#Magic AU

[lynette-mirror]

Read RIGHT -> LEFT

magic academy au. warning: pathetic simp joker

Due to the 10 page limit I'm splitting this up into 3 parts.

this was an idea I had after reading yet another villainess otome manga. I don't actually know what makes this a fantasy AU, I just can't draw modern buildings. I do have some ideas involving potion shenanigans and magical dates for the future.

Anyway there isn't a direction to this. I wanted some short context to future random scenarios but then it turned into 23 pages so I am either bursting with ideas (unlikely) or very bad at getting to the point

Part 2 ->

#persona 5 #p5r #goro akechi #akeshu #shuake #ren amamiya #akira kurusu #magic au

[peachesofteal]

Mermaids

Simon Riley masterlist

Simon Riley/mermaid!reader 8.2k words - AO3 Warnings-tags: 18+ Minors DNI. Dark themes. Magical beings eating human hearts. Magic. Blood, Violence. Explicit sex. Blood kink. Breeding kink. Creampie. Dubious consent. Possessive Simon Riley. "And with your mermaid hair and your teeth so sharp, you crawled from the sea to break that sailor's heart" - F+TM

It begins early this year.

Earlier than usual, when your hunting ground in the mortal world was just starting to turn green, shaking its frosted and frozen branches free to make room for bright blooms and emerald leaves. Just as the steps of Brighton Pier changed from ice slick ledges to waterlogged, weeping wooden planks, and human clothing shifted from long coverings that protected their fragile membranes from the bitter wind to soft and flowing fabrics that allowed their bodies to breathe.

This time of the year the mortal world was alive. Full of rebirth and growth, strong and vibrant.

Vibrant, like the song that began early this year, the frequency echoing deep below the water’s surface to where you waited for its pull. The siren song of a true treasure, far beyond any other, the melody of your chosen, the ebb and flow of the rhythm that is not unlike the sea. The siren song of a mortal’s heart, the cacophony able to reach you and your sisters far below the swell and crash of the ocean, far beyond where the light ceases, the melody possessing the ability to pull you to the surface once a year.

Once a year, to hunt.

One a year, to dance and drink and fall in love, if only for a night.

Once a year, to sacrifice a human heart.

Your eldest sister holds you tight to her body in an embrace as the sun rises. Elegant fingers fuss with your hair, smoothing and tugging and pulling, a vain attempt at taming something wilder than her own heart. Her face is grim, a black void that reflects no joy or excitement, just dread. It is a mirror of yourself. It is a pain that you know too well.

“What bothers you?”

You are the last two left on the beach. The others have all gone, eager to stretch their legs and seek their own songs, the trill of the blood bubbling up in their veins, their bodies pulled like magnets to the source. One heart, one song, one human male for each sister, poor mortals who have no idea what awaits them today, their ignorance bliss on the last night of their lives. Your sisters, as well as you, all live for this night. The joy of the love, the thrill of the hunt, the taste of the ichor that sustains you. The anticipation of this night fills your dreams with swirls of violent songbird chords and sweet melodies of affection. It is all you talk about for cycles, leading up to the day when you leave the water at sunrise and your tail shifts and shatters to reveal two very human looking legs.

“I am weary.” She tells you plainly, an announcement that does not come as a surprise. You have watched how she fades. Watched her linger in the darkness of the caves, watched her float lifelessly on slow currents, gaze hollow, vigor lost. “My song is faint.” She pushes further, holding your hand tightly as she releases you from her embrace. “I think I may not take a heart this year.” But we must. Must we? It was a question unanswered, but one that plagued you both. How else could you live, if not for these sacrifices?

“You would choose to die.” You surmise and she gives you a curt nod, as if it is obvious. As if her admission does not rattle you down to your very bones. Perhaps you too, one day, would make this choice. Would choose not to hunt. Choose not to love and lose. The notion pains you, fills you with sorrow as it has for many, many years. This was not an unknown feeling, even though you still experienced the joy, the bliss of your hunting, of the harvesting, you still felt the pang of loss every time, stronger and stronger as the years ticked by.

“It aches now, knowing I will fall in love this night, just for it to end as the sun rises.” The sea crashes onto the beach behind the two of you, and her lips part with a smile before she leans in to graze a kiss along your cheek. “Happy hunting, my sister.”

The song encourages you onward, leading you through a maze of streets and buildings while the sun rises and lingers in the sky. You comb the city for your male, following the electric hum of the song through alleys and neighborhoods, stopping to enjoy the day, your one day on land, as often as you can. You relish in the things that are rare for you, the taste of coffee and human food, the smell of flowers in the park, the feel of grass on the bare pads of your feet. The dress you’ve chosen flutters in the breeze, allowing the cool air to caress your skin softly, and the sun beams down on your exposed limbs, warming you under its light as you indulge in mortal world. It is nice, you decide while you bask in its rays, to feel the sun as humans do. Such spoiled creatures, being so close to something that gives so much life.

That same sun begins to sink lower behind the skyline and you’re still mindlessly gazing at small insects and diving birds when your heart trills, the force of the song slamming between your ribs, a smattering of warning bells going off within you. He’s close, your blood croons, so, so close. The incessant rattle, the insistent pull is enough to bring you to your feet and anxiously smooth the wrinkles of your clothing, eyes darting wildly around while you hunt for the source, feet flying beneath you. So close, so close. 

You come to a stop in front of a pub where a black door is propped open, music and revelry echoing from inside. Here. He’s here. The supersonic vibrato that hums in your own blood draws you into the dimly lit bar, and you hear the song in his veins grow even stronger when you step through across the threshold. He is not hard to find, this close, and your magic strings out before you, weaving and seeking past the bodies that dance closely on the floor, each as desperate for one another as you have grown for your mortal and his song.

 He stands in the back, half covered by shadow, the dark pitch of the room matching his clothes and the mask he wears over most of his face. Everything about him is bigger than the males that have called to you in the past, his height, his arms, the width of his shoulders, even the feeling of him in this place. Everywhere you venture, every spot you position yourself in, you feel his eyes on you. He is unusual, and watches, from his vantage point, his companions, other humans, the bartender.

You perch atop a barstool on the opposite side of the room to study him. His eyes carry a ferocity, a heaviness of emotion that stirs the blood running through your own veins until it is pounding in your ears. The severity of him nearly intimidates you, the level of his awareness, the pools of his amber rich brown eyes occasionally flicking over to where your fingers wrap around a glass of beer, the heat of his gaze searing away at your skin underneath the dress. The mask confuses but does not caution you, and your own heart now beats in time with his due to your proximity. Handsome. You muse to yourself, caught up in tracing the outline of his cheekbones. Beautiful, in a dark way. 

There is something about him. Something ruinous, something different. Something you cannot name.

It is of no consequence. You are the huntress. You will have your prize, your immortality, the taste of his heart on your tongue. His death becomes your life. His love, his heart, becomes yours, for eternity.

But how nice, might it be, to keep this one? It is an impossible thought, a dreamless idea, but one that still crosses your mind. The fantasy of falling in love for eternity, of having more than one night, more than the blood and violence that follows, more than the loss that would sustain you. If it were to be one, you know you’d choose this one. Your thoughts stray to your sister for a moment, imagining her alone beneath the surface, mourning the centuries of life she has lived, the centuries of love she has lost. Did she know this feeling? This hopelessness, this despair. Your lips tug downward as you consider her words. It aches. It aches, knowing I will fall in love this night, only for it to end as the sun rises. Gloom washes through you, your own yearning itching inside your soul, your desperation for your human itching at your skin. It aches. It aches, it ach-

“Hello.” Someone says from behind you, a deep, distinct voice, and you snap upwards, straightening your posture to turn into the body that crowds you. You jerk backwards on the stool when you realize how close he is, the action unsettling you from your seat, and you slip forward, nearly falling free from your wooden perch. Balance on land is difficult, and yours is perpetually off, a skill you've never mastered. A massive hand wraps around your elbow to right you, gently steadying you, and your jaw goes slack when you finally look up.

It's him. 

“Hi.” You smile, trying to recover from your less than graceful impression. Your heart thunders in your chest, and the melody inside him screams for you.

“I’m Ghost.” He motions to your mostly empty beer and raises his completely barren one in return. “Buy you another?”

The indulgent smile that scrawls across your face is practically involuntary as you give your answer.

“Sure.”

His name isn’t Ghost, but he keeps his true name close and won’t give it to you. You give him a nickname, one you usually use on land, and he doesn’t bat an eye, even when you tell him it’s a pet name and not your real one with a wink. The name Ghost doesn’t strike you as odd, after learning what he does, why he keeps it tucked away, and you marvel at him while he tells gives you bits and piece of himself, occasionally peeling his mask up to drink. He’s a solider, a Lieutenant in a special task force, some of which he happens to be out with tonight. He likes bourbon, specifically from a certain region in America, and he smells like the forest. You lean closer, completely unable to stop yourself, inhaling as deeply as you can, breathing in the mossy, earthy, green scent that hovers in the air around him. It was heady, and endless, and wrapped you in a dizzying cocoon of memories that you couldn’t place, but clearly envisioned. Forests, teeming with life and glowing chartreuse from top to bottom, oceans with aquamarine waters, shallow pools for you to bathe in under the sun, the water crisp and cold, your skin eagerly soaking it up its potent brine. Sapphire skies, the beaches stretching on and on, their seas fathomless, their bounties endless. You push closer, nosing as near as you can to his skin and take a lungful of the air. Strange. You knew humans wore things to mask or change their scents, but had never encountered one so… affecting.

“Alright, love?” He brushes the lightest contact of his fingers against yours, and you straighten, eyes ducking down in embarrassment.

“Yes, sorry. I- I was… distracted.”

Unusual indeed. 

One drink turns to many, and you carefully note how Ghost’s posture becomes more relaxed, shoulders less tense as the two of you indulge. He continues to surveil the room, observing and cataloguing, and you find it dangerously appealing, how in tune he is to his surroundings. How vigilant. Your hand lays gently on his thigh when you can no longer hold off the desire for physical touch, and he inclines his head to speak above your ear, the warmth of his cheek behind the fabric pressed casually to your head.

“D’ya want to go somewhere else?” Yes. You nod, and he motions to his group before excusing himself, his large body cutting a path through the packed room like he’s parting the sea.

You note the couplings around the bar as Ghost approaches his companions, leaning down to speak to one who is seated, legs spread wide on a faux velvet chair. He has a mohawk, and cerulean blue eyes that trace you from head to toe after Ghost begins to walk back towards where you're seated. You break the eye contact hastily, observing the others, pity pulling on your heart strings over a distraught female who sits in a corner, watching another with longing. The state of her broken heart is written all over face, her body rife with grief. The object of her affection, another stunningly beautiful female, dances with a different mortal, her artfully woven hair spiraling from her shoulders in tune to the way she moves her body. They have it so hard, you think. The song does all the work for us. You never have to woo your mortals, just provide them with the opportunity to find you. The song pushes them to seek you out, drives them to near madness unless they are in your company. They don’t always love you back, as you love them, certainly. But you never have to vie for their attention, never have to posture for their affection.

A large hand takes yours, warm and beating with the pulse of his heart, the rhythm of the song.

“Ready?” You open your mouth to say yes but nothing comes out, and the feeling of dread, the ache swamps you for a passing second. I think I may not take a heart this year. All you can do is nod.

As he leads you through the crowd, you cannot help but reach forward with your free hand and clasp onto the dancing woman. She pauses, eyes lighting wantonly when she sees you, but you push a sprinkle of magic through her, sparking desire in the base of her consciousness for the mournful dove in the chair.

You don’t look back at either of them as you leave, and silently pray to no one that they find happiness in love, that they relish it and keep one another, if only for you.

You bring him to the beach, as is your custom. It was where you felt safest, closest to the ocean, it’s where your power felt most pure should you need it, should something go wrong. You shiver at the thought, shoving down the memories that threaten your balance, and you clutch Ghost’s hand.

“Come down here often?” He inquires and you shrug, a response you know mortals are fond of.

“I like it here.” You offer, and he hums in acknowledgement. You tug him towards the overhang of the pier, where the shadows will shield you, where no one dares to venture. The only light comes from the moon, it’s silver glow glittering dimly through worn wooden pier slats, and you watch it catch his eye, his pupil expanding and contracting as you step closer and closer. “I want to kiss you.” you implore. “Will you remove your mask?” The song. You’re depending on the song to help you with this, depending on his desire, the power of the melody in his veins to urge him to comply with your request, and when he tilts his head like he’s considering you, you hold your breath.

It happens quickly. He removes the mask in a fluid motion, and then his lips are upon yours, hot and seeking, tongue exploring your mouth while yours opens for him, your body clenching with dizzying desire at the feel of his touch against your skin. 

“I knew it.” You gasp when you pull away and trace the fine point of a fingernail down his jaw. “I knew you were breathtaking under there.” He chuckles.

“Happy you think so.”

Your mouths melt together as he holds you around the waist, your bodies getting closer and closer until you can feel the hardness of his cock in his jeans, feel the scorching heat of him through his clothes. You are desperate for this mortal, your desire to feel him moving inside of you nearly as strong as the lust you feel to taste his heart. You sink to the sand together, a dance of limbs and movements that have you panting astride him when he settles, propped up on his elbows.

“Simon.” He says mid breath. “That’s my name. Want ya to have it.” Simon. 

“Simon.” You whisper it, and he nods before pulling you back to him, two large palms cradling your face like you’re a delicate creature. It makes you feel special, makes you feel cherished, like you’re something gentle to be treasured, and not a monster out for his life. You kiss him tenderly, one more time, as softly as you can manage, your heart trembling inside your chest, before your teeth bite into his lip, the ferocious intensity of the act returned by him, his mouth meeting yours full force. You bite again, and this time his flesh gives way, bright, mineral rich blood bubbling from the tiny cut and you eagerly lap at it, the ichor coating your tongue and exploding across your senses. He laughs, the echo of it rumbling deep in his chest, and you place your hand against his heart greedily, the vigor of its beating nearly making your eyes roll back into your head. The length of his cock throbs between your legs, where only the fabric of his jeans separates you, and you rut against him helplessly. Sparks ignite between you, your body shuddering when his hands hook into your hip, strong grip guiding your movements against him. Your magic swells inside of you, and your head spins.

Take him, take him. Take his heart, take his song. Have him, his love, his heart, for eternity, forever. 

You push him onto his back, dress rucked up around your hips, fabric pooling around the two of you.

“I want you.” you tell him, fingers fussing with his clothes, encouraging him to strip his shirt free and then unbutton his jeans. It’s messy, uncoordinated, and sloppy but you can’t find a care. You’re too filled with want, overflowing with desire for your mortal, your desperation mounting as he stills you, tracing a finger over your ribs and then down your pubic bone to where your slick, silken folds wait to be touched.

“Simon.” you whisper his name again, the word close to begging, and he shushes you, swirling a finger down where you’re leaking, circling the swollen bud of your clit with agonizing strokes that fill your senses with electricity.

“Shhh. I know what you need.” He soothes, and deftly pushes a finger inside of you, stroking along your walls. You shiver, face dropping into the crook his neck, and he turns his head so that the soft puff of his breath wafts over your skin as you whimper. “Does that feel good?” He asks, pressing another inside, his thumb flicking over your clit in lackadaisical patterns. You moan, body welcoming his touch, and you nip at the skin of his shoulder, eager to tear it apart, to taste his blood again. His other hand pushes at the back of your head, until your teeth are flush with his skin. “Go on.” He urges, and your eyes slip closed with bliss while you break the thin membrane, blood pooling to the surface as he lets out a small grunt. Your tongue swirls in it, painting his skin ruby, and you drag your lips downward, over where his heart pounds wildly in his chest. For you. It pounds for you. It sings for you. 

“I need you inside me.” He pulls at the straps of the dress, divesting you of the top, exposing your breasts to the cool air and silver light of the moon. His thumb rolls one of your nipples and you feel for him, already free from his under garment, the things humans wear under their outside clothes, and you swallow when you feel the size in your fingers.

