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muzzlemouths · 5 months

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Hello hello, @chaoticgouda! It is I, your very very (very) late Secret Santa! Terribly sorry for keeping you waiting as long as I did — the story got away from me, and by that I mean I went slightly over the necessary wordcount.

You mentioned a love for horror, angst, and hurt/comfort, which I consider myself quite versed in, so I pulled out all the stops for this one. Hope you enjoy it! But, uh...do heed the warnings.

Dream-Eater!Moon x Insomniac!Y/N

Word Count: 8,540 Warnings: Fear and anxiety, isolation trauma, unreality, eye and mouth horror, body horror, (brief) gore, psychological horror

Three days, now. Three days since you’ve slept. Three days since that unblinking stare first crawled through the gap beneath your bedroom door, eyes like scarlet diamonds in a deep pool of nothingness and narrowed with an ire you couldn’t explain. Three days since you showed some spine and told it to go away. You’ve never suffered with sleep paralysis before, and you saw no reason for it to start now, yet you failed to come up with any better explanation for the thing at the foot of your bed.

A flicker of motion draws your eyes to the far side of the room. The sweetgum outside waves with the breeze, gnarled branches contorting like ugly, knotted limbs, their shadow dancing across your wall under the full moon.

You’re acting like a child. No one else would flinch at a tree tapping its spindly fingers against the glass, or feel their shoulders tense in the stillness of an otherwise too-quiet room, the perpetuation of which is immediately interrupted by the softest ting of a bell. This brief distraction is all it takes. Your gaze snaps again toward the familiar set of eyes as if on cue only to find them missing. A bleak, damning emptiness in their place.

Three days since the eyes first appeared to watch you strife with a good night’s rest.

Not once, in that time, have they ever moved.

It isn’t as though they possessed a body to carry them between positions, after all. The eyes were discarnate. Incorporeal. They had appeared in the darkness and in the darkness is where they stayed, with not head nor tail of any proper frame.

Yet you are unequivocally aware of the hands that draw from the darkest part of your room to flatten against the foot of your bed — painted in a blue so deep it challenges the very night itself — and the gangly wrists that follow, knuckles sharp like jutting bone under stretched skin. Narrow shoulders that taper into a waist almost skeletal, pinched around a ribcage that doesn’t exist, digitigrade legs that go on for longer than they should. A ghastly body that wafts between tangible and formless, its crude excuse for flesh coming away like smoke and fading into the surrounding darkness of your bedroom. It is a struggle to see the ghoulish thing among the shadows, even as it climbs ever higher along your mattress, yet you find yourself incapable of looking away.

Perhaps this demon has you paralyzed, after all.

It certainly feels that way as the creature looms closer and closer, still, ascending your body where it lies frozen, scarlet eyes fixated ahead, until its smooth, expressionless face comes to rest dangerously close to your own. Again, that foreign bell rings out as it goes still.

You swallow your tongue and taste nothing but dread. Words collect uselessly behind your teeth as it raises a hand from beside your torso and brings it against your jaw, claws — carved into a needlelike point and inky blue as the fingers they’re attached to — trace a path along your cheek. A whisper on the skin, and only that. The strange sensation might even tickle if your heart weren’t threatening to squeeze between the bars of your ribcage and burst through your chest altogether.

This creature, whatever it is, awkwardly thumbs against the skin beside your eye and back down again. A bizarre hush, “Shhh shh,” spills between lips that aren’t there.

The tenderness it performs is decisively unpracticed. Even still, at the third and final ring of an invisible bell you suddenly find it entirely too difficult to keep your eyes open. Time appears to slow, a warm grogginess seeping between your bones as you continue to fight a losing battle, the siren call of sleep luring you in. Lower and lower do your eyelids fall, heavy with exhaustion, until you are able to convince yourself that the cold and unfamiliar weight against your chest is nothing more than a dream.

Then its maw comes open with silent resolve.

You aren’t sure how you missed them before; the teeth. Two rows of jagged canines that grin impossibly wide, its poor excuse for skin stretching upwards, eyes rolling to sit at the back of its scalp to accommodate a mouth that opens like a serpent’s unhinged jaw.

Adrenaline surges through your spine like thunder and ripples along the skin of your palm as it rushes through the shadow’s body and bashes into the switch of your nearest lamp. Yellow light floods your room in a blink, shooing darkness back into the corners as you look frantically for a demon that isn’t there.

You are unbearably alone.

The following evening starts with the last cup in the coffee pot — it falls from the pot’s mouth with a sluggish dribble that heralds the emptied bottom, four mugs worth of the stuff with three chugged down already over the course of the afternoon.

It has been four days since you last slept.

This self inflicted torture is not without reason; regardless of how ridiculous said reason is. Nevertheless it had you doing everything in your power to stay awake. Currently, that meant surviving on a frankly excessive amount of caffeine and running circles through your apartment, desperate for any task that stimulated the brain and kept you from giving in to the sweet embrace of your bed.

These tribulations are not meant to be endured alone. The companionship of someone — anyone, be it friend or family — surely eases the burden of such a daunting task, but it isn’t that simple.

And you aren’t sure where to look for the camaraderie you so desperately seek.

The sun has already begun its downward path when you finish washing out the emptied pot and set it in the rack to dry, your drink forgotten save for the one gulp you savored before deciding that dishes needed to be done. The water runs too hot as you bow the head of a fork under the spout and scrub it clean between the bars. Even now you remember the static which paraded down your fingers the night before, rushing through your skin until it singed, the taste of fear so thick on your tongue that not even the coffee could outrun it.

You dreaded the thought of returning to your bedroom later in the night and contesting with the thing that tried to devour you whole only a matter of hours prior. Maybe you could keep to the couch tonight, instead. Or, better yet, not let yourself rest your feet in any way to begin with.

Rest led to idleness and idleness led to sleep and sleep led to—

Thwack!

Your head snaps upward from the sink where your hands have begun to prune, watching through half-lidded eyes as the steller's jay outside your kitchen window throws a second twig against the glass.

It’s a pretty little thing. A head and beak black as onyx, vibrant blue blooms proudly across its chest and down its back to the very base of its tail, which extends further than the average. Actually, the longer you look, the more it seems…off, somehow. Wrong. Its body is too large, its beak far sharper than necessary, and the eyes—

You break away from the window with a fierce shake of your head and firmly reprimand yourself for thinking that the eyes which stared back were scarlet. That isn’t possible. You’re sorely in need of a full night’s rest and it is this fact alone that prevents you from thinking clearly, already jeopardizing your ability to tell what is and isn’t real, apparently. You needed to get a grip.

The faucet bleeds money down the drain as you turn from it and find your beloved mug on the counter again, hands tender from the scalding water and trembling slightly as they bring the ceramic to your lips.

But your coffee returns cold.

You’re confident that no more than a minute or two had passed since you last abandoned the mug — certainly not a lengthy enough time that your coffee should feel like ice against your lips.

Just another delusion brought on by fatigue, you decide. Time begins to lose its meaning when you refuse to keep your internal clock on track. You’re lucky this is the worst your symptoms have become with the strain that’s been collecting in the bags under your eyes already.

Nothing the microwave can’t fix, at least. It’ll lose the wonderful bite of a freshly poured cup, which is always unfortunate, but it’s better than trying to doctor this thing into a proper iced latte.

You turn on your heel, narrowly brushing the sharp divide between your illuminated kitchen and the dark room beyond it, shadowed furniture staring back at you — dusty from a lack of guests — and make for the small radioactive box on your kitchen counter.

Narrowed eyes watch your back. A shred of the night comprised of knobbly joints and a starving mouth hung slightly ajar, scarlet gaze unblinking. It remains in place as you walk past it, just out of reach, keeping still like a wandering corpse in the corner of your livingroom.

It’s better that you don’t immediately sense its presence beyond a shudder at the base of your spine.

The microwave door opens with a pop, the slide of your mug along the plate grating against your already strained nerves. You slam the door shut harder than you mean to and see a scarlet glow staring back at you in the reflection.

Twisting on your heel exposes nothing but a dark, empty room.

You are unbearably alone.

The microwave screams at your back, announcing the completion of its task — beep, beep, beep

beep

beng

ting

Silverware on a wine glass; a toast. The hurried look over your shoulder reveals an extravagant ballroom where your kitchen once stood. Mahogany furniture carved with intricate detail that stands over a polished floor, radiant and brilliantly gold under the eyes of an enormous chandelier. A crowd in lavish gowns, masks adorning each stranger’s face. Their waltzes slow to a stop as a glass of chardonnay lifts into the air.

Startling, you blink in rapid succession and peer from side to side in an effort to find the subject of this beautiful tribute, only to see all eyes turning in your direction. The stranger congratulates you to the sound of an uproarious applause — for what, you aren’t sure.

A familiar pair of eyes stares at you from the reflection in the glass.

Your heel swivels for the umpteenth time, neck snapping to catch a glimpse of the figure you know is there, now, refusing to be fooled a second time.

For whatever reason, the creature does not bother hiding itself from your stare. Perhaps because, despite its inherent familiarity, the form it takes now is nothing like the nightmarish frame it boasts in the shadows.

Rather, it — he? — dresses in regalia akin to the rest of the masquerading crowd; sleek trousers and a poet's blouse, deep blue, cinched neatly under a bone-white corset at his waist. An enormous cloak hangs over their shoulders, bridged with silver chain, black as night on the outside with the promise of vibrant color hidden underneath.

A silvery mask carved into the shape of a crescent moon is fitted atop their face, and blue silks flow from behind it, spilling down his shoulders and tapering into a point like a vibrant comet, its end adorned in a large, pearlescent bell.

His scarlet eyes are damning on their own, but the ring of that bell is all you need to confirm his identity — you could recognize its song in your sleep.

The irony of it all is lost on you.

The orchestra continues, the stranger's waltz continuing with seamless fluidity around you. A spinning pair blocks your line of sight for only a moment and just like that, he is gone.

Nevertheless, the bell persists. Louder than boisterous laughter, sharper than the click of heels and clinking glasses, it echoes from every angle until you're made dizzy from spinning yourself in circles. Round and round you go, following each chime and always finding him just a second too late. Your effort to hunt him out of the crowd becomes desperate until you drive yourself mad with the sound, until its formerly pleasant ring becomes overwhelming.

You throw yourself into the thick of the party at the barest whisper of its silvery voice and run yourself directly into a guest, their mask coming loose from the impact and falling with an ear-shattering clatter, harsher than it ought to be.

The instruments halt their song, heralding a pin-drop silence.

You're quick to stutter an apology and quicker, still, to crouch and pluck the thin decorative wood from the floor. It is light as a feather between your fingers, hardly weighing a whisper for the violent sound that pours through the room a second time as your eyes raise to meet the guest's and the mask falls again from your hand.

A smooth face stares back. Barren, colors bleeding together where the eyes, nose, and mouth are meant to be, like an oil painting — but the artist forgot to draw up the features, or there was an accident and their hand smudged through where the face normally goes.

You shake another apology from your tongue and stumble backwards, your back meeting with the shoulder of another guest. The incessant thump thump thump of your heartbeat quickens still as you turn around to face the stranger, who shares the same fate. So, too, do the remaining guests lose their masks, each and every one of them falling away in comparative silence to reveal nothing behind them but stretches of empty flesh.

A scream climbs up your throat and rattles your teeth, trapped behind tight lips. You swallow around it like bitter liquor and squeeze your eyes shut, blocking everything out as best you can despite still feeling their voiceless stares burning into you, pleading for mercy between shaking breaths as realization strikes. You need to wake up. Wake up.

WAKE UP.

Your eyes snap open to the chime of a bell.

Scarlet eyes watch you from the back of the room. The figure turns, seemingly indifferent to what is happening around you, and makes for a door that hadn't been there a moment ago, disappearing through it without so much as a secondary glance in your direction.

A way out. Perhaps your only way out. You had no choice but to follow him.

Your knees threaten to buckle as they take you through the faceless crowd, idle bodies who turn to follow your escape but thankfully make no move to stop you even as you burst through the door and spill out the other side.

A single room greets you, empty of furniture and only half as bright. No bell accompanies it, the masked figure having disappeared already, and that remains true until you tiptoe forward and hear the click of the door shutting behind you.

The figure — Moon, you decide —stands before it, scarlet eyes wide and hungry as they settle on your trembling frame. He narrows the space between you with one smooth step and you respond in kind by replacing the distance with one step back, so on and so forth with increasing persistence to bridge the gap until he's walked you against the wall.

“That was almost too easy,” they hum.

The voice that answers you isn’t the one you were expecting. Actually, you weren’t expecting a voice at all. Thus far this creature has been nothing but growls and metallic rings. They’ve never encouraged the idea that they are capable of words.

“Why are you following me?” You swallow the quiver in your voice to demand.

“You followed me through the door, did you not?” He asks, and you can feel the way his grin splits behind the mask. “Come, now, don’t give me that look. I’m only trying to help.”

You can’t help the scoff that cuts from your throat. “In what way is this helping?” You exclaim. Then, thinking better of it, you shake your head, “Actually, don’t answer that. If you’re so willing to talk, suddenly, then I think I deserve to ask some questions myself.”

He stops in place where he had been encroaching on what small distance remained between you, the click of his heel lapsing into silence, as though the notion actually surprised him. Then, inevitably, the smile returns. He offers you a slow nod and gestures wordlessly for you to continue.

“Who—” your cheeks puff out in frustration, “what are you?”

His eyes light up, an expression that twists your gut in the face of his excitement. “I am a star,” he answers easily, “extraterrestrial dust, or something akin to it. A collection of atoms. Memories, thoughts, and concerns. A construct which underlines that which has happened, will happen, and is never meant to be.” He takes a bow, extending the cloak’s wing in his right hand to expose the whirling galaxy that shifts and stirs on the underside. “Somnium devorator, as your kind call me.”

The edge of your fear is replaced with the barest notion of curiosity — and beyond that, anger. This guy is talking straight nonsense as far as you’re concerned, and it doesn’t provide the answer you’re looking for, it’s only created more questions.

“Why should I believe you?” your eyes flicker between him and the remaining three walls, hopeful for another escape route — you don’t miss the way he moves forward each time you aren’t busy with words, “Better yet, why decide you’re going to take on an appearance like this,” you gesture vaguely towards him, “when you’ve been all too content with imitating a walking shadow until this point?”

Their head tilts sloooooow to the side, fingers twitching. The resemblance to a cat stalking prey is almost uncanny. “Thought this form might be less frightening,” he answers, notably skipping right over your first question, “are you not charmed?”

You dislike his choice of wording. More than that, you hate the laziness in his gestures, as though he has all day to play with you. If you were to believe him even in the slightest it would mean you were running around in his mise en scène — he has every reason to take his time.

It’s your turn to refuse him an answer, instead swiftly moving on with your long list of questions. “Alright, let’s say you’re telling the truth. Why go through all of this effort?” Your search for an alternative door returns with terrible news. Only the one exists. Effectively, you are trapped between two nightmares. You need to keep him talking. “What is it you want from me?”

Their mask begins to splinter, a sharp cheshire smile shining through the cracks. Moon’s voice lowers into a pitch that makes your stomach curdle. “I’m hungry, little dreamer,” shrill laughter escapes between his teeth, “and I think you’ve kept me waiting long enough.”

Alright, screw talking.

You break past him and shoulder your way through the door, more than willing to relive the horrors on the other side if it meant getting away from a creature that would have you for dinner if you stuck around any longer. Only when you’re past the threshold do you spare a glance behind you to see him stood in place, only those same, scarlet eyes following your path as the door shuts again. Turning around, you are met with the presence of an entirely different room.

Rather, a hallway. Bright and vibrant as the ballroom itself, it stretches on endlessly with no clear escape in sight, offering a parade of doors on either side, each door no different from the last as you pace forward.

The door you first came from opens with an audible click, and you need not waste time looking behind you to know who enters through it. The chime of a silver bell sings to you outright.

Your brisk walk turns into a run.

The hall goes on for miles, still, offering you no relief in the form of escape when you enter through a door at random only to end up on the other side. An endless maze that leads you no further away from the masked creature, who follows you down the hall at an easy, nonchalant pace, happy to let you run yourself ragged like this.

Behind him, the room begins to crumble. As though the strings of reality were being snapped one by one, step by heel-toed step, the dream is devoured in his wake — it leaves nothing behind.

The small flame which started in your chest has crept between the gaps in your ribcage and set fire to every limb, now impossible to ignore, it burns and burns and burns. Your lungs spasm in a desperate attempt to suck in air as though every breath will be your last. Your legs plead for relief as they carry you through another door and this one, against all odds, leads to a room most familiar to you.

You’re right back where you started.

The empty room is different this time if only by the secondary door across from you, and although you are just plain sick of doors, by now, you aren’t going to curse a gift when it’s given. Instead, you march forward, pausing at the door you exited from only briefly to lock it in place. You aren’t hopeful that it will stop a reality devouring demon, but you can buy yourself some time at the very least.

Or maybe not. The doorknob twitches when you’re not two steps away from it, a low and frustrated growl slipping through the gaps, and suddenly you can’t get across the room and to the other door fast enough.

Your hand catches on the knob and gives it an earnest twist. Nothing. It refuses to be turned more than half an inch, evidently locked from the other side, and in a brief moment of outright hysteria you wonder if you’re struggling uselessly with the same door that stands behind you, having just locked it yourself only a moment ago. How cruel, in that case, to give you a false sense of hope.

The door at your back rattles and splinters at its sides as Moon rages just beyond it. Then it stills, all at once, and everything falls silent.

You dare not allow yourself to think they would give up so soon, your sigh of relief held hostage until you know for sure that you're in the clear only to hear the telltale ring of a bell echo through the gap beneath the door. So, too, does the shadow follow. A misty presence that you're more familiar with which pries its way into the bright room and recollects itself once its through, mask and all, and you are left trapped for what is likely the last time.

"Silly, silly me, thinking you might make this easy for me," Moon tuts, "are you quite done running now?"

“I wouldn’t be running if you weren’t chasing me,” you retort, nose wrinkling at the accusation. Your back presses up against the door as he ventures a step closer, but only that. You don’t bother trying to hide the noise you’re making as your hand wrestles fruitlessly with the doorknob behind you.

“You’re being ridiculous,” the demon sighs, “this could all go away if you would only let me help you.”

