all of his musings, so on nights like this when he had all the time in the world to muse, he couldn't help but let his curiosity run over the others, wondering just what kind of people he had dragged into the Constant with little remorse.

Good people, as it turned out, and ones that had more intriguing stories to tell and lessons to be learned from, than he had thought possible.

However, the events of the day were colouring his musings of the night as he found himself caught by the movement of a rather fuzzy, small individual in their group. Or rather, the collection of small, fuzzy creatures that he had brought into their camp without question and had been rather put out when the others had given him a smaller campfire to the side of the main camp to house his new 'friends' around.

Unfortunately for them, he had also decided to stay there instead of the main camp where they could look after him.

He was, after all, beneath the furry exterior- just a small child, and the others struggled to break through the urge to protect him, regardless of how he wandered off without them constantly.

It was all quite comical in his eyes. The boy had taken to the constant with stride once he had been changed by it. Whilst others feared the monsters, Webber had somehow made them into friends.

Again- fascinating. A feat he'd never expected.

So, with nothing else but sleeping bodies and the shrouded darkness of Charlie's abyss beyond the flames, his eyes kept wandering over to the small boy and his undesirable spider guests. He'd had to bite his lip from chuckling as the boy pushed them closer to the fire in their sleep, patting them if their eyes opened and mumbling soft things that didn't quite make it through the crackling of the burning wood to Maxwell's attentive ears.

Laughter did escape him though as the boy wandered off to the edge of the fire light, stumbling back with a rather large log to dump on top of the cracking flames and almost tripping with the exertion.

The sound caught his attention, the boy's head tilting as he turned and caught Maxwell watching him.

Maxwell tried to ignore the urge to look away and into the flames, as if he'd never been watching, it would be unbecoming to back down from the child's gaze as if scalded. He was the adult here, not some petulant, naughty, child.

Webber blinked at him, an unnerving gesture that he tried to not to shudder at. It wouldn't be so bad if his multiple eyes didn't blink at different times, what a ridiculous design flaw for a creature.

Maxwell finally broke eye contact when it became obvious the boy wouldn't, his new found curiosity in Maxwell eclipsing his own.

It didn't do him any good though. No sooner had he broken eye contact that the boy seemed to take this as confirmation that he could move and started towards him, skipping over like he didn't have a care in the world.

The one spider that was still awake trotted behind him, like some abhorrent dog trailing its master.

Maxwell tried his best to keep the disgust off of his face, but he was sure his ever present scowl wasn't all that much better. He pulled his gaze even further away, prodding at the fire as if it was the most interesting thing in the world and to deter any conversation.

"Want something?"

...It was a pity the boy didn't understand his social cues.

"No." He hadn't meant to be quite so sharp, glad that the others were not around to admonish him for his quick barbed response. But he did not want a conversation nonetheless, and usually with most, his raised hackles at least warranted a few steps back out of his personal space.

"Oh."

Maxwell relaxed slightly at the dejected noise, it wouldn't be long now until the boy gave up and wandered away again to his side of the camp.

What he hadn't expected was for the boy to get even closer and sit down almost in front of him to grab his attention back again.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Maxwell raised an eyebrow at him, irritated disbelief seeping through his words. "...I'm on watch for the night, remember?"

Webber beamed at him, his sharp, white teeth visible in the fire light.

Apparently the boy's sheer optimism rendered the rumbling snarl to his voice futile.

"Same! Keeping friends safe while they sleep." Webber patted the spider that had followed him, now curled up into a ball at his feet.

Maxwell scrunched up his nose in distaste, watching the small creature fidget and settle under the boy's ministrations. "I see." He coughed, trying to keep the repulsion out of his words this time, for some unknown reason, not wanting to dampen the proud expression on the boy's face.

His eyes flicked back down to the spider, it's fidgeting increasing as strange noises escaped through it's teeth. "What is it doing?"

Webber followed his gaze, a soft, happy coo slipping past his lips as he continued to pet the spider, scratching and soothing it as it slept. "Aww, I think it's having a dream."

Maxwell couldn't keep the revulsion from dripping off his tongue. "Disgusting."

Webber pouted, glaring at him. "Meanie."

Maxwell rolled his eyes. "I've been called worse." He couldn't seem to pull his gaze away from the strangely moving spider. It was like a compulsion, watching it twist and shake. He couldn't imagine anything in the Constant dreaming. Nightmares, maybe, but dreams?

Perhaps he shouldn't voice that though, he'd rather the boy left it asleep for as long as possible.

"What is that?"

"Huh?"

"On it's leg." Maxwell's eyes lingered on a leg that stuck out unlike the rest of it's scuttling mates, moving a lot more sluggishly if at all as the creature snuffled.

"Oh. An angry puppy got hold of him. But we taught the puppy a lesson."

"Ahh." Of course, there had been the baying of hounds earlier that day. They'd dealt with a few of them in camp, but they had been pleasantly surprised by the dwindled number of them.

Now it made far more sense as to how little there had been.

He tried his best to ignore the strange mix of relief and nausea that bubbled up in his stomach at the thought of Webber playing with spiders and getting rather more than he bargained for.

It also now made sense how he'd managed to bring back so much spider silk with him as well as his little troupe of friends.

"So, why exactly are you keeping it?"

Webber frowned, eyebrows furrowing. "Why?"

"It's injured. It can't be much use anymore."

"He just needs some food!" Webber's voice rose, aghast at the mere suggestion. "He'll be fine in the morning with some food."

"That's a waste of our resources." It was perhaps a little harsh, but a necessary lesson that the boy needed to learn.

Unfortunately, the boy just continued to glare at him, a pout forming as his hands clung to the spider instead of petting him now.

"That's not very nice."

"Maybe not. But everything must have a use in this world, surely you know that."