You sink down onto him with a hiss, body stretching for the intrusion, cunt spasming around the width and length as it fights to make room. He pets your hip soothingly, and you sit straight up, letting out a cry when you feel the true length of his cock inside you, the absolute fullness of it nearly seated in your belly. When you look back down, your eyes trace the smear of blood from his lips and shoulder, and your tongue darts out against your own skin, seeking the flavor of ichor that waits on the corner of your mouth.

Something glitters in his eyes, something shifting as if he finally recognizes the danger he’s in. Even here, with you astride him, split open his cock, hips stuttering in slow circles, wariness flexes across his face as if he knows, finally, that he is the prey and you the predator.

“It’s okay, do not be afraid.” You reassure him, stroking a fingernail over his breastbone, to where his heart flutters beneath your touch. He blinks, eyes blissfully blank, the firm grip of his hand on your hip relaxing before he says:

“Will you not tell me your name?” A long sigh slips between your teeth. Mortals. So hung up on familiarity. But how could you refuse a dying man his last request? Your lips kiss the shell of his ear as you give it to him, the point of your fingernail pressing into his delicate flesh, desperate to seek the strong muscle beneath, the song in his blood echoing through your own bones with supersonic vibration. The sounds and colors of the mortal realm all increase, too bright, too loud, everything shaking like the earth is suddenly trembling and then-

Something snaps inside of you. Magic, raw and powerful, a force unlike anything you’ve ever felt spills into you, your body being washed over with the rush of floodwaters, your heart and blood now singing for him, yearning for him, desperate to be consumed by him. 

Yours. Yours. Yours. 

The claim burns beneath your skin, your magic twisting away into something completely new, something more powerful as your mind grapples with the changing reality.

In the next moment, you’re spinning, tumbling through the air until you’re on your back, splayed beneath him, hands trapped at your sides. Your legs are folded underneath the width of his torso, your body opened for him just so, the head of his cock pressing against your cervix, stretching the slick walls of your cunt with each punishing thrust.

“I-“ the words are cut off sharply when he seals his mouth to yours, teeth gnashing and gnawing down from your lips to your jaw and then up to you ear.

“You,” He punctuates the word with a sharp thrust, and you gasp. “are mine, little huntress.” It is a vow, snarled through clenched teeth, and your own body betrays you by tightening around him, eager and willing to be claimed. The air is hot, humid and electric with magic, the burning effects of your error travelling through your every vein, every cell of skin. The utterance of your name, the act of your own foolishness strings heavily between you, while your body tenses underneath him.

“Simon.” You breathe and he only nods, holding your cheek in a gentle palm, stroking a loving touch across your face.

“Sweet little Nereid...” He names your kind with a growl, and your heart slams in your chest, his cock thrusting into your cunt wildly, desperately. “More beautiful than the sea herself.” The laugh is crooned, like the satisfying scratch of a needle against a record, and his fingers stroke your clit while he presses himself to you, your hips pinned beneath his weight, your body immobile. “Did you truly believe me to be a mortal?” He smiles darkly, lips curling with sinister satisfaction, and you feel the cold hand of fate reaching into your own chest cavity, rooting around in your soul until magic is searing across your skin, a bending and scraping feeling digging underneath your ribs, your own magic twisting and clawing until it burns away into something new, something changed, something imbued with him.

No. It’s not possible. 

“You… you’re-“

“Yes.” 

Simon cares little for the mortal realm. It’s pace and its noise and its scents are all cloying to him, obnoxious and foreign, the general rush of its inhabitants and their lack of care for their world offensive to him and his kind. They do not care for their realm, and do not take care of it ether, instead choosing to let it rot and fester beneath their feet, their drive and determination to outdo one another single handedly responsible for the destruction of most of their world. They call it something here, 'capitalism', like naming it will excuse it, while Simon just calls it murder, and greed.

Mortals and their extreme indifference do allow him certain things, however. Their love of violence and obsession with wealth put even the most well-off of his kind to shame at times. His kind loved things that shone, certainly. But mortals? They loved things that bled. It was this lust for power, this ravenous streak of greed that gave him the opportunity to position himself as he has.

As a hunter. A killer. A ghost.

Simon had been hunting for the thing he loved for a very, very long time.

And tonight, he was finally going to bring you home.

The first time Simon saw you; over a century ago, it was beneath Brighton Pier. You had a human male panting after you as you walked beneath the wooden overhang, your hand cupping his cheek softly, eyes full of tenderness and love. Simon, and the man, were both entranced by your beauty, the way your body moved under the night sky, how your skin seemed to glitter against the sand. Simon watched as you led him to where the moon couldn’t reach, beneath the shield of the slats, the dark of the evening hiding you from all prying, curious eyes, except for his.

He watched you take the male inside your body, watched you lavish your tongue across his neck and chest, watched your lips form sweet words of reassurance and honey while you tasted his blood. He watched the nails of your fingers gleam in the low light, watched them sharpen and then dig, scratching and clawing beneath the threads of the male’s skin, until you held an ichor rich organ in your palm, a complex system of vessels and ventricles, it’s sinew glowing red beneath your touch. He stood in awe as you devoured it, your feeding turning into a frenzy as you consumed it piece by piece, the male bleeding out and dying slowly, all while still buried inside your cunt.

After your feast, you dragged the male’s lifeless body down the sand to the water with you, where you pulled it beneath the waves, never to be seen again. Surprised, and intrigued, he stood at the water’s edge, watching the tide that was tinged red lap calmly at the shore. He knew humans had a taste for blood, but this was another desire onto itself. What were you? 

The following year, Simon couldn’t help but return to the same area in hopes of spotting you again, the creature unknown to him, a mystery begging to be unraveled. You appeared at dawn on the same day, with a horde of others, who then dispersed into the city and surrounding areas, following the sound of a song he could not hear. He became a creature obsessed, tracking your every movement, watching your every hunt and sacrifice. He stood in the dark while you made love to the mortals whose lives you would take, watched you hunt with wild abandon, watched you enjoy the small, tiny things in your eternal life that others often overlook. He began to know you, began to learn what you liked and didn't, began to learn what made you smile. 

You became the brightest spot in his own too long existence, the yearly reminder of love, of vitality, of life. He loved you, desperately, recklessly so. His dreams were filled with soft, sweet visions of you, bloody moments of passion and adoring, lingering kisses that he swore he could still feel when he woke.

It took time, too long of a time, before he discovered who, or what, you were. He spent a century trying to learn how to lure you to the surface. Simon tore apart libraries, bargained favors across dimensions, granted wishes and wove powerful spells just to trade for information on you and your sisters, the Nereids, the lasting remnant of a forgotten power, reclusive magic lurking inside the deepest depths, a realm inside a realm, never to be discovered unless you wished it so. And even then, the additional answers he sought were scarce.

Every year, he returned to the human realm to see you, tucking himself away in cloaks of magic and darkness so that he could creep as close as possible to you. Every year, he watched you hunt, watched you capture your prey effortlessly and consume their heart. He watched you shed a tear for them. Watched your drag their corpses down the beach to the sea, where you carried them into the water with you before disappearing all together.

Eventually, time began to change you. He watched you regard your lovers, your mortals with callousness, and cruelty. He watched you treat them with tenderness, and adoration, caring for them, making their ends sweet and soothing their fears. He watched you stand on the beach for hours at dawn and try to fight the urge to hunt. He burned to take you away from this world, to sever you from your ocean, bring you home to him, but your kind did not live in his realm. He was unsure how to sustain your life, and the search for answers was slow. Years went by, and the soft dreams that he had always welcomed turned to nightmares, fueled by the fear he’d lose you before he even had the chance to try to bring you home. 

A decade ago, he watched you falter. Your body trembled as you took your sacrifice, your cries so hysterical he was certain you’d draw the entire block to where you hid in the shadow of someone’s gaff. His own body was rigid with tense, untethered magic that sought to lash out, and he was rife with worry that you’d give yourself away, you’d be caught by some mortal force and unable to return to the sea when the sun rose. The fear he felt was unreasonable, uncontainable. He'd level the city to protect you, to keep you safe, and he nearly did. He almost took you, that night. Was quite close, so close that he was crossing the street in front of vehicles and preparing to pull you into his realm when you composed yourself and completed your harvest, the glowing organ in your hands proof of your will to live, to love.

He rarely left the mortal realm after that. Only to seek his final answer and solidify his plan, his masquerade as the masked Ghost allowing him to exist in the realm indefinitely, giving him the availability to be close for when the time was right, for when you would be ready.  

A year ago, you were the last to return to the water, your steps slow and clumsy, your eyes tired and weepy. You appeared satisfied, but as you looked back on the city from the shoreline, he saw the hint of desolation in your eyes, the shadow of dejection haunting your face.

It was more than enough, to spring him into action. More than enough, to find your promised mortal for next year and steal his song, bringing it into himself by a small piece of blood magic, something so simple and obvious Simon cursed himself for not realizing sooner.  

This morning, as he observed you and your sister on the beach, he knew he had been right. He could see it in your face. The pain of sadness, of loss twisting your elegance into an ache, those feelings compounded by the admission of your eldest sibling. This could be your last hunt.

It was time to bring you home. Forever. 

“That her then?” Johnny nods, indicating he’s looking the same direction as Simon, watching you walk down the curb, paper coffee cup clutched in your hands, face smiling at the sun.

“Yes.” Simon answers, shifting uncomfortably. The bloody song has been heating his flesh for weeks, boiling in his veins and driving him practically mad. Nymph magic. Its incessant hum has been battling his own power, jockeying for position as it worked to pull you to the surface. Combined with his own, he wasn’t surprised it possessed the ability to bring you up earlier than normal, encouraging you and your sisters through the depths and to the shore. If his blood was singing, then so was every other poor sod’s in this city. 

You cross the street into the park, dress swaying around your hips, and he indulgently stares at the form of your body, the set of your shoulders, the texture of your hair. He closes his eyes to breathe, reaching into himself to get a handle on the battle of will going on in his blood, the warring magic factions pushing and pulling beneath his skin, begging to be let out, trying to lash out. Soon. He reassures himself. She will be with him soon. 

He can smell you from here. You’re ripe. Overflowing, your scent is like a flickering ocean breeze, briny and cold but full of life, of promise. You’re ready, ready to be taken from this awful realm, ready to be bent underneath his body, ready to be crying on his cock as you come while he floods your womb with himself and his power, tying you to him for all eternity.

That is, if he can get you to relinquish your name.

It is a key piece of his plan, and the one that worries him the most. 

He knows you do not give it freely; knows you keep it guarded. It’s like you’re already aware that he waits in the shadows for you, watching, keeping track of every step you take, every year, from sunup to the next, until you slink beneath the water where he cannot follow.

The pressure inside his body is nearly unbearable by the time you step into the pub. Dozens of heads turn towards you, mortals’ eyes roving all over your body like you’re a treat for them, like you’re something delicious they’ll have an opportunity to taste. Foolish, greedy mortals, too busy staring dreamily at you to recognize the predator that you are, or the predator he is, oblivious to the two hunters in the room with them right now. He wonders, if you'd bathe in their blood, given an opportunity. The image makes him smile. 

Johnny clears his throat expectantly, and Simon nods, casting a glance over to where Gaz sits with a pretty female on his lap, her attentions focused solely on him, her eyes heavily lidded with lust. Johnny gives him a nod.

“Good luck.” He offers and Simon waves him off. He’s no need for luck. His blood sings your song.

“Ready?” He nearly loses control when he watches your face fill with despair for a moment after his question, his aching need to soothe and comfort you almost forcing his hands out to touch you. I'm here, little huntress. You are not alone anymore. He cannot tell you this, not yet. So instead, he applies pressure to your hand gently and waits. When you nod, he breathes just a tiny bit easier. 

He cannot stay in this place any longer. The eyes, the mortals, their inane thirst for alcohol and violence starting to scratch underneath his skin. He needed you, needed your name, needed to take you home to his realm, and all this noise and smoke and foul-smelling liquor stood in his way. The feeling of your hand in his soothes him, calms the anxious explosion that’s building in his chest, but it’s not enough. Nothing will be enough, until he has what he wants.

On the way out, he does not miss your little spell. He is, and has been, the most powerful creature in this room. He has felt every ounce of magic used, by you, by Johnny, by Kyle, all night long. It makes his heart swell when he feels your effort to push the dancing female into the arms of her scorned lover, makes his heart soar when he realizes perhaps, you have not given up on love, on life. Perhaps, you just need something else, something other than the hunt, to live for.

He allows you to take your time beneath the Pier. He cannot rush you, cannot allow you the feeling of anything being amiss, being off. You are so close to the sea, so close to the edge of the water that if he spooks you, it will be too easy for you to slip away. Too easy for you to be lost beneath the surface, again, just as you have been for hundreds of years.

When your teeth tear into his flesh he nearly moans, almost loses control again, but tamps down the urge to spring forward and toss you into the sand beneath him. He needs your name, needs your name so bloody badly it has his head spinning, his entire being desperately urging him to act, to claim, to take you. Your cunt is searing hot around his cock, your body shivering in his arms as you rock your hips delicately, eyes watching him half addled, crazed with the lust for his blood, for his heart.

“Will you not tell me your name?” He thrusts slowly up into you, and pity flashes across your features as you bend forward to brush your mouth against your ear. He feels your lips part, hears the intake of your breath and then-

You’re his. The magic begins immediately, bonding you to him, searing you into his soul and vice versa, the song in his blood slipping away until all he feels is the combined force of your power and his, the melding of souls and magic that will guarantee your existence in his realm, by his side, guaranteeing your survival, your ability to thrive. He takes advantage of your confusion, of the chaos that rises in your heart and flips you on your back, spreading your thighs wide beneath him and plunging his cock as deep as he can. So close. So, so close, and then you will be truly his, for as long as you both shall live. 

“I-“

“You,” he thrusts harder, desperate to claim you. “are mine, little huntress.” He hisses it, pushing the words forward with the brunt of his power, and you gasp before whispering his name.

“Sweet little Nereid…more beautiful than the sea herself.” He kisses your throat, stroking your clit at a torturous pace while your confused gaze tracks his every movement. “Did you truly believe me to be a mortal?” The magic pushes through your blood and bones, continuing to stitch and sear you to him, and he can’t help the feelings of possession that come over him.

His. His. His. 

His magic cuts and gnaws at your own, ripping and shredding it to bits until it’s infected with him, the strength of your name, your free admission to him, turning you inside out, changing the very chemistry of your body. He watches with dark satisfactions as your face shifts, your lips parting with understanding, eyes widening with your knowledge of the truth.

“You… You’re-“ Clever little huntress.

“Yes.” He purrs, and punches his cock back up inside of you, pressing close to your cervix, your body wet and needy, just for him. You shudder and blink hazily, confusion flickering across your features while his magic roots around inside of you and binds you to him, cell by cell. He can still smell you, smell the cool salt air of the sea that comes from your skin, smell the ripeness of your body, your willingness spilling forward in the air, the scent of sweet honeysuckle and sea holly. Your thighs tighten around his hips, your body rocking swiftly in time with him while your brow furrows, like you’re not sure what you should be doing. He licks at the stain of his blood on your lips, his tongue pushing into your mouth, and you let out a sharp whine, small hands flexing against his chest.

“No.” you admonish, face stricken. “No. No, you t-tricked me.”

“I did.” He agrees, reaching between the two of you to rub your clit in a swift circle, your breath hitching. Your face twists into something sour, but your cunt clenches around him, and his lips curl into a crescent moon smirk. “Are you going to come on my cock, sweet one?”

“Unnf.” You moan nonsense, turning your face away from him but he does not stop, hips snapping against yours, his body working to bring yours closer and closer to its climax.

“I think you are.” He hisses and grips your jaw to turn your eyes back to him. They’re wet with tears, but he doesn’t see fear in them, doesn’t see the despair. Only flares of rage, and the heat of desire, the electricity of the magic that is now shared between the two of you. He smiles triumphantly. “I think,” he relaxes his pace, dragging his cock out of you painstakingly slowly, gaze never leaving your lovely face. “you’re going to come for me, and then I’m going to breed you, little huntress.” You tense around him, squeezing his cock, the words pulling a delicious, physical reaction from you that shakes his focus for a moment. His palm lays flat over your lower belly, low enough that his thumb can feel the hardness of your clit, can stroke around it’s hood while you gasp and convulse in his arms. You shake your head stubbornly, chest heaving for breath, and he slams himself back into you, your spine curling forward into his chest.