Back and forth, back and forth, the metal twists in your palm like your life depends on it. “Sure, I’ll just lie down and let you eat me, then,” you scoff, “I’m not stupid!”

Scarlet eyes blink behind the mask, quick with surprise. He stares at you with a look as though maybe you are a little stupid. If he believes it, he has no intentions of vocalizing the thought. Instead he deflates at the shoulders with another long, tired sigh and moves the cape aside so he can better reach for you — that is, he extends a hand in your direction, palm side up. Fitted in masquerade regalia like he is, it almost looks like he’s asking you to dance.

“Don’t be scared,” their voice lowers into a murmur, small and harmless when compared to the sharp grin that splits their cheeks. “I need you to trust me.”

You hardly have the time to consider it.

The silver knob finally gives in with a violent crack of metal screws and the door flies open behind you, pulling you back that final step into the embrace of nothingness — not a hall nor a ballroom nor anything at all catches you, rather, an endless abyss carries you down, down, down.

Moon watches your plummet from the illuminated doorway until you fall out of sight.

Your body jolts awake with a start. You’re back in your house again, sitting on your kitchen floor and slumped against the cabinets. Just a dream. Just a really, really weird dream.

Looking up, you notice the microwave still awaiting your input. The cup remains cold where it sits on the other side. Despite hearing its digital response clear as day — and the rhythmic beep beep beep that follows — you evidently never even got around to punching the numbers in.

When had you fallen asleep?

You rub the remnants of shock and crusted sleep away with the heel of your palm and then use the counter for support to force yourself back to your feet, fitfully ignoring the way your muscles groan with a soreness that has no sane reason to be there.

A quick glance at your microwave lets you know that you were out for just under an hour. An alarming discovery, really, because at the time it felt as though you had been trapped in that hallway for years, and plunging through darkness for centuries.

You can’t risk falling asleep a second time.

You decide against drinking that last cup of joe, thinking better of it, since it’s bound to be stale by now and, anyway, all that caffeine might have been what gave you such vivid dreams in the first place.

Still, you can’t help but wonder just how real any of it was, and the first thing you do upon picking yourself up from the floor is warily check around the corners for any signs of the shadowy figure…finding nothing and no one. How silly; it really was just a dream.

You make your way out of the kitchen and into the livingroom, instead, turning on the lamp beside the wall on your way in so it basks the small room in light. The couch springs bounce as you slump against them, eyes already scanning the area for the television remote after deciding that you need some kind of distraction from whatever the hell all of that was.

The feeling of its eyes on you still lingers.

Determined to ignore it, you continue digging along the seams until you find the remote between two cushions, and bring it forward with an exhausted sigh, hopping through channels one by one with no clear intent in mind and for only a few seconds before the screen abruptly cuts to black.

Confused, you try again, digging your thumb into the power button and getting about as far as you had the first time before the power cuts. Again, you turn it on, and again, the same thing happens. You’re less patient with the third attempt and must remind yourself that throwing the remote into your screen won’t solve the issue when it inevitably fizzles out before your eyes.

Irritated, you spring from your couch on borrowed energy and pace forward to look behind the television, just to see if maybe the cord is hanging halfway out of the outlet, seeing as that’s the only conclusion you can think to come to. Everything looks to be in its place, though, and this does nothing but frustrate you further. You just wanted to relax, damn it.

Behind you, the familiar ring of a bell.

You turn around to find nothing there at all (a party trick that doesn’t exactly surprise you, anymore) and march back to the couch on tired legs, adamant to pretend the creature isn’t watching you from somewhere as you slump against the cushions again and reach for the remote. But it’s gone — of course it is — and you search everywhere for it; between the cushions, on the floor, even peering across the room to see if you brought it with you to check out the television, but no. Nothing.

It is with a great and mighty sigh that you leave the couch for a third time, lowering yourself to the floor and climbing onto your hands and knees, deciding to check the space under your couch as a last ditch attempt at finding the damned thing.

A pair of scarlet eyes stares back.

You scramble backwards with an ear splitting shriek, narrowly avoiding the shadowy claws that swipe at your retreating form and tear a stripe through the hem of your pant leg when they catch.

From a safe yard away you see the creature withdraw back into the darkness under the couch, its eyes narrowing in unmasked frustration. A thin line of shadow paces behind it like a metronome, left, right, left, right, the chime of its bell following suit.

A cat lashing its tail in agitation. Charming — cute, even, if this thing weren’t trying to eat you.

Perhaps it is the delirium from lack of sleep or perhaps only spite that drives you to do what you do next, which is to laugh. A noise that has the demon’s eyes losing their beautiful scarlet color, pupils dilating into pinpricks and leaving behind empty pools of black.

“Look who’s trapped now,” you sneer. “Can’t get me in the light outside of in dreams, can you?”

Thoroughly invested in your patronizing, you're much too distracted to notice the way he slinks further into the darkness, disappearing entirely only to resurface a moment later in the extended shadow of your lamp.

The laughter dies in your throat, replaced with a wary silence as you watch the demon slink formlessly around the light's base and up its long neck, careful to stay on the side bathed in darkness. A spindly body peels itself from the shadows and clings to the wall by the palm of its hands, then — with one smooth kick from half-formed legs — your only source of light meets the floor with an enormous clatter…plunging the room into darkness.

Well, shit.

Moon is at your throat before you can think to crawl away, a towering presence that pins your back to the floor and snarls low into your ear. Strings of inky drool collecting between his teeth are the last thing you see before your head turns away, eyes squeezing shut, resigned to becoming the dreaded beast's next meal.

Until the presence of its hand at your cheek brings you to look again.

A noise not dissimilar to a purr dribbles from his throat as long, disjointed fingers comb through your hair, razor-sharp nails kept at bay with each slow, careful stroke.

"I nnnne—" Moon's head shakes from side to side, words drawn with a sharp and tedious hiss, as if each one requires effort to form, different from the ease with which he spoke in your dream — after all, a shadow isn’t meant to talk. "Need you to trussssst me."

That was easier said than done. Still, they make no move to lash out at you, keeping, instead, to brushing his knuckles along the roof of your scalp and down the other side. If you didn’t know any better you would think he was attempting to soothe you, like a parent might comfort a child after a nightmare. And then it dawns on you.

That's exactly what he's doing. Or trying to do, anyway, as awkward and unpracticed as it is. You wonder how many times he watched humans perform this song and dance — if maybe he considered it a ritual, or just something that made the tears go away.

You search his eyes for anything trustworthy, and find the smallest twinkle of light within. "You...you aren't here to eat me, are you?"

Again, Moon shakes his head. "Jussst the nightmare," he promises, "I will not hhharm you."

Swallowing around what small amount of fear you can, opting to trust him, if only for now, you answer the demon with a slow and wary nod. "A-And you’ll leave, after? When you’re finished, um—”

“Devouring, yesss,” His mouth parts to make room for a wetted tongue. It protrudes from the back of his throat to swipe over hungry teeth — glistening like stars in a midnight sky — drips of sticky black crawling down his jaw to land soundlessly against your skin.

You resist the urge to close your eyes again, decisively holding firm, even if your voice is anything but. “I — I can’t be the only one having dreams, even nightmares, around here. Why not move on to someone else?” You watch them pause, considering. It’s hard to keep the chastizing tone out of your voice. Demon or not, this thing is acting ridiculous, if not a little childish. “You could easily find someone else to hunt, right?” A grimace pulls on your face at the poor choice of words but, well, that’s basically what this whole week has been. Endurance hunting. They’ve only been waiting for you to tire yourself out — while exhausting themselves in the process. “I just don’t understand. Why are you starving yourself of a meal?”

An annoyed chitter clicks from between their teeth. “Why are you starving yourself of sleep?”

You bite the inside of your cheek hard, not wanting to let the ‘touche’ be spoken aloud. “You know why,” you say instead. “You saw the nightmare too, didn’t you? It’s worse than anything my brain has come up with in years. Worse than the ballroom, and the faceless strangers, and the endless hallway. Worse than—” your teeth clack painfully under the force with which your mouth snaps shut, decisively keeping that thought tucked behind you, but it’s obvious by his flinch that Moon knows what you were going to say, regardless.

The nightmare that crept into your mind four days prior was worse than even him.

Silence answers you. You aren’t sure what you expected, really. Why would a demon, even the tailed, belled, poor-attempts-at-comfort kind, have any sympathy for a bad dream? If anything, you’re sure he encouraged its existence.

“What about it scares you so much?”

His voice jolts you from your thoughts, catching you off guard. Your answer is interrupted by the quiet voice of a newscaster as your television roars back to life and blue light pours from the screen — forcing him back under the couch with a weak hiss. Evidently, his strength to mess with your electronics is finally all used up.

“It’s…stupid,” you begin, attempting to sound bored as you lift yourself by the elbows and shrug. You consider twisting around to power off your television manually, but the short length of distance between you isn’t terrible. It allows you some breathing room — and an excuse to not look him in the eyes as you continue.

“There’s no monsters or faceless crowds. It’s just me in this big, empty space, and I’m…alone. Unbearably alone.” You smile; a wry and pathetic attempt at pretending even as your own words betray you, hushed into a whisper. “That scares me more than anything.”

Your eyes search his own for any sign of empathy. You’re sure the implications are not lost on him; the single pillow on your bed, the absence of texts from friends or calls from family, your furniture left to grow dusty with no one around to impress. The lack of evidence that you aren’t already living the nightmare you’re so desperately trying to avoid.

The bell rings through their continued silence, tapping gently against the floor where their tail sways, his expression unreadable from under the couch. You fidget awkwardly with the torn hem of your pants and decide to continue, if only to fill the silence. “I don’t expect you to understand,” you admit, “it’s natural for you to be alone — hazards of your line of work, right?”

The words come off as a joke — lighthearted, even if the laugh that follows is dry — but his bell falls silent.

“...It can get lonely, sssometimes.”

Your mouth goes dry, all attempts at humor dying in your throat at once, and you frown. Their awkward form of comfort immediately comes to mind. How long have they been watching humanity from the sidelines, you wonder. Curious if not hopeful for a glimpse of that life. What it might feel like to be comforted, or to hold someone’s hand, or even just have someone to talk to. Even in the crowd — even in your dreams — he kept his back against the wall, entirely alone.

Maybe he understands more than you think.

“You know why, then. Why I don’t want to risk falling asleep and— and going back to that.” Your eyes betray you. Despite your best efforts you can not stop the tears that brim at the corners, thick with frustration and a bone-deep exhaustion, they burn hot against the dark circles beneath your eyes. You swipe at them with the bottom of your shirt, refusing to let them carry down your cheeks. “Even if you promised to get rid of the nightmare for good, I— I cant. I don’t want to experience it again.”

More silence answers you. God, this is humiliating. You begin to wonder if it was childish of you to assume the monster under your bed would pay your worries any mind. Those scarlet eyes only stare, apathetic and cold as the day you first saw them. You decide he isn’t going to give you the answer you want and so move to stand, but his throat offers a whine, halting your retreat, and his eyes are suddenly wide with thought.

“What if I show you something scarier?”

A funny noise slips between your teeth; something between a laugh, and a scoff. You crawl forward to lie down beside the couch, stomach to the floor, placing your head on your arms so you can stare him down at eye level. “Scarier than my nightmare?” You ask, “I doubt even you would be able to pull that off. I’m desensitized to all of your tricks, already.”

The creature’s grin is wide and sharp, that of a truly frightful thing. You wonder, then, why his eyes look so terribly sad. “Not all of them,” he tells you. “How about we ssstrike a deal?”

Your mother had always warned you about making deals with demons. Well, she hadn’t, but it’s common sense not to. That said, your common sense left the stage three nights ago, at minimum, and your curiosity currently ruled the intermission. You wanted to see where they were going with this. “What did you have in mind?”

There it is, again — that shrill laughter. “If I scare you, mmmore than even the nightmare,” Moon begins, “you will sleep for me.”

Your brow creases, eyebrows pinching together. “And if you can’t?” You ask, “If my nightmare is still worse than whatever you manage to come up with?”

“Then I’ll leave,” he promises, “and I won’t return.”

Oh. Well, that certainly sweetened the deal, didn’t it? Especially since you’re completely sure he’s just talking out of his ass. He might have scared you a few days ago — and admittedly, he still does, now — but nothing compares to the dark recesses that have kept you up for three straight nights, of that you are certain. With this confidence in mind, your answer comes easily.

Your hand extends toward them, disappearing into the shadow beneath your couch, and cool, boney fingers snake around your palm in turn.

“You have a deal.”

The curtains in your bedroom are pulled shut, the door closed, and the overhead light turned off. Moon crouches like a stone-still gargoyle in the far corner of your room where the soft light of your bedside table lamp can’t get to him.

Lastly, you climb into bed. “Remind me again why I’m doing this?” The covers are pulled back, but you don’t yet get under them. “I don’t like the idea of being a sitting duck, you know. When you told me to turn the lights off I didn’t think you meant all of them. Silly me, I guess.”

“Hushhh,” Moon hisses. They nod towards the bedside lamp. “That one too.” Seeing your eyes narrow with suspicion, they have the gall to sneer, showing their teeth as they finally stands to full height. Even slouched as he is, his shadowed head brushes along your ceiling, too-long limbs hanging limply at his boney sides. They watch your hand reach for the light and hesitate, still, only risking one step forward to plead their case, scarlet eyes aglow. “You trust me, don’t you?”

You very much do not trust him, though you want to. In fact, in order for this to work, you need to. He knows this as well as you do, and you believe he is hoping you’ll cut him some slack, maybe. It’s fortunate, then, that you’re too deep into this mess to turn back now.

“Just this once,” you tell him, and with the flick of a switch your bedroom lapses into darkness.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, and it is for this reason that you hear the transformation before you see it.

A sound like stretched wires and loosened, plucked seams carries through the room, his shadowed form beginning to lose its shape all at once. Scarlet eyes liquify cartoonishly, dripping like candle wax down his cheeks, mouth sagging in tow like a burlap sack coming undone. The space between their eyes purses open with ease, a gap just wide enough for tapered claws to snag against the flesh on either end and—

Their skin is split open and shred like a viscous cocoon, peeled away to reveal something inchoate, a grotesque assembly of viscera, blackened entrails wrapping around a wiry frame of jagged, mismatched teeth, thin like cords and cables, bleeding together into a blistering excuse of a carcass that drips and oozes and spills along your floor, and it is alive, pulsing along his anatomy like winged insects smothering the bark of a tree

— and from every bend there is a humanesque face, featureless as the masked strangers and protruding as though they are trapped behind skin, and between each shallow crevice there grows an eye, swollen and frantically looking in all directions, the veined tissue stretched thin across the expanse of their chassis, each a vibrant red like the blood pounding in your ears. His macabre torso swings forward on backwards legs, crawling forward on all fours, the remaining six limbs dragged behind like deadweight as he reaches the foot of your bed.

You are not winning this bet.

The mere sound they make — a long, suffocated groan — is enough to make your blood run cold. Goosebumps swarm your arms, every hair standing on end. You retreat against the frame of your bed and face them with a whimper as the tears begin to pour, you can do nothing but sit there, knees tucked to your chest, confused and pitifully lost for what to say for fear that you’ll simply open your mouth and gag. A cold sweat builds along your skin and soaks into the sheets that are pulled taut under daggered claws as this—this thing ambles onto your mattress.

A pleading, vehement shake of your head makes them freeze in place. Your heart hammers out of your chest as all eyes twist forward to meet you with a hideous squelch, and suddenly the very act of breathing feels impossible.

Moon — or whatever has become of them — extends a single hand in your direction. Throbbing bone meets your cheek and brushes away the tears, stilling only when you flinch, and though his ever changing face gives nothing away you can tell, near-immediately, that you’ve wounded him.

You finally understand the careful wording behind his proposal. ‘If I scare you’, they had said. Indeed — worse than even the nightmares, Moon was a terrifying, monstrous thing.

Again does that familiar, shrill laughter fill your ears. "I wwwin."

It's bitter. There is no victory in his voice. He knew the odds and played them well in his favor even at the cost of exposing the uglier side, and now you’re here, pressed against the headboard and faced with a dripping maw that is just ghoulish enough to make you forget about the way he smiled at you only a short while ago.

Your head shakes for another reason entirely, this time. “I—I’m not scared,” you insist, desperate to ignore the tremble lining your throat, “I’m not.”

Admitting it would mean losing and losing meant having to face another nightmare all together, but more than that, you force the lie between chattering teeth because the way he looks at you is devastating, as though he’s realized only now the damage that’s been done. You will never look at him the same way again.

Yet he remains firm, answering you with a murmur. "Come nnnow, firefly, a deal is a deal,” he tells you, “it’s time for bed."

The demon in your bedroom, heinous and ugly and towering, guides you softly beneath your many covers. He fluffs your pillow. He tucks you in. He considers another stroke through your hair, a kiss to your forehead as he’s seen time and time again — he decides against it. Instead, Moon draws himself away from you, imagining that you can’t bear to look at him for a moment longer. Prepared to wait by the empty corner of your room, instead.

You reach out — catch him by the hand. One of many. Viscous muscle dribbles over your fingers, cold to the touch, but your hold remains steadfast.

The sight he is met with when he turns around is that of you propped up on one elbow, eyes wide with fear of another kind, and he can’t help but return to your side.

"Stay here?" You ask. "...I don't want to be alone."

His motley of eyes blink in perfect unison, though he says nothing, at first, thoroughly shocked to silence. Why call a nightmare to the foot of your bed? Was it a trick? An excuse to smother your guilt? They can’t imagine another reason. Yet, undeniably, they watch as you lower yourself against the mattress again and use your other hand to raise the covers, inviting him inside.

And he nods too eagerly — climbs onto the bed in a hurry as if scared you will change your mind, and only then does he squeeze your hand back.

“You’re not,” they promise, “I’m right hhhere.”

Inky puddles trickle against your sheets as they tuck themselves under your offering of blankets, disappearing to the space at your feet if only for a moment, and returning, again, with familiar scarlet eyes that blink at you from the darkness.

Smooth shadow fits against your palm and curls between your fingers, refusing to let go, and as you hold hands with this strange creature — who has brought himself to the very brink of starvation for your sake — you begin to wonder if your nightmare isn’t so impossible to face after all.

“Promise me,” you cram the words around a yawn, “you have to swear to me that you won’t let the nightmare go on for long.”