"He has a use."

Maxwell raised an eyebrow as Webber sulked, no longer meeting his eye. "Oh?"

"He's a friend. That's all the use he needs to be."

What was this painful feeling in his chest?

Maxwell coughed, trying to dislodge the strange sensation from his throat, hoping that he had somehow got something stuck in it instead of anything far worse in his opinion. "Right. Of course."

It was probably for the best that he didn't argue with him anymore, regardless of the strange feeling settling in his stomach.

After all, if he made the boy cry or similarly upset him, he was sure that he would lose the newfound favour that the others had bestowed upon him.

"I suppose..." Maxwell hummed as Webber looked back up at him, eyes suspicious. "You did bring back a lot of resources today that no one was expecting. Surely, no one would mind if you used a spider gland on your... friend here."

Webber's eye lit up for a second before dimming, biting at his lip thoughtfully. "Maybe... We'll wait until the morning to see if he's better on his own first. No waste."

Huh, perhaps some of his words had gotten through.

They sat in awkward silence for a long moment, Maxwell going back to tending the fire uncomfortably as the boy just sat stroking his pet without a word. He sighed as he watched the boy begin to sway, his eyelids drooping every few moments before he sat himself up again and the cycle began anew.

"You should sleep."

"Can't." A yawn cut out his words as he rubbed his eyes. "Gotta keep the fire nice and warm."

"I'm already keeping one fire lit, it won't be hard to do the other as well."

He didn't know why he offered, only that the words slipped from his tongue before he could really think about them.

"Really?"

Maxwell frowned as the boy stared at him. He was more subdued than he had been before, doubtful distrust leaking into that one word like a foul taste.

He was probably just tired, that was all.

"Really. So go to sleep already."

Webber stared at him for a few more moments, eyes wide and scrutinising regardless of how tired he had been only moments before.

"...OK." The small boy jumped up, scooping up the spider into his arms and scurried off to snuggle in amongst the warm, furry bodies he had left beside the other campfire.