“Gods.” You cry out, fingers scrambling for something to hold onto, finding his shoulders and sinking deep, deep enough that he knows you're drawing blood. It oozes from the tiny wounds, tracing down his skin and when you pull away, your fingers have been darkened with it.

He watches with small wonder as you slip them into your mouth, face going slack with bliss, cunt spasming around him while he strokes deep. His skin prickles, mouth finding yours again, and you moan into him, uninhibited, full of abandon.

“I have watched you for over a century, my sweet Nereid. Watched you hunt, watched you love, watched you lose.” He slows to look down at you, caressing your face with a gentle touch. “I have watched the light fade from your eyes, watched despair take over your existence.” Your gaze widens, mouth dropping open in surprise, and then closing abruptly, eyes softening around the corners.

“Simon.” You murmur, pressing your finger to the weeping wound from your teeth.

“My huntress. You will never be alone again.” He noses your jaw, licking and sucking against your skin, cold brine exploding against his tongue. Your scent crests, peaking with the honey flower and salt, your body yearning beneath him, cunt milking his cock. “Come for me.” He encourages when he knows it’s time, when he sees the glossy want all over your face. It doesn’t take much urging, another stroke of your clit and you’re coming, body locking up around him, muscles straining as you cry out, face full of bliss and legs tense around his hips. You clamp down around him, holding him deep inside your body like a vice but he works you through it, thrusting slowly inside your scorching cunt, your walls desperately trying to keep him inside. “There you go.” He soothes, fucking you through the aftershocks, your face still twisted up. “That’s just what I needed.” The orgasm makes your more pliable, more soft and less angry, and he sees in your eyes what he knows to be true. You want this. Perhaps this is not what you would have chosen at first, perhaps the magic was too strong in your veins in the beginning, but your body knows what your mind works to accept. You are choosing this, choosing him, over the hunt. Over the sacrifice. Over the immortal life of loss.

So, so close.

He folds your legs towards your chest, opening you deeper and you mewl, lips parted in dazed, post orgasm glow. He can’t help but kiss you again and again, his painfully slow thrusts forcing irritated breaths to puff from your nose.

“Something you want?” He teases, and you nod, pressing your face into his shoulder and groaning into his skin.

“Simon. Please.” You voice breaks, and he feels your cunt pool around him, liquid heat forcing him to grit his teeth in an effort to stave off his own orgasm.

Ask me for it, little huntress. 

“Please, what?” He mocks, thumb pressing down on your clit hard, causing you to keen. He doesn’t move, just stays steady inside of you, your cunt working pull him deeper.

“Please, please. I want-“ you gasp when he bites the skin of your neck, and he smiles wickedly. Your cunt practically strangles him now, body working to drag his orgasm from him, magic singing in both of your hearts.

His. His. His. 

Yours. Yours. Yours. 

Your scent overpowers him, the swell of the ocean behind him combined with the salt of your essence pulling him harder into your gravity.

“What do you want?”

“I want your come.” You beg and he snarls, finally losing control, fucking into your eager body with abandon, hard and punishing while you moan and cry beneath him. He takes your earlobe in his teeth before whispering a vow:

“Then you shall have it.” He plays with your clit, the intensity of his strokes matching the pace of his thrusts and you pant eagerly. “You shall have it every day until you are full of me, full with my child.”

“Yes.” You moan, and he feels you moving towards another climax, your muscles spasming and eyes slipping shut.

“I’m going to breed you, give you my baby, sweetling. Make you mine, forever.” Your back arches and you wail, your cunt clamping down on him again, and he thrusts as deep as he can, chasing his release, fueling his burning desire to empty himself inside of you. He lets go completely, untethers his magic, lets it fully fuse with yours as he spills inside of you, the pressure of his orgasm working against your aftershocks, and your own magic that wraps itself wildly around him, clawing at the seat of his power, desperate to attach itself.

Yours. Yours. Yours. 

His. His. His. 

You fall asleep on his chest, body relaxed and sated, mouth open in a small o. He needs to get you up, needs to get you ready to travel to his realm but in this moment, he’s content to sit here, against the old wooden pier, timing the rise and fall of your breathing and planning for the future, for eternity.

“Will you care for her?” A musical voice asks from a short distance, and his head snaps up to see your sister, the one you stood with on the beach this morning, inclining her head towards your peaceful, sated body that sits snugly in his arms.

“Always.” He promises, and she nods, eyes looking down the shoreline.

“I am happy for her.” She looks sad, forlorn, not unlike how you appeared hours ago.

“It is not too late, for you to hunt. There is still plenty of time before the sunrise.” He tries to encourage, and she nods.

“Perhaps.” Simon briefly wonders if Kyle or Johnny are still in town, a sinister idea forming in his mind, taking shape before his very eyes. He pushes, just the gentlest bit of magic, the piece that’s mixed with yours, towards her. A long moment passes, and then, “I think I’ll walk.” She motions up the pier and gives a goodbye nod, as he strokes a hand down your spine when you shiver in his arms.

You do not stir until she is a speck on the horizon, and when you do, you lift your head wearily, like you’ve slept for a thousand years.

“What’s going on?” you murmur, shifting your dress so it covers your thighs. He presses a light kiss to your forehead before giving an answer.

“We’re going home now, little huntress.”

#peaches writes #simon riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x female reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #cod mw2 #ghost mw2 #mw2 #ghost call of duty #mermaids #mermaids au #magic au #ghost x reader #cod fanfic

[daechwitatamic]

Of Ruin || KTH || Masterpost

(banner by @/itaeewon)

Title: Of Ruin

Status: complete - all chapters now posted

WC: 85k total, 16 chapters

Rating: NSFW - minors DNI

Pairing: KTH x reader || platonic Namjoon x reader friendship!

Genre: supernatural!au royalty!au magic!au || s2l || angst fluff smut trifecta 

Summary: Taehyung of House Rune, Prince of Infracticus has been cursed. You’re the human world’s leading curse-breaker. It should be simple. But unraveling the curse becomes the least of your problems in the face of a world on the brink of civil war… and the love you start to feel for the prince.

Warnings: language, casual drinking, lots of vampire warnings such as scary situations, vampires hunting/biting/feeding/killing, magic and magical fighting, magical world politics, eventual smut but not a lot dont expect too much, EXTREMELY slow burn even for me DONT SAY I DIDNT WARN YOU, chapters will have individual warnings

Author’s Note: Although the worlds, rules, characterizations, and plot are very extremely different, I have to say that I was inspired to write this after reading @/kth1fics Black Ravens series. Thank you to Maggie for being so gracious when I asked if she’d be okay with me trying a vamp!tae fic of my own.

Big thank you to @sailoryooons for the quick, thorough, and masterful beta job, and for letting me ask questions, shout and scream, and send endless screenshots as I worked on this for the last six months! Thank you also to @eoieopda, @jeonqkooks, and @yoongiphoria for accepting an ungodly number of screenshots as well. There would be no fic without y'all, I mean it!

Series Teaser:

He’s on you in an instant, so quickly you don’t see him move. Your back hits the wall behind you and you let out an audible grunt.

He sniffs at you, fangs displayed and ready. Your heart pounds desperately, and beneath his inhumanly strong hold, your muscles shake. Your body knows you are about to die, even if your mind still wants to lie to you about it.

He laves at a spot near the base of your neck, giving a happy hum as your pulse thunders against his tongue. You close your eyes, feeling your whole body shudder in terror.

“Taehyung,” you whisper, eyelids fluttering.

Chapter 1 || wc: 5.7k

Chapter 2 || wc: 5.9k

Chapter 3 || wc: 5.1k

Chapter 4 || wc: 5.5k

Chapter 5 || wc: 4.6

Chapter 6 || wc: 6k

Chapter 7 || wc: 5k

Chapter 8 || wc: 4.8k

Chapter 9 || wc: 4.3k

Chapter 10 || wc: 5.2k

Chapter 11 || wc: 4.7k

Chapter 12 || wc: 4.8k

Chapter 13 || wc: 6k

Chapter 14 || wc: 6.3k

Chapter 15 || wc: 5k

Chapter 16 || wc: 5.1k

#bts x reader #bts fanfic #bts fic #bts supernatural au #bts royal au #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fic #taehyung x reader #taehyung smut #taehyung angst #taehyung x you #taehyung x y/n #kim taehyung fic #kim taehyung fanfic #kim taehyung smut #kim taehyung angst #supernatural au #royal au #fic: of ruin #s2l #magic au

[mugi-sktch]

celebrating @diggingupgrave 's birthday with her magical dark academia boys - i still love them to pieces and i hope they're somewhere cozy, perched over piles of books and sneaking cuddles 🌙

go read Magnificently Cursed if you haven't already - it's one of my all time faves and Ily deserves all the love and praise on her works ⭐️

#jjk #inumaki toge #okkotsu yuuta #inuokko #ottoge #dark academia #magic au

[dpfantasyzine]

Socials: Tumblr | tiktok

"Hello, I'm four chickens in a trench coat, I sometimes do art, and have a terminal case of Danny Phantom brainrot. Super excited to be apart of this! :)" -Chicken

#meet the mods #danny phantom #magic au #fantasy au #let’s make danny magical #dp fantasy zine #fandom zine #fanfiction #fanart

[spotsandsocks]

Seven (and a few)Sentence Sunday 🏰🌳🌳🛖🌳🌕🌳🌳

Tagged by @daffi-990 @wikiangela @tizniz @diazsdimples @bidisasterbuckdiaz

Not sharing anything new today because I want an excuse to show this off commissioned by the amazingly talented @bucksketch thank you so much it’s beautiful ❤️

Lost Without You 28k 5/5 completed A fairy tale about a cursed prince and the man who tries to save him ❤️💔❤️

This bit comes right after the picture.

Buck runs a finger over the the two bands he can see on his arm, he really thinks these marks on his skin are the answer, that he now has a way to break the curse.

A contented sigh slips from his lips as he lies in the bed he just spent the night in with Eddie. A future with Eddie and Chris actually seems possible. All he needs to do is explain things to Maddie and his parents and they'll be happy for him, he’s sure of it.

With uncharacteristically optimistic thoughts about his future running through his head he drags himself up and is almost dressed when he hears the raised voices. 

That doesn’t seem right and frowning slightly he quickly buttons up his shirt, pulls on his boots and goes to investigate. 

The sight that greets him as he opens the door freezes his heart.

It takes him a moment to fully process what he sees, but it’s real, there are actually Palace Guards in the street and they have a man surrounded. The man is on his knees, head bowed and hands behind his head. 

To his horror the man is Eddie. 

Tagging people who might like to see the art and for SSS @underwaterninja13 @hoodie-buck @loserdiaz @monsterrae1 @elvensorceress @shipperqueen6 @honestlydarkprincess @hippolotamus @rogerzsteven @caroandcats @exhuastedpigeon @princessfbi @watchyourbuck @wikiangela @thewolvesof1998 @thekristen999 @buffaluff @saybiwithme @bi-buckrights @spaceprincessem @jesuisici33 @father-salmon @fiona-fififi @toughpaperround @eddiebabygirldiaz @loveyouanyway @wildlife4life @weewootruck @bekkachaos @stagefoureddiediaz @bigfootsmom @bewilderedbuckley @rainbow-nerdss @pirrusstuff @giddyupbuck @steadfastsaturnsrings @theplaceyoustillrememberdreaming @fortheloveofbuddie @loserdiaz @loveyouanyway @actualalligator @evanbi-ckley

#buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie fic #911 abc #911fic #911 fic #magic au #fairy tale au #buddie au #fae #curses

[jkabbi]

bewitched mini series masterlist

╰┈➤summary: Former neighbors turned lovers, your enchanting romance with Jungkook takes a magical turn. A spell to protect him shapes your past, and now, as a flower shop owner, an unexpected reunion brings buried secrets to light. Past and present collide in a captivating tale of love and mystery.

╰┈➤ pairing: jungkook x reader (f)

╰┈➤ genre: cf2l, fluff, angst, magic au

╰┈➤warnings: each warning is stated in the beginning of each chapter.

links. masterlist

01.

╰┈➤ A spectral love returns, igniting ancient flames and thrusting you into an emotional maelstrom.

word count. 8.4k

02.

╰┈➤ A routine of protection is disrupted by a new wealthy neighbor. Jungkook and his girlfriend visit your flower shop, leading to emotional tensions and new friendships. A discovered photo strains trust, setting the stage for an uncertain future as cosmic irony intertwines your fate with Jungkook.

word count. 10.9k

03.

╰┈➤ You attend Jungkook's highly anticipated welcome event, only to be met with unexpected surprises. Once again, the past intertwines with the present

word count. 13.5k

04.

╰┈➤ It's camping day but there is a special guest.

word count. 13k

#jungkook x reader #jungkook fic #jungkook fanfic #bts fic #fanfic #magic au #bts jungkook #jungkook #jeon jungkook #bts fanfic #jungkook x oc #angst #fluff #jungkook fic recs

[violettduchess]

A/N: I am so happy to be able to share my gift for the lovely @ikeromantic 💜 A deep dive into your blog told me you love AUs as much as I do so I was so happy to create one for our favorite Lelouchian.

Thank you to @ikemenlibrary and @sunnyikemen for hosting and for being supportive, accommodating and all-around superstars. 💜

Clavis x Emma

Magic AU, Soulmates AU, First Kiss, Enemies to Lovers

WC: ~2k

The sun is glowing a bright lemon-yellow as Emma closes the wooden door to her shop. It’s a beautiful door, made of dark walnut and decorated with silvery moons and stars. Across the top, the words “Belle Magie” are etched into the hard wood. At night, the lettering glows a soft gold. Humming to herself, she wraps her free hand around the ornate brass doorknob and a subtle, warm orange glow emanates from her fingertips. The moons and stars flash once and she hears a satisfying, soft whoosh of magic. The door to her shop is now locked via enchantment and no one except Emma will be able to enter and poke around at all the treasures that line her shelves and counters.

Smoothing down her ochre and black robes, she carefully makes her way across the cobblestone street to the shop that is literally across from hers. Her nose wrinkles at the sign that hangs above the wooden door: “Lelouchian Enchantments” written in swirling, silver lettering that she would say is barely legible. His note, written in the same dizzying writing, is clutched tightly in her hand as she pushes open the lavender-colored door with a celestial design nearly identical to her own. But that is where the similarity ends.

Whereas Emma’s shop is neat, organized by ingredients, everything with its own place and labeled in her own very careful handwriting, his is a gigantic explosion of almost anything one can imagine. Bottles filled with liquids of all colors and bottles with questionable things floating in them, dried herbs and seeds in pots and packets, a whole section of plants that bite anyone who comes near them, not to mention odd gemstones, vibrant powders, paints and feathers. She ducks underneath the silver vines that have wrapped themselves around the wooden ceiling beams, ignoring the way they contract and rustle their leaves at her, and approaches the counter where she finds Clavis himself, carefully sorting what looks like glittery kidney beans.

“I got your missive. I believe it broke in through my window in order to deliver itself.”

At the sound of her voice, he turns, golden eyes gleaming like copper in sunlight. He wipes his hands on the folds of his pale lavender robes, grinning slowly. She is forced to admit to herself for the millionth time that Clavis is hardly unpleasant to look at, per say. But oh, how he irks her, with his smooth words, flamboyant personality and flashy enchantments. 

“Oh dearie me, when I said it was urgent, I suppose that gave it permission to cause destruction. I apologize.”

She bats away several tiny golden motes that have taken an interest in her chestnut hair and Clavis lifts his hand, wiggling his fingers in invitation. The golden pinpricks of light float towards him, circling his wrist and then solidify into a gold bracelet.

Refusing to be distracted by his tricks, she unscrolls his letter and lays it on the counter.

“Well? Where is it?”

“So impatient,” he tuts as he kneels down, lifting an ornate silver box from under the counter. It’s about the size of his hand and she can’t help but watch the way he trails his fingertips over the decorative embellishments. He has such elegant hands.

One brow arches slowly as she crosses her arms, shoving that thought away and burying it in annoyance.. “Well…..are you going to open it….?”

He sighs theatrically. “Some people have no sense of showmanship.”