Moon smiles with both sets of teeth, extending a shadowed hand to you, and offering his pinky. “I won’t leave a crumb behind,” he says, “you have my word.”

Your laughter is wary, but there all the same, a weak and hopeful smile playing on your lips. You want to believe him. You have to believe him.

An unavoidable weight tugs at your eyelids as your pinky curls around his own, four days of exhaustion catching up with you at last, and finally, tucked against shadow, your eyes fall shut. And everything

goes

quiet.

This abyss is dreadfully familiar. The expanse around you is black as the night without any stars to offer relief, and when you cast your voice into the darkness, looking for someone — anyone — to call back, not even your own voice returns.

You are unbearably alone.

A cold chill runs through you, aching within your chest like a broken heart. Your body makes itself terribly small, arms tucking around themselves as tears threaten to spill over your cheeks once more, the feeling of isolation too much, already. It eats away at you until even the darkness feels like a comfort, and you want nothing more than to be swallowed up by it, so that you might never have to feel this loneliness again.

How wonderful it is, then, to hear the chime of bell.

Your whirl on your heel to see Moon before you, dressed again in masquerade regalia, bent at the waist and with his arm outstretched, a charming grin splitting his cheeks behind the mask. His offer to dance is left unspoken, and he will wait as long as you need, but you hardly hesitate for even a moment this time before accepting with a smile of your own.

He sweeps you into a dance immediately, humming the tune of a familiar waltz and he carries you around the dark expanse, hand braced against the small of your back, whisking you this way and that until laughter builds in your throat and the room doesn’t feel so empty anymore.

The stars beneath his cloak escape from the fabric to dance overhead. Galaxies of purple and blue and orange, nebulas that are red and brilliant gold, constellations which illuminate the darkness until the surrounding color reflects underfoot, and you dance across a sky of stained glass.

He dips you with a flourish, cloak tails soaring above their shoulders like wings pulled straight from the night sky, and as his chin tilts to look your way you want nothing more than to draw the mask from his face and see the smile that lies beneath.

He is visibly wary as your hand reaches for its silvery frame, though he makes no move to stop you. Perhaps he is scared that you will hate what you find on the other side — scared that he is too frightening, too monstrous without something to cover his face.

But as it comes away, and you are met again with those scarlet eyes, you think of nothing more than how happy they’ve made you. Your hand frames their cheek with another bout of laughter as you mind the many eyes and teeth under your thumb, and when his smile widens so, too, does your own, because for the first time in forever you don’t feel so alone.

And you think that maybe, just maybe, you never want this dream to end.

#DCAH2023 #moon x reader #I hope you enjoy it! sorry again for being so tardy #I really really enjoyed playing with this concept/au #might toy with it some more in the future #merry christmas and happy new year!#dream eater au

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wist0ragic · 5 months

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#☆ yandere glamrock freddy !¡ headcanons

(this is my first time writing something so bear with me 😭 it was kinda rushed near the end)

cw: possessive behaviour, overprotectiveness, slightly controlling, slight stockholm syndrome, slightly manipulative, typical yandere behaviour you would expect

- for starters as you would expect and just like everyone else would agree, glamrock freddy is a much more tame yandere

- he’s definitely not out for blood and would in no way physically harm you or others unless absolutely pushed to do so (and only then he would hurt others if absolutely necessary)

- but he will absolutely guilt trip you with those sweet eyes of his and insist that he’s the only one who could really protect you and keep you safe from the harsh reality of the world and all of its cruelties

- whether you’re an employee at the mega pizza plex or simply a customer who stops by when they can, you manage to catch the bots eye on day one

- for example let’s say we went with the idea that you were an employee that worked for the massive place, it would be your first day and of course the usual anxieties of starting something new start to overwhelm you a little

- especially since your main duties would be maintenance work on the big four

- and who else but freddy would immediately pick up on the fact that you were nervous on your first day and happily offer guidance and reassurance

- i mean he practically spends the whole day with you glued to your hip, or at least as much as he can, what with being the big man himself

- but as soon as any shows or birthday parties were finally over with freddy would immediately find his way to wherever you were and fret over how you were doing without him

- had you taken enough breaks? did you drink enough water? did you have something to eat on break? have customers and coworkers been nice to you? have his band mates been treating you well? did you miss him?

- all of these are questions that freddy would fire off rapidly due to worry

- eventually, after some time working at the pizza plex, you open up to freddy about how the monotony of work was getting to you

- and that having to deal with shitty coworkers and customers five days a week was utterly exhausting

- that’s when the idea clicked in the bots head

- freddy could tell you were tired and so who better than him to rescue you from all of that stress and nonsense?

- he just knew that he was the only who could keep you happy and content, even if that meant locking you away in his room

- “but superstar… you shouldn’t have to worry about such silly things like work. you’re too precious to be so stressed out and tired. so let me take care of you from now on. I promise I can make you happy in here with me. It’ll be just us…. forever and ever”

- and a part of that delusional offer does sound tempting you have to admit, to have the glamrock freddy care for you and look after you, but at the end of the day escape still lingered in the back of your mind

- the same could be said if you were a customer as well

- only difference is that freddy would have first met you after his performance, he recognized you from all the cheering you did, it was incredibly endearing

- after that freddy would eagerly wait for you, counting down the days until your next visit and celebrating each and every time you stopped by

- but he would still just as easily find a way to convince you to come with him in his room to spend time together

- “come on superstar! it’s been too long since we last got to hang out, let’s catch up in my room! i have plenty of time before my next show”

- and who wouldn’t trust the big ol’ sweetheart?

- that’s when you would find yourself with the door locking heavily behind you and freddy managing to slip you a nighttime candy or two

- “shhh now superstar, i’ve got you, you’re finally safe now with me” and that would be the last thing you hear before your whole world slowly fades to black

“we were meant for each other, no one else can love you the way i do, so let’s stay together forever…. alright?”

#yandere #yandere writing #fnaf #fnaf yandere #yandere security breach #yandere glamrock freddy #yandere headcanons #fnaf yandere headcanons #fnaf sb yandere headcanons #yandere x reader #yandere fnaf x reader #yandere security breach x reader #gender neutral reader #five nights at freddys #fnaf security breach #glamrock freddy #<3 #my writing

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bit-dodgy-innit · 1 year

Text

Something In You Lit Up Heaven In Me

READ PART ONE

Pairing: Apollo (who happens to look exactly like Orestes in Agora) x fem!reader

Rating: Explicit, Minors DNI!

Word Count: 3.5k

TW/CW: Oral (m and f receiving), gods don't have refractory periods because I said so, petnames, a bit of innonence!kink and some praise!kink for that matter, P in V, a smidge of overstimulation, creampie, humiliation (but it's not our reader).

A/N: OH MY GAAAAASH THANK YOU ALL FOR THE OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT ON THIS SILLY LIL FANTASY OF MINE! I know have a couple more ideas/installments for this little AU! And hope you all enjoy!!!

Quick vocab word that'll be helpful: Archiereus = high/head priest

The rest of the day following your covert meeting with Apollo passed in a blur. Your mother claimed that you no longer needed to bother with your daily chores, but you insisted on doing them anyway. It wasn’t fair to Caris and besides, the routine was anchoring. It was one small shred of normalcy that you’d been able to maintain since Apollo upended your world. Even so, your mind was elsewhere as you washed the linens and swept the house, drifting through the evening mechanically.

Falling asleep was impossible. Your gaze was glued to the moon as it rose steadily in the sky, Selene’s radiance never wavering as she drove her chariot across its inky canvas.

At first, you dismissed them as a mere cluster of fireflies…until they made an uncannily neat and tidy line leading away from your window. You giggled, quietly so as not to wake Caris, and tiptoed out of your modest home. The insects led you through your village, past the temple, into the forest once more.

Apollo waited for you in another small, tucked away clearing. Despite it being the dead of night, the god’s gleeful grin illuminated the little corner of the forest. As enchanting as the fireflies were, they were no longer necessary when the god of light was present. Your feet carried you on your own accord and launched you into Apollo’s arms.

Now that it was only you and your lover, hidden away from prying eyes and scheming minds, you completely surrendered your desire. Apollo made you feel liberated, wild, when you made love.

“Want you to take me in your mouth,” he exhaled as you rolled around on the lush, soft grass, tangled within each other. Even though it wasn’t your first time seeing his member, you were unable to stifle your gasp when he shed his chiton.

“Yes,” you replied at once. Then, “but I’ve never–”

“Shhh–I’ll teach you,” he assured you, sprawling back on the ground.

You crawled closer to him. He disarmed you with his trademark grin, and the crinkling at the corners of his eyes instantly put you at ease. Apollo may have been an Olympian, but he was still a man. He took pleasure in the same way you mere mortals did.

Your gaze met his expectantly, eager for his instruction.

“We’ll start simply. How about you give the tip a kiss?”

You did as he said. His reaction was immediate, a pleased groan escaped his lips.

“Just like that, sunshine,” he spurred you on, “now see if you can take more in your mouth.”

A memory surfaced in your mind – Caris, sharing what she did to please a man in this matter. You recalled her advice to wrap your lips around his teeth as you sank down, and to use your hand to stroke any part of him you couldn’t fit into your mouth. It turned out, you were initially too keen, sputtering and having to pull off of Apollo after your gag reflex was triggered.

He cupped your face with one strong, sure hand, his thumb caressing your cheekbone, “Oh darling, there’s no need to rush.”

Like before, there wasn’t a trace of disappointment or derision on the god’s face. He traced his finger down your jaw, slipping in between your lips. You sucked on the digit instinctively, looking up at him with what you hoped were doe eyes, and Apollo moaned. “Mmm, I knew you'd turn out to be a little minx.”

You pulled off of the god’s finger to try again. It occurred to you that it would be difficult, if not unpleasant, to stroke what you couldn’t fit in your mouth dry, so instead of trying to swallow down Apollo’s flushed cock immediately, you licked the circumference of his girth to wet him. The deity seemed to very much enjoy that, the action eliciting another deep groan.

“Oh Tiii-Titans, you’re like a little naughty kitten for me,” he cooed. “Don’t stop.”

Once he was properly slicked, you eased back down again. This time you opened your jaw wider, and though you only could take about half of him in, you wasted no time covering the remainder with your hand. It took a moment to teach them to work in tandem, yet you strove to sync the two movements. Your jaw began to ache slightly, the god’s mortal form was certainly not lacking, but you powered through. You wanted to be good for him, being good made you feel good, because you knew afterwards, Apollo would make you feel incredible.

Your lover never ceased his encouragement, his hand resting atop your head to guide you ever so slightly. A light tug on your hair made you pause, allowing him to ask, “Kitten, might I lead the way from here?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Apollo’s inquisitive, umber eyes narrowed at you, “Don’t refer to me so.” One look at your petrified face and he instantly amended, “There’s no need. I want you to use my name.”

Your face split into a wide, pleased grin. “Alright, my–Apollo.”

“My Apollo, I like that,” he grinned, then stood. “C’mere kitten.”

You rose onto your knees to level yourself with Apollo’s unflagging erection. He fed his cock back between your lips and instructed “You needn’t do a thing. Just pretend as if you’re yawning, it’ll help you take more.”

You wanted to nod in assent, but thought better of it given your full mouth. His fingers threaded into your hair, gently but firmly, holding you in place before he began to move his hips. Implementing his suggestion, you were shocked to discover how much more of his thick shaft penetrated your mouth. Apollo gave a few introductory thrusts, then began pistoning into you steadily.

Your first instinct was to shut your eyes, but you coaxed them back open to observe your lover’s face. His jaw was tipped up, his brows knit together, his lips parted. To see a god this vulnerable was a privilege even the highest priests and most devoted acolytes would never receive in their lifetimes, a privilege whose magnitude that was not lost on you.

On your knees for Apollo, you felt…safe. And not merely because that was the “natural” thing to do - to kneel for one’s god. Strangely, it wasn’t about that. The deity made you feel cared for, that you could set your burdens, however petty and innocuous they may be, down. He would shoulder them for a while, so that you could discover parts of yourself that you didn’t know existed.

Apollo pulled you closer to him, your nose now pressed against the taut skin of his belly as he used your mouth. It made breathing a bit harder, but the god’s rhythm began to falter soon after.

“Ohhhh sunshine I’m gonna—try to swallow it down if you can.”

You hummed your assent around Apollo’s cock, inadvertently sending him over the edge. He shoved his shaft nearly down your throat as his release dropped down it, all but singing your praise the entire time.

“Good girl kitten,” he painted the back of your esophagus with his seed, “taking it so well for me. You were so good for me.”

At last he extracted his spent member from your overstretched mouth. The entirety of your chin was covered in drool from your coupling, and you barely had a moment to wipe it away before Apollo’s lips were on yours. He plundered your mouth with his tongue as if he was to lick the combined taste of his cum and your spit from it. The thought sent a hot thrill down your spine.

“You did so well for me, darling.” He murmured once more after you’d broken apart. Apollo made quick work of your chiton, “Now what does my very good girl want?”

“I…” your lover had begun to trail his lips down the soft skin of your neck. It made it impossible to think, let alone speak. “I want you…inside.”

“Of course,” he agreed from where he was now dotting kisses across your collarbone.

Apollo continued his descent down your bare skin, kissing the tops of your breasts before pulling each nipple into his hot, sure mouth for a hearty suck. It felt so good that you changed your mind on how you wanted Apollo to ravish you, yet the sight of him sinking between your legs was too enticing to resist. He used the tip of his nose to part the seam of your sex before changing course and licking a long stripe between your folds.

“Mmmm, just as sweet as I recall,” he husked. Your reply came in a strangled mewl.

He chuckled darkly. "I know darling, but I must ready you.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth did Apollo slide his index finger through your wetness and into your heat. Relief flooded you – no longer were you clenching around nothing. Apollo resumed kissing your neck as he tucked a second digit in along with the first. You met his movements eagerly, vaguely aware of how swiftly you’d shed the trope of the blushing virgin. Before, the god’s ministrations had felt like too much, now they were not enough. You needed the god’s hardness inside of you now.

Despite being reduced to pitiful whines and whimpers, Apollo understood you.

“You want your god’s big cock, don’t you?”

You practically sobbed in agreement. But although the deity was a generous lover, he had a wicked streak. One that Apollo decided to unleash when he demanded right as he finally applied pressure to your bed, “Words, kitten.”

“Yuh-YES!” you cried. It felt heavenly, but it wasn’t enough to bring you to climax. You legitimately feared you may go mad from the anticipation.

“Good girl,” He parted your legs wider and locked them around his ample hips. He paused briefly to marvel, “what an offering you make for me.”

Apollo proceeded to slap the head of his arousal on your clit, then at last he entered you in one smooth of his hips. The feeling of becoming one wrung another cry from you, while a deep, satisfied rumble sounded from Apollo’s chest.

There wasn’t much talking after that. It was unnecessary. The god’s gaze locked onto your as he plowed you, first holding firmling onto your sides to steady you, then they crawled back up to breasts to pluck at your nipples. You were definitely going to go mad between the acute, concentrated ecstasy he was drawing from your pebbled peaks along with the astounding stretch and burn of his cock plowing into your channel. All the while, the swirling brown of Apollo’s eyes bore into yours, gauging your pleasure - how he could heighten it, how he could surprise you, how you would bit down on bottom lip whenever he changed angle slightly.

The last observation spurred an idea from the god. He bent over you further, catching your wrists in his hands and pinning you to the ground beneath you. The shift allowed him to hammer a special, previously unknown spot within you, and for your vision to go a burning, blinding white.

“AH! Ohhhh…Apo-Apollo,” you keened.

“That’s it, c’mon sunshine,” he urged you, now slamming his pelvis into yours, “Say my name. Scream it so that my kin can hear it on Olympius, and I’ll let you come.”

“Apollo!” You were not one to disobey your god, “Oh stars above, Apollo! Holy Her–APOLLO!! ”

Your orgasm exploded seemingly from the spot your lover’s cock was not battering outwards. You convulsed as the pleasure rushed from your core throughout your spasming frame to the very tips of fingers and toes. There was no way to ride it, let alone fight it, the ecstasy Apollo elicited from you demanded nothing less than complete surrender.

At last, the euphoria in your body began to subside. You desperately gasped down more oxygen, yet, Apollo’s hard, thick member was still thrusting into you relentlessly. Next thing you knew, the deity had collected you into his arms and lifted you to sit on his lap.

You winced at the deeper penetration and your growing sensitivity, but he whispered into your ear, “I know kitten, but I need a little more and Titans, you feel so damn amazing.”

You pressed a kiss into his temple, now damp with sweat, and like before, surrendered your body to your god. He moved your hips for you, essentially fucking yourself on his cock, meeting each and every downstroke with an untiring vigor only an Olympian could possess.

Suddenly, his hold around your torso tightened, and you felt his manhood pulse within you. A deep growl reverberated from his as his seed flooded your channel. Your head was spinning, so much so that you barely realized you two fell back on the grass again.

Apollo rolled so you were beneath him once more and eased himself out of you.

“Now, that is a sight,” he moaned as he watched his release drip out of your entrance.

“Is it?” you panted.

“Mmm indeed,” he promised, gingerly probing your puffy pussy to collect his spend. This time, he brought it to his own mouth, “Hellfire, we make quite the concoction.”

“I…” you eyes were fluttering closed, “I’m glad you’re pleased.”

The god pulled you close once more. “I am beyond delighted. You were magnificent, my little kitten.”

***

You didn’t remember returning home, but your mother’s voice barking your name to wake was unmistakable. It wasn’t until she jarred you into consciousness that you realized you were back in your own bed, and thankfully, clothed.

“You were due at the temple a quarter of an hour ago!”

Grogginess prevented you from sniping back at her that your tardiness wouldn’t anger the god, since Apollo was the very reason for it. Instead, you held your tongue, and lethargically, but as quickly as you could, you rinsed your face and dressed. Your mother shooed you off to the temple with a small cloth holding berries and cheese in tow.

You trudged up the hill to the temple, you’d never liked going there to begin with, but now that your presence was compulsory, it maddened you. The more time you spent with Apollo, the more you despised the structure meant to venerate him and the men who inhabited it claiming to act in his name. The god himself and his priests seemed to be two disparate parties.

Distressed shouts and —was that bleating?— jolted you from your thoughts. You ran the rest of the way to the temple’s entrance. Something was wrong.