Maxwell stared back into the fire once he was sure the boy had passed out completely, trying his best to push down the swell of guilt that beat in time with his heartbeat at how the boy clutched at his injured spider pet as if concerned about what Maxwell might do to him.

~~~

Time stretched strangely in the Constant.

Or perhaps it was just the absence of weeks, dates and days, the constant reminder of routines that embodied the real world that they had lost upon entering this one.

Regardless, Maxwell had no idea how long their group had been together anymore. It felt like mere days and endless aeons depending on quite how frustrated he was with them all.

He could, however, pinpoint that it had been an exact week since Webber and he had had their rather impromptu nighttime conversation.

How? Because the boy had been acting even stranger around him since, enough so that the others were beginning to notice it.

He'd already had to brush aside Wilson's concern and accusations. Taking them in stride that perhaps the boy had just remembered what he had done to him the first time they had met.

For some mind boggling reason, that hadn't reassured the other man, leaving him to also scowl and avoid him for a while.

They were all such emotional beings.

But because of their scrutiny, he'd found it in his best interest to keep an eye on the boy where he could, always making up excuses for why he was going the same way as him when they were out foraging for resources.

Definitely because of the other adults scrutiny. It had nothing at all to do with thoughts of hounds and spiders and Charlie.

No, nothing at all.

It also had nothing to do with making amends for some... unforeseen folly he may have made with his wording.

The trouble was, he wasn't quite sure which part of their conversation had made the boy suspicious of him again.

Not that it mattered- he wasn't keeping an eye on him for that reason... right?

Maxwell shook himself, going back to the tree that he had been chopping down, his latest excuse in following the boy. It did mean that he'd taken his eye off of him for a few moments but if the excuse was going to be believable then he had to have something to show for it. He paused to listen intently, huffing when he heard the boys inane chatter in the forest nearby.

He really didn't need to do much to follow him, he wasn't the most sneaky of creatures to track.

With a groan, he gave the tree one last thwack, the accompanying groan of the tree giving him a rush of satisfaction. Job done, he could once more focus on his daily task. For a little while at least, until he needed to get some more wood to make up for the hours he would spend babysitting so that he had a reasonable excuse when they returned around the same time.

Before he could bundle up the logs however, a loud high pitched shriek rent the air.

It was a sharp sound, one that drove through his heart and left him gasping, it was a sound of distress, of utter pain and it was something that he hadn't heard in a very long time. "Webber." The word came out as a puff of fear, his strides darting him off towards the sound without much thought into how it looked.

He stumbled through the trees, hearing more and more ruckus as he got closer, glad for the iron tight grip he had on his axe.

He may not be the best fighter but at a push he was sure he could be useful.

As long as he didn't accidentally hit one of Webber's little friends.

He came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the clearing, finally taking a moment to assess the situation instead of running blindly in.

It wouldn't do to hinder or make the situation worse.

It was hard to see anything with the multitude of creatures that were fighting in the open area. So many spiders- when had Webber gathered so many little friends? But that still didn't make sense as to why Webber had been-

Ahh.

Maxwell tutted, contempt colouring his face and his words. "Slobbering fools..."

"I kill now!"

The cry set off an alarm bell but to his relief the pigs were focused on the group of spiders encircling them and not the rather larger spider boy that he was more concerned about.

Or so he hoped- he couldn't quite catch sight of the blasted child.

"Come on, come on, where are you- there you are." Maxwell's eyes hooked on a spider that seemed to pull itself up out of the throng, thankfully at the edge of it all. He held a little hand up to his face, scrubbing up and down as if it hurt before coming out of it and turning back towards the carnage.

Maxwell cursed as he pushed back through the spiders, his high pitch yells carrying over to him with their disappointment and frustration.

"No! Stop! Stop fighting!"

Maxwell pushed into clearing just as a pig turned to the small boy running towards it, without a weapon in sight.

"You go smash!"

Webber shrieked again, propelled backwards by the pigs fist. Maxwell winced as his body scraped across the rough ground, smacking straight into a bush with another whining yell. Thankfully, the spiders descended again, just as Webber stood up on shaking legs, holding his arm at an odd angle. He looked ready to try again before his shoulders fell in defeat and he instead he bolted from the fight, scrubbing at his eyes as he did so, his other arm limp at his side.

Unfortunately, he was headed away from Maxwell as well.

"Blast! Webber!" He was already out of sight before the words could escape him. He darted out of the brush, giving the ensuing fight a wide berth as he followed the boy's path.

He hadn't got far.

Maxwell skidded to a halt as he heard sniffling nearby. He looked around in sharp, quick motions, spotting only a large boulder within the vicinity that the boy could be hiding behind.

He took his approach gently, not wanting to startle him into lashing out.

He'd rather not be attacked by a multitude of spiders if he could help it. That would be an awful way to go.

Maxwell poked his head around the rock, taking in the small ball of a boy, curled into himself, his head in his knees as he sniffled pitifully. "There you are."

Webber flinched, head snapping up to stare at him. "Maxwell!" He scrubbed at his eyes, trying his best not to wince as he used the wrong arm to do so. He stood up on shaking legs, leaning back against the rock and hiding his arm behind him in one quick motion. "Uhm- what are- that is- why-"

"I thought I heard a yell." Maxwell cut off the awkward words, not wanting him to freak out more than he already seemed to be.

"Oh." Webber looked down at his feet. "Was probably another spider."

Maxwell frowned. "Are you sure? You look a bit shaken up."

Webber shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Your face says otherwise."

Webber scrubbed at his eyes again, glaring up at him. "Does not."

Maxwell sighed, squatting down to Webber's height. "You're bleeding."

"No, I'm not."

Good lord, children were a pain.

"Then why is there blood on you?"

Webber stared down at his arm, face twisting sulkily as he pushed it further out of sight. "It's not mine."

"Oh, isn't it? Whose is it then?" Maxwell waited as Webber stared off away from him, ignoring him entirely. "You're a terrible liar, Webber." He shuffled closer still, inspecting the small scratch along his cheek as well with a soft tut. "Just let me take a look and get you all patched up. I think I've got some honey poultice in my backpack-"

"No!"

Maxwell froze, hand still outstretched towards Webber. He swallowed, mildly hurt at the rejection of his help. "Would you rather I took you back to camp so Wilson can take a look?" His frown deepened as Webber shook his head fervently. "Then what?"

"S'a waste of resources."

Oh dear.

"Now, how do you figure that?" Maxwell coughed, trying to push down the lump in his throat. It tasted strangely of guilt but he refused to acknowledge that.

Webber shrugged, kicking his feet against the rock. "Cause I haven't done anything useful today."

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Wilson was going to kill him.

"Nonsense."

Webber squeaked as Maxwell took matters into his own hands and picked him up. He propped him on top of the boulder so that he didn't have to squat whilst he did his work. The surprise didn't last long enough though, the young boy speaking up while he was rooting round in his bag for supplies.

"What's nonsense?"

"That you haven't been useful. You're very useful."

Webber shook his head. "Not today though!"

"And? You don't have to be useful every day." Maxwell rolled his eyes, tugging Webber's arm towards him. "Besides, are you saying you wouldn't help someone else at camp if they were hurt just because they hadn't been helpful that day?"

"No!" Webber tried to tug his arm away indignantly, before his eyebrows furrowed deeply and he shot Maxwell a glare. "But you said-"

"And you listened?" Maxwell smirked at him, or as best he could in that moment, when he really felt like grimacing. "Thought you'd know by now that that was a foolish idea."

Webber huffed, but didn't answer. Maxwell took it as a win that his shoulders relaxed and he stopped trying to pull away.

Perhaps he was getting somewhere with that mistake of his.

Not that he was trying to rectify anything, of course.

Webber kicked his feet as Maxwell tended to his wounds, trying his best not to wince or fidget as his arm was bandaged up and the cut on his face was checked over. At least he no longer seemed worried that Maxwell wouldn't help him, or worse would throw him aside like one of his spiders- a thought that Maxwell was pointedly trying not to let take root in his skull, lest the shame of it morph into something more. Instead he turned his gaze back to the way they had come, towards the little dots of light where the pig houses sat, his face falling and scrunching up as if he was trying not to cry.

"Why do they hate me?"

Maxwell sighed at the quiet utterance, hating how it tugged at his heartstrings.

Having a heart was really rather tiresome.

"You shouldn't take it personally." Maxwell pulled away to make them a torch as the gloom made it difficult to finish his work. He could feel Webber's eyes on him, though he stayed silent as if waiting for him to elaborate. Unable to take the silence, he did. "Spiders and Pigs are just natural enemies in the Constant. They can't help but fight one another."

"That's silly."

Maxwell chuckled. "Perhaps. But it's the way things are."

"Things should change."

Maxwell couldn't help but agree, and who was he to say what could and couldn't change after his remarkable fall from grace? "They should. But where would you start?"

"... I don't know. Somewhere. I'll tell the spiders off for attacking pigs."

Maxwell laughed. "Will you tell them off for attacking us too?"

"I do! Spiders understand once you give them food."

"But the others still attack us."

Webber pouted. "And you guys attack back. All silly. All of you. We can all be friends."

Maxwell nodded. "I guess we are all very silly." He finished tying up the last bandages around his arm, tightening it slightly before tugging at the knot. "How does that feel?"

Webber nodded noncommittally, his eyes still locked to the pig houses as if just willing them to understand would make it all come true.

What was this protective urge rearing its ugly head in his chest?

"Do you know the story of the three little pigs?"

Webber turned back to him, tilting his head. "Uh-huh?"

"What's the best thing a pig should make his house from?"

"Stone!" Webber chirped, kicking his feet again, easily distracted from his injuries and dismayed thoughts. Maxwell wished it was that easy when you were older.

"And what have the pigs here made their houses out of?"

Webber hummed, glancing over at the house thoughtfully. "Uhm... wood?"

"Then they better watch out, hadn't they?" Maxwell held out his arms to set Webber back on the ground. "Cause I'll huff and I'll puff-"

Webber squeaked delightedly as he was picked back up, his face beaming as he prodded Maxwell in the chest before being put down. "You're not the big bad wolf!"

Maxwell raised an eyebrow at him, trying to keep a straight face as the child laughed at him. "Oh, aren't I?"

Webber shook his head. "Nu-uh. You don't make noises like the doggies do."

Maxwell choked on a laugh.

"And Wormwood doesn't call you a woofer.”

...Oh the simplicity of childhood.