Her lips quirk into a small, involuntary grin. “I’m not one of the poor suckers who come in here for your tricks and potions, Lelouch. Now open the box.”

He tilts his head, clearly enjoying how much she is trying to hide her curiosity. His hand rests on the lid of the box but doesn’t move.

“Don’t you want to know the story of how I acquired such a treasure? Why, it’s a tale of mighty heroics the likes of-”

“No. No, I do not.”

He pretends to be offended but the light in his eyes gives away the truth. 

“But it involves a goblin merchant from Benitoite and a heartsick wizard from the Jade Forest and-”

“And a dragon and a sea witch and a bloody one-eyed pegasus. Clavis, just open the box!” 

He laughs and it is the needle deflating the balloon of irritation that had overtaken her. She’s never met anyone with a laugh quite like his. It’s almost musical, but in the way of the inviting, simple melody of a children’s song. Something that stays with her, imprinting itself on her mind.

“Such an impatient pumpkin.”

“Don’t call me pumpkin.” The response is automatic, a reflex built over the long while she has known him. The first time Clavis had seen her do magic and seen the yellow-orange glow her magic emanates, he had bestowed her with that aggravating nickname.

Nimble fingers curl over the lid of the box and then he lifts it, revealing a round, milky-white stone nestled into a bed of black velvet. It reminds her immediately of the moon against a starless night sky.

She tilts her head quizzically. “This is the all-power Amor Lapis?” She had imagined something called the “Love Stone” being far more ostentatious, something pink or red and wild with sparkles. Something that would take her breath away. This stone, while pretty in its own way, looks rather ordinary.

“Such a skeptic.” He lifts the stone from its box, holding it in the palm of his hand. “It will only glow when two soulmates have found each other.” He lifts his gaze to her, his smile playful. “Know any perfect couples?”

She rolls her eyes, reaching out to touch the stone. “There’s no such thing as a perfect-” Her fingers brush Clavis’s palm and suddenly, the middle of the white stone begins to brighten, a soft glow radiating out from the center.

She jerks her hand away even as he nearly drops it. Her heart roars to life, knocking wildly around inside her chest.

Neither of them move and then, at the same time they both do, Clavis uncharacteristically fumbling to put the stone back in its box and she taking several steps back, one hand curling into the velvet folds of her cloak.

“It’s broken! It’s clearly defective!” Why does her voice sound just a bit shrill to her ears?

He clears his throat. She’s rarely seen him so rattled.

“It….oh dear…..maybe it is.” He frowns, staring down at the stone, at the dull, cream color of it, no glow to be seen. Then he draws in a breath, one that even she can hear shaking and looks at her. There is something unfamiliar in the depths of his sunrise eyes.

“We should try that again.”

“Try what again, exactly?”

“Touching.”

She should be balking at the very suggestion. 

She should already be halfway out of his crazy shop. 

She shouldn’t be stepping closer again, her gaze jumping from the stone back to him and then back again. 

And she really really should not be saying-

“Alright. To-to prove its deficiency.”

The smooth, dark counter is a barrier between them, one that feels like armor, something that will protect her although what she needs protecting from is uncertain, some nebulous thing forming on the edges of her consciousness, some unknown dream rising from the shadows of slumber.

Clavis then holds out his hand, palm up, his gaze meeting hers. Her heartbeat drums wildly through her veins, a rhythm she has never known before. Slowly she lifts her hand and places it in his. His skin is cool and smooth, soft in a way she would not have expected. Emma can feel his magic just here, flowing through him. It feels shockingly calm, not the wild chaos she thought it might be but soothing, like the scent of lavender, the soft pastels of the sky at sundown. She can feel her own magic responding, warming as it flows through her.

Beneath their joined hands, the Amor Lapis begins glowing again, a soft white light like a tiny flame igniting inside the stone. Her heartbeat roaring in her ears, she slowly withdraws her hand from his and watches as the glow dims and then, when they are no longer touching, winks off like a tiny candle snuffed out by a breeze. When Emma has gathered enough courage, she raises her gaze from the milky-colored stone to Clavis and her heart trips over its own beat. His eyes rival the glow of the stone, something new burning in their golden depths. The light of revelation. The light of truth. The light of desire.

When he finally speaks, his voice sounds soft, breathy in a way that causes Emma to bite the inside of her lip at the sound.

“Dearie me,” he murmurs, his gaze locked with hers, bright with an intensity that feels almost physical. “If that happens when we touch hands, imagine what might happen if we actually kiss.”

The word lingers between them, shimmering in the air like desert heat over sand dunes. Emma unconsciously licks her lips and Clavis’s gaze drops there, fast as quicksilver. His own lips part slightly as he stares at the full curve of her lower lip, the sweet bow of the top. His own voice, his own words, echo like thunder between them. 

….if we actually…..

….kiss….

Emma hasn't moved, hasn’t said a word, her soft eyes wide as a deer’s startled by a sudden, unexpected sound. And then he realizes what he said, what he has actually suggested and shame floods him, a tsunami of embarrassment that washes away the glimmer of hope, the clouds of desire that had overtaken him. 

What the hell was he thinking, talking like that? As if someone like her, someone so intelligent and kind and talented, someone beautiful inside and out, would ever be soulmates with someone like him. Forget soulmates, she doesn’t even like him. 

He hangs in head, soft twilight locks falling across his forehead, his knuckles white as he grips the counter with trembling hands. Stupid. Idiot. Never good enough. Never smart enough. Never ever would he be enough for someone else.

“Nevermind, I lost myself for a moment.” The words are acrid on his tongue and he feels the hot wash of color staining his cheeks and neck. “Obviously, there’s no way–”

Her hands are suddenly gripping those warm cheeks, pulling him towards her, forcing him to lean over the counter, above the stone, where she presses her lips to his. The Amor Lapis explodes with radiance, a tiny supernova encased by smooth stone. Even with closed eyes, Emma notices the brightening of the light but right now, she does not care. Because right now, she is holding Clavis’s face in her hands, and she is falling falling falling into kissing him.

At first he freezes, shock turning his blood to ice water in his veins. But then he realizes her mouth is really there, pressed against his, and then the burst of light automatically closes his eyes and the shock begins to thaw.

Now all he feels is the warmth of her kiss, the tentative movement of her lips and he gasps, reaching across the counter to touch her. Cradling each other’s face, they kiss, at first slowly, drinking in the fragile newness of the sensation, the unveiling of the truth that has been growing in both their hearts, quietly. Steadily. And then novelty slowly turns to pleasure, to desire. He grows bolder, sliding a hand down to the nape of her neck, holding her there so he can part her lips and sink into the sweet taste of her. If this is a dream, may he never wake up.

Emma sighs against him, a sound that echoes the twinkling of diamond-bright stars in a black velvet sky. All this time….all this time she’s been falling in love and never even realized it.

Minutes pass. Or maybe hours. Neither of them can say when they finally pull away from one another. Breathless, light-headed, floating, they both glance down at the Amor Lapis. The stone is luminous, glowing like a tiny moon dropped from the heavens. 

And it will continue to give off its beautiful light, for the rest of their days.

Tagging: @xbalayage @alexxavicry @queengiuliettafirstlady @rhodolitesrose @ikemen-writer @bellerose-arcana @thewitchofbooks @aria-chikage @redheadkittys @tele86 @dear-mrs-otome @firestar-otomeobsessed @curious-skybunny @rhodoliteschaos @kpop-and-otome @writingwhimsey @mxrmaid-poet @silver-dahlia @wendolrea @otomefoxystar @nightfoxqueen @myonlyjknight @portrait-ninja @ikesimpleton @mastering-procrastinating @namine-somebodies-nobody @queen-dahlia @scorchieart @nightghoul381 @bubblexly

#ikemen series #ikemen prince #ikepri #ikepri clavis #clavis lelouch #ikemen clavis #ikemen prince exchange #magic au #soulmates au #first kiss #enemies to lovers #ikemen fanfiction #ikemen fanfic #otome fanfic #violettwrites

[outtoshatter]

Fractured Starlight, featuring THIS absolutely drop-dead gorgeous art from @seanchaidh7, is now completely posted, start to finish, thanks in large part to @missanniewhimsy for giving me a little push to just post the last few chapters today!!! :D

#sterek #sterek fic #sterek art #fic #art #i still cannot stop looking at this art #amnesia fic #magic au #witch Stiles #gia writes #i am just so excited the whole thing is out there for everyone to see now!!

[xazafranx]

[💥𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐠 x 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐤𝐚𝐢⚽️]

𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯🔥fo

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fanart #sonic au #my art #my artwrok #shadow the hedgehog #sth #sketch #sketchbook #Sendokai #shadow the ultimate lifeform #sendokai champions #He's looking at a blue hedgehog #Shadow ft Sendokai was something I needed to draw #magic football #magic au #football au

[jakes3resin]

Drops this here and flees back to my A/B/O fic doc

"You're a Brit?" The question comes from Curt, and Bucky bites the inside of his cheek.

"Parents were." Bucky says simply turning back to his drink, but Curt's three drinks deep and knows Bucky too well by now to let him get away with that answer.

"But you said you're from Wisconsin?"

"I am," Bucky nods. Curt gives him a look, and Bucky can feel Buck staring at him. "I was raised there after I turned 3. Came here for a few years for boarding school, but my aunt and uncle brought me back before I turned 18."

"How come?" Croz joins in setting down a tray of drinks, and Bucky wishes they'd let this go. There's a reason he doesn't talk about all this.

"I asked." Bucky smiles. "The weather sucks, and I was bored."

"Sorry chaps, did you just say you went to boarding school here?" One of the RAF pilots that likes to stick their nose into Bucky's conversations butts in. Bucky resists the urge to bang his head against the table.

"This fella, right here." Curt smacks Bucky's shoulder, and Bucky sends him a look to cut it out. He catches Buck's eye and sees the questions building in his blue eyes. Bucky turns away. He can't answer those questions.

"Where abouts?" The RAF pilot clearly doesn't see how done with this topic Bucky is.

"Scotland." Bucky answers with a sharp grin. "Old school, but you won't know it."

"Bloody hell," The man stares at Bucky wide-eyed, and he can feel Buck tensing, whether it's to defend Bucky or to stop him from doing something stupid that's still unclear. "You didn't go to Hogwarts, did you?"

Bucky freezes. He stares up at the Brit, grin sharp and eyes a bit dangerous. Most wizards know not to talk too loudly about magic around Muggles and No-Majs, but this guy's deeper in his cups than half the bar.

"For a few years." Bucky confirms sounding like he was pulling out teeth with each word. "You go there too?"

"Of course! Sorted right into Gryffindor!" The man straightens up suddenly affronted that Bucky would dare even think the opposite. "It's the finest school!"

"This side of the Atlantic sure." Bucky leans back, trying to distance himself.

"If you went to Hogwarts, what are you doing palling around with this bunch?"

"Cause I want to." Bucky watches Curt glare at the Brit, but he's calling over more Brits before any of them can stop him.

"Reginald! Listen to this, this chap here says he went to Hogwarts!" The shocked looks on the faces of the gathered British pilots makes Bucky question how the hell they've kept magic secret for centuries. If a few drunk flyboys can talk this openly, what the hell are they doing to keep the secret?

"Preposterous," Bucky thinks it's Reginald who says that, but he doesn't care. "Hogwarts doesn't allow Americans. You, what family are you from?"

"Family?" Croz murmurs looking lost. Buck's gaze is still sitting heavy on Bucky's shoulders. Bucky sighs, truly over these idiots.

"Why do you wanna know all that?" Curt glares up at Reginald. He doesn't understand what the man's on about, but he knows he's insulting Bucky.

"Only the most noble houses could pull an American into Hogwarts." Reginald sniffs, and out of the corner of his eye, Bucky sees Buck finally turn his attention away to place a calming hand on Curt's shoulder. Curt settles back unhappily. "Riffraff doesn't make the cut."

"Right, riffraff," Bucky murmurs. Buck swings his focus back to him now.

"So, out with it!" One of the other Brits urges.

"Out with what?" Bucky says with a laugh. "You boys know my name."

"Yes, but what Noble House do you come from?" The original Brit rolls his eyes at him obviously over Bucky's stalling.

"Is this really that important?" Croz tries to intervene, but the RAF boys steamroll over him.

"Unless of course, you're lying about attending Hogwarts." One of the flyboys grins mockingly. Bucky grits his teeth. This is why he doesn't talk about his family. Brits always going on and on about blood and prestige. He hates it. "Trying to fit in, are we?"

Bucky stares up at them. There's a reason he'd kept his old name quiet. He doesn't want the fuss. But it looks like he has no choice here. These boys won't leave him alone until he coughs it up.

"Scamander, got it?" Bucky grins up at the idiots surrounding him. His hands twitch, a phantom weight in his palm that he ignores. "Now beat it."

"Great Scott, don't tell me you're related to Theseus Scamander?"

Bucky sucks at his teeth.

"That's my cousin." He admits, hoping this will be enough to sate their curiosity. He's wrong. The boys explode, some asking questions, others denying that he's related to such an esteemed gentleman.

Buck's gaze has never felt so heavy.

#mota #masters of the air #bucky egan #john egan #john bucky egan #gale cleven #gale buck cleven #buck x bucky #clegan #my writing #magic au

[peachesofteal]

Which Witch

Part 2 of 2 / Faerie masterlist

Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish/witch!reader 13.3k words - AO3 - Part 1 Warnings-tags: 18+ Minors DNI. Explicit sex. Fae!AU. Blood magic. Faerie magic. Angst. Tenderness. Comfort. Pining. Sex magic. Praise kink, light breeding kink. Magical dubious consent. Possessive Johnny, Protective Johnny. "I'm not beat up by this yet, you can't tell me to regret, Been in the dark since the day we met, Fire, help me to forget." - F + TM

Johnny has never experienced a headache before.

The feeling is surprisingly uncomfortable, and has been blooming behind his eyes since the other day, when you advanced on him outside the pub in the mortal realm, when you caught him off guard with your fury, your heartbreak.

He tries not to think about that part, too much.

Tries not to think about the torment he saw in your eyes.  

Tries not to think about his plans, laid to waste, to ruin. A dream, crumbled into a nightmare.

He tries not to think about the ache that’s settled beneath his ribs since the second you snatched your hand from his grasp and stomped away, the pressure of your magic making the stitching of the mortal realm feel too thin, too fragile.

He tries not to think about the extra weight of something that’s been added to him, nestled there in his side, the heavy feel of a magic that feels not unfamiliar, but alien at the same time.

“Bloody hell.” Gaz whispered. “No wonder ‘uve been keepin’ her a secret.” He whistled, low and sharp, as they watched you cross the street and slowly disappear from view, red and purple magic angrily arcing off from your body and tainting the air with a tart, burnt aftertaste. 

You were the only being on the street, besides them. All the mortals had gone off, pushed by you, sent scurrying by your power. “That’s one powerful little wi-“ 

“That’s enough.” Johnny snarled in his face, the ferocity, intensity of his tone, the words spat at his own brother surprising them both, signaling Kyle to step back, out of precaution, with a gentle hand raised. Johnny panted harshly, while his magic thrashed inside of him, desperate to get out, wild and nearly out of control, fully brimming with the chaos that he knows so well. 

It yearned for something, desperately. 

“Easy, Soap.” Price had been on them then, appearing from where he had been inside the bar, inserting himself between their two bodies, like he needed to protect Kyle, a ridiculous sentiment by any of their standards. 

“Sorry.” Johnny drew the word long, shaking his head from the pressure beating inside his skull. “’m sorry, Gaz. I dinnae- I-” 

“It’s alright mate.” He assured, reaching out, clasping a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. It was warm, and comforting, and he nodded in response. 

“I think you should probably get home. You’ve been here… too long.” Price follows up, and Johnny couldn’t argue. He felt drained, suddenly. Tired. A feeling that happens for them, from time to time. Especially when they’ve been in the mortal realm for an extended period. 

“Alright.”

He thinks this discomfort, this ailment, whatever it may be, will pass, once he’s been home for more than a few days. He imagines it’s just a side effect of being in the mortal realm too long, and he can practically hear Price telling him he needs to stay put, stay in Faerie for a while, or at least until his magic settles and his body adjusts to its rightful plane.