Breathlessly, you arrived at the temple’s sanctum to find the priests and acolytes in a frantic scrum and…a goat.

You caught the eye of one of the younger priests. “Don’t we usually sacrifice ravens to Apollo?”

The priest, Karolos, you believed his name was, gulped. “Th-that…that is the Archiereus.”

Now it was your turn to gulp. Your eyes widened, then darted up to the large statue of Apollo that looked over the chaos.

“I need privacy,” you told Karolos lowly, “somewhere I can be alone.”

His brows furrowed, only for realization to dawn on his features a moment later. “Are you going to…?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Come with me.”

As he led you through the madness, you pressed further. “What exactly happened?”

“We all woke up from a terrible, seemingly shared, nightmare. The god appeared to us and we could see ourselves being roasted alive as the temple burned,” the priest began, “and the goat—I mean, the Archiereus, was in his chambers…eating his own bed linens when we rose this morn.”

“Gods,” you groaned.

“We’re very sorry.”

Your gaze shot to the ground at the mention of your violating confirmation as Apollo’s latest lover.

“Truly,” he averred, “I knew it was wrong but they didn’t listen—“

“Stop,” you had no interest in reliving that terrifying day. “But thank you. Truly.”

Karolos sent you a small grin and then opened the door to what seemed to be the head priest’s chambers, half-eaten bed linens and all. The room was imposing, large, and most importantly, tucked into a corner toward the back of the temple complex.

The bedchamber seemed even more intimidating when you were left alone within it. You hadn’t the faintest idea of how to summon Apollo, or if you even could. Therefore, you defaulted to the simplest of methods. You looked up, yet closed your eyes, and called out this name.

“Sunshine.”

His voice was close. Very close, since not a second later you were pulled back into the deity’s arms. You startled, a very undignified and unappealing yelp escaping you.

You pivoted in Apollo’s embrace to face him. “You enjoy frightening me, don’t you?”

“I enjoy arousing you in any and all forms,” he countered wryly.

“You must change him back.”

Apollo’s face fell infinitesimally before resuming its usual brightness. “Of course. As soon as you admit how comical it is.”

You huffed. “Apollo.”

He shrugged as if the power wasn’t solely and completely in his hands.

“What’s this about a shared nightmare?”

“I promised you not to harm them,” the god responded, frustration creeping into his tone, “but these provincial dolts needed to be taught a lesson. They cannot flout me, and by extension you, in such a brazen manner.”

Arguing was pointless, you knew this. Because Apollo was right. As much as you felt as the reluctant center of the issue here, it actually came down to the priests and their respect, and therefore fear, for their patron god.

“While the goat is very comical, I have to say, I think a slug would’ve been more fitting,” you offered with a small smile.

Apollo laughed, his expression beaming once again, and captured your lips.

When you breathlessly broke apart, you inquired, “Does this mean I no longer need to come here everyday?”

“Darling, you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to.”

“I suppose so, but if you wanted me to, I would.”

“Always so willing to please,” Apollo groaned in satisfaction, “you have no idea what you do to me.”

Before you could counter that you didn’t he nudged his groin into your hip to give you one. You nearly jumped at the feel of his arousal pressing through two flimsy layers of your clothing.

The god continued, “However, I believe there are better uses for your time too.”

“Thank you, my–my Apollo.”

“Oh you truly want me to take you on that bumpkin Archiereus’s bed, don’t you?”

The god began backing you toward the bed in question, though you managed to slip out of his grasp just in time.

“Apollo!”

Another peal of laughter from the god. “My desire for you has no bounds.”

“As does mine,” you offered, “I swear it. However, I have to go back and live amongst these people, and I’d prefer to be able to look some of my neighbors in the eye.”

The god studied you, as if the fact you went back and lived among other people had only just occurred to him when you spoke it. However, maddeningly all he said was, “I see.”

You fidgeted under the intensity of his gaze. “I very much enjoyed our time together last night though. I cannot remember if I told you.”

He grinned. You would never tire of it. “Good, then I shall see you tonight?”

“Yes. Please.” your answer came without hesitation.

“I’ll send you a route again,” he vowed, stealing one last impassioned kiss from your lips.

“I shall count the moments,” you whispered.

“Go,” he urged you softly. “I’ve taken care of the Archiereus.”

A commotion sounded from what you thought was the temple’s sanctum. It startled you, and when you turned back to your lover, he’d disappeared.

Karolos was not waiting at the door when you emerged from the high priest’s chambers, much to your relief. So you hurried to where the shouts were emanating from.

The Archiereus had been changed back alright. He lay in the sanctum stark naked and humiliated, barking for a cloth to cover his modesty when you arrived on the scene. Yet he cowed immediately at the sight of you and in a truly baffling role reversal, kneeled at your feet.

“Please, we never meant to harm you, nor anger the mighty Apollo,” he all but blubbered. It was arresting, and honestly, you thought you might have preferred his haughty countenance more. ��Your claim was a bold one, we simply sought to substantiate it, however if I could take it back, I would. I beseech you for forgiveness.”

You didn’t wish to forgive him, however you didn’t wish to condemn the groveling cleric either. The happy medium it seemed was to respond, “The god is appeased. I will no longer be present for your daily rituals.”

With that, you turned and left the oppressive structure, unsure whether to stifle or welcome the exhilarating sense of authority following through you. It was truly the first time in your life you’d ever felt powerful.

A/N: Ehhh...we like? Seriously, y'all give me the motivation pound out more of this! I already have an idea of another god I want to bring into the mix 😜

Taglist:

@whatthefishh , @thhriller , @simpforbritgents , @oof-its-roobi @pakhiya @fandxmslxt69 @twwcs, @damnzelsoul @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @dameronscopilot @sharin4readers @ireallymadeamoonknightblog

#oscar isaac #oscar isaac smut #oscar isaac x reader #oscar isaac fanfic #oscar isaac fanfiction #oscar isaac x you #oscar isaac x y/n #apollo #oscar isaac greek god au #oscar isaac thirst hours

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from-the-clouds · 1 year

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texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. xii

series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist | previous chapter |

chapter summary: Things with Joel come to a head when you're forced on a patrol together. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 5k chapter warnings: CANON TYPICAL CONTENT/VIOLENCE/SUFFERING. Angst/arguments. Discussions of death, descriptions of being ambushed, blood and injuries. Keeping these vague so as not to spoil but if for whatever reason the show was 'too much' for you, this might be a good chapter to skip. If you want a TLDR I can give you one in the DMs. a/n: I didn't really proofread this chapter because I fought with it a bunch and just wanted to get it out to ya'll. Please enjoy!

**I DO NOT HAVE A TAGLIST. Please follow @ftcwriting and turn on notifs if you would like to be notified when I update my works :) **

-April 30, 2024-

It’s an uncharacteristically chilly day, but something heavy still hangs in the air as you walk downtown with Ethan. Well really, – Ethan is walking, you aren’t. At least, not quite. He’s so tall, and his strides are so long, that every couple steps you have to jog a pace or two just to keep up with him. Years ago, when it had just been the two of you on your own, he had been a lot better at waiting up for you. But this is the new norm. There’s no imminent danger, so it’s not necessary to watch each other’s backs. Even so, you find that you’re still always looking out for him out of habit.

A group of younger women pass by you, arms looped through one anothers as they giggle and talk – you can’t help but feel a little bitter at the sight, nostalgic for what that sort of camaraderie felt like. But before you can dwell on it too much, one of the girls’ face lights up and she waves to your nephew.

“Hey Ethan,” she grins.

Ethan does a double-take, pace faltering as he looks over his shoulder to give her a smile. “Hey.”

The moment is over as quick as it began. For the most part, you know most of Ethan’s friends, and most of the people in the community. But you don't recognize this girl.

“Who was that?” you ask.

“No one,” he answers quickly.

“Really? You don’t know her name?”

“Shhh!” He pushes you forward to put more distance between you and the group that has already passed, and it’s funny how you always seem to forget he’s a grown man whose strength far outweighs your own. “Can you just be cool?”

You roll your eyes and shake your head. “Can I not ask a question?”

“You can….at a lower volume.”

You snort, but continue on, whispering. “Okay, fine. She’s cute. Is she new here?”

“I don’t know,” he says, tone bordering on defensive. “Why do you care so much? Isn’t she a little young for you?”

“Oh my god, Ethan,” you’re slightly offended by the insinuation. “All I was going to say was she seemed happy to see you.”

“Yeah, well…” he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks over his shoulder. “Cool, whatever.”

“You are just like your dad,” you say. “He was always so bad at playing it cool.”

This softens Ethan a bit, and you watch his shoulders sag. After Vincent died, you had made it a point to tell Ethan everything you could about his father. Even though it hurt, and reminded you of how much you missed him everyday, surprisingly, it ended up feeling like a good way to mourn him, and work through everything you had been through.

"Oh, yeah?" he teases. "And you are?"

You have a feeling you know what he's going to bring up, so instead of questioning him further, you change the subject.

“God, it’s kind of cold,” you comment, wrapping your jacket closer around you as a breeze whirls past you.

“What, can’t you handle it?” Ethan teases. “It might even rain. That’ll be a long day.”

You’d walked into town with him to begin with because he was going to eat breakfast in the mess hall, and you had a patrol shift. “I’ll be fine.” you say, even as your stomach flips. Every shift comes with its own set of nerves. For as much as you don’t like the feeling, you know that the apprehension keeps you sharp.

And really, you like being outside the walls. Years spent in the wilderness have made the remote area feel like home – you love the feeling of the breeze rustling through your hair, the ever present smell of the pines. Plus, you're usually partnered up with good company, even if things get stressful.

Still, today….something feels off. Maybe it’s the low barometric pressure.

“I oughta go, I’ll see you tonight, okay?” you turn to look at Ethan, and he gives you a nod and salute before ducking into the mess hall.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Tommy, no,” you put your hands on your hips. “Me and Joel? That's a terrible idea.”

“I don’t have any other options,” he says. “Eugene is out sick. There’s no one else available for me to pair you with.”

“Yeah right,” you roll your eyes, crossing your arms. “I know how much you love to meddle.”

“Who, me?” he asks, incredulous, but there’s a grin on his face.

Being in Jackson has domesticated you, because a different version of yourself would’ve probably slapped the grin off of Tommy’s face, turned in your cowboy boots and stomped out of the barn. But you feel such aggressive retaliation will only betray your feelings for Joel.

It’s only been a few weeks since dinner at Tommy and Maria’s and despite the small moment you shared with Joel on their back porch, nothing much has changed. You’re not sure why you desperately want things to. You’re not even sure what you’re hoping for anymore – kindness seems unlikely, but even his cruelty would be preferable to being ignored.

“I can go by myself,” you offer. “I know the area. No one needs to take Eugene’s spot.”

Tommy scoffs. “If I did allow that – which I won’t, because it’s rule number one – and Maria found out, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Tommy, it…” you sigh. “He wants nothing to do with me. It’ll be horrible, and awkward. For the sake of everyone, it’s better we keep our distance.”

“He’ll come around,” Tommy says. “I promise.”

“I don’t need him to,” you say, and it’s convincing enough that you believe it, even if only for a second.

“Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?” Tommy asks. “It might be awkward, but you’ll scout some places out, find a couple cans of food, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

You set your jaw, tilt your head. “Fine. But you know I’m not going to be the easy one to convince.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” he says.

Almost as if on cue, you turn at the sound of footsteps, and find Joel standing in the doorway to the empty stall you were arguing with Tommy in.

Great.

“Joel,” Tommy says. “I’ve paired the two of you up today. Two of our other rangers are out sick.”

Joel looks at you. “Absolutely not.”

“There it is,” you purse your lips, and glance knowingly at Tommy.

“Well, I don’t have any other options.” Tommy begins. “Plus, we usually pair newbies up with our more experienced rangers to help them."

Joel lets out a barking laugh. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

For a second, he meets your eyes, and you avert your own to the floor. Hearing him be so vehemently against interacting with you, even though you’d expected it, isn't exactly a pleasant experience.

“It’s not babysitting,” Tommy says. “She’s been in the community longer, so she knows the terrain better than you do.”

“Who else is there?”

“Joel,” Tommy says. “This is not a negotiation. It’s an order.”

Turns out it is a negotiation, because there’s quite a bit more back and forth between the two of them – so much so that you end up brushing past Joel to go saddle up your horse, Neptune. You catch snippets of the conversation, whispered in hushed tones, but you’re too annoyed to piece them into anything coherent.

Eventually, though, Tommy mutters something about looking after Ellie and Joel gives in, the barn falling silent as he goes off to prep for his shift.

You had seen Ellie several times at Tommy and Maria’s over the past few weeks, and she even approached you once when she found you eating alone at the mess hall. The two of you don’t really talk much about Joel, but she did give you a bit of an explanation about how they ended up together. According to her, he was tasked with bringing her out to some Fireflies base camp because her family was there, but when they arrived the camp was overrun. The story begs more questions than it does answers, in your opinion, but you don’t bother trying to poke holes in it. There’s certainly parts of your past you wouldn’t want to explain to anyone if questioned.

In some ways, she does remind you of Sarah…it sort of makes sense they ended up together, even if they’re quite the odd pair. Like Sarah, Ellie is smart and clever – but where they differ is where she reminds you more of yourself at her age. Very passionate with a bit of a mean streak. It was a defense mechanism that, as you got older, you had gotten better at channeling, but only when you needed to.

Tommy sends you and Joel both north to scout an area you’re pretty familiar with. Joel keeps his horse several paces up ahead of you, which becomes frustrating, especially since you know where you’re going and he doesn’t, and you have to keep calling out and instructing him to change the course. He does so wordlessly, but refuses to let his horse fall into step beside yours, keeping his shoulders hunched and his head hung low.

You think back to the beginning of the outbreak, and all the things you had lost. At that point, you still had Vincent, but even your brother couldn’t offer the support you had needed. You had wanted Joel, had craved the feeling of comfort and safety that only he had ever been able to give you. And even though you’d been forced to give up looking for him, you had always hoped he could feel you. Even now, it’s all you want. But he seems oblivious. And as your patience wears thin, you know something between you is bound to snap.

In some areas of the mountains, the terrain is so rough you have to dismount to lead your horses through it. This area isn’t frequented often, mostly because the loose and large rocks you tread over is a natural repellent to both humans and Infected. But it’s not impossible to traverse, so you still have to keep an eye out.

You don’t find much, but the farther into the woods you get, the darker the sky becomes. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and you hope the storm skips over you, even though it seems unlikely. Despite dressing for the occasion, you’re still cold as the wind picks up, and when you feel the first drops of rain, you pull up alongside Joel.

“Might want to keep an eye out for shelter in case this gets any worse,” you say to him. Joel turns to look at you, and you catch, for a minute, a forlorn expression in his eyes. It disappears as he nods wordlessly, and you’re surprised he doesn’t argue with you.

The storm grows more intense, the drops of rain turning into a full-on downpour, and lightning illuminates the sky. A spring thunderstorm. If you were at home today, you might’ve been curled up on the couch with a good book and a window cracked. But instead, you’re out in the middle of nowhere, forced into the company of your former lover who now hates you, torrential downpour soaking through your water-resistant jacket and making you shiver.

Joel crests over a ridge, and pauses to point to a cabin maybe a quarter mile away. You’re in unfamiliar territory at this point, and it’ll probably need to be cleared out, but you’re desperate for a place to wait out the poor weather.

As you near the cabin, you see it’s clearly abandoned. Inside, it’s been picked over. Furniture is strewn about, drawers and cabinets hanging open, but other than that…it’s in pretty decent shape. Good enough to be fixed up for an outpost, and you draw a rudimentary map to take back to Tommy, should any other rangers be sent to the area.

Once the house is secured and you get the horses settled in the garage, you do your obligatory sweep of any drawers, cabinets, and closets. It’s mostly picked over, and nature has begun to take over in some of the rooms, the tree roots peaking through cracks in the wooden floor.

Letting another cabinet fall closed, you sigh.

“Find anything?” you’re surprised to hear Joel ask, as he comes down the stairs.

“No,” you say. “You?”

“Nothing,” Joel says, and sits onto an ancient couch. For a split second, you admire him, as he runs his fingers through his damp hair to push it off his forehead. You’re ashamed that you’re still attracted to him, potentially even moreso than you used to be. Maybe you always imagined growing old with him, and it was nice to see, even if the context was different. You knew that daydreaming about what could’ve been wasn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, but thinking about your time with Joel, and the future you’d never have with him had gotten you through some of your darkest days. You wonder if he had ever thought about it, just to feel something other than sorrow. But with the way he’s been acting, you question if he ever even cared about you at all.

With no other distractions to keep you occupied, all you can do now is sit across from him, and wait out the storm.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Joel picks up a well-worn book with broken binding off the shelf next to where he sits, and spares a glance your direction. You’re on a chair across from him, staring out the window. He can’t tell if you’re trying to keep watch or avoid talking to him. Either way, he doesn’t care.

The book in his hands is a self-help book written by man who had lived in the wilderness for an entire year, and so generously detailed all the things he learned from the experience. Joel almost laughs at how ridiculous the description sounds. When he places the book back where he found it, you pipe up.

“No good?” you ask.

Joel shakes his head wordlessly. He’s been doing a pretty decent job of keeping you at arm's length. He tries to avoid the hurt he notices in your eyes whenever he brushes you aside, which is why he tends to keep his back to you, so he doesn't have to see it over and over again. It’s just the right thing to do. Letting Ellie into his life had been hard enough. He isn’t willing to make himself even more vulnerable.

“Shit,” you say, looking disappointed. “Well if there’s nothing else to do, we might actually have to talk to each other.”

Joel puts his arm over the back of the sofa, and looks out the window. “No?” you prompt. “Well then, can I at least ask you something?”

“Depends.”

“I guess I just have been thinking…” you trail off. “After everything….the fact that the two of us are together. Feels like….I don’t know. Do you think it means something?”

Joel looks over at you, finds you leaning forward in your chair. You discarded your jacket to dry on the railing of the staircase, and your flannel shirt hangs open as you lean onto your elbows, an expectant look on your face.

Joel had learned long ago that it was senseless to look for meaning in this world. There was no rhyme or reason for why things happened the way they did – they just happened. All the good, and all the terrible. There was only so much he could do to control them, as much as he tried. And it made him feel helpless.