~~~

Somehow, even with a spider child practically hanging off his arm and talking his ear off, the other camp mates still seemed unsure about him.

Though, perhaps they knew, that a child's attention was about as constant as the tide. It ebbed and flowed depending on what new and exciting thing was happening around them.

One minute Webber couldn't look at him, the next he refused to so much as sit a few feet away from him, all with a drop of a hat as far as the rest of them were concerned.

Then again, he had arrived back in camp with a still mildly sniffling child, his head and arm bandaged up as well as he could- which considering he was hardly used to the task, was not the best.

The fact that Webber had got hurt at all if he could have prevented it, had instantly set some of them off, regardless of the small boy hiding behind his legs as if he was in trouble.

Then again, Maxwell was used to their ire so it was probably for the best they turned on him instead of that fearful scolding that appeared when talking to rather reckless children.

If anything he was rather less fortunate with Wilson's intrigued stare, watching the others snarl and snap whilst he redid Webber's bandages. There was a glint there, a thoughtful tilt to his head, like he knew that Maxwell was forcing the attention on to himself. Forever, the magician on his stage, misdirecting and corralling them as only he knew how.

He was even more unfortunate when he realised Wilson was still watching him when the others took Webber out of his eye line and that irritatingly protective urge reared back up again and plastered it's displeasure across his face. Or perhaps it was more how he relaxed as the small bouncing ball of a boy struggled his way back out of their grasp and scurried back to sit beside him.

...Apparently, he was trustworthy now.

...How naive.

But he guessed, only time would tell, if the others would follow suit or not, after this latest debacle.

~~~

The clinging didn't last for long.

And thankfully the defensive urge fizzled out along with it.

If the child felt confident enough to wander off on his own again, then he would rejoice in his much needed solitude once more.

There was only so... much he could handle.

At least while he'd been on a stage there had always been a general boundary between himself and everyone else. His own personal space, peace and quiet, that had been severely hindered and lacking since joining this confounding group of people.

Which was why it had been a relief to walk in the completely opposite direction that morning, out to gather his own resources without anyone else's input.

That is until he stumbled across his past.

Suddenly, being alone didn't seem quite so appealing.

He stared at his own visage, victorious satisfaction plastered across a stony exterior. His own face twisted in response, an ironic grimace marring skin and flesh. He raised a hand towards the cold carved rock, skimming over the details he remembered requiring in his monument. The outstretched arms, no longer a magician longing for an audience, but a king commanding the attention of one.

He could hear the laughter that wished to rise from the statues lips, that hollow crow that mocked and tormented so many.

He'd been so sure of himself, so eager to push the boundaries between Them and himself.

So eager to please.

It had been so easy to forget that he was just as much a puppet on a string to Them.

Looking back, he wasn't sure when it had happened. When he had changed.

He hadn't been that dark before the Constant, he was sure of it. Before he'd found the Codex.

What had he let Them do to him?

What had he done to himself?

When had he stopped caring?

Or more importantly- when had he started caring again?

"It seems so foolish now..."

Maxwell pulled his hand away from the rock like it burned, but in reality he felt cold. Sickly and clammy as he stared at his reflection- who he was, who he had once been.

He didn't want to be that person anymore.

"Careful now, eh? I don't want to wake up any more of those horses."

Blast.

He was not in the mood for company, especially not now. Not here.

Maxwell's flicked around, settling on a grove of trees off to the side. He darted there quickly, sinking down so as not to be seen, hoping that whoever it was would quickly continue their travels elsewhere.

"You know, I wouldn't mind seeing another. I still haven't figured out how they work."

Ah. Ever the scientist. Maxwell snorted, covering his mouth quickly. If he hadn't watched the other get resurrected over and over again across the Constant, he'd wonder how he'd never got himself into trouble with that scientific curiosity of his.

"I'd rather we didn't, please don't wake any more up, otherwise you'll be answering to Lucy."

"They're boring, they don't play chess properly anyway- hey, whats that?"

Oh drat.

How had he forgotten the rather obvious consequence of the area?

There was no way the others would just carry on their treks when there was a goddamn statue of him standing in all it's glory in the middle of a chess pieces lair.

He guessed he had Charlie to thank for that comedic affair.

...Thanks, Charlie.

His teeth clenched as footsteps got closer and closer to his hiding space. He closed his eyes as one of them whistled, a long, drawn out sound that was laced with disbelief but mostly dripping with sarcasm.

"Heh, he's a lot shorter in person, isn't he?"

Maxwell huffed, covering his mouth to stop from choking out a laugh.

He should be insulted. Offended. But honestly, he was far too used to Wilson by now to be surprised by his impertinence.

If anything he was rather relieved. The scientist had no idea he was listening, he could have said anything in that moment.

A slight to his height was about as good as he could have hoped for given the circumstances.

"Hey, didn't he come this way earlier? You think we can catch up to him?"

Maxwell scowled at Woodie's voice, tightening his curled up position on the floor to make sure they didn't catch sight of him.

No way was he greeting them now. Not if they wanted to converse about... this.

He tried not to sigh in relief at Wilson's non-committal response.

"Shame. Guess we'll have to make fun of him later, eh?"

His scowl deepened.

Heaven forbid he try to forget all of this ever happened.

Then again... he guessed he deserved it really.

"What do you think, Webber?"

Maxwell raised an eyebrow from his hiding space. There was a very pointed tone to that question, nonchalant and yet entirely focused.

He couldn't help but wonder if this was his way of testing the waters, now that he had the boy on his own.

Or well, in front of Wilson but that didn't seem to matter. Unlike him, everyone seemed to trust Wilson.

"Hmm?"

There was a thoughtful lilt to the hum, like Webber was contemplating a lot more than Maxwell could fathom from the tone.

Not that it mattered, obviously. But he was intrigued by how seriously he was taking the question when the other two had mocked his statue.

"We're still a little mad at him..."

Huh. Not as naive as he appeared.

Maxwell was oddly proud of the boy.

Pride. Yes. That's what that sharp feeling in his chest was.

"But only a little."