After all… his kind doesn’t take sick. They can suffer magical ailments, wounds from weapons or other Fae, but to fall ill is incredibly rare.

And usually only happens to those of them who are incredibly stupid. 

Still, the headache rots and spreads throughout his brain, festering in his magic until it becomes an unruly, ungovernable thing that barely recognizes him, and his muscles become excruciatingly sore, useless in his body when he tries to exert himself in any way.

The Isle itself seems restless, the sea raging tumultuously beneath the bluffs, the forests shielding themselves from the light of the sun. Johnny can feel her magic, biting and gnawing against him, yearning and screaming, the wind whistling through the oldest trees with a shriek that hurts his ears.

All the while, something else aches within him. An unbearable longing that builds and builds like a dark grey cloud growing heavy with rain.

“It’s your soul.” The Nereid, Ce, tells him softly. “You’re soul sick.”

“What?”

“Someone has bound themselves to you. Your soul, your magic, is woven together. When you’re separated, your soul will mourn for theirs.” The image of you pointing at him flashes through his mind, your gaze enraged, haunted, while you cursed him up and down.

Surely, you did not mean for this? 

Simon watches him knowingly, before pulling her into his arms, rubbing his hand over the swell of her belly where their child sleeps, blissfully unaware.

“Do you know, who it could be?” She questions, and he grimaces, eyes flicking to Simon who betrays nothing, only gives him a subtle nod.

“A… witch. From the mortal realm.” She stiffens in Simon’s lap, and then shakes her head in disbelief.

“A mortal witch could not cast a binding such as this, nor survive it.”

“Well, ah… dinnae believe she’s entirely mortal.” She turns, looking between them, before glaring openly at her husband.

“The only immortal witches who still live in the mortal realm are the elemental witches…” she trails off, looking out the window to where the sea crashes on the shore, something distant flickering in her gaze, realization settling heavily upon her. “What have you done?”

“You were my priority.” Simon utters, face shuttering, eyes going grim. Johnny shifts nervously in the chair. Ce is sharp, intelligent, and it doesn’t take too long before she’s whispering her confirmation of the truth.

“The song. She’s a blood witch.” He nods, unable to break the eye contact. Simon holds her hip firmly, but she doesn’t look away from Johnny, and before he even realizes, he’s spilling more secrets.

“Blood spinner.” Her eyes widen, and then rips Simon’s hand free from her body, standing unsteadily on her two legs. Her balance has gotten better in her time here, but she still struggles with managing her new walking appendages, something that always keeps Simon hovering near by, just in case he needs to catch her.

“You must find her.” She implores Johnny, while turning on her heel to poke a finger into Simon’s chest. “You’ve no idea what you’ve done.”

“Little huntress-“ He begins, but is swiftly cut off.

“No. Do not use your sweet words to try to placate me.” She turns her nose up from him, while facing Johnny. “You must, she’s in danger. Blood witches aren’t meant to be bound to others. The effects could be catastrophic, the binding could kill her.” His heart speeds to a halt. The binding could kill you. 

The feeling Johnny had a few days ago outside the pub compounds inside of him, the yearning infused with his chaos, the wild piece of his magic surging in his blood, eager to be set loose. He closes his eyes and reaches inside himself to settle his power, to soothe the uncontrolled pieces that are climbing closer to the top.

When he looks back to them, he realizes Simon is standing more than a few paces away, Ce shielded behind his body.

“It’s the binding! It can drive you mad, control your magic if you're separated too long.” She calls from around his shoulder, trying to peek out even though there is a formidable mass blocking her.

“Perhaps she planned this, Johnny.” Simon proposes, a sentiment that Johnny balks at. Were you capable of such a thing? His wife shakes her head reverently, and mouths a no. 

Danger.

Catastrophic.

When he thinks about the way you looked when you thrust your finger into his face, fiery and full of rage, he realizes it’s much, much more than what he thinks he knows, or what he believes.

You tricked me, you Fae bastard. 

Had you tricked him in return? 

The lock on your flat’s front door is not complex. It’s not even spelled for intruders, or unwanted guests, something that’s always sat uneasily within Johnny, even when he was taking full advantage of it. His magic knows this lock well, is intimately familiar with it, and plies the deadbolt free with ease, door swinging wide like it’s been expecting him, just like every other time before.

You tossed in your sleep, brow furrowed, distress written across your face as you shook your head back and forth, trapped in your own dreams, your memories, your nightmares.

Your body, still battered and bruised, slowly healing from whatever had happened to you on Samhain, trembled beneath the sheets, and you made small, terrified mouth sounds against your pillow. 

“You’re safe now, dove, you’re safe.” He stroked a thumb across your temple, down the apple of your cheek, whispering to you softly, sweetly. His own magic worked quickly, dragging you under, lulling you into a deep sleep, a near coma. He had hoped it would be enough, to keep you from waking while he worked, while he healed you from whatever ordeal you had been put through, whatever torture you had been subjected to. 

He built you the sweetest dreams he could conjure, images of his own realm, lush forests and sparkling aquamarine seas, the moss-covered stone bluffs of the Isle, the three moons when they’re full, the sparkle of the night sky, webs of worlds and starlight stretching out as far as any being could see. 

He had tried, so desperately, to burn the image of you from the previous night out of his mind, when you first answered his knocking with your broken soul and tearful eyes, abused body halfway hidden by the door. 

What happened to you? Who could mistreat you in such a way? 

He hadn’t known then, but he wanted to, urgently. Wanted you to tell him everything, wanted you to make him your tool, your harbinger of revenge. He wanted to kill for you, destroy for you, burn this entire realm for you. He wanted to lay all his promises at your feet, wanted to tell you that no one would ever touch you again, that no one would ever harm you if he was here. 

He cursed himself. Cursed the truth. Cursed the spell that you put him under, the one that didn’t even exist. 

He had gotten so lost in thought, lost in staring down at your now relaxed face, that he almost didn’t realize the sun was rising, the soft rays of light seeping across your room from under the curtain startling him into withdrawing his magic so he could allow you to wake and return with a coffee, maybe a pastry, some sort of breakfast sweet that mortals seemed to be overly fond of. 

He leaned over you for a quick moment, unable to help himself, breathing in the scent of your hair, your skin, your very soul. It intoxicated him, the sweet citrus and balsam mixing with the minerality of blood, of earth, creating something that seeped through his own being, pulling him closer and closer until he grazed his lips across your temple so gently, he’s not sure he’s even made contact. 

“I’ll be back soon.” He whispered above your ear, even though he knew you couldn’t hear him. “Have a good morning, sweet Fern.” 

“Fern.” He calls, before stepping across the threshold, but there’s no answer. There’s no sound or sign of movement, no echo of your voice down the hall. “Fern!” He tries again. His blood feels hot under his skin, and he’s nearly feverish, off balance and unsteady, while the spot beneath his ribs throbs in pain.

He expects to see Jet, or hear her hiss, considering how much the little creature loathes him, but when there’s no sign of her either, something prickles along the back of his neck.

“Do not hide from me, little witch. I know what’s happened.” He calls, raising his voice, projecting it with a touch of magic so it rings down the hall, through every room, into your personal library, and beyond.

When there’s still no answer, his sense of discomfort grows, and like there is a hook in him, in his very soul, he can feel his magic being tugged along, down the hall to your bedroom.

When pushes the door open, his heart slams to a halt. Fear is the foreign sensation that pours through him, paralyzes him. It’s fear that anesthetizes him as he stares at you, crumpled on the floor, surrounded by books, ancient grimoires and other texts, your magic drained from your body like someone has bled you dry, eyes wide in agony and a rasping breath on your lips. The room smells like mineral, like clay rich soil, like earth, and he chokes on it when he realizes the stain that darkens the carpet beneath you is your blood. 

 “Oh, little witch.” He murmurs, kneeling by your side, wide palm slipping behind your neck gently. “What have ye done?” He tucks you into his chest, and you mumble something as he carries you to your bed, trying to lay you flat, propping your face up so he can look into your eyes.

“N-no.” you push against him weakly.

“Shhh, Fern. It’s okay.”

“Don’t.” you hiss, and blood leaks from your lips. His magic thrashes, barely contained, bubbling up and trying to break free.

“Tell me what to do.” He pleads, desperation rising in him like the swell of high tide, threatening to tip him over into fathomless depths, places where he cannot swim, or survive.

“Lea… leave.” You moan, and he shakes his head. “Leave. I don’t… I don’t need your ‘elp.”

“No.” He refuses, cradling your face between his hands, and you blink at him slowly, eyelids heavy, expression disorientated. Long seconds pass and you look… confused suddenly, like you don’t recognize him, like all the vitriol and venom that you were spitting a moment ago has suddenly disappeared, and he feels a surge of your magic, the snapping of something, the binding, twisting, and tugging at the two of you.

“Johnny?” You mumble, and a smile breaks across his face, a small one, an encouraging one, something he hopes brings you comfort.

“Aye. It’s me, dove. It’s me. ’m here.” You tremble in his grasp, and more blood drips from your mouth. The sight of it is enough to loosen the hold on his power, and the room floods with bright light, illuminating every corner in the flat, and every detail on your face.

You need help. You need help, now. Badly.

He’s never wanted to have your name as frantically as he does in this moment. He wants to force you to tell him what to do, how to fix whatever this is, he wants to reach inside your magic and your mind and root around in your soul until he can pull the answer free from your lips.

A terrible thought forms in his mind. It’s wrong, and one he is sure you will hate him for, one he knows you will punish him for.

If you live. 

Danger. Catastrophic. 

Blood witches aren’t meant to be bound to others. 

The binding could kill her. 

Ce’s warning plays over and over in his mind, and when you cough again, blood splattering on his forearm, his magic makes his mind up for him, spreading forward to try to soothe you, cocooning you in a soft, twilight embrace that tries to lull you to sleep.

He pulls you back into his arms, tucking you against his body and concentrating his power on the thrum of your heartbeat, the power in your veins. He needs to blink the two of you to the closest door, and the only one that’s remotely doable is in Sherwood Forest, nestled among a ring of birch trees that all lean suspiciously inward.

“Fern.” He tries to get your eyes to focus on him, jostling you slightly as he strides away from your room. “Fern, I need… I have to take ye away.” Your brow furrows, and somewhere in the very back of his mind, he remembers how cute you are when you look at him like this, when you’re well, and not suffering.

He comes to halt in the kitchen, where Jet sits on her haunches atop the table, watching him with her head cocked.

“She’s dying.” He explains to her, and Jet scowls before she answers him, disdain dripping from her words.

“Because of you.” 

“What happened?” 

“The binding was an accident. She lost control.” 

“She needs help. Is there anyone?” 

“Not here… she’s been shunned. Thanks to you.” She glares at him, and he shoves down his urge to scream. Jet slinks towards him, eyes wise and wandering, sizing him before she sits down next to where he’s got you hovering above the table in his grip. “You’ll have to take her.” 

“I cannae. I need her name.” She flicks her gaze to you before hopping from the table, walking to where the door creaks open on its own.

“You need to get it on your own.”

“She’s dying, Jet.” 

“I know you won’t let that happen. After all, this was your plan, was it not?” She says before slipping outside, into the night.

You shiver against him, and he tightens his arms around you instinctively, lowering his nose into your hair, trying to find the sweet balsam and citrus scent under the sour smell of scorched earth and black blood. It’s there, but barely. There’s hope.

“Little witch.” He taps your cheek, trying to get you to concentrate on him, to look at him. “Fern, will you give me your name?” He coos sweetly, sugaring his voice with honey, dropping his glamour to pull your focus. It’s wrong, he knows this, so wrong, a true violation, but what choice does he have?

He won’t leave you to die.

You lick your lips, and he smiles, fully aware that he’s probably partially blinding you, scrambling the signals in your magic and mind, his own power pulling desperately at the binding to get you to comply.

Come on, sweet Fern. 

Give me your name, dove. 

He grips your hand, twisting your wrist until your palm is facing him, and for the first time without his glamour, he lets himself kiss you there, right on the heel below your thumb, dabbing his magic into the veins that vibrate just beneath your skin. He pushes, and then for good measure, pushes again, until your lips are cracking on an intake of breath, and your free hand is reaching for his, bloodied fingers smearing your ichor across his skin as you slowly speak, mouth forming the one thing he’s needed all along, the thing he’s wanted more than anything since the day he’s met you.

Your name. Given to him. By you.

It sinks into him, heating his own blood with the power of your admission, pulsing through his magic until it’s settling in that spot behind his ribs, the same spot that’s been aching since the last time he saw you, the place where the binding is nestled.

“Okay.” He coos, and then repeats your name, while you nod. “Okay, hold on to me.” He whispers, and then pulls everything in the flat tight, all the magic that’s spilled from your body, all the magic that he’s let run wild since he got here. He moves himself, and you, into the blink, and then the ground shifts, room tilting and splitting until the walls are fading into trees, the tile of your kitchen becoming grass under his feet, and your ceiling is a night sky. You squeeze your eyes shut and bury your face in his chest, and he knows it’s because the blink is uncomfortable, disorientating for those who are not Fae. Lesser creatures usually don’t even survive it.

But you are no lesser creature.

This fact, this truth, is the thing he takes comfort in as he barrels towards the door, his magic breaking through the threshold and crashing through the planes until he’s stumbling into Faerie with a blood covered witch curled against his chest.

“Are ye hungry?” Eilean asks from the threshold of the room, not willing to cross inside, but eager to see if she can help at all.

“No.”

“Should I bring some wine?” She tries, voice dipped in hopeful inflection. He rubs a palm over his face in part exasperation, part exhaustion.

“Please. Wine would be lovely, thank ye Eilean.” He placates her, and he doesn’t need to turn to know she’s smiling with approval.

He wouldn’t turn, regardless. He doesn’t dare look away from where you lay against the pillows in a bed that seems far too big. Where you lay, alone. Sleeping. Unconscious now, for far too many days. You’re weak, so weak, from travelling here, from trying to exist in this realm, a realm that you were not made for, a realm that no one seems to know if you can even persist in.

The Isle cradles you, fosters your survival. She holds you firm, holds you as he would, a casket of stone and sea weaving around your body, protecting you from anything. Everything.

Sometimes he fears she may be protecting you from him.

The waves crash against the rocks far below where he sits and you lay, sea ravaging against the rock, water pounding against stone over and over, the repetition enough to carve out caves and patterns in the walls, to change the physical manifestation of the Isle, to alter the very ground he lives on, walks on. The ground that he had hoped, one day, you may walk on with him. Beside him. The place he had hoped you might embrace with all her horror and secrets, that you might accept as a place of your own.

His hope fades with every breath you draw. It flickers like a flame being doused out.

Every now and then, you fidget beneath the blankets, body shivering and shaking, subdued whimpers escaping your lips as you twitch. He fears the binding may not need to drive him mad, because watching you suffer, watching you sleep endlessly, may do it regardless, in the end. 

However, the bleeding has stopped, a small thing that Johnny is immensely grateful for, even though no one knows why.

“She needs time.” The healer tried to tell him, their effervescent magic embracing you in a halo while they worked to stop the blood that had started leaking from your eyes and nose, as well as your mouth. “Her magic is overloaded by the binding. The best thing you can do for her is stay close by. She will wake on her own time.” 

“Her temperature-“

“We do not know. There are some things at work here, even we do not understand.” They explained, sympathy pooling across their face. 

They wished him well after that, instructing him to call for them should they be needed further. 

He didn’t know how to ask them to stay. He didn’t know how to tell them that for the first time in his eternally too long life, he was truly scared. 

“How is she?” This voice, this one that calls to him from the threshold, speaking to him in his mind, startles him in the armchair, even though he knows it belongs to his brother. He turns to see Gaz, who watches him through lowered lashes. He’s keeping his distance, as every other being has, unsure about how Johnny will react with another coming so close to his… witch. “Price says ya’ve been holed up in here for days. Thought I’d come check, see if anything was needed.”

“Come in.” Johnny implores, out loud, and Gaz does, hesitantly, watching his brother for any changes, any indication he may lose control. Once he gets about two meters away, Johnny holds his hand up, a signal to stop, and Gaz conjures a chair, brimming at the seams with sun kissed light, a neat trick that benefits him when he plops down in it, like he too, is exhausted and weary.

“Well?”