“It’s a coincidence.”

“Right,” you say, enunciating the T pointedly. He’s thankful when your jaw sets, and your expression gives nothing else away. “So what, then? We should just act like we’re strangers? Just pretend like…we never knew each other?”

“It was over twenty years ago. I’ve moved on,” Joel says. The more he can deflect, push you away, the more angry you’ll likely get, and the faster this conversation will end.

But you surprise him.

“Okay,” you say, looking at the floor. “I mean, I get it. I did too, because I thought you were dead. But you aren’t, so maybe we could just talk-”

“What is there to talk about?” Joel asks.

You’re incredulous. “So many things, Joel. But you’ve been…so….” you struggle to find the words. “I don’t think this is a coincidence. And you’re right. It was a long time ago, so maybe it’s foolish to think that we could maybe-” you cut yourself off, shake your head. “I feel like I at least deserve to know why you want nothing to do with me now.”

Joel notices how your knuckles are white from how tightly you have your hands clasped in one another’s. You’re probably angry. That’s what he wants. But you’re trying so hard to control yourself, to connect with him, and he’s shocked that you find him worthy of that energy no matter how many times he pushes you away.

“I’m not the man you knew. You’re wasting your time.”

You blink once. “Yeah. Okay. So that’s it?”

Joel remains stone faced.

“Well that’s,” you sigh, put your head in your hands for a split second, let out a choked sounding laugh, and look back over at him. “That’s so fucking stupid.”

“How do you think I got here? How do you think I survived for as long as I did? I’m not the same woman that I was, either. But that’s just how it fucking works. You’re gonna spend the rest of your life using that as an excuse to push people away – a friend, your own fucking brother-”

Joel flinches at the confirmation you might be just as bad as he is.

“Don’t bring Tommy into-”

“I’m not going to walk on eggshells whenever we’re together because you can’t deal with your own shit,” you raise your voice again.

Joel feels his lip curl, wondering why you won’t just give up, why you won’t just accept the rejection. But your hypocrisy is what frustrates him the most. He thinks back to when you’d been together. You were the reason he never told you he loved you. You were like quicksilver, sitting in the palm of his hand, but you’d run the second he tried to hold you. He never really got you, all of you, like he had wanted. “That’s great advice from someone who was always so good at being vulnerable.”

That one seems to hurt you enough, and you recoil slightly, sit up straighter. “Sure, yeah. I was young, and I was fucking….I was scared. But I-I’m trying to be better.”

He can’t stand the broken look on your face, would rather keep you angry. “Do you think I owe you something? None of that stuff matters anymore.”

“Really? None of it matters? Even Sarah knew–”

That slices through the thread of restraint he has left. “Enough.”

“I loved her, Joel,” you plead with him. “I loved her, too.”

Joel rises to his feet, his hands clench into fists, and you stand too. “Don’t-”

“-And you won’t even,” you swallow hard to compose yourself as Joel paces to look out the window. The rain has died down considerably, like it knows there’s only so much energy allowed to exist in one place. “You pretend like we didn’t know each other, I knew you Joel. I know you. And I knew her, and-”

“I said that’s enough!” Joel grabs the closest thing he can find, a lamp sitting on the side table, and hurls it across the room. It shatters upon impact, glass shards spraying in the air. He’s desperate to scare you off, willing to do anything to get you to stop poking holes in his resolve, it feels like you can see right through him, and he has no place to hide.

But you don’t even recoil from the outburst. In fact, you seem almost satisfied. In letting his emotions get the best of him, he's shown you how much he still cares. It doesn’t stop him from continuing on.

“You don’t know me, and she wasn’t your daughter. You will never understand what it is like to lose your own child.”

You exhale sharply, like he’s punched you in the gut, the color draining from your face. Eyes still red-rimmed, but the fire inside them is now gone.

“Okay,” you say, voice trembling and you look out the window. “It’s not raining anymore, so I’m gonna head back.”

“We’re supposed to finish the-”

“I don’t want to be anywhere near you,” you say, swiping at the corners of your eyes. “I don’t want to see you again, honestly. So just fuck off.”

Within seconds, you’re gone, the garage door slamming behind you. Joel stays in place, even after he hears the measured beat of your horse running off into the woods. He’s done terrible things to a lot of people that didn’t deserve them – and he did them without a second thought. This had been exactly what he wanted, but this time, he’s filled with regret.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You can’t remember the last time you were this angry.

Every nerve inside you is thrumming with electricity, and you are glad you’re alone, because you’re pretty sure the next person who touches you will get shocked. But even though you’re angry with Joel, you’re more angry with yourself. He had tried to warn you – and you just kept pushing. Why’d you allow yourself to grow so soft? To believe that you could both find a way to heal together? Bea had been wrong. Love was just another means to control someone else. Joel was no exception to the rule.

Sure, there were things about you he didn’t understand. But you aren’t willing to give him any grace, not after the way he’d humiliated you, over and over….and you just let it happen. Maybe it was irresponsible to leave him there alone, but you didn’t care. He could find his way back, and even if he didn’t, it no longer mattered.

The rage gives you tunnel vision, you can only see what’s directly in front of you, and even then, none of it registers. You’re not even sure how long you’ve been riding when you hear the gunfire rain down on you.

It snaps you out of it – the sound of the bullets whizzing past your ears hitting the trees, ricocheting off the rocks at your feet. Almost immediately you leap off your horse and take cover behind a tree, drawing your pistol and listening closely to see where the attack came from.

You hear voices – men’s voices, and the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. You pinpoint three distinct voices, but there could be more.

“Where the fuck did she go?”

“Doesn’t matter, we should go after the horse.”

“What if she has friends? She looked too put together to be alone.”

“Even better. Come on, she couldn’t have gone far.”

Truth be told, it’d been awhile since you’d had to navigate an ambush like this all alone. If you’d been paying closer attention, maybe you would’ve seen it coming. You’re already at a disadvantage, outnumbered, but it helps that you at least know their intentions.

The footsteps grow closer, to your right, so quietly, you shuffle to the left of the tree you’re huddled up against, so you’re out of view when two of them pass you. You imagine the third one is scoping out a different section of the forest. Idiots, you think to yourself.

The adrenaline kicks in, and you pounce. One of the men is wearing a scarf, and that makes things easy, when you yank him backwards, hiding behind his broad shoulders, you use the fabric to cut off his airflow, staying clear of his arms flailing about while the man he was walking with turns, hesitating, gun raised, but he doesn’t fire – he can’t, or he’ll risk hitting his friend.

“Hey, hey, we just want to talk!” the man in front of you pleads as you catch his eyes over the shoulder of his friend, whose attempts at freeing himself become weaker and weaker as he fights to breathe.

“No you don’t,” when the man goes limp in your arms, you shove him forward towards the man whose gun is now trained on you. He fires twice, but it’s you who delivers the final blow, so you don’t see where his bullets go. The two of them collapse together on the ground.

Your heart starts to beat faster, suddenly increasing your ability to focus. Warmth blooms in the pit of your belly, and you whirl around towards the sound of footsteps in the snow, the third man appearing in front of you – his gun also raised. His eyes flicker nervously between you and the two others – who are dead, if not incapacitated, but you can’t worry about that now.

He’s hesitating with his gun raised – why, you aren’t sure. But you are, too. There’s something about the fear in his eyes that makes you feel almost guilty. It’s me, or him, you remind yourself, a mantra you have had to repeat far too many times trying to survive. When his eyes shift behind you, you pull the trigger, and a second gunshot echoes your own. You brace yourself, thinking he fired too, but instead, his body jolts two times with the impact of two bullets before he goes down. They were inexperienced, clearly, but it was still a close call.

You look over your shoulder to find Joel behind you, gun still smoking, something dark and feral in his eyes. He lowers his weapon as you turn to face him fully.

“I had it handled,” you say, briskly. But Joel doesn’t answer you. In fact, the insult doesn't seem to register at all - his eyes are wide. You follow his gaze down, towards your stomach.

That’s when see it.

Blood, and a lot of it, blooming at your stomach, dripping down under the waistband of your pants. When you go to press your hand against the wound, you realize you can’t feel your right arm – your shoulder is bleeding too.

“Oh,” you suddenly feel lightheaded, cold. Your teeth chatter. “Shit.”

You slump against a tree, expecting to feel the bark scratching your skin through your jacket, but you feel nothing at all as you slide to the ground. Above you, the sun shines brightly – like it had never stormed at all.

Life goes on.

You look towards the light, but it’s quickly obstructed by Joel, hovering over you.

“We gotta-” he stutters, “We’ve gotta get out of here.” He says it like it’s a real possibility, looking down at your wounds. You can see it on his face. It’s not.

“That bad?” you say, when he meets your gaze again. He doesn’t answer, opens his mouth and shakes his head no, but you can tell he’s lying. You take in a ragged breath. “Just tell Ethan that-”

“It’s not that bad. Stop it. Will you?” Joel says, like he’s suddenly remembered how to talk. “You’re fine. You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know,” you manage, and it’s hard to speak without feeling like you’re choking. “I-I don’t think so.”

Joel’s hands find your shoulders, and despite the last thing he said to you before you left him, the gesture does give you some sense of comfort. “I’m so….I’m so fucking tired. Ethan’s alright. He doesn’t need me-”

“No, no,” Joel cuts you off. “He does, he does need you. Lots of people need you.”

None of his words even register, you can only think about your imminent future. The fight you’d got in seems suddenly inconsequential. “I don’t want to be alone, will you just stay until-”

“We’re leaving,” Joel drags you to your feet, presses a hand to your middle to stop the bleeding, and you feel the pain for the first time. It’s such a shock – so intense and all-consuming that you cry out. “I know, I know, I know…” he says, and his voice breaks into panic.

“I should’ve never fucking let you go,” you’re not sure if he’s talking about you walking away from him earlier, or something else. Joel is half-carrying, half-dragging you along – so dizzy and disoriented you can’t move your legs, vision fading in and out. Joel stumbles over the uneven terrain towards his horse.

“Please-” just let me be, you want to croak, but the words don’t come out. You think of everyone you’ve lost – Sarah. Vincent. Bea. All the others. What had it felt like for them, before it happened?

“No, no, don’t close your eyes,” you feel Joel’s hand on the side of your face, and you blink them open – you actually didn’t remember nodding off. “Stay with me, now….please. Please.”

The more he begs, the less you understand what’s making him so frustrated. The less you understand anything at all. You wish you could answer, but you can’t. You can feel your body going limp. “Come on, girl, don’t fucking do this to me,” you hear his voice, harsh and desperate, your body being shaken.

Your vision comes in snippets– blood on your hands, on the slope of his neck, the canopy of trees above you, Joel’s eyes, wet with tears.

You can’t understand why he’s crying, and you don’t get to figure it out.

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garnetea · 10 months

Text

dream a little dream of me.

who roronoa zoro x fem black! y/n. length 715 words! warnings fluffy smut! nipple suckin. semi-wet dream. napping on a hammock. it's mostly fluff.

leman's letter! this's a little old, i just wanna get out some zoro stuff tbhhh. also, reader being chunky is implied a little but not as heavily as my last zoro piece; do with this as you will! and not super proof read..

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ★

A tranquil breeze provided by lingering nymphs sets Y/n and Zoro's shared hammock into a subtle rock, as the cool evening air tickles their necks and foreheads with delicate brushes. Zoro's mossy hued hair nestles against the bare warmth of Yn's chest, while dozing somewhat noisily, accompanying the forming pool of drool in his mouth with light exhales and snores.

It's a rare sight to see such an event as this; the typically stubborn and stoic swordsman being so vulnerable and adorable, finding comfort upon the plump breasts of his corpulent lover. The weight of his sleepy head is relaxed and trusting in your presence, though he'd never go as far as admitting that this is because you're beyond precious to him. Instead, he grants you with another arm full of sweetly softened breaths and incoherent mumbles.

Though, when Zoro's unconscious mumbles and grumbles grow audible to a noticeable degree, you worry that he'll wake up before he's truly rejuvenated, which will leave you with an unpleasantly grumpy boyfriend on your hands. Therefore, you place your foot on the grassy ground below, moving the comforting weight of your hand from Zoro's scarred back to his messy bundles of hair. Rocking your foot in place, ever so carefully, you breathe out a motherly, "Shhh." Smiling affectionately as you do so, all to lull the furrow-browed man back into uninterrupted rest.

However, before long, your smile slowly fades as the man's nap takes its own route of self satisfaction. Suddenly, he's leaking a pool of built up saliva from the confinements of his parted lips and onto your exposed chest. You watch tentatively and attentively with increasingly intrusive ideas, as the shimmering dribble graces the crevice separating your tits, and smears over the comfortable stiffness of your dark nipples. Due to Zoro shifting in his sleep.

"Dios mío, not now, Noa.."

Your hushed pleas of cessation to this evolving scenario went unheard and uncared for as Zoro shifts even more against his lover's mattress of a body, with a stiff knee pressed between your spread thighs as he finds himself in a more comfortable position. It's nothing a few inches backwards you can't fix, but the pressure from Zoro's knee on your lap becomes the least of your concerns as the sleepy swordsman's lips habitually latch onto the perkiness of your nipple.

The tip of your skin was brushing his lazily parted lips. A subtle gesture which — even if it holds little force, since he is in fact asleep — sends your nerves and self control into an uproar, tempting your excitement to run rampant in the blood stream riveting your quickened heart. The blood stream which is suddenly rushing its intensity downward to entice the arousal of your clit in the process.

Embarrassing as it may be in such a pure setting as this (being doused with the soft kisses from a loving sunset, along with the distant tunes of Sanji playing the acoustic guitar for another lovely woman), the sensation of Zoro's uncharacteristically needy lips against your skin rids you a necessary amount of sanity. You have to fight the urge to wake the swordsman from his hazy dreams and find pleasure in a more sensitive area than your sloppily abused chest, but that urge is quickly combated with the stirring of Zoro's facial expression as he rests.

Seemingly on cue, you drop the rocking movement on the ball of your foot and the height of your heel against the ground, leaving your body limp as you abruptly force your eyelashes to a close and rest your head correspondingly. A sleepy guise, of course.

In turn, Zoro lazily raises his head and yawns obnoxiously, only stopping his inconsiderate movements when he realizes your "sleeping" state. He'd smile softly at the serene sight if it weren't for the moist substance coated over his lover's chest, and the same substance being slickly fastened to his own rosy cheeked front. With noticeable fluster, he mumbles, "Sorry bout' that.. had a weird dream." Before laying himself in the same comfortable position and continuing his previously unconscious adventure, since by the heat and fattened pudge beneath your loose shorts, you seem to have been enjoying the scenario just as much as him. "Eh, I know you don't mind. Just stay there and be quiet a while longer, alright?"

#leman's art!#<3 #interact if you enjoyed! & i want to build an audience so reblogs mean the world!!#anime x black!reader #one piece #one piece x black!reader #anime fanfic #anime #roronoa zoro x reader #roronoa zoro x black!reader #roronoa zoro #zoro x reader #zoro smut #roronoa zoro x y/n #zoro fluff #one piece smut #one piece x reader #one piece x black reader #zoro x chubby reader

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sallage · 5 months

Text

Childhood Secret

Primary AU

Warning: This is a tickle fic!

Summary: Bakugo and Midoriya were assigned a mission together that was set to last a couple of days. Due to the prolonged period of constant exposure to each other, the tension between the two heroes only continued to rise, resulting in some unsavory measures being taken to ensure the smooth execution of the mission.

Pairing: Lee Bakugo, Ler Midoriya

Words: 1,757

Reading Time: 7 Minutes

A/N: I think I'm creating an alternate universe? haha these stories will be kind of like one shots but they might reference each other and correlate. Idk honeslty lets see what happens!

Read more ∘₊✧ Here ✧₊∘

“Kacchan-“

“Shut up, you damn nerd! You’re going to get us caught!”

“You’re the one screaming.”

“I’m not fucking screaming!”

“Kacchan!”

Bakugo and Midoriya were on a mission together, tracking down a group of thugs who were selling quirk erasure darts on the black market. The authorities had caught wind of the shady dealings and sent the two rivals to investigate. Since the investigation was far from home, the pair were forced to stay in a hotel while they gathered evidence and proof of the crime. They spent multiple nights in a nearby hotel, waiting for the best moment to confront and arrest the criminals.

Now, Bakugo and Midoriya had taken hidden positions in a bush near the suspects, waiting cautiously for the exchange that would justify the arrest. Having been forced to spend the previous few nights together, tensions were high between them, the bickering rivals on edge due to their eagerness for the mission to end.

“Kacchan, you need to-”

“Don’t tell me what the hell to do, damn it.”

Midoriya's face was pinched with irritation. He had been putting up with Bakugo's attitude since before the start of their mission, his patience wearing thin with each passing interaction. Although they only spoke when absolutely necessary, the quick exchanges were enough for Midoriya to receive a small sampling of the other's volatile temper.

Normally, he could endure it, as Bakugo usually chose to avoid the other. However, in the midst of this mission, he had no escape, and was forced to deal with Bakugo's wrath on a consistent basis.

“Kacchan please-“

“Shut up! I’m sick of hearing your stupid voice!”

“I’m just trying to-“

“That’s it!”

Bakugo uttered a grunt and moved to sit on his knees.

“What are you-“

“Getting the hell away from you. We don’t need to be in the same damn bush.”

“You can’t, they’ll see you!”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!”

Bakugo had shifted his position, allowing the bush to part and expose them to the danger of being seen. Midoriya panicked, knowing he had to act quickly to prevent Bakugo from completely ruining their plan.

Midoriya quickly activated Black Whip, wrapping a tendril around Bakugo's wrist and pulling it back, reinforcing half their cover. Bakugo's face filled with confusion, his brain working slowly to comprehend Midoriya’s sudden audacity. Before he could react, Midoriya managed to grab his other arm, forcefully pulling him back into the bush. Bakugo's only reaction was a startled grunt as he tried to catch his balance.

“You fucking idiot, did you just-“

“Shhh, Kacchan! I know you’re mad but you can’t just-.”

“Get your pathetic quirk offa me!”

Instead, Midoriya summoned another tendril, its powerful coils wrapped themselves around Bakugo's waist. The tendril forcibly pushed the blonde back into a seated position. As Bakugo struggled against the restraints, Midoriya recognized that he could no longer afford to be lenient with his friend. He had to take drastic measures to ensure this whole mission wouldn’t turn out to be a huge waste of time, which it would be if he let his friend blow their cover.