~~~

The camp had become a lot more bearable now that it was clear that he hadn't upset the spider child. The others were a lot more forgiving in their stares as well as their actions now that the boy ran up to him and chattered inanely at him no matter how hard he tried to dissuade the activity.

He also couldn't stand that knowing smile on Wilson's face whenever it happened.

Thankfully they had all lost interest recently as the seasons changed, and with it, a number of strange objects could be found around the area.

Useless, frivolous items, but he guessed there was a use in them, keeping up morale as they did.

Apparently yelling that he wasn't a vampire when they kept giving him the broken stakes they were finding only heightened their need to find more of them.

And so what if he brought back any he found to add to the growing pile that the others liked so much? It wasn't like he liked them. They were far too tacky for his taste.

It wasn't that he had found a gaudy ring, complete with eight little legs and thrown it towards a small boy. It wasn't his little happy shout of 'A friend for our finger!' that led him to collect more of the items because he might like them.

Not at all.

Never.

He wasn't sure what the others thought anymore as the small boy ran over with his latest find- a small fake spider dangling from a string.

"Maxwell, look! It's a fake friend!" He jiggled it in his face as Maxwell crouched down to take a look at it. "What do you think?"

"Hmm... I think I like the real ones better." Maxwell internally winced, waiting for that disappointed face he found he now loathed when he accidentally put his foot in it. He just couldn't quite keep up a filter around them when he'd never had to before.

Not that it mattered.

Webber grinned at him, eyes lighting up. "Really? Me too! But this is still cool. We should hang it somewhere." And with that he was off, leaving a bemused Maxwell in his wake.

A soft laugh brought him back to his senses.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you'd grown rather fond of the boy."

Maxwell huffed, feeling his cheeks warm in embarrassment as an indignant strangled noise sat at the back of his throat. He stood up quickly, dusting off his suit as he did so.