“She’s… ‘m not sure. She still hasn’t woken, and her temperature, her body is hot to the touch. Too hot. But she’s stopped bleeding, which I take as a good thing.” He hasn’t left your side, constantly feeding the binding his own magic in hopes it would help give you some strength or help heal you.

“She’ll be alright.” Kyle encourages lowly, smiling at him. “She has you to look out for her, after all.” Johnny nods, even if he doesn’t believe it.

“Thank ye, for comin’.” He whispers, clearing his throat.

“We’re family, Johnny. Even when you run away to this damn Isle with a blood witch that you’ve stolen from the mortal realm.” He laughs with a wink, and Johnny’s lips curl into a very subtle grin.

“Not much better than Simon, am I?”

“Well, you didn’t drag us all around the mortal realm for nearly a decade so, that’s something.” He sighs, leaning back, slinging his feet over the arm of the chair. “Besides. I’m not exactly exempt either now.” Johnny nods, and he watches the flicker of discontent that washes over his brother, the way his magic pulses through him and the chair before returning to stasis.

Now, it’s his turn to ask.

“How is she?” Gaz shakes his head.

“Violent.” The word gives Johnny pause, and he feels his sympathy grow. His brother is the gentlest of them, the most kind. The one who others seek out, for comfort, for care. The one who wields the sun’s light itself. “Won’t let me near ‘er. Won’t eat. Won’t open the door, only yells at me through it. Hardly even speaks to her sister.” He pauses, pinching the bridge of his nose with graceful fingers. “She wants me to let her die.”

“And will ye?” He doesn’t respond right away, and they both just watch where you lay in the bed, silent.

“Don’t think I can. I feel… something for her. It’s different, from anything I’ve felt before. It’s-“

“Frightening.” Johnny finishes for him, and some tension leaks from his body. It is unlike them both, to feel fear. To feel fear and acknowledge it.

You twitch, eyes moving behind closed lids, and Gaz gives him a nod as he rises.

“See you soon?”

“Aye.”

It’s late, two days later, when you start to wake. Your temperature has gone down, and you’ve finally slept peacefully through an entire night. The moons have already risen, and Johnny has the drapes tucked open, so the room is illuminated in a silvery purple glow that shimmers across the floor and onto the bed. Your lashes flutter, and he feels the influx of magic in the room, ebbing and flowing, growing stronger and stronger, spilling from you as you swim closer and closer to consciousness, your eyes slowly opening, brow furrowed, discontent pulling your lips downwards in a frown. The wild yearning cries out inside of him, chaos beating in his heart, and he struggles to contain it.

“What’s…” your voice trails off as you look around, and Johnny waits for the moment when you find him in the chair by your bedside.

It happens fast. Your expression goes from confused, maybe a little contrite, but still curious, to rage filled, and startled. Fear reflects in your gaze, and his stomach drops.

“Fern.” He tries to calm you, and you hold your hand in front of your body like you’re trying to ward him off.

“Stay away from me.” You hiss. You try to sit up, try to move away from him, but your body is too weak, physically, and you sink down to your elbows in a second while you press yourself against the headboard. “What did you do to me? Where am I?” He stands, casting a little bit of magic out, trying to relax you, but you beat him back with your own before you’re yelling as loud as you can. “Help! Help! HELP ME!” you scream, voice drenched in horror, and a piece of his heart chips away in an instant.

You’re terrified of him. 

There’s a noise, behind him, like a soft chiming of bells, and then he feels the shadow of Eilean’s magic, her presence unmistakable. He holds a hand out to stop her in the doorway, and you gasp aloud, palm covering your mouth, eyes round with shock when you see her.

“Oh. My gods.” You look from her, back to him, and then around the room, tracking out the window to where the three moons glow, bathing the sea below in silky shades of lilac, before you try even harder to shuffle yourself away from the edge of the bed, your hands fully shaking. “You stole me.” You whisper it between your fingers. “You took me. We’re… we’re in Faerie.” Tears are coursing down your cheeks, breaths coming in frantic little puffs that grate at his soul, the spot beneath his ribs aching as you cry.

“I thought… ah thought I was goin’ lose ye.” He croaks. “I dinnae- I had no other choice.” You’re breathing too fast, too short, and he wants to tear at the unfathomable distance between you and him that seems to be widening by the moment.

“Get away from me.” You half yell, half cry at him, tone dripping in disdain, in fear. “Get away!” you scream, and the demand physically pains him, like you’re ripping him apart, like you’re taking a knife and jamming it up underneath his ribs, hollowing him out, destroying him from the inside.

He stumbles from the room, clutching his side like he’s been wounded, and your magic lashes forward to slam the door shut behind his back with a finality that hits like a killing blow.

“Well, she’s scared. And rightfully so.” Ce says with a hand on her hip, leveling Johnny with a look that he can feel burning through his skin. “I managed to get her to listen to me long enough so I could… explain everything.” He straightens.

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth.” She sighs, and shifts her weight, reaching for where Simon stands. He takes her outstretched hand and brings her into his body, wrapping her up with a supportive arm around her waist. Johnny eyes the doors of the bedroom, clearly overeager, and she shakes her head immediately. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

“But-“

“She’s traumatized. She was used by you, betrayed by you. And then you kidnapped her from the only home she’s ever known.” At that, she gives Simon a healthy glare, and he has the good sense to look at least, somewhat ashamed. “It gets worse, I’m afraid.” Simon watches closely, and Ce looks at Johnny with a face full of sadness. “The binding… she may not be able to undo it.”

“What?”

“It is powerful magic. Magic that she did not intend to cast. It came… from the heart.” Johnny lets his eyes slip shut at her words, jaw clenching tight. “You need to prepare for what is to come, if she cannot reverse it.” She ghosts a hand over her belly and implores him with a meaningful look, one that cannot be understated or misunderstood.

The magic that feels like you, the fibers that he believes are the binding, seem to flex within his power, like it’s being pulled, and he involuntarily takes a step towards the door.

“Soap.” Simon beseeches, and Johnny stops short. “You must give her some space for now.”

They’re right. He knows, they’re right. He’s violated you, forced your name from you, stole you from your home, betrayed you in every way.

But the binding, the burning ache in his side, cries out to him. Begs him to go to you. Begs him to take you into his arms, complete the binding right then and there, and steal you away forever.

He grits his teeth.

“Alright.”

Days pass, and Johnny fights himself every step of the way. He fights his magic, which has grown unruly and uncomfortable again, fights the gaping hole that seems to be forming in that spot behind his ribs, fights what he is sure now is the binding, the incessant pull that tries to drag him into your orbit. He fights how he feels, the deep-laid emotions that he’s spent months trying to bury, and the feelings of discontent, of missing something. Someone.

The estate is heavy with your ghost. Eilean keeps him informed of your comings and goings, your visits with Simon’s wife, your days spent locked in his library. She says you’re physically better, but tire easily. You only sleep for short moments at a time, like him. Johnny tries to tell himself he does not care that you refuse to see him. He tells himself that it does not bother him, that you were so willing to shut him out completely, so eager to escape him. He tells himself that the sound of your fear, of your cries for help are not burning into his memory, that they are not entrenching themselves into his soul, driving him mad. He tells himself it’s just the binding. That the binding is driving him to the brink, that the binding is to blame for his near descent into madness.

But he knows, it’s not responsible for everything, It’s not responsible for the yearning in his soul, his heart, his magic. For the wild edged chaos that brews out of control in his veins.

It's love. His heart bleats in the quiet hours of the night, when he holds his breath and feels for you through the estate, when he catches the barely-there scent of citrus and blood in a hallway where you must have recently lingered. It’s love. His mind screams when he closes his eyes to rest for a few precious moments, and all he can see is your face, smiling at him, giggling in the golden light of your kitchen at dusk. It’s love. His magic shrieks at him to go to you, to hold you, to tell you everything. To tell you about the way his power rioted in his blood the moment he saw you, the way his magic exploded in his chest the first time you shared your heart, your mind, your life with him, the way he knew after that very first day, that no other being would ever possess him, except you.

Eilean walks with you in the garden. He tries not to watch too closely, warily waiting for something to happen, for a decision to be made that he will not be able to fight, no matter how hard he tries. She delights you, when she shows you how to sow your magic into the fabric of Faerie, how to connect with Isle as you connect with the earth of your home realm.

Johnny does not allow himself the hope that lights in his soul, when she looks up at where he stands in the window, and nods. An approval. A yes. A piece of herself, given to you.

As time crawls by, he cannot stop himself from thinking about you, every waking moment. He cannot stop himself from wondering how you’re faring, if you need him, if you’re feeling well. His magic never lets him sleep, never lets him come, keeps him on the edge eternally, pacing, tossing, and turning while his mind is invaded by thoughts of you.

It is one of these nights, when he’s drowning in too many feelings, along with two bottles of wine, pacing fruitlessly, that Gaz blinks into the kitchen with an irritated huff.

“Look sharp. Been callin’ ya for hours.” Gaz spits, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. “Bloody hell, Soap. Get yourself together. Simon sent for us.”

The meeting is a long one.

Simon outlines recent inquiries, payloads for work, demands of their presence in places across the realm, old contracts that have long laid dormant being renewed with a fresh round bloodshed.

It is the same song and dance. The same battle cry of blood and victory.

Fae and mortals are not as different in their hearts as they seem, he muses, reading over a potential contract, a high paying job for the removal of a seated power. It comes with a catch, a royal child who requires protection, and he places it on the top of the list for consideration. Children cost extra.

He is not surprised, when both Simon and Gaz seem hesitant to agree to anything, especially work that will take them away from extended periods of time.

Johnny says nothing but shares their feelings. The idea of leaving the Isle for any amount of time makes his magic churn in his veins. Even now, anxiety builds like a storm inside him, and he agonizes about returning.

“It’s not optimal.” Simon declares, while Price smirks from where he sits with his arms crossed.

“Ye going soft, Riley?” Johnny ribs him, and Simon scowls.

“I’ll show you soft, Soap.” He shoots back, while Gaz chuckles.

“I’m not opposed to taking it easy, for a bit.” Price offers something, an inquiry that caught his eye, a short engagement, not very far away, while Simon counters it with a different one that’s even less time. They bicker, back and forth, back and forth, and Gaz slowly becomes more interested in a half open book laying on Simon’s desk than he does the conversation.

Johnny loses interest completely. The spot beneath his ribs is pounding like his heart, and his magic is swelling violently in time with the binding. When he says his goodbyes, no one is surprised.

“I want to know.” 

“Witch business is no business of the Fae.” 

“Fern is my business.” She laughed at his demand, the echo of it scraping across the front his mind like he had been scratched by her claws. 

“So possessive.” She murmured. “Over a witch who does not even know the truth of who you are.” 

“Jet.” He warned, and she growled a sigh. 

“Divination is not practiced here as it practiced in your realm. It requires a sacrifice, and the visions are not easy, even for a powerful witch like Fern. It extracts a higher toll.” His blood curdled in his veins, and her tail whipped back and forth, green eyes watchful from where she sat in the kitchen. “Her participation is not voluntary.” 

“They force her?”

“They’ve forced her since she was a child. The coven only cares for their power, their vanity, their immortality, and without the blood spinner, without the Divination, they would have none of it.” He pictured you, a small girl, alone, defenseless, victim to practices of your coven, your magic and mind a tool for them to use, to take advantage of, to torture. She licked her paw before rising to all fours, casting an underhanded glance at him. “The way they see it, Fern belongs to them. The blood spinner is not a being with a soul, but a thing to be used as the coven sees fit.” Outside, the wind howled, spurred on by the tethers of magic that spun from Johnny, the chaos that reveled in his distress, ropes and ropes of rage and desperation twisting together with the force of his power, sowing down deep into the earth, and expelling into the sky. “Should one protest… well.” She didn’t finish, just fixed her gaze beyond him, out through the window where the sky swirled with violent hues of black and purple. 

“Her parents.” Jet refused him a response, but he didn’t need one to know the truth. “She doesn’t know.” He continued, and she slunk from her perch to the corner of the table. 

“Have you considered what will happen, after your damage is done? What the coven will do when they discover her betrayal? Or worse…. you and your brothers are not the only ones who go bump in the night here. Fern is a magnet for creatures. Without the protection of her coven, she will be a target. She will be vulnerable.” She studied him, and he felt the shadowed point of her power, probing along his own, trying to peer into his mind. 

He let a swirl of chaos break free, pushed out into the open. 

He let a sentiment slip through, into her sight. 

He had considered it, had planned for it. Anticipated it. 

She met his eyes with her own, and understanding, recognition occurred between them. 

“You plan to take her.” 

He blinks onto the veranda of his own home, eager to escape the argument, rubbing his neck in exasperation when he catches the scent of balsam and citrus, mineral and blood, coming from the garden.

It’s you. You’re in the garden. 

“Hello.” Johnny calls, stepping into the grass but no further, allowing you to see him, to recognize him as a non-threat. The light from the moons spills down your back and across your skin, making you shimmer under their glow, illuminating you in the brisk night air. The flowers around you are all in bloom, even in the middle of the night, and his lips quirk to the side with a smile when he realizes it’s your doing, velvety petals blossoming across the grounds in large swatches, vibrating with the signature of your magic.

You’re sitting amongst a variety of plants, long vines that stretch and strain towards where your fingers dance to entice them into reaching for you.

“Hi.” You don’t bother to lift your eyes, and it stings a little, disappointment settling heavy in his stomach. He takes a deep breath.

“I was hoping we could talk.”

“About what?” you bristle, and he grinds his teeth. About us? About the binding? About what happened? About how sorry I am? About how I cannot stop thinking about ye? Worrying about ye? Obsessing? He settles on, what happened, hoping that will ease you open to talking.

“About what happened.”

“About what happened, which time? The time when you used me to get information so your brother could abduct a Nereid, or the time you stole my name from me and then stole me from my own realm." 

Well. Fuck. 

“What’s wrong, Johnny? Cat got your tongue?” You latch onto his silence and dig in, not sparing him from your venom. His temper flares, needled on by the discomfort that is restless in his magic, and he pushes back at you.

“I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done to save ye, dove.” He snaps, drawing to his full height, and you glare at him, fury twisting your face into something that’s a little scary, and a little enthralling.

“Save me?” you hiss, incredulous. “Save me? You didn’t care much about saving me when you used me to get what you needed.” You stand, forgoing your plants to face him, fingers pointed to the ground, a hot flare of magic stretching across the space between him and you.

“I never wanted to hurt ye, I wanted to bring ye with me, but it was too late before ye knew the truth and I had no chance to explain.” He counters, and you laugh, the sound all sour and wrong, harsh, and unforgiving.

“You thought I would just go with you? You tricked me. You took advantage of me.” He feels the ground shifting, feels the earth growing under his feet, and your magic pulsing around him, strong and eager, pushing and pulling at something he cannot see. What is this?  “You lied to me. You betrayed me.” The forest at your back groans, like the Isle herself is protesting this battle of wills, like she objects to the clash of power. The pressure in the air rises, and then something is tightening around his feet, restricting his boots, and tying him to the ground.

Roots.

There are tree roots, crisscrossed across his toes, snaking up his ankles.

“Fern.” He warns.

“Johnny.” You mock, and the magic crests, more gnarled plant life coming to sprout from the ground, lashing across his wrists, tying them tight to his sides wrapping him up like rope. “You won’t fight back?” you taunt, mouth curving into a wicked little smile. Another tendril of green binds around his forearm, and he grunts with effort to stay calm.

“No.” he grits out.

“No? No?” you hiss and step closer, bare feet pressing the grass down between your toes. You look like a predator in this moment, eyes sharp and narrowed, stalking closer to your prey. You’re enchanting, and unsettling, and the binding hums inside of him.

The plants twist past his forearms, tightening against his circulation, curling up his biceps and stroking the skin of his shoulders.

His power flares, distressed, confused.

In battle, if you were a foe, he’d already have struck you down, dealt you a killing blow.

“Fern. Stop this.” The vines squeeze him, and then crawl up his neck, holding firm beneath his jaw.

“Do you know what they wanted to do to me, Johnny? After they found out what I did?” He chews on the inside of his cheek, trying to wait you out, trying to see if you’ll draw back. “Answer me!” your voice cracks, and so does his heart.