With that in mind, and before he could lose his nerve, Midoriya sent a thicker tendril to the other’s face, slapping it over the explosive blondes mouth.

Bakugo’s eyes widened with pure unfiltered shock, Midoriya’s expression mirroring it. Neither of them ever figuring the green haired boy had the balls to physically shut Bakugo up. The stunned blonde didn’t move for a few seconds before his face reddened with heated anger and embarrassment. Right then and there, Midoriya almost let him go and apologized.

Almost.

Bakugo let out a burst of angry curses, despite the muffling caused by the black tendrils wrapped around his mouth. Although muted, Midoriya could still make out some of the words.

“Yhuuu fuhhhkkn mhhrrhhon, yhuuuu dhhuhr dhoh thhii thhoo mhh? I’ll khhlll yhuuu! Lht mhh ghu!”

Despite the guilt bubbling up in Midoriya’s throat, he shook his head and peeked out of the bush. “I’ll let you go when they arrive so we can arrest them. Otherwise you’re going to have to stay here. I’m sorry, Kacchan. I want this to be over as much as you do.”

The change in Midoriya's assertiveness was surprising, even to himself. He was unsure where this newfound confidence was coming from, and whether it was due to sleep deprivation, the exhaustion from dealing with Bakugo for days on end, or the new confidence he gained from developing and training new quirks. Regardless of the reason, Midoriya wasn't planning on backing down now, not when he already pissed the blonde off to the highest degree possible.

Bakugo was becoming increasingly infuriated, the veins in his temple popping out in rage. He continued shouting muffled curses at Midoriya, promising to make his life hell and inflict death upon him; the works. Midoriya ignored him, occasionally shushing him so he could focus on their targets. When Bakugo realized that Midoriya was hardly paying attention, his temper got the better of him. His hands began to spark.

Midoriya's eyes snapped back, seeing Bakugo's hands light up within their small and dry hiding place.. As Bakugo's quirk started getting louder, Midoriya quickly decided to take action and use an old trick he'd learned as a child to try to control the other's explosive temper.

Knowing that Bakugo was in a vulnerable position, Midoriya took full advantage of it, summoning two more black tendrils to dig into his unsuspecting underarms. The sparks in his hands cut off in puffs of black smoke and Bakugo’s curses and threats dissolved into shocked yelps, the random attack causing his eyes to widen in surprise before shutting in suppressed mirth. He clamped his arms to his sides and thrashed against the tendrils which Midoriya stiffened so the sound wouldn’t carry.

“Whhht thuh hehhl! Yhu’re fuhhking dhehd! Mmhmhhhm Sthhhhp!!”

Even with his arms clamped firmly to his sides, Black Whip was still able to wiggle through, the skinny tendrils flicking against his hollows.

“Yhu bhhuhuhsrd! Sthhp!”

Bakugo opened furious, red eyes to fix them on Deku’s timid green ones. Everything in his expression told Deku that he was going to blast him out of existence. Deku knew that once he used his quirk on Bakugo, his fate was sealed. But just because he accepted it, doesn’t mean that he was going to go down without a fight. Deku squinted his eyes at Kacchan.

“If you can calm down-“

“Dhhn tlhh mhe thu chhlm dwnn, bhhstrd! Ihhhl khhll- MMMmmmhhh!”

In the middle of Bakugo’s usual rant, Deku sent some tendrils to mess with his sides, flicking up and down and dragging them around slowly. Growing up with the aggressive blonde, Deku was the only one alive that was aware of his ticklishness. Although the playful tickle fights stopped after Bakugo’s quirk manifested, Deku hoped he still would be.

And boy, was he.

Bakugo had his eyes scrunched closed. He was no longer cursing or screaming, just looked like he was trying to control his reactions, occasionally thrashing or twitching when a tendril found a sweet spot. For a minute, Deku thought he successfully tamed the wild animal he called friend, until sparks flew again in the corner of his vision.

Immediately, Deku directed the tendrils teasing his sides to go straight for that cripplingly ticklish spot Bakugo had as a kid, the spot right underneath his armpits and above his ribs, praying that it was still as sensitive after all these years.

Bakugo’s body siezed, the sparks discontinued, and he immediately dissolved into muffled laughter. He shook his head and glared at Midoriya, which lost all its bite from the tears of mirth that began to pool in them. Deku couldn’t help but smile a little as he watched his childhood friend struggle against sensations he probably forgot he could experience.

Bakugo struggled hard against Black Whip but it was no use. The tendrils dug and swirled ticklishly on his ribs. Bakugo did everything in his power to keep his composure, but once that spot was nicked, all hope was lost. It had been so long since he was tickled, he forgot how stupidly debilitating it could feel. He forgot all about using his quirk and wanting to leave the bush, he just wanted Deku to stop.

Deku kept this up for a few seconds before easing up, realizing from Bakugo’s increasingly reddening face, that with his mouth covered he could only get air from his nose. Once he could breathe again, he shot a dangerous glare at Midoriya.

“Nehhhvu dho tht agnnnn, yhu hrr mhe?”

“I won’t if you can calm down and stay here. Were almost done.”

“Ght thss ohh mhi mouh.”

Deku nodded and pulled his quirk back from Bakugo’s mouth. The blonde stretched his jaw and scowled at the other, giving him a death stare.

“You’ll pay for that, you bastard.” But his voice was notably hushed.

“Are you going to stay in the bush?”

“Fuck you and this bush!”

“Kacchan!”

“You listen to me, you- AH!”

The tendrils squirmed under his arms, and his eyes widened as he remembered they were there.

“Deku!”

“I’m sorry, but we’re so close, and I don’t want to be here longer than we have to.“

“Whatever, you damn nerd. Get your dumb quirk offa me.”

“Fine.” Deku reined in Black Whip. “The truck’s pulling up.”

After waiting, watching, and biding their time, the villains finally made the illegal exchange. Deku and Bakugo stepped in and proceeded to do what they were trained to do; knocking them around and rounding them up for transportation. Once they had reported their findings and secured the arrest of the villains, Deku chanced a glance at Bakugo. What he did in the bush may have crossed a line, and he wanted to address it.

“Kacchan, I-”

“Never speak of it.”

“… I just-”

“Ever.”

Deku was aware of when it was appropriate for him to stop attempting to engage in heated discussion with the blonde, so he did. He often found himself yearning to have actual conversations with Kacchan, wanting to finally put aside their past conflicts and issues and simply interact like normal people. Like friends.

However, today was not meant to be that day, nor would tomorrow be either. Deku accepted this with calm and determined patience, hoping that the time would come when Kacchan was ready to accept his friendship. Until then, he would simply wait, with the unshakable hope and faith that it would happen one day.

#bnha tickle #ticklish!bakugou #tickle fic #tickle community #tickle blog #t word community #sallage-mha #lee!bakugou #mha tickle

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intoanotherworld23 · 11 months

Text

Chasing The Shadows

Pairing: Reader x Robert Floyd

Warnings: Mentions of killing and death, and description of violence, some minor kissing, swear words

Summary: When a deadly new virus breaks out into the world you and Bob Floyd fight for survival and for each other

Okay y’all this is someone completely new I’m writing for so you’ll have to let me know what you think of it so far! Hearts, reblogs, and comments are highly encouraged and appreciated! If you wish to be tagged for Lewis Pullman or this series let me know! IM TAGGING EVERYONE ON MY TAG LIST FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER SO IT CAN REACH A BIGGER AUDIENCE! Thank you everyone so much I love you all! XOXO

Check out my other works on my Hall Of Hunks

"What's on the news?" Asking your husband as you plopped down on the couch a beer in hand passing him one.

"Somethin about a virus." He responded as he took a swig of his drink. "Already making its way into the states."

"A virus?" You questioned him as you looked over at him. "What kind of virus?"

"I don't know sounds like the flu or something." Shrugging your shoulders as you both continued to listen. Nothing was really being said about anything so it really peaked your curiosity as to what was really going on.

"Please the flu never really makes it through this town anyway." You scoffed hearing that. "Even if it did they wouldn't talk about it on the news."

"Well maybe if you stop talking and listen they'll tell us." He said making you lean back in exaggeration as you glared at him.

"What did you just say to me?" Placing your hands on your hips.

"You heard me." He mocked you as you opened your mouth partially lightly smacking his shoulder making him laugh. "Shhh there talking."

"You asshole." You joked both of you chuckling.

"Sources say this deadly virus is already spreading across the nation faster than the flu." Sighing loudly as that thought went out the window. "From what we've been told the major symptoms are high fever, rage, uncontrollable hunger, and swelling of gums."

"Jesus Christ what the hell kind of virus is this?" Bob asked leaning forward his elbows on his knees.

"Hospitals are filled with people all showing the same symptoms and doctors can't seem to figure out what the cause of this virus is."

"This definitely sounds worse than any flu I've heard of." Placing a hand on your chin eyes glued to the tv now.

"Hope they find the sorry son of a bitch who brought it here." Bob quipped as he quickly glanced at you.

"If he isn't already dead." Whispering but Bob still heard you anyway as he glanced at you with concern. "What?"

"Nothing." Stopping himself from really saying what was on his mind.

In that moment neither one of you really knew what to say or how to react exactly. This was the kind of stuff you saw on fantasy shows that had people wondering what if. Both of you were a little scared how how serious it sounded. Figuring you weren't the only ones who were feeling the same way.

"What should we do?" Whispering as you felt fear creeping up behind you. "Should we leave?"

"No I say we stay here until things calm down." Bob suggested sounding calm but you knew by the look on his face he was worried.

"Doesn't sound like things are gonna calm down soon."

"I bet in less than six months all that panic will have been for nothing." Bob shrugged his shoulders leaning back into the couch.

"Well there's no way in hell I'm gonna stay cooped up in this house for six months." You argued crossing your arms over your chest.

"State officials are asking that everyone stay inside and don't go out unless absolutely necessary." Bob looked at you with a proud smirk shaking your head at him with a giggle. "The only way to contract this unknown contagious virus is by being bitten or scratched."

"We'll just have to avoid being bitten or scratched." He joked nudging your shoulder.

"Please Robert don't joke this is serious." Keeping your focus on the news watching as they showed videos of different people being wheeled into hospitals and people driving by neighborhoods showing people losing control in their front lawns.

"I am taking it serious darlin." His tone softened when he could see the serious look on your face. "I'm sorry."

"Shit you'd think it was the end of the world or something." Bob shook his head as the newscaster continued to speak.

"Well it damn well looks that way." Showing a group of people already torching a building.

"Fucking hell." Bob exclaimed.

"Everyone is gonna lose their fucking minds once they all watch this." Taking a swig of your beer. "You remember what happened with that snow storm last year people wiped out everything in stores within days."

"Imagine what they'd do if we had an apocalypse." You continued feeling Bobs eyes on you.

"Baby I seriously doubt this is the apocalypse." Feeling an arm wrap around your shoulder pulling you in close. "I'll keep you safe don't you worry."

"I know you will it's just scary." Admitting to him as you felt your eyes tearing up.

"Nothing and nobody is going to even come close to hurting you." Kissing the side of your temple his lips lingered for a few moments.

As the two of you sat there drinking your beer flipping through channel after channel, and all they were talking about was this virus. Even your reality shows were being interrupted by breaking news. You've never seen anything like this before in your life.

Friends and family texting you non stop asking if you were okay. You were just hoping Bob was right about everything will eventually blow over. They'd have to find someway to stop it or at least slow it down. Then everything would go back to normal, and you and Bob would be safe.

"Let's go to bed baby." Bob turned the tv off as he stood up grabbing your hand lifting you off the couch. "Enough of this shit."

"I don't think I can sleep now." Pulling the covers back as you climbed into bed Bob right behind you.

"I know what I can do to help you sleep." Wrapping an arm around your waist as he pulled you flush against him.

"Babe stop." Giggling as he wiggled his hands to the edge of your pajama bottoms.

"Come on I promise it'll be the best you've ever had." Burying his head in your neck kissing your collarbone trying to move on top.

“You’ve said that one before.” Hands pinching your sides going into a fit of giggles as he started tickling you.

“Better watch that pretty little mouth of yours.” He warned as he hovered his body over yours.

"Bob." Moaning as you felt him grinding on you hands moving along the length of your legs.

Before anything else could continue further a loud boom shook the house cause both you and Bob to look out the windows. Leaning up on your elbows as Bob jumped out to check what the noise was. Watching as he looked around not seeing anything that really stood out.

"The hell was that?" Asking him as you sat up completely.

"I don't know baby I don't see anything." Shaking his head as you walked back over to you. "I think maybe it was a crash or something."

"That sounded a lot louder than a car crash." Timing couldn't have been more perfect as you both heard another crash.

"Robert that's not a crash that sounds like something exploding." Standing up as he walked out of the room to the front door.

Following after him as some of the neighbors were already ahead of you and Bob. Standing on their lawns looking around to see what those noises were, and where they were coming from. Fear was written across everyone's face, and parents tried to keep their children inside.

"Did you see anything?" Bob yelled to the neighbor across the way.

"Looked like an explosion from the center of downtown." He responded watching as Bobs face fell hearing his words.

"Get inside." Bob pointed at you as he jogged in behind you slamming the door shut. "Get inside now."

"What?" You yelled at him as he paced around the room. "Robert what?"

"Sounds like someone is blowing up the town." Covering your mouth with your hand a gasp slipping past your lips.

“What do you mean blowing up?”

“I don’t know there just blowing up the town.”

"We can't stay here." It came out more as a suggestion than a question.

Before Bob could respond his phone started to ring. Walking back into the bedroom picking it up hearing his muffled voice as you just stood there. Feeling like your feet were stuck to the ground, and your body was starting to slowly freeze.

You couldn't believe what you had been seeing and hearing. None of this felt like it was actually happening. Everything went quiet to where you literally could only hear yourself breathing. Your eyes staying open not even able to blink.

"Yeah yeah we'll meet you there." You heard him say as he hung up the phone and came back out to you. "That was my buddy he lives on the other side of town says we should leave he's got a safe house for us to stay at."

"What's going on?" Asking him your voice shaky as your eyes started to water.

"People are destroying the town and police are shooting people down in the streets." His words made your eyes go wide. "There patrolling neighborhoods and refusing to let people leave their homes."

"So then shouldn't we stay here." Whimpering as you could already hear commotion from outside.

"No it's not safe we have to leave now." Running to the closet grabbing a couple of bags. "Take only things that we need."

Handing you a bag you started filling them with medicine, food and bottles of water. Bob filling his with an extra set of clothes and other medical supplies. Once your bag was filled you quickly zipped it and then ran into your room to change into something else, and slipping on a pair of shoes.

Taking a solid minute to think about what was happening. Trying your hardest not to burst into tears. Leaning forward as your head started to spin, and you felt like you were going to be sick. Praying and hoping that this was all some kind of terrifying dream, and you would wake up safe in Bobs arms.

"Here." Bob blurted as he shoved something cold and hard in your hands.

"I've never shot a gun before." Looking at the dark gray steel weapon laying flat in your hands.

"Let's just hope you never have to." Not knowing whether he was telling you that or himself.

It seemed a little overdramatic having weapons, but judging on what you were hearing and seeing weapons were probably necessary. Besides Bob wouldn't just hand you a gun unless he absolutely thought you would need it to protect yourself. Especially if anything were to happen to him.

Setting the bags near the front door as you waited for Bob who grabbed yours and his phones. Bob taking one last look around the house making sure you guys didn't forget anything. Neither one of you knowing when you were going to be back if you would come back at all.

"Let's go baby military is moving in now." He looked up from his phone as you both grabbed a bag and headed to the truck outside.

Throwing your bags into the bed of the truck as you hopped inside. Bob starting the truck pulling out of the driveway and down the road. Looking around to see people loading their vehicles everyone with a look of panic on their faces not knowing what was gonna happen.

None of this felt real in your mind, and almost felt like it was some kind of drill. Maybe you and Bob were acting like everybody else, and just panicking for no reason. Maybe everything would die down in a few days. Or maybe things would only get worse and never end.

"Do you think we'll be able to make it?" You asked Chris after minutes of silence.

"I don't know sweetheart." His answer had your stomach churning. "But I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep us safe."

"How long are we gonna stay there for?"

"Until all of this blows over." Hearing the engine roar as he put his foot hard against the gas pedal.

"What if this never blows over?" Sniffling as a tear ran down your cheek.

"Then we'll stay together no matter what." Answering without hesitation.

"I love you Bob." His hand grabbed yours kissing your knuckles as he kept his eyes on the road.

"I love you too." Remaining calm was his man focus in order to help keep you calm so you didn't start to panic.

Neither one of you spoke the rest of the drive as you got closer to town. People yelling and screaming down the streets some people were even attacking others. If you weren't terrified before you were absolutely petrified now.

People were breaking into buildings, stores, shops, and pharmacies. Leaving them with handfuls of items running away nobody even attempting to stop them. It was pure madness and it was happening right in front of your eyes.

Hearing a loud rumble as you looked up to see a couple of helicopters flying over heading towards the center of town. Most likely military which means they were already in town blocking people from leaving. This was far more worse than you and Bob ever imagined.

Looking down one of the streets to see a military tank blocking anyone from leaving or entering. People filling the streets as they were begging and pleading to leave. Guns being drawn in their face to anyone who dared to get close enough.

"We'll go down this street avoid them as much as possible." Turning down another street that was empty.

"What if there at this safe house already?" Your mind going to worst case scenario.

"They won't." He snapped making you jump a little at his tone. "Besides he would have let us know and we'd go somewhere else."

That's when something started ringing in your ear, and that's when it hit you it was gunshots going off. You didn't want to look back, but you couldn't help it as you heard screams echoing around you.

Regrettably turning back watching as men opened fire on people bodies dropping to the floor, and blood filling the streets. Crying as you faced straight ahead Bob grabbing your thigh massaging it in comfort. Keeping his brave face on knowing exactly what was happening behind him.

He was going to protect you and keep you safe as long as he could. Even if it meant that he had to sacrifice himself to do so he would in a heartbeat. Your safety is a priority to him.

"Are we almost there?" You asked as he turned down a dirt road.