"Preposterous. It's a good thing you know better, Higgsbury."

~~~

A/N: The quote 'Why do they hate me?' was what set this ball rolling. Poor Webber just wants some friends!! I had a lot of fun with game dialogue so hopefully none of this seemed ooc. <3 Hope you enjoyed! xx

#Don't Starve #Don't Starve fanfiction #ds Webber #ds Maxwell #ds Wilson #ds woodie

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that-foul-legacy-lover · 11 months ago

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I wish FL could transform into a smaller version of himself like Zhongli.

Just imagine him, foul legacy looking up and making eye contact with you with his little face and bright eye while he purrs. and now his purrs are not that deep low but high-pitched. small high-pitched purrs. And since we all agree he has cat behaviors (he's a cat) he definitely loves napping inside of cardboard boxes and high places like in the top of a fridge. One of my kitties loves to climb and rest on my shoulders just to see with curiosity what I'm doing, it's so cute. I can see Foul Legacy sleeping under the covers and tangled in your legs or sleeping on your chest like he used to do when he's in his big size.

I just like to imagine this dangerous creature from the deep abyss as the tiny cute man we know he is, because I love him:)

yes yes YES we're bringing back cat-sized Foul Legacy AAAAAA :D

okay okay, i've said it before and i'll say it again- cat-sized Legacy can and will sneak into your work bag so you accidentally take him with you. he waits until you're putting on your coat to hop inside, wedging himself comfortably in between the countless papers and files as you hastily pick the bag up and leave your house, the door locking with a sharp click. it's actually a little impressive how silent Foul Legacy is when he wants to be, you don't even know he's in there until you're already at work and open your bag to fetch a pen, only to find a sleepy Abyss monster blinking up at you, having taken a little nap while he waited for you to find him. you have to bite your tongue to keep from shouting in surprise, but Foul Legacy merely purrs and crawls onto your lap, curling up and going straight back to sleep- thank Archons you have your own office so you can easily hide him underneath the desk if needed. you give him a light scolding that night- "If you want to come to work, at least ask me first!"- and the next day you're greeted by an expectant Legacy sitting by your bag, waiting patiently

cat-sized Legacy also hides under your blanket, no questions asked, especially on chilly winter days. it much warmer and cozier under the covers, so he snuggles himself underneath and curls into a ball, a faint lump visible from outside. it's so lovely and toasty that he misses your return, only waking up with a tired chitter when you raise the blanket up, his crystalline eye gleaming in the dim light. Legacy yawns with all his teeth, worming his way onto your chest as you sit down on the bed- no getting up for at least two hours! quilts and covers are nice, but nothing beats the warmth you exude. be careful though, there's about an 80% chance you'll fall asleep and wake up being crushed under a normal-sized Foul Legacy's weight!

#genshin impact #childe #tartaglia #foul legacy #foul legacy childe #genshin tartagalia #genshin childe #genshin tartaglia #hi hello yes i am cordially requesting people send me cat photos hehehe #i have my own cat if anyone would like to see #i made cinnamon rolls today was very fun #i did accidentally drop something on my foot though and now it's BRUISED #short scenario #other's stuff #chit chat #anon #good evening #FAVE

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riviae · 5 years ago

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so this is long & rambly but i’ve been working on this for awhile now.... anyway, starts out very introspective!regis-y but becomes geralt/regis fluff real quick lol. hope y’all enjoy:

Before crossing paths with a witcher who proved himself to be a man worth following into the very jaws of death, the seasons hadn’t meant much to Regis.

He knew the cycle of things--life and death, warmth and cold, planting and harvesting--but he was an outsider to these things just as everything else on the Continent. Time passed. Wars were fought. Blood was shed. Empires rose and fell. All the while, Regis remained, burdened by an immortal life lived alone. To take part in humanity, to love it to some extent, but disappear into the shadows when a curious eye took interest in him. When a hand reached out--something that rarely occurred, unless holding a sword, pitchfork, or torch--he knew it was time to pack up and leave, lest he get too attached.

Self-preservation, for higher vampires, was confined to the affairs of the heart and the mind--their bodies were not in danger of ruin, but memories and emotions were often ruinous for his kind.

Yet, whatever contentment he could find as a bystander to the world’s happenings and goings was dashed the moment he met Geralt. All those years ago, Regis had fled from Dillingen to his home in Fen Carn, a cottage in the midst of an elven cemetery, in an attempt at avoiding the ever-encroaching war.

And in perhaps the same cosmically infinitesimal chances of the Conjunction of Spheres occurring, Regis’ entire life changed at the sight of milk-white hair and amber cat-like eyes. He stepped out of his hiding spot, brushed away the stray leaves that clung to his clothes, and faced his destiny with a reserved, tight-lipped smile.

He’s a witcher, Regis thought, the wolf medallion at the man’s sternum sparking a tiny flame of uneasiness in the vampire’s gut. Then, a more logical thought followed: I’ve always wanted to meet a witcher under amicable circumstances and now, here one is, practically at my doorstep. What luck!

As his journey with Geralt and the hansa continued, as they traveled and fought, bled and healed, wintered in a land akin to a fairytale, Regis had a startling realization. Something had thawed inside him and he was fairly certain it was the stirrings of love. Like a change in season, like the subtle shift from winter to spring, where one wakes in the morning and sees that all the snow has seemingly melted in the night, unaware of the slowly melting ice with each sunny day until it was completely gone, so Regis was caught unaware by what he felt for the hansa--by what he felt for Geralt in particular.

Just how far would he go for these humans? How much would he sacrifice for these flickering beacons of light, here one moment, gone in the next? It was the ghost of himself--the monster he once was--that would have asked these questions. But the Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzeiff-Godefroy of the present loved his friends even more for their fragility, their tenacity in the face of a world that seemed at the ready to send them into an early grave. Love, he decided, staring at the smiling faces of the hansa at their breakfast table in Beauclair Palace, was a good enough reason to die for--and a good enough reason to live for, when he was on the cusp of nothingness. When any other sentient being would have longed for death in the throes of agony, Regis held on. For them.

Memories spilled from his head at the first touch of magic-touched flames, nails clawing helplessly at the air. Fear burned him alive, ate away at his flesh until nothing but a pillar of ash remained. It was a pain worse than anything he had felt before--worse than anything he could have ever fathomed. He was neither alive nor dead, but something grotesquely stuck in the middle, unable to pass on to the comforting abyss of oblivion.