“No.”

“They wanted to burn me at the stake.” You whisper, the words enough to take his breath. His magic thrashes. The spot underneath his ribs aches. “It wasn’t enough to shun me. They wanted to kill me.” He shakes his head furiously.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I-“

“No, don’t say that. You’re not.”

“Ah wouldn’t have let them. No one will ever touch ye again Fern, I swear it.”  

“Why even bother with more of these lies? You just needed to help your brother, and you didn’t care who was collateral damage. You used me.” You break, and a tear glitters on your cheek, refracting the light of the moons. “Just… just like them.” Oh, dove. 

“No, no. That’s not… It’s not true. Ah care for ye, ye’ve meant something to me since the first day I laid-“

“Stop.” The plants squeeze him, and any tighter they’ll probably be strangling him. Cutting off his air. He fights against them, just marginally, enough to give himself some breathing room, and is surprised when they don’t loosen so easily. “I’m stronger here. Eilean taught me, how to feel this earth. How to hear it breathing, find its water, its blood.” You explain, tone bitter, and he nods a slow agreement.

“Of course.” Of course, she did. Because she likes you, dove. She accepts you. She wishes for you to make your home here. With me. With us. 

He doesn’t try again, doesn’t flex in the web of plants that you’ve wrapped him in, just stands completely still, waiting. He urges his power to settle, to resist the call of blood and battle, to stand down as you seethe.

If he tried, only a little harder, he could shred the vines and roots in an instant. He could break free.

But a large part of him, spurred on by the gaping hole that’s been left by your absence, the pain that’s nestled in his diaphragm, doesn’t want to.

Most of him wants to stand here and take it, take everything from you.

It’s no more than he deserves, and he knows it.

Your hands are shaking, fingernails gleaming in the moonslight when you hastily wipe your cheek, and he wants so badly to reach for you. To hold you. To tell you how sorry he is. How he wishes he could take it all back. How he never wanted to hurt you.

“I trusted you.” It’s a whisper on the wind, spoken to the earth, to the sky, to anywhere but him. The words are hollow, like there’s nothing left there for him, like you’ve written your story, and his pages are long over.

“Ah know.” He murmurs. Your tears drip onto the grass, and he watches each one splash while dread swallows his heart whole. The ache in his ribs burns, magic howling through his limbs, tugging and digging against him to act, to move.

In the end, he doesn’t move at all. He stands trapped in the vines you’ve grown around him, stands trapped in time as you walk past him and up the veranda into the estate. The wind shrieks through the trees, whipping around where he stands immobile, and he watches the light in your room on the second-floor flick on, a warm yellow glow seeping out from behind the curtains as you peek around them, gazing down to where he stands, still like a statue in the garden below.

He stands there until your room goes dark.

The light sparkled across your skin, your hair, your eyes. He had never been fond of the mortal realm’s sun, always finding it too harsh, too abrasive, but the way it shone on you in that moment, he wasn’t sure he had loved anything more. 

“Which was your favorite, then?” You extended the thing in your hand towards him, the fragrant, sweet ice cream treat, and he politely shook his head to decline. 

“Ah dinnae care much for it, if ‘m being honest.” 

“What?” Your other arm stayed looped in his, allowing him to subtly press his hip against yours, feel the warmth of your skin through the fabric of your skirt as the two of you took long, loping steps down the park’s path. “How can you not like ice cream?” You frowned. “We sampled so many. You didn’t like any of them?” He considered explaining he only sampled them because it allowed him to stand to so close you in that tiny shop. That he liked it because he was able to wrap his fingers around yours when you passed him the tiny spoons. 

“The mint was alright.” He told you instead, and you huffed. “The lavender one too.” You gave him a curious look, and he couldn’t help himself, too eager to see you smile, too weak to resist the promise of your laughter. “It seems, I am overly fond of plants.” 

The sea roars beneath grassy knoll where he hides. He swears it’s screaming your name, calling to you, crying about you.

He tries to clear his mind.

It’s why he comes here. To think. To be alone. To be unbothered. The hill is tucked away from his home, and he sits in the shadow of an ash tree, staring at the sky, waiting to settle, waiting to feel at peace.

A fool’s errand. 

His mind is incapable of rest. It can only dwell on one thing, his desperation, his desire, his longing for you. The yearning in his heart that now works in tandem with the binding, trying to drag him towards you every waking moment of the day, trying to force him into your path.

You’re in the hallway when he returns, stack of books clutched to your body.

“Fern.” He chokes out, dumbstruck. He had planned a speech, for this, after what happened in the garden. A plea. A desperate sonnet of sadness and guilt. But in this moment, with you standing in front of him like a wild animal that may dart away at any moment, everything escapes him. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, his brain feels blank.

You’re frozen, looking back at him, eyes wide, and a tiny sliver of relief fractures through his heart when he doesn’t smell any fear on you.

“Hi.” You whisper, and like a magnet, he cannot stop himself from stepping closer.

You do not flinch, or move, or even look away. You just… stare at him.  

“Are ye well?” He tries, and you swallow so loud he can hear it rattling in his brain.

“I… am. Are you?”

“As well as I can be.” I’m in love with ye. I’ve been in love with ye. I’m sorry. All of these things echo in his mind, circling his consciousness but none of them come to the forefront. Instead, he stammers out a: “Ye look… beautiful.” Bleedin’ gods. It’s a massacre. He tries to smother his grimace and you give him a funny look.

“Thank you.”

“Are ye, getting on well here?” He motions to the too long, too wide hallway that seems to stretch farther and farther every second, and you nod slowly.

“Yes, you have… a lot of books.”

“Ah… ‘ve always been fond of them. The books.” He agrees, and your lips flick upwards in a polite smile. His heart races.

He takes another step.

It’s too much. You shrink away, moving backwards, and he curses himself.

“Sorry-“

“I should go.” You gesture the leather-bound volumes in your grasp.

“Of course.” He concedes, and you incline your head to him before turning around.

His magic screams through his body the entire time he watches you walk away.

You’ve made yourself at home in the library. He tries to push away the glee that it brings him, the fire that it stokes within him, the urge that it encourages. The binding warbles inside his magic, his soul, as he passes the door every day, tugging and dragging him until he’s trying the handle one morning, ignoring his prior commitments, opting to slide inside the heavy wooden doors just for a chance to see your face.

“You have books from my ho- from the mortal realm.” He winces, when you cut your words off abruptly and reroute them, all while staring at him from the desk in the library. Your fingers stroke the corner of a volume that lays open in front of you, and he takes a step closer, slowly, hesitantly, waiting to see if you’ll spook.

You don’t. You don’t even fidget, or flinch, just gently turn the pages as if everything is normal.

“Would ye like to see something special?” He cannot help it, this desire to impress you, to tempt you. He wants to catch you, keep you, hold you in a thrall like you hold him in yours. He thinks he should probably feel guilty, for using the things he knows you love so dear to entice you, to gentle you to him and draw you out, but he can’t find it in himself to feel poorly for it. He’s worried sick. He wants to see you smile again. Wants the life to come back to your eyes.

He wants his sweet Fern. His little witch.

He gestures to a book, one that sits in a glass case on a table next to his side, black binding shiny and perfect as if it were brand new and not thousands of years old.

“What is it?” You cannot help yourself, brushing past him to lean over the glass, eyes wide and curious.

“It’s a grimoire.” You inspect it with a frown, and he threads his magic through the air and into the glass, evaporating it into its original form, tiny spheres of sand that disappear before your eyes. You startle, and he smirks when you look up at him.

“Doesn’t look like any grimoire I’ve ever seen.” Your hand cautiously hovers above the spell book, and he can feel your magic probing along the edges, testing, seeking.

“It’s from a Netherworld.”

“Which?” you blurt, and then look half embarrassed, before tacking on a soft spoken, “And how?” He’s not surprised that you know of them, but it feels uneasy, knowing you may have been exposed to something from those realms, some sort of monster or creature, a Demon or worse, an Angel.

“The Below. I travel there, sometimes.” Your jaw goes slack, and you study him closer, something foreign flickering across your features before they turn doleful.

“I have seen them.” What? You turn a page with your magic, being careful not to let your fingers directly touch the pages. “Through Divination. I’ve seen both the Below, and Above.” You shudder, and his heart thunders, blood rushing through his ears.

A mortal witch, who’s not a mortal at all. Who spins blood and can see through realms, into the Below and Above. Places not even Gaz or Price dare travel to. 

Formidable indeed. 

“Dove, that’s… that must have been frightening.” Another page turns beneath your fingers, and you shrug.

“I have been Divining since I was a child. I’ve seen many things. It’s how I knew where we were, when I woke up,” Rage rips through him, unbridled and coarse, rousing his magic into a whirlwind of anger, the feel of it as violent as when he first learned the truth. It makes his blood boil in his veins, makes the shelves in the library vibrate in anticipation, his magic bouncing around the room, seeking to destroy, to sow chaos, to obliterate.

“Johnny.” Simon’s voice calls, echoing inside his skull, and he tenses, muscles turning to stone as he feels for his brother, locating him and Gaz outside, in the hall.

“Not now.” He grits in response, but he hasn’t forgotten his prior engagement, and knows trying to put it off is pointless.

When they come closer, when Simon pulls the doors wide, he bares his teeth, tension filling the air of the library. They stand at a respectful distance, not stepping inside, leagues away at the opposite end of the room, but he still feels overly exposed, can feel the pull of possession as he instinctually positions himself between your body and theirs.

You frown at his brothers before stepping into the shadow of his body, close enough that you brush against him, your fingers tracing a barely-there circle on the inside of his wrist.

“Why did you do it?” You break the silence, whispering to the ceiling, and he frowns.

“Do what?”

“Make me fall in love with you.” You still do not look at him, but he cannot tear his eyes from you, mouth wide with shock, the space beneath his ribs pulsing with chaotic magic, his heart beating too fast to count. “You could have just… used your magic. You could have taken what I knew, by force. Why did you spend all that time with me?” The confession slowly takes shape across his tongue, heavy and raw, ready to drip like honey from his mouth to yours.

“I- are ye in love with me, Fern?”

“Answer the question.”

“I knew what I had to do, to help my brother but ye were unexpected. The worst, and most wonderful surprise of my eternal existence.”

“Johnny.” Simon’s insistence echoes across his mind and he feels the urge to turn on them both, to banish them from the estate, from the Isle, from his life, just to keep his time with you from being interrupted.

‘Bloody terrible timing.”

“Clearly. But this cannot be delayed.” He clenches his jaw, and pulls your hand into his, smoothing a palm over your knuckles.

“I’ll be back later, if ye want to talk more.” It’s a hopeful thing, this sentence. Something that carries so much weight, without even being a question. Something that has the power to crush him, without a mere thought.

“Okay.” You whisper.

“Okay?” your head bobs, and you look down at the book with mock interest.  

“I do not forgive you but, I’d like to… talk. Yes.” Yes. Yes. The word rings between his ears. He can work for your forgiveness, he can spend the rest of his existence earning it, if this means you’ll let him. If you’ll speak to him.

“Later then?” He manages to get out, and then squeezes your hand in a goodbye after you nod.

He does not see the way you stare at your own fingers after he leaves, does not see the way your magic explodes throughout the library, before settling back against your skin like a warm embrace, your side of the binding fluttering in your heart.

“My home is alive.” He told your sleeping form, words quiet as he watched for any sign of you waking. “The place where my home is built, where I was born. The Isle. She chooses, who can stay, who can make their life there. She is a complex thing, a wild thing. Like you.” You twitched, and he paused, holding still as he waited. 

When you didn’t rouse, he pushed a small spark of chaos into your sleeping mind, drawing you in deeper, settling you into your wildest dreams. “Jet told me, about what ye’ve been through. About what the coven has done to ye, forced ye to do… and I think, the Isle would accept ye. Ah think she would like ye, and welcome ye, Fern. With me.” You shivered, and he instinctually warmed the room, raising the temperature until you settled.

“Johnny.” Price called inside his mind, insistent, but patient. “We have business.” He sighed. 

He had already been here too long tonight, and his brothers waited for him. 

The kiss to your hair was fleeting. Gentle. Sweet. Punctuated with a whisper lost on the breeze from the open window. 

“Gods, what have ye done to me little witch?” 

“Ye come out here often.” He says quietly from the door, standing just beyond it after spotting you on the veranda, and you nod slowly in response, eyes dragging away from the sky to his, before returning upwards. The night is soft. Calm edged and serene, the breeze carrying a hint of sea spray from the foam below.

“I’ve never seen so many.” 

“Stars?” 

“Planets.”

“Surely there are other planets besides your own?” He knows there are, he’s seen them in sky, in the mortal realm.

“Yes, but not like this. There’s… there’s nothing, like this.” Your lips part, throat bobbing with a breath and he feels a strange tightening his chest as he watches you take it in. You look so amazed, so enchanted, so captivated by something he views so ordinary, that he too, tilts his head back to look up at the dizzying number of planets. Hundreds of worlds swirl in the inky darkness above them, their colors so vibrant they shine like gemstones, blinking in and out of the velvet backdrop that is the night sky. “There are so many worlds. So many places.” you whisper to him, a smile full of awe sloping across your lips. “Do you go to them? These worlds?” 

“Some.” 

“Some.” you parrot. “Some.” you laugh, like the notion is absurd, which it probably is, to you. Something inconceivable, improbable. “They’re beautiful.” Your hand raises to reach for them, as if you could pluck one right out of the night and hold it in your palm. He watches, entranced by the way the three moon’s light shimmers across your face, bathing you in a purple silver glow, spilling over your shoulders and across your skin graciously, framing you like a star, a celestial being. His throat feels dry. 

“Aye. They are.” You lapse into silence, and he enjoys the feeling of being near you, his magic humming happily in his being, peace settling over him while you watch the stars, transfixed.

“Johnny.” You breathe his name, sweet and syrupy, magic dripping from each syllable. You look a little dazed, exhaustion pulling at your features, and he indulges in a daydream where he kisses your forehead, pressing a hint of power against your skin, wrapping you in a soft cocoon of his magic to comfort you. “I… I’d like to kiss you.” The words break him from his imaginations, and he jerks, pulling away to inspect your face, to see if were alright. Or if you were reading his mind. Or if you had become possessed by some Demon, some evil creature appearing here to make him suffer more than he already was.

But all he sees is his dove. His Fern. His little witch, face soft and open, expectant.

“Would you deny me, Johnny? After everything you’ve done?” You raise an eyebrow, and his heart sings, magic humming along happily, binding trilling in his body. You’re teasing him.

“Ye never have to ask.” The words are the same ones he said on Samhain, and he restrains his movements, keeping his body slow and steady while he leans into you, lowering his mouth to yours, the warmth of your lips against him sending his heart soaring, the intoxicating scent of you, the feel of your magic, the light caress of your fingers against his hip all amplified in this realm, and by the binding that seems to be stitching the two of you together by every moment.

He follows your lead, giving you space when you begin to ease off from him, and explosions rattle his soul as he stares down at you and your cautious smile.

“I love ye, Fern.” Your eyes go wide, and you startle, stepping a half pace away. “I dinnae how to tell ye, after everything. Ah ken, ah… there’s nothing that can be said, to make up for my treachery, for what I did to you.” He can feel the binding, the sailor’s knot tightening around the two of you, dragging you into one another, can feel the distinct signature of your magic, swirling around him, can smell the sweet citrus and blood dipped in balsam that floods his dreams. It’s enough to make his head spin.

“Johnny, this- this is the binding, it’s...” He shakes his head in rebuttal and reaches for your hand.

“I’ve loved ye since the first day I set foot in the shop. I’d burn the realms for ye, Fern.”

“You used me.”

“And ye will never know how I regret it, how I wish I could change it.” Let me love you. Let me hold you. Let me have you. The swell of the tide within him crests, magic churning into an excessive force, the binding burning, screaming, yearning against his lungs, and he pushes and pulls at it, twisting it up into something he struggles to contain. “Break the binding or leave it intact. It won’t change the way I feel.”

“I-“ Your words are snatched from your mouth when you draw a quick breath, bending at the waist, flat of your palm pressed to your belly with a soft groan.

“Fern?” His hand hovers at the small of your back, just above your skin.