"Yeah baby less than a minute." Nodding his head as you rested your head against the head rest closing your eyes for a quick minute.

All you wanted to do in this moment was just sleep. Sleep and not wake up until all of this was over. Thinking that sleep would help calm your nerves, but in all reality all you would be able to do is just close them and not actually sleep.

Neither one of you prepared for anything like this, and never thought that you'd have to. You and Bob were clueless just like everybody else. The both of you were just going to have to take things one step at a a time, and hope things didn't take a turn for the worst.

"Baby we're here." Bob spoke softly your eyes opening slowly.

Looking forward as you saw a brick house straight ahead. The doors and window were sealed shut with some kind of steel. As Bob parked the car you both cautiously looked around. Everything was eerily quiet, and all you could hear was the sounds of the trees rustling, and the crickets chirping.

"Where is he?" You asked not seeing anyone.

"He's preparing the bunker." Looking over at Bob who was on his phone. "Said wait a minute and he'll be out."

"He's got a bunker hidden in this house?" Looking skeptically at the house raising your brows.

"Yep his old man left him this house." Bob turned to you. "Said it would take a lot more than a couple bombs to get through to this place."

"Gee that's comforting." Sighing out loud making Bob chuckle.

"It's better than being stuck out there baby." He did have a fair point there.

Which was the truth since it sounded like people were going crazy out there. If it meant staying in someone else’s bunker for a while to stay safe then that’s what you were going to have to do.

"God I hate when you're right." Grumbling as he grabbed your arm and pulled you close to him.

"Please you love it." Teasing you as he kissing your cheek multiple times.

"Just a little." Pressing your thumb and pointer finger together as you giggled.

"We're gonna be okay baby I can promise you that." Moving a hand up to your head stroking the back of it.

"I know you'll keep us safe." Pressing your hand against his both of you staring at each other.

A door creaked open catching both your attention as your focus now went to the opened door with a man standing in front of it. Bob hopping out of the car as you followed suit. Each grabbing a bag as you walked over to him. Eyeing the man with caution not knowing who he is.

Bob seemed to trust this man enough to do this, and you trusted Bob. Of all the people this guy could have called he chose Bob. Thanking your lucky stars that you would have some place to at least hide when all this is going down.

"Thank you for this Jake it means a lot." Bob patted the man on the back as he nodded.

"Bob this is my girl my wife Y/N." He introduced you the man glancing over to you. "Y/N this is an old very good buddy of mine Jake Seresin."

"The hell do you mean by old?" He scoffed cocking his head to the side.

"Your older than me." Bob joked as he punched his arm.

"Nice to meet you Y/N given the circumstances." Bowing his head down to which you gave a quick nod. "Alright let's head inside."

Following Jake inside the room it was practically empty. Expect for some desks and dressers that were opened and emptied. If you wouldn't have known better you would have thought this house was abandoned.

Your heart was starting to race a little bit more as you were being escorted around the house. Imagining a bunch of men running into the house with guns loaded ready to blow all of you sky high. Your breathing was becoming a little uneven and heavy.

Bob grabbed your hand in his noticing you were looking around and not really paying attention. Looking up at him as he gave you a weak smile and squeezed your hand. Silently telling you that everything was going to be okay.

Jake pulled back what looked like a bookshelf that revealed a metal door. Starting to feel a little hope and relief that things we're going to be okay with you both. Feeling a weight off your shoulders that you would both at least be sheltered.

"Just down these steps are where you'll both stay." He opened the steel door as Bob moved you in front of him hands on your shoulders.

Jake leading the way down a flight of steps turning on some fluorescent lights looking around to see steel walls. Multiples shelves stocked with food and water. Setting your bag down not noticing how dry your mouth was until you were staring at gallon jugs of water.

"This should last you both a couple months." Motioning around to all the food and water. "Here's where you two can sleep."

"And I even brought down some games so you two wouldn't die from boredom." Pointing to a shelf full of board games making Bob laugh. "Can't have any electronics on just in case there tracking."

"Which means turn your phones off." He requested as both you and Bob shut them down and threw them on the beds.

"What are you gonna do?" Bob asked Jake with concern and feeling bad you guys were taking over.

"Stay up top keep an eye on things." Shrugging his shoulders not sounding worried at all. "Make sure nobody gets in."

"Are you gonna be okay?" Bob not satisfied with that answer and worried for his friend.

"If I need you I'll holler brother." Jake joked both of them laughing while your face remained stoic.

"Jake thank you again for this." Bob praised with generosity.

"I would expect you to do the same thing for me." He responded smacking his arm with a grin.

"Absolutely brother." Bob shaking his hand with a loud clap.

"Do they know what kind of virus it is?" You spoke up both heads turning towards you.

"Yeah they do." He nodded his head as he looked down.

Neither you or Bob liked the way he said that or how his body language changed. Turning stiff and rigid like he just walked into something he didn't want to see. He stayed silent for a moment decided whether or not he wanted to tell you.

"What?" You pushed wanting an answer that he was hesitating on answering.

"The living dead."

#Robert Floyd #robert floyd imagines #robert floyd smut #robert floyd x reader #robert floyd fanfiction #robert floyd x female reader #robert floyd series #robert floyd fic #Lewis Pullman #Lewis Pullman smut #Lewis Pullman imagines #Lewis Pullman fanfiction #Lewis Pullman x reader #Lewis Pullman fic #Lewis Pullman x female reader

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tokkias · 1 year

Note

GOT AN IDEAA!! How about a fic where nalu messes around with the guild since im pretty sure atp everyone in the guild is atleast somewhat invested in their relationship.

I mean come on u can’t tell me those two don’t try to mess around with their friends once they get together.

Maybe a lil flirting here then quickly act all platonic and innocent. Yk just to kind of keep them on their toes and on the edge before revealing they’re officially in a relationship

thank you for your request, i had a lot of fun working on it! special thanks to @nalunalu for making sure i saw this one thru, but that also applies to most of the fics i write sooo. <3

Natsu was always a handsy guy. He was a man with no physical boundaries when it came to the people he was close to, so it was no surprise to anyone when he just couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of Lucy.

They were an inseparable duo; wherever Lucy was, Natsu was sure to be there too, never once keeping his hands to himself. It was always something—an arm slung around her shoulder, a hand on her thigh, his head resting in her lap. It wasn’t Natsu’s overzealous affection that left guild members scratching their heads, but rather the way Lucy seemed to indulge him in it.

It was no secret that certain guild members were interested in the couple's relationship; after all, Natsu had been a lone wolf until their fateful encounter, but now that girl had him following her around like a lost puppy. The two were the subjects of much gossip in the girls' dormitories, and of course that gossip tended to seep into conversation at the guildhall.

Natsu’s arms were wrapped around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder, as Lucy’s attention was planted firmly on the book open in front of her, seemingly paying no mind to the boy clinging to her side.

"I’m bored."

"Go bother someone else then," she told him, her eyes never leaving the pages of her book.

"Don’t wanna," he murmured, voice muffled as his lips dragged across the bare skin of her shoulder, "wanna hang out with you."

If the pair were aware of all the eyes on them, they didn’t acknowledge it, seemingly trapped in their own little bubble. Confused looks were shared between guild members because, well, that one was new. The action was gentle, romantic, almost, and Lucy didn’t even react to it, even though they were sitting right in the middle of the guild hall. In the past, something like that would have earned him a Lucy kick straight to the jaw, but instead her free hand just made its way into his hair, fingers mindlessly tangling through it as she continued to read.

A small group had gathered by the bar to inconspicuously watch the scene before them play out while hiding under the guise of a friendly discussion.

Mira let out a dreamy sigh as she pushed another drink over to Cana, "How romantic~"

"There is no way they’re not already fucking," Cana slurred, a little louder than necessary, causing a deep blush to cross Erza’s face.

"I don’t know," Levy pondered, "but I think Lu-chan would tell me if she and Natsu were dating."

"Don’t need to be dating for him to stick it in~"

Her comment elicited a giggle from Mira, but earned her a gentle elbow in the side from Lisanna.

"Shhh! Keep it down, Cana!" she scolded. "Even Lucy might hear you at this rate."

The group shared a not-so-subtle glance over at them, only to find the two in the exact position they had been in when they last checked, their attention fully planted on each other.

"I didn’t know Natsu could be so..." Erza paused, searching for the right words to describe the scene they had just witnessed, "tender...?"

Natsu had always been like a baby brother to Erza; she’d watched him grow up from a loud, reckless, and aggressive child into a loud, reckless, and aggressive adult, which made it all the more unusual to see this type of behaviour out of him. The sentiment was shared in murmurs amongst the girls, their attention turning away from the pair as they began to reminisce on the ways he had changed since Lucy had came into their lives.

"Luuccyyyy," Natsu drawled, all but poking her for her attention.

With a sigh, Lucy placed her book down and turned to face him.

"What?"

Natsu didn’t say anything before flashing her a goofy grin and leaning in to give her a soft kiss on the lips. She rolled her eyes slightly and gave him a light whack on the arm, but returned his smile with a fond one of her own.

The sweet moment was ruined for them, however, when Gray loudly choked on his drink, drawing all attention to him.

"What the fuck?" He choked out, trying to compose himself as he coughed and sputtered, "Did you guys just kiss?"

Those who weren’t paying attention before then certainly were now, and the group of gossips in the corner whipped their heads around, hoping to catch a glimpse of exactly what Gray was talking about. Expectant eyes moved to Natsu and Lucy, who were sat looking completely innocent to the accusation.

Lucy cocked her head to the side in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Yeah, why would I kiss Lucy?"

Gray’s mouth fell open at their reactions; he knew what he saw, but here they were, pretending like nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

"I don’t know!" He cried out, "You did it, not me!"

"I think you were just seeing things," suggested Lucy, with a confused expression on her face that didn’t quite overshadow the knowing glint in her eyes.

Natsu, he expected that from, but he thought better of Lucy to try and gaslight him. Whether or not they were didn’t matter anymore, because the two of them had just made him look like an idiot in front of the whole guild.

"Yeah, Lucy’s right, maybe you need to get your eyes checked or somethin’"

"Hey man, I know what I saw!"

His confidence had certainly wavered as a result of their genuine confusion, but he was not going to back down and let Natsu be right while everyone was watching.

Baffled glances were shared between the group of gossips at what had apparently played out in the mere minutes it had been since they looked away in favour of huddling together to hide their whispers from Natsu’s sensitive hearing. Gray sounded so confident in his accusation, and what motive would he have to lie about his teammates? But Natsu and Lucy were sat looking completely innocent, save for Natsu’s hand still resting around her waist.

Well, that was until he jumped out of his chair to throw himself at Gray, punching him square in the jaw and sending him to the floor. It was a mild, if not unique, reason to start a fight, but then again, there was hardly ever a need for one in Fairy Tail anyway. Lucy grabbed her book and ducked under the table when a chair went flying in her direction as others found themselves jumping in on the brawl, not caring much for the reason behind it.

The small bedside lamp was enough to light up the room while Lucy sat on her bed, flicking through the pages of her book. Natsu was comfortably sprawled out on the mattress with her, head resting in her lap and arms wrapped around her waist.

"Luuuccyyyy," Natsu whined, "When are ya gonna be done reading that book?"

"Well, I couldn’t finish it earlier because someone," she flicked his nose, "started a guild-wide brawl by kissing me."

"Hey, not my fault Gray can’t keep his eyes to himself," he shrugged.

Lucy shut her book, placing it on her nightstand, before looking down at her partner.

"You knew Gray was looking at us, didn’t you?"

"Yeah," he confirmed with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"So you kissed me because you wanted to start a fight?"

"Nah, I just thought it’d be funny to mess with everybody, getting to punch Gray was just a bonus," he grinned.

Any other time she might have scolded him and smacked him over the head for his behaviour, but she couldn’t pretend like she was exactly innocent in it all either, having taken at least a little spark of joy in screwing with Gray and the others. She wasn’t naïve to the investment their friends had in their relationship; they may have tried to be subtle about it today, but she had been on the receiving end of much teasing about her relations with Natsu in the past.

"They were gossiping about us again, weren’t they?" she asked, to which he confirmed with a nod.

Lucy let out a soft laugh, realising she should have known better to think otherwise. Her hand rested on his cheek, guiding him up towards her so she could place a soft kiss against his lips. Everyone else could talk all they wanted, but for now, this was just their little secret.

#fairy tail #nalu #mya writes things #long post #request

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silvrash-797 · 3 months

Text

@webhead3345 here's your Pre-LU ask!

Roll for stealth... (pt 1)

Day 17: hostage situation

Part 2 | Part 3

Read on ao3

“Link! Link, can you hear me?!” Riju's panicking voice crackled from Link's slate, and he glanced at his wolf companion before pulling it from his hip.

“Shhh, Riju, I can hear you. What’s the matter?”

“You must come to town, quickly! Buliara's been missing for days,” she sobbed, “I don’t know what to do!”

“It’s okay, Riju, take a deep breath,” Link soothed, and he heard a shuddering breath over their connection. “We’ll be there in just a few minutes, okay?”

“Yes, okay,” another breath, steadier this time, “Please hurry, Link.”

She severed the communication, and Link moved to his clothing inventory, changing into the vai set in a stream of blue light. He navigated to the slate’s map, then glanced down at his companion.

“Ready, Wolfie?” he asked. An affirming bark was all he needed. “Then let’s go.”

Link tapped the screen over the Daqo Chisay shrine, dissolving into a familiar stream of blue light.

Shortly after Link materialized, Wolfie emerged from his own black teleportation portal, shaking out his pelt as his paws settled on the warm sand. Link ran his hand through the thick ruff at his neck as they walked to the town's main entrance, grateful as always for Wolfie's companionship.

They made their way through town to the palace, noticing a subtle tension simmering throughout the population. The strings of tension all gathered at Riju, whom they could see pacing from across the palace.

In just a few great strides, Link placed himself in front of Riju, taking her by the shoulders and meeting her eye. “Rij, you’re scaring everyone. Breathe.”

“Link! You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry.” She took several deep breaths, the tension slowly bleeding from her shoulders as she calmed down.

“Now,” Link said, pulling her down to sit near one of the decorative ponds, smiling as Wolfie laid his head in her lap, “tell me what happened.”

Riju took one last deep breath before holding out a shaking hand. In it was a scrap of distinctive red paper, and Link's stomach sank.

Taking it carefully, he read the words scrawled across its surface.

We have taken your beloved guard hostage. Return the Thunder Helm to our keeping and she may be returned to you.

“The guards found that pinned to the outer wall just before you arrived,” Riju explained.

“I don’t like that wording,” Link chewed on his lip beneath his veil. “Buliara may be returned if you surrender the Thunder Helm to the Yiga, but there’s no guarantee.”

“That’s what has me so scared,” Riju admitted. “We can’t leave her with them, but the Thunder Helm is our heirloom. At no guarantee…” She took a deep, shaky breath, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do, Link.”

Link crouched on the floor, drawing her eyes to his. “I freed Barta the first time. I got the Helm back, too,” he reassured, “Leave this to me. I’ll have Buliara back by this time tomorrow.”

Riju threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. “Thank you, Link,” she whispered. “Please be careful.”

Link stood, nodding, then he and Wolfie made a beeline to the opposite side of town, where they rented one of Frelly's best-trained sand seals. It was still early evening when they left from the northwestern gate, beating an uneventful path towards Karusa Valley and the Yiga hideout.

They arrived at the base of the cliffs dominating the hideout as the moon was rising. Leaving the seal in the shadow of an overhang with some hydromelons, Link changed into his Sheikah stealth set, carefully and silently infiltrating the hideout, Wolfie padding at his side.

Link growled silently as he approached Barta's old cell, seeing it empty. The Yiga must be holding Buliara deeper in the base.

Understandable, but inconvenient.

Cautiously, Link and Wolfie made their way deeper and deeper, winding through corridors, hiding in alcoves, distracting with bananas as necessary until they came at last to a long hallway lined with barred cells. Water dripped somewhere nearby; the air smelled of mildew and rot.

Heart beating heavily in his chest, Link crept down the line of cells, seeing nothing inside until about halfway down – the giant Gerudo warrior was difficult to miss, crammed into a cell made for Hylians.

Link could tell Buliara had been hurt during her capture – large bruises and freshly scabbed over cuts could be seen all over her body, and the fading evidence of a black eye covered half her face. Despite all that, she was awake, glaring at him in distrust until he pulled his mask down, showing his face.

“Link,” she breathed, “why have you come?”

Link pulled the slate from his hip, using the magnesis rune to open the cell door as he responded. “Riju's been worried sick. She asked me to rescue you.” He finished fiddling with the rune and the door swung open on silent hinges. “Can you walk?”

Carefully, she unfolded herself from the cell, emerging into the corridor and stretching before she nodded. “Yes, Link, I can. Sarqso.”

“Don’t thank me just yet – we still have to get out of here…and you’re going to be rather difficult to hide.” He gave her a small, apologetic grin. “Sorry.”

“Do not apologize, little voe. I was not entirely conscious, but I do recall the difficulty I gave the Yiga scum when they imprisoned me. Do you have a plan?”

“Half of one, I think. All we really can do is try to sneak back the way we came. If they catch us, run like mad for the entrance – I left my sand seal at the base of the cliffs outside the hideout, so as long as we can get you out, you can take it back to Gerudo town.”

Buliara looked at him in concern, “And what about you, little voe?”

‘As long as I have my slate I can teleport to the shrine outside of town, I’ll be fine.”

Wolfie suddenly began to growl, staring further into the prison, and Link took that as their cue. “Time to go.”

He began to lead the way back out of the base, and with a lot of luck – and nearly all his bananas as distractions – they made it back to Barta's cell without incident.

“Last room,” he signed as they entered the narrow hallway. Buliara nodded.

FWEEEEEEET!

The piercing whistle stopped them in their tracks. Link's heart jumped into his throat at the deep chuckle of Yiga blademasters, watching as several imposing silhouettes appeared before them in puffs of red paper and smoke. The high cackle of Yiga footsoldiers sounded behind them and Link whirled around, trying to see how many Yiga they were surrounded by.

It was not an encouraging number.

He turned back to the blademasters when one of then spoke. “The Hero of Hyrule,” he sneered, “come to meddle once again.”

He drew his Windcleaver, pointing it at Link's neck. “It wasn’t enough that you murdered our leader? Now you must come and interfere with our prisoners.”