Between the coldness of fear and not-death, between the pain of a body futilely attempting to regenerate from nothing, Regis did find some respite. He dreamed. And dreamed. And dreamed. He was transported to memories of the past, and while some were happier than others, even the painful recollections felt better than the aching emptiness that threatened to swallow his consciousness whole.

Angouleme’s encouraging laughter whenever he used one of her... unique phrases. A warning pinch from Milva when he veered too far off topic, followed by an apologetic, but brief pat of his hand. A comfortable silence between himself and Cahir as they stayed up to guard the group during the night, sharing a small tincture of mandrake hooch to pass the time. Dandelion’s rapt attention to Regis’ stories, one time so transfixed that he caught his sleeve on fire as they all sat around the campfire and didn’t even notice. Geralt telling him about Ciri, voice warm, eyes crinkled in a rare unguarded expression of fondness.

He thought back on his journal entries, the once severe, cerebral scrawl now sprinkled with mentions of the hansa.

Angouleme somehow stole a dozen baguettes from the last tavern we stopped at and took only a quarter of one for herself before distributing the rest to the unfortunate people living in the slums of the city--and I never would have noticed (her prowess as a bandit is not something to be dismissive of, regardless of her youth) if she hadn’t also tried to search through my satchel while I “slept” in the hopes of finding olive oil to spread over her bread. For a child raised by cruelty, her morals are far better than mine when I was her age--or, rather, when I was developmentally at her age. Well, better in certain respects. She’s been quite a menace to the echelon of Toussaint...

Milva means to show me how to hunt like humans do, meaning that I must learn how to be an archer. I don’t have much skill with human weapons--for nothing is as deadly as a pair of claws or teeth built to pierce and bleed flesh--but I will try my best all the same. Perhaps after this we can continue our reading lessons. For as much as she bemoans academics and learning for the sake of learning (as in things not readily helpful in her everyday survival), she is a naturally charming and brilliant pupil. Her “common sense,” as Angouleme often calls it, has kept us from harm plenty of times--which is why her ability as a student doesn’t surprise me. Now, if only she would stop climbing up a tree whenever our lessons start to bore her...

Cahir, to my surprise, has taken on the role of doing the laundry for the group. Granted, we all have very few vestments to spare, but what clothes we do have that can reasonably benefit from a soak, Cahir takes and washes in the lake. Which, while I appreciate the sentiment immensely, I still found myself mildly panicked when I went to dress in the morning and my trousers were nowhere to be found. The man is quite young, probably no more than twenty-two years, but he has an old soul, as the saying goes. I would not be surprised if he finally grows sick of war, having grown up in an Empire where bloodshed is the status quo, and decides to make his living as a fisherman or farmer after we reunite Geralt with his ward. I sincerely hope that he gets the chance.

Dandelion, ever the poet, has shown me his latest ballad. And imagine my surprise when I realized it was about me despite my immense caution on writing anything regarding higher vampires at all. It’s incredibly vapid--a shame, since he is quite the wordsmith when not preoccupied by romantic affairs--but I admit, if it were published, it would become popular within a week. He took the story of my youth and twisted it into something nearly unrecognizable, save for the titular character being named Rex. A two-crown romance with the nominative case of my name attached... perhaps this is a caution to everyone: never make friends with a writer if you value your privacy.

Geralt dozed off beside me with his head on my shoulder. Now, him sleeping close to me is not all that uncommon--we spent many nights as a company huddled around a dwindling campfire together. What was uncommon was that he sought me out--practically barged into my room--to take his late afternoon nap... all the while I remained as still as a statue, attempting to process the sudden show of affection. Toussaint had softened Geralt in a way, so much in fact, that he apparently saw no harm in falling asleep next to a higher vampire, his swords still leaning in the corner of his room. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of his unusual straightforwardness. Where others might embellish their words, dress them up (or down) to suit their agenda, Geralt forgoes words entirely, instead letting his actions speak with a refreshing honesty. I heard the “I trust you, Regis,” as clear as day.

He thought back to all the times were his cowardice had kept him from voicing his feelings and it paralleled to his past, as if he were the same blood-abusing fiend of his youth. Centuries had passed and glimpses of the same shy, timid vampire who drank blood to be accepted, to make friends, only to lose himself in addiction, still rose to the surface. Blood was no longer a problem, but the fear of otherness, of being ostracized by those he cared about, still tempered his actions. And he was absolutely tired of it.

It was then that Regis made a vow to himself: If I live, If I become whole again, I will tell him the truth. He got his chance almost a decade later, when he was as whole as anyone could be after regenerating from nothing but dust and a drop of blood.

After Dettlaff was placated, no longer a danger to himself or others, Regis visited Geralt at Corvo Bianco. It was summer then, a season that saw him at the witcher’s door just as the last of the rows of sunflowers turned towards the sunlight in the midday heat.

He knocked on the front door, politeness dictating his actions. A disheveled witcher opened the door, familiar cat-eyes widening marginally at the sight of Regis, as close to a slack-jaw moment of surprise as anyone were bound to get from Geralt.

“Expecting someone else?” Regis teased, clutching the strap of his satchel as he crossed the threshold into Geralt’s home. He gave a cursory glance about the homestead--it had been decorated fairly well since the last time he visited to drop off the mutagenerator. In fact, the interior was downright cozy, a far cry from what he imagined a witcher keep to look like.

No matter what Geralt says, his years spent on the Path have influenced him. Only someone who expects to wake in the morning would bother to decorate their home--or to have a home at all.

The witcher shook his head, long, tangled locks spilling over his shoulders as he scratched tiredly at his beard. “Wasn’t expecting anyone. Thought if it was you though that you’d let yourself in.”

Regis held his tongue, wanting nothing more than to sit Geralt down and trim his beard. He knew from their time with the hansa that the witcher preferred to be clean-shaven, but hated trimming it himself. The vampire pushed the thought aside. “While I could have simply misted through your window, I didn’t wish to give you a fright.”

“How considerate,” Geralt said, voice rough but teasing. “You chose to wake me instead of letting yourself in.”

“I assumed you’d be awake. I didn’t realize that respectable vineyard owners slept in until noon.”

Geralt rolled his eyes at the well-natured jab before walking to his room, leaving the door open behind him. Regis remained in the foyer, focusing his attention on the rather impressive collection of witcher armor that Geralt had acquired. Yet, his supernatural hearing made it impossible not to eavesdrop to some extent; he heard the rustling of fabric and the soft thud of an article of clothing hitting the wooden floor.

“Hey, Regis,” Geralt drawled.