“Sorry, I- I just had a cramp, is all.” You straighten, faint grimace sunken into your expression, and he frowns.

“What do ye need?”

“Nothing, I’m just gonna go lay down, I think.” You’re still holding your stomach, and worry froths in his heart, his mind as he watches you wince.

“Ye sure? Do you need-“

“I’m sure.” You wave him off, already turning away. “Goodnight, Johnny.” You murmur over your shoulder.

“Sleep well, little witch.”

The shockwave that ripples through his home in the small hours of the morning startles him from restless sleep. It jolts him into a panic, the binding clawing at his mind, his magic, tugging and pulling him towards something.

Towards you.

“Fern?” He calls, body teetering at the threshold of your room.

Are you dreaming? 

Are you ill? 

He can smell you from the doorway, balsam and citrus tinged with the scent of sour fruit, distress permeating through the air to where he stands, waiting. Holding his breath for answer.

“Fern.” He tries again, firmly, but you don’t respond, only moan into your pillow, the sound of your pain tearing at his heart until he’s blinkingacross the room, coming to lean over your trembling form, panic hammering inside his skull. “Hey, dove. Are ye with me?” He pulls you towards him, holding your face between his palms. Your eyes are nearly black, pupils so large they dot out your irises, and you thrash in his grip, nails digging into his skin while you cry out.

“Jo-Johnny. Johnny.” You’re sweating, sheets soaked beneath you, and the heat that’s blaring from your skin curdles his stomach.

The binding. The magic. It’s burning you from the inside. 

You whimper, and his heart breaks for you, bleeds for you while you bury your nose in his neck, panting heavily.

“I’m here.” He tries to hold you steady, cradling the back of your head in his hand, the sear of your skin far too warm to be comfortable, the effect of the binding boiling in your blood.

You’re suffering. You’re suffering, and it’s his fault. He did this. He caused this. 

Ce’s warning echoes sharply in his mind.

“You need to prepare for what is to come, if she cannot reverse it.”

The guilt fissures his heart in two.

“It hurts.” You try to tell him, weakly, and his frustration builds, the magic inside of him compounding, yearning to lash out.

“Ah know, Ah know it does.” The words are little comfort.

“Please. Pl-please make it stop.”

He can’t. He shouldn’t. 

“It hu-hurts Johnny. Please. It burns.” You’re breaking apart in front of him. Inconsolable. Desperate. Dying. 

“Shhh. ‘ve got ye.” He tries to calm you, holds you tight against him, pressing your body to his but all it does it make you squirm more, make you cry out against him, your voice broken with distress.

“Please! Please-“ you beg, and he slams his eyes shut.

He shouldn’t. He can’t.

But you’re in pain. 

You could die. 

The binding is heating your body past any measurable sense. You were not made to survive such a thing.

When he looks at you now, he knows his insistence on refusing this is pointless. He is too weak to give you up. He is not strong enough to say no. He has loved you since the day he first laid eyes on you. He would do anything to save you, to keep you alive.

Even if it meant this.

Even if it meant completing the bond the only way he knew how.

“I’m here, I’m here.” He kisses your breastbone, trails his lips down between your breasts, sucking marks into your skin, tasting the salt of your sweat like a dying mortal. “I’m going to make it okay.” He wants to take his time, wants to savor you, wants to have you the way he’s always dreamed about, slow and sweet, taking you apart piece by piece like you deserved.

There’s no time for that now.

“Johnny.” You whimper, something broken in your voice, a desperation unlike he’s ever heard before and it stings.

“Shhh. I’m going to take care of ye.”

A broken moan rises from your throat when he moves your body, shifting you underneath his weight, pinning your hips and teasing his tongue around one your nipples, nipping across you with his teeth just enough to sting your skin, to jolt you.

“I- I need- I want-“ You try to explain it, to direct him, and your magic flourishes forward, your hands gripping onto his shoulders for salvation.

“I know what ye need, Fern. Ah know.” His fingertips stroke over your navel, over where your lower belly tenses under his touch, and then to your cunt, where scorching heat mixes with liquid fire, your body wet and ready for him, desperate for him, magic burning you with arousal, with an undeniable need for him.

“Touch me.” You plead, and his lips find the inside of your thigh, dragging towards where you’re dripping, citrus and blood flooding his senses.

You taste like everything he’s ever dreamed of. Pressure builds up his spine, magic and desire burning like a fuse as he presses his tongue against your clit, and you shiver in his grasp when he lavishes you there.

His palm presses against your belly, holding you firm, muscles and sinew rippling under his touch, your voice peaking with a cry when he swirls around your swollen bud, over and over, working you relentlessly.

“Come for me, come on. Let me make it better, dove.” It won’t, and he knows it, knows only one thing will, but he hopes to the gods it will stave off some of your pain. He rasps against your skin and you keen, rocketing into an orgasm within a moment’s time, sharp and fiery, but only a balm for the burn of the binding, the incessant tugging beneath his ribs humming with miserable bliss over the moan of his name on your lips.

You’re still strung taut, seizing, the heat of your skin blazing against him. You tug fruitlessly at his clothes, fingers knotted up in his shirt, his pants, and he swipes a hand across your cheek to press his thumb against your tongue as he divests himself with one hand and a snap of magic.

His fingers are wet with you, with your spit, your arousal, and he coats himself with it, stroking the length of his cock, kissing the crown to your opening while he stares down at you indulgently.

His Fern. His dove. His little witch. 

“Please.” You breathe your plea into him, into his mouth, his skin. “Please, it’s- I need you.” You choke and he pushes, your eyes going wide as he batters his way into your body, the tight clench of your walls strangling him as he moves. “Gods-“ you gasp, and he strokes some hair from your face, lips pressing sweetly to your cheek, your jaw to soothe you, to quiet the discomfort from the stretch.

“I know, I know.” He murmurs, keeping his movements slow and steady, watching how your expression eases, how your body adjusts, how your brows unknit with each passing moment. You relax around him finally, face going slack with bliss as he folds one of your knees back towards your shoulder. “That’s it, good… good girl.” He hums over your ear, before pressing a gentle kiss there. “Take me so well. So perfect.” He needs to fill you, own you, fuck you full and possess every inch of your being. It’s the only way, the only way to soothe your soul, to soothe his own. It’s always been the only way, since the day he saw you. Since the first time he kissed you, in the shadow of Samhain.

His heart flutters, the binding clawing at his power, wrapping itself around your heart, stitching across the bridge between your bodies to reach the other side, encasing itself and him in the warmth of blood magic, of your magic. It only grows stronger as his hips stroke, his body moving inside of yours, gasps of pleasure falling from your lips.

Your muscles clench around him, desperate, and it feels right. Everything feels right, it feels fated, it feels meant to be. Like you were made for him, born for him. You, his equal. You, his balance. He pads over your clit with a press of his fingers, moving against you in time with his thrusts and your power surges to meet his, interweaving until it’s impossible to discern your beginning and his ending.

“I’ve always wanted ye here with me.” He nips along your collarbone, tracing a bead of sweat up the skin of your neck to your jaw. “I broke into the flat, just to watch ye sleep, every night after Samhain.” He punches his sentence with thrust of his cock, brushing against your cervix, and you keen. “I’ve loved ye. Dreamt of ye. I have betrayed ye,” you mumble something, lashes fluttering, and he swallows your words with his mouth before continuing. “and will spend the rest of my existence, our existence, apologizing for my transgressions.” Your body shifts with him, the rhythm he set upon your clit forcing you forward, spine curling you into him, his name a whisper on your lips.

“Johnny, Johnny.”

He fucks into you harder, wild, primal, full of ferocity and you cry out, shuddering beneath him, squeezing around his cock. The urge to fill you, to breed you, is too strong to fight, and the binding croons to him in your voice, spurring him onwards.

“Gods, dove.” His voice is broken song, a plea, and you respond with a melody of your own. “Ye belong to me.” You nod in a daze, lips forming a word that sounds like please. “Going to give ye my come. Keep ye forever.”

“Ye-es.”

“Sweet Fern.” He coos when he feels it, the build of your climax, ushering you along with the press of his body. “My good girl, coming all over my cock. Like ye were made for it.” You hiss, and then your orgasm is washing you away, your voice shouting his name as you come. Your eyes spark, celestial light glittering beneath the black pools that have expanded across your irises, and your fingernails dig into the skin of his shoulder, blood trickling down his chest, slicking between your bodies. It spills and spills, running like a river over the two of you, tracking across your breasts, down his abdomen, across your belly, down your thighs. It flows wildly, freely, rushing from him and towards you, spurred on by your mastery of it, your mastery of him.

You’re spinning him. You’re taking and taking, the binding drinking his magic in greedily, digging and scratching beneath the surface of his chaos, sowing vines that sprout and flourish, that tie him to you. His side of the binding shrieks in glee, in elation, and bends for you, arcing between your bodies to imbue you with cosmic pieces of chaos, a blend of blood and bedlam, boiling in your veins. In his.

Blood continues to gush from his body, his mouth full of you, of citrus and blood, of earth and balsam. You inhale him, pushing your tongue past his teeth, swirling in the mess there, and when you pull away, he can see the stains of ichor on your teeth under the curve your half-moon smile.

Your magic strangles him, strengthening itself, solidifying your power, absorbing what it can of his mayhem. The binding purrs, it sings to him, it sings to you, the sound chiming through his mind, echoing off the hollowed-out coves of the Isle, vibrating through its dark forest. He shouts against it, with it, orgasm just on the peak, both his body and yours trembling violently.

“Mine.” He snaps, and you answer easily. 

“Yours.” You nod, burying your face in the crook of his neck. He cradles you there, back of your head in his palm, and then he thrusts up into your body as hard as he can, overcome with need, with the burn of the binding, with love. It’s so much, the pull of the magic, the wildness of your heart seeping into his own, and he spills as deep as he can into your body, filling you with himself, plugging his come deep, your own body sucking him in desperately while you cry and shake in his arms.

His Fern. His dove. His little witch.

Ancient celestial light streams through the curtains, the proof of an entire day passing, the rising of the moons stirring you from where you have slept for the last few hours, body and binding finally sated, skin scrubbed clean from the stain of his blood.

You blink, heavily with exhaustion, and he pulls you into his body, unable to resist cuddling you close, breathing you in and wrapping an arm around your back to still you when you start to fidget. You smell different now, like a swirling storm of him and you, and his free hand drifts to your navel possessively.

“Johnny.” You murmur, and he answers by pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“I’m here.” He whispers. “Ye can rest dove. It’s okay.” You settle against him, and just as he’s starting to drift into his own star lit slumber, you sigh.

“You should start makin’ a list.”

“Of what?” You kiss his chest, lips soft against his skin.

“Of all the things,” you yawn, breath hot and sweet, and he wants to drag his tongue over your skin again, take you apart while he savors every tremble, every moan that leaves your body. “you’re going to do over the next hundred years to make it up to me.”

“One hundred years?” he chuckles in jest, but his heart soars. 

He knows, there is more hardship to come. He knows, the pain, the suffering, that you will experience, that you will unleash on the mortal realm, on him, when you learn the truth about your parents, about your coven. He knows the challenge ahead. 

But in this quiet moment, with you in his arms, nothing about it feels like the end. 

Only the beginning. 

“Careful." you breathe into him. "Or I’ll make it two.”

#peaches writes #which witch #john soap mactavish #fae au #johnny soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x reader #fae!johnny #john soap mactavish x you #fae!au #john soap mctavish x reader #johnny soap mctavish x reader #cod x reader #fae!soap #soap mactavish #soap mw2 #magic!au #magic au

[daechwitatamic]

Of Ruin: Chapter 1 || KTH

(banner by @/itaeewon)

Of Ruin (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni Genre: vampire!au magic!au royalty!au, s2l, slow burn, eventual smut, angst and fluff

Summary: Taehyung of House Rune, Prince of Infracticus has been cursed. You’re the human world’s leading curse-breaker. It should be simple. But unraveling the curse becomes the least of your problems in the face of a world on the brink of civil war… and the love you start to feel for the prince.

A/N: Thank you endlessly to @/sailoryooons for betaing!!! 💕

//

Section Warnings: vampire hunting and killing, blood and gore in vampire attacks, language

WC: 5.7k

Maggie’s mother always told her nothing good happens after midnight. Maggie disagreed. Lots of good things happened after midnight. Usually in bars with loud music, her friends’ laughter ringing in her ears and a little too much alcohol singing in her bloodstream. 

That was the case tonight - and the night had been wonderful. She and Farrah had still been going strong at midnight, throwing back shots in tandem. The DJ had been stellar and they’d danced until their feet hurt. And, the piece de resistance, they’d run into that guy from their Econ class - the one with the dark eyes and killer smile. He’d stayed with them the whole tail end of the night - even offered to walk them home, back to their apartment building. 

He’d stayed with them, but his eyes had been on Maggie. And when, on the walk home, Farrah skipped ahead of them, buzzed and happy, he’d tugged on her hand and kissed her sweetly, right there on the sidewalk.

Nothing good happens after midnight, who? 

And then, something weird happened. The stretch of sidewalk seemed suddenly darker, as if there was something between them and the flickering streetlight - like netting, or mist. It seemed, suddenly, that the lack of light was an entity - alive, all around them, shifting and changing and wanting. 

“Farrah,” Maggie called, the hairs on her arms starting to stand. She’d only been a bit ahead of them, but somehow Maggie was having a hard time seeing her friend. Econ Guy put his arm around Maggie’s shoulders protectively, glancing around them.

But there was nothing to see except darkness that felt darker.

“What in the fuck?” he muttered, and then two things happened so quickly that to Maggie’s human eyes, it seemed to be at once: a bit of darkness moved much too fast just in front of her, and Farrah’s body slumped to the ground.

“Farrah!” Maggie screamed, her breath caught in her throat. She started towards her friend’s motionless body, but she was tugged back. Econ Guy was pointing at Farrah’s body, his mouth moving like he was trying to make a word, but couldn’t. Maggie looked again, closer. 

The darkness that had moved was bent over Farrah’s body, obscuring their view of her shoulder and face. Maggie’s heart beat so hard in her chest that it hurt, and a tingling she associated with panic started in her fingertips as her body pleaded with her to run.

“What is it?” Maggie whispered in horror. Beside her, Econ Guy made a choked sound and took a step backwards, his arm falling away from her, all pretenses of toughness vanishing. 

At the sound of her hushed question, it looked at them, head snapping up, the motion sharp and jerky. Then, it clambered to its feet, stepping over Farrah’s body and staggering towards them. As it approached, Maggie could see it - him - for the first time.

He was undeniably beautiful - or would have been, if it weren’t for the blood, black like ink in this light, running in rivulets from his mouth down to his chin. Could have been, if not for the inhuman growls and snarls that rippled from his chest like the start of an antique lawn mower, if not for the way his eyes were glossy black, no pupils or irises visible at all. Could have been, if not for the inhumanly long incisors ending below his curled upper lip.

“Infracti,” Maggie said hollowly. 

Beside her, Econ Guy found his voice again. “Hey,” he said sternly. “You can’t hunt here. It’s against the law.”

The Infracti stalked closer, unblinking, then stopped a few feet before them. Its upper lip was curled in what looked like disgust, displaying its most fearsome weapons clearly. Maggie’s entire body shook and she dropped to the ground, her legs refusing to hold her up - let alone to run. 

Not that she could outrun an Infracti. 

The beast looked at them evenly, then stuck out its tongue and languidly - as if putting on a show - licked its lips, sucking a few more drops of Farrah’s blood into its mouth. Maggie didn’t see the monster move, but suddenly Econ Guy was screaming, arms flailing as he tried and failed to shove the Infracti away from his body. The Infracti’s long fingers gripped his upper arms tightly, holding Econ Guy in place, its frightening face buried in the crook of his neck. 

The scream fizzled to a sob. The Infracti opened its hands - fingers splayed purposefully as it emptied them - and its victim’s body hit the pavement. The sound - a round, weighty thud - echoed through Maggie’s head as the Infracti turned to face her. Its all-black eyes seemed calculating, in their own way. Still on the ground, Maggie was almost face to face with Econ Guy’s corpse. His eyes were still wide and frightened, though unseeing. 

The Infracti stepped closer to her, gently, carefully, and then it crouched