A few taps at his slate and Link was in his Hylian armor set, his own captured windcleaver in hand, held lightly at his side despite its weight. “Let us pass,” he demanded, with much more confidence than he truly felt, “I’ve bested your clan once before, and I will do it again.”

“Not a chance, Hero,” the blademaster hissed, closing ranks with his fellows. “We will eliminate the threat to our Lord Ganon, and be heralded as heroes in our own right!”

Link widened his stance, holding the windcleaver ready to charge, feeling his stamina slowly drain as he fed power to the blade. He consciously held Urbosa’s Fury back, not wanting Buliara or Wolfie to be injured in the close quarters. “You leave me no choice,” he whispered, then turned slightly to make eye contact with his companions. “Buliara, RUN!” he shouted, releasing the charge attack, sending out a massive wave of air that bowled over the blademasters in front of them.

She pushed past him, shouldering the stumbling guards out of the way. Link turned, catching a footsoldier's demon carver on his blade before it could slam into his side.

“Wolfie!” he called, releasing another charge attack to give himself some space, “Go with her! Make sure she gets back okay!”

His companion whined, teeth bared in defiance. A growl rumbled deep in the wolf's throat.

“GO!” Link shouted, switching his Windcleaver for the Master Sword and Hylian shield. “I’ll be fine!” He parried an attack from a vicious sickle, rushing in to press the advantage against the staggering soldier.

He heard Wolfie whine again, but then an affirming bark sounded along with receding pawsteps. Link let the focus of battle – block, thrust, dodge, parry, slash, flurry rush! – sweep over him, until an unseen sickle broke through his guard, carving a long gash across his right bicep.

Instantly, his focus was lost, and he gasped at the crippling numbness spreading across the limb. He tried to raise his shield to parry a demon carver but missed the timing, the weapon coming through and leaving a deep cut across his chest.

Breath coming high and fast, Link tried to keep up with the fight, but the tide had turned out of his favor. Before he knew it, the Master Sword had shattered in his hand, his shield was knocked from his grasp, the slate was torn from his hip, and his arms were pinned tight behind his back as a pair of footsoldiers forced him to his knees.

The sharp tip of a Windcleaver jabbed into the soft skin of his throat, forcing his head up to meet the emotionless glare of a blademaster's mask. “You’re ours now,” he chuckled darkly. “Good night, Hero.”

A sharp impact rang through his brain, and Link knew nothing more than pain.

#SilvrAsh writes #febuwhump #day 17 #pre-LU #botw link #botw riju #lu wolfie #tw hostage situation #will be continued tomorrow

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avirael · 7 days

Text

Stuck on Repeat

He wanted to scream.

To scream and to cry and to be anywhere but here. But the best A’viloh could do was try not to tremble and instead follow Rael‘s example, who - despite the fact of being shackled and pushed around - still maintained a certain stubborn grace. He wished he knew how they did that.

What exactly was going on? A‘viloh wasn’t sure of that yet and it would take a while for him to process all of this. Everything had happened so fast. Suddenly the sultana had gasped for air, her goblet falling to the ground along with herself, soaking the expensive carpet with its dark red content. While A‘viloh had only stared in shock, Rael had immediately jumped up and was by Nanamo‘s side only split seconds after she collapsed. The next moment there had been guards everywhere and also that mean Lalafell accusing them of regicide. They had barely been able to say anything before the guards had grabbed them both, checked them for weapons and tied up their hands.

Now, as the door in front of them opened, the soldier behind A‘viloh gave him a rough push. The miqo‘te winced and stumbled forward into the room filled with people, all eyes on him. He lost his balance and with his hands tied behind his back, he landed rather ungracefully on the hard, cold stone tiles. His head started to spin, his vision began to blur, his heart was racing. It was all just too much and also too late to stop the memories that had buried their ugly dark claws deep in his mind. Miserably he gasped for air.

Rael hadn’t fallen but still knelt down and leaned towards him, wanting to make sure he was alright. „A‘vi! Please stay calm. I’m trying to find a way to get us out of this…“, the viera managed to whisper before someone pulled them away.

A’viloh still struggled to sit up and at the same time tried desperately to see where Rael had gone, when someone grabbed one of his arms and a handful of his hair and yanked him into a kneeling position. He pressed his eyes shut and tried to breathe, tried to not let the fear and the memories overwhelm him, but a small whimper still made it past his lips. He fought against his own mind, racing and about to shut itself off from all of this.

„Stop it!“, Rael hissed angrily. What else than complain could they do with their hands tied behind their back. The brass blade turned his attention to the viera instead of A’viloh. „Shut up!“, the man growled and struck Rael across the face with the back of his hand. They gasped and when they looked up again a moment later, with a mix of shock and indignation on their face, their lower lip was split and bloody.

Ashamed A’viloh stared to the ground and tried to pretend that this wasn’t his fault while the voices and turmoil around him faded to the background. Instead his mind was filled with questions and fears. Would they be executed? Thrown in jail? What had happened to Nanamo? Would their friends at least get out of this with their lifes, if Rael and him were made responsible?

Suddenly something touched his shoulder and pulled him out of his thoughts. A’viloh gave an alarmed shriek.

„Shhh!“, Rael shushed him, leaning their shoulder against his. Worried they glanced at him. „You were gone for a moment weren’t you?“ A’viloh didn’t answer but that wasn’t necessary. Rael sighed deeply. „Give me your hands. Maybe I can loosen the knots…“

Working behind their backs Rael tried their best but it was impossible. The angle was bad, they didn’t see what they were doing and the knots were simply too tight. On their own the two of them would never make it out of their ties. “Seven hells!”, Rael cursed. “I would sooner chew through these things than get that knot open!”

It was a funny imagination and under different circumstances A’viloh would maybe have laughed about it. Instead he turned to look at them and offered a sad smile. “It’s alright. At least you tried…I’m sorry about your lip.”

The viera looked surprised and then shook their head. “Don’t worry. I can fix that.”

Suddenly the turmoil around them got even worse. A’viloh only now noticed the screams and the fighting. “What’s happening?”

“Raubahn killed Adeledji. Tried to kill Lolorito too. Panic broke out and now he is fighting Ilberd. But I honestly don't think he has a chance...”

As if to confirm this, one of the giant stone pillars exploded under a heavy misaimed hit and through the cloud of dust and rubble Raubahn was hurled through the air and landed right beside them. With a swift movement of his blade he cut their ties and only then as he stood up, rubbing his wrists, A’viloh noticed that the Flame General was missing an arm.

But there was no time to question how that had happened and what else he might have missed while dissociating. Confidently as ever Raubahn spoke up saying that he never doubted them or the Scions and that they should flee. A’viloh was still to dazed to argue against that and so let Rael pull him along, to Minfilia and the others and then out of the palace.

As they hurried down the stairs of the Royal Promenade Thancred ran towards them and with a sudden peng of guilt A’viloh realised that he had been so shaken until now that he hadn’t even noticed yet that the Hyur hadn’t been with them. Thancred warned them that Lolorito’s soldiers had already taken control of all important points in the city and that it would be impossible to just walk out through the city gates. Luckily he offered another plan. Rumours about very old secret passages leading out of the city and luckily he knew how to get there.

But just as they wanted to leave the heavy steps and yells of the brass blades got closer.

“Go ahead! I’ll handle this!”, Yda exclaimed and turned towards the soldiers.

Papalymo made an incredulous face. “By yourself?! …I suppose I shall just have to join you.”

Rael offered to help them too. Papalymo and the viera could cause quite the destruction together that was certain but the thought of leaving any of them behind made A’viloh sick. There had to be a different way. One were all of them got out of here together.

“Don’t!”, he croaked and hated how his voice sounded a lot quieter and squeakier than he had intended. Had anybody heard him at all? But before he could say anything else or before Rael could join Yda and Papalymo, the Lalafell shot a fireball at the mechanism that held the palace gate open and with a roaring sound it crashed down and cut of the path between the two of them and the rest of the group. It would give them some time but neither Minfilia nor A’viloh seemed to be willing to leave without their friends. Helplessly and pleading the Miqo’te reached through the bars with one arm and stretched out a hand towards his friends. A’viloh and Yda had quickly befriended each other after meeting for the first time. They had spent a lot of time training together and Yda had soon become one of his dearest friends among the Scions. The thought that something could happen to her was unbearable for him. “Yda! Please!”

But the girl laughed at him and locked her fingers with his for a second. “Don’t worry, A’vi! We’ll see you later!” Confidently she smiled at him before she let go of his hand and turned back around to face the soldiers that had almost caught up to them.

The others called out for them and reluctantly Minfilia and A’viloh followed. There was nothing else they could do now apart from making Yda’ and Papalymo’s efforts worth it and get out of here before more soldiers appeared.

In a haste they ran through the decorated corridors of the palace district and luckily the entrance to the secret passage was exactly were Thancred had suspected it to be. The tunnels were bigger and more complex than A’viloh would have thought and for quite a while they ran through dusty old corridors trying to find the right way that would lead them out of the city.

After a while the echoes of yells and footsteps appeared again and unlike them their pusuers seemed to know the ways down here. They tried to hurry but in no time the voices were coming closer and closer.

“I will stop them.”, Y’shtola exclaimed and abruptly stood still, making everyone else pause for a moment as well. “You go on ahead!”

“No…”, A’viloh protested, he wasn’t willing to leave any more people behind. But Thancred nodded. “Then I will stay too! It would be rude to let you fight alone…”

“No! This is all wrong!”, A’vi repeated a little more loudly. “Let me and Rael fight them, we can defeat them surely.”

Y’shtola shook her head. “Not that many of them…” and Thancred agreed, “The two of you are far too important to get captured...” He didnt say or worse but it was clearly there.

“But…” A’viloh wanted to protest but what was there to say? So he just helplessly stared from one of them to the other. Instead Rael nodded. “Alright!”

“No! Nothing’s alright!”, A’viloh exclaimed pleadingly. „There has to be another way!“

“No, there isn’t.” Thancred said and put his hands on A’viloh’s shoulders. „Listen! There is no time. You have to get out of here, do you hear me? And you have to get Minfilia to safety. Look at me A’vi!“

He slightly shook him and despite the closeness between them A’vi did as he was told.

“Can you promise me that? To get yourself and Minfilia to safety?”, the Hyur asked with a serious voice.

Pleadingly A’vi stared at Thancred’s face wondering if it would be the last time he was going to see it. He hadn’t stopped shaking since Ilberd’s soldiers had put him in chains but now it got worse again. Nonetheless he nodded slightly.

“Good.“ Thancred said and nodded too, but hesitated to let go of him.

A strange expression appeared on his face, one A’viloh never had seen on him before. A mixture of doubt and maybe fear? Thancred sighed and muttered “Just in case…“ more to himself than anybody else but A’vi was close enough to hear it anyway.

A’viloh hadn’t expected at al what happened next. Before he even realised it, Thancred had leaned down, closed the gap between them and kissed him. He was too shocked to react, too confused as well, so he just let it happen. Weirdly this made him feel better but also hopelessly sad at the same time. What was he doing here? This was crazy! Maybe he would later curse himself for allowing this or he would wish he hadn’t wasted this moment like this but before he had figured out how to feel or to react the moment was over. Thancred pulled back a little and looked like he already regretted either what he did or simply having to let him go. Or maybe that was just how A'viloh felt himself. “Consider this my lucky charm…“, the hyur whispered, barely audible, and weakly smiled at him.

Then he pushed A’vi away, as gently as the urgency of the situation allowed, and spoke up louder to all of them.

„Now, get out of here!“

„No!“, the Miqo’te whimpered, his hands tried to hold on to Thancred’s arm but he ignored him and looked at Rael instead. „Get them out of here, please. I’m counting on you.“

The viera looked annoyed, more than usually, but nodded without a word and only when A’vi felt their hands at his arms pulling him away, he realised they were all still here watching him. At any other occasion he would have felt horribly embarrassed now but all he could think of right now was that he couldn’t leave all of his friends behind here to fight, and possibly die, while he fled to safety. He didn’t want to run any longer. But Rael seemed to share Thancred’s opinion.

“Come on, A’vi. We can’t waste time now. Every single soldier in this twelves-forsaken city is after us now, we can’t fight our way out of this. There’s no way to set this right if we don’t get out of here first.”, they explained as calmly as they could in this situation, then grabbed A’vi’s hand and dragged him along as they ran. A’viloh followed on stumbling feet but only because his body had long since stopped listening to anything his brain screamed at him. Stop! Go back! Fight!

Rael’s words made sense but still… weakly he tried to look back and see what was happening behind them but then Rael and Minfilia took a turn into another tunnel and he lost sight of Y’shtola and Thancred. For another while he just numbly let the viera pull him along until they abruptly stopped at an intersection.

“There is light! The exit must be right around that corner!”, Rael announced pointing to one of the tunnels.

Minfilia nodded. “I think so too. But I have somewhere else to go. Hydaelyn speaks to me, I have to stay behind but you two, you cannot stay with me.”

Rael shook their head: “We promised to protect you and I don’t plan to break that promise.”

Minfilia smiled kindly.

“I release you from this promise. Instead promise me to flee and clear our names for us! You are the only ones who can do this. I have a different task to fulfil. Please, you must go on! You are the Warriors of Light! You are hope - for the Scions, and for all the realm! As long as your flame continues to burn, the light of the dawn may ever be relit! You must escape, and save Eorzea from those who would plunge it into darkness! This is the only way...”

Rael grimaced but nodded. “Fine…”

A’viloh on the other hand just weakly shook his head. Words had long failed him and with every minute all of this felt more and more like it was happening to someone else and not him. Like all of this couldn’t be real. Like it was a horrible, weird dream that he would wake up from every second now! How had everything escalated so fast?

Minfilia saw his expression and put her arms around him in a tight hug. “Don’t blame yourself for this, A’vi. None of this is your fault. Everything will be alright, I promise.“

Then she ran in the opposite direction and all A’viloh could do was watch her vanish in the maze of tunnels.

After a few seconds Rael took his hand again and A’vi snapped back to attention watching the Viera’s free hand point towards the light. “Let’s go, the exit is right there.”

But A’viloh refused, even if his voice was nothing but a weak whisper. “No, please go alone. I’ll follow Minfilia. Someone has to protect her.”

Rael growled. “Were you listening at all? Do you want all of this to be in vain? I know this is difficult for you, but so it is for me!“

“But-“, A’viloh tried to protest but Rael looked like they almost wanted to hit him and angrily yelled at him. “I want you to be safe too, you know?! I would gladly stay behind and fight if it meant you and the other’s were safe but the best we can do now is run!”

Before A’vi could say anything else a deafening crash sounded through the tunnels. Alarmed they both stared back the way they came. The walls and the floor seemed to tremble and a roaring sound echoed down the tunnel and came closer and closer.

“Oh no!”, Rael gasped. “The ceiling is coming down! We have to get out of here! Now!”

“The ceiling?!”, A’vi shrieked. “But what of the others? We need to — Let go of me!!”, he protested as Rael tried to drag him out of the tunnel.

“It’s too late now, A’vi. Please!”, the viera pleaded but A’vi struggled and screamed. They almost wouldn’t have made it out in time. Just as the cloud of dust and rubble hit the protective barrier Rael had summoned up to shield them they were catapulted backwards by a burst of magic the last few meters out of the ruins and into the late afternoon sun.

Both of them coughed from the dust and it took a moment until they could see anything again. The entrance to the tunnels had collapsed entirely, lots of small and bigger pieces of stones lay in a huge pile in front of what was barely recognisable as the tunnel entrance anymore.

Shocked A’vi stared at the rubble for a few seconds before he began to scream again. Quickly he jumped up and tried to get the stones out of his way, to find a way back in, but of course it was hopeless. The old broken stones were too many and too heavy for him. They wouldn't give in to his pleading. "No! Please, no..."

As calm and soothing as they could Rael took his hands and spoke to him. “A’vi. Not now. There’s nothing we can do now…”

Slowly he let Rael turn him around. He looked at the viera, his eyes filled with tears, before he wordlessly threw his arms around the Rael‘s neck. „I‘m so sorry…“

Rael shook their head. „Not your fault…“

A’viloh didn’t answer to that. Instead he sullenly looked at Rael for a moment before he dared to ask, „Do you think they are dead.“

Rael sighed and then grimaced. „I’m not gonna lie to you, A’vi. I honestly don’t know, but it really doesn’t look good…“

The Miqo’te just nodded weakly, the corner of his mouth twitching for a second. He appreciated the honesty but he had hoped for something a little more reassuring.

Rael carefully squeezed his shoulder. „But maybe they aren’t. We will figure that out, I promise. But first we have to proof that we did NOT kill Nanamo... We should really go now…“

„Thank you. I would be lost without you…“, A’viloh muttered and followed Rael along the railroads leading towards Blackbrush station, defeated and disheartened. Silently he wondered if there was a safe place now for them at all and how they possibly could manage to clear their names…

#ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv writing #ff14 screenshots #ffxiv screenshots #ffxiv gpose #gpose #a'viloh tia #rael hyskaris #good luck if you decide to read all this rambling! 🙈#I’ve been rewriting this thing over and over for weeks now!#or probably months even...#I was unsure how obviously I can make this a mirror of A’vi’s past without making it seem like he didn’t evolve at all #He’s clearly out of his mind here but if he wasn’t I’m sure there wouldn’t be a way to keep him from fighting alongside the others.#And then there’s the kiss! What was I thinking?!#Apart from the fact that I can’t write stuff like this I mean...#I was so unsure if I wanted it to happen like this but in the end I came to the conclusion that this would probably be very in-character.#It’s not romantic because how would it possibly be?#I imagine this is just another stupid overly dramatic ARR-Thancred thing!#He does this with good intentions but in reality it makes things worse than better... oops!#It is what it is is now! I don't know how to write this bastard and it shows haha...#I don’t even know where I’m going with this. tbh I just hope I can make sense of this along the way 😂#the pictures have the prettiest outfit I have for A’vi. maybe ther would have been something more fitting but I forgot to look up options🙈#Imagine Rael braided his hair a little more fancy than here. maybe with flowers or jewels.#just imagine he looks really insanely pretty alright? 🥰#but he also feels very weak and defenceless here without any armor or weapon to protect himself #please also imagine Rael in these pictures 🙈#HW will be more about Rael I promise! 😅

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