“Yes?” he replied a beat too quickly, turning towards the open door.

“...Gonna get in here? Or do I need to invite you into every room?”

Scrambling somewhat, the vampire entered just as Geralt tugged a clean white linen shirt over himself. At meeting the witcher’s gaze, the man gave a wide grin. “You came at a good time. I’ve actually got something for you. But close your eyes first.”

“Geralt, what are you--”

“Shh. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

A brief flash of fond irritation flickered in Regis’ expression as he gave a long sigh, but obeyed, shutting his eyes. He listened to the tempo of Geralt’s heart-rate, the usual slow and steady rhythm having quickened by a few beats. Ah, so he’s excited, Regis mused. Even witcher mutations couldn’t rob him of the biochemistry of his sympathetic nervous system. Then, a sour thought: I hope this isn’t the last time I get to witness such a jovial mood.

The sound of his heartbeat grew stronger as the man approached, some sort of fabric draped in his arms, if the rustling earlier was any indication. Gently, Geralt placed the mystery item in Regis’ arms and backed away, the old floorboards creaking under his weight.

“Happy birthday, Regis.”

The vampire opened his eyes to see Geralt smiling warmly at him. Peering down, he couldn’t stop the look of absolute surprise upon his features, mouth agape.

“This is...” Regis trailed, fingers running delicately over the soft fabric, briefly pausing to rub his thumb against the black fur which lined the inside.

“It’s not the exact cloak, given what happened at Stygga Castle,” Geralt paused, briefly wincing at the horrid memory, “But I thought you’d appreciate a new one.”

Regis opened his mouth and then immediately closed it, unable to find the words to express how much the gift meant to him. You remembered... years passed and you still remembered.

“I know you can’t feel heat or cold like humans do, but...” he shrugged, a hint of sheepishness in his posture, a hand rising up to rub at the back of his neck. “It’s been weird not seeing you with one. You never took that damn thing off so I thought it must have meant something to you.”

“Geralt,” Regis finally replied once he found his voice again. It was the only warning he gave before the vampire laid the cloak on the bed and moved to seize the witcher in a tight embrace.

Geralt looped his arms around Regis’ back in return, chuckling. He made no attempt at ending the embrace even as the time spent pressed together stretched on. “So... guessing you liked the gift, huh?” he finally asked, leaning into the gentle swaying of their bodies.

When Regis spoke, it was barely past a whisper, but Geralt heard him all the same. “Thank you. Thank you for listening to me--for knowing me. Thank you, above all else, for being my friend.”

“I think I should be thanking you. All I got you was a cloak--but you helped bring Ciri home. Almost gave up your life. Can’t imagine that... risking your immortality for someone like me.”

“Geralt,” Regis started, pulling away to stare the witcher in the eyes, expression serious, “You are exactly the kind of person that inspires sacrifice. You have a noble heart and, despite your best attempts at proving otherwise, it is a heart full of compassion for others. I know you would have done the same if our roles had been reversed.”

The witcher was silent then. When he finally managed a response, he did so while clasping Regis’ shoulder. It was something the vampire had noticed ever since meeting Geralt again--the man was more tactile than he’d been before his regeneration. As if he was making sure that Regis was real. Alive. Of flesh and bone. Not something that would crumble at his touch or slip through his fingers like a ghostly apparition.

“I don’t know if I deserve your kind words, Regis. i haven’t always been... noble. There are things I haven’t told you about. Things that pertain to you.” At this, Geralt’s grip on his shoulder faltered and he pulled away suddenly, as if he were expecting to be hurt. “Truth is, I’ve been keeping a secret.”

Regis blinked in surprise, a retort resting on the tip of his tongue, but he paused. He noticed, for the first time, that Geralt did look genuinely nervous. Geralt had never looked nervous in his presence--at least not because of Regis. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth all the same.

The vampire took a step forward. If Geralt was also planning to tell him a long-kept secret, then he wanted to tell his own confession first. While he still had the courage to do so. “I too have kept something from you, Geralt. I hope we can still remain as close as we were after this... revelation, if you will. But I understand if you’d prefer some time away from me afterwards.”

“I doubt there’s anything you could say that would make me want you to keep your distance, Regis. Not after Stygga.”

Regis gave an attempt at a half-hearted chuckle. “Hearing you say that really warms my heart--especially the certainty in your voice--but I’m afraid that what I need to say will change the course of our relationship, for better or worse. You see, Geralt, I’m... quite fond of you.”

“I’m fond of you as well...” Geralt replied, confusion twisting his features. “Is that really your big secret?”

“Oh, for the love of--” Regis cut himself off, reaching instead with one hand to encircle Geralt’s wrist while the other cupped Geralt’s cheek. “I love you, you stubborn witcher. I’ve loved you for awhile now, really. Even before Stygga. You’re incredibly easy to fall in love with, though I see now that you’re completely oblivious to this trait.”

Regis’ hold was gentle, light--something Geralt could easily pull away from if he wished to. But he didn’t. Staring into his own reflection within the coal black of the vampire’s eyes, Geralt closed the gap between them, answering Regis’ confession with his own: a kiss.

Between kisses, Geralt paused, huffing out a short breath. “...You know, I’m feeling like a fool for not telling you that I loved you sooner, Regis.”

“Likewise. Which is not something I feel all that often.”

At this, they both laughed before resting their foreheads against each other. It had been a long road to this--to love--but it was well-earned. Later, Regis’ cloak found a home within a closet in Corvo Bianco. Though the weather in Toussaint was rarely cold enough to warrant a fur-lined cloak, Regis wore it as often as he could, but Geralt left an empty hanger in the closet all the same--just in case.

Seasons hadn’t meant much to Regis... but now, watching the morning sunlight from the bedroom window pool against the witcher’s back, he felt a tug of warmth at the first touch of Fall, at the chance of donning his cloak and the memory of the day it was gifted to him. He didn’t want to replace the painful memories, the memories of those he loved but lost, but he also knew that somewhere, surely, Milva, Cahir, and Angouleme were smiling down at them. And that was a sense of peace with his past that he wouldn’t trade for the world.

#geralt of rivia #emiel regis #tfw ur both in love but too oblivious to pick up the cues from the other person #& also take almost an entire decade to confess to each other #i swear they're both really smart intuitive ppl but put them together & it's like they have one brain cell #regis: i like you #geralt: oh i like you too. we're friends so that makes sense #regis: .....oh my god #geralt doesn't realize how easy he is to love & that's just sad™#this is basically really sad hansa thoughts that evolve into fluff w/ geralt/regis bc i have two settings & that's angst & pure happiness #so uhh yeah it really be like that sometimes #apologies for the emotional whiplash lmao #edit: i forgot the geralt/regis tag on this post alskdjfsfds #geralt/regis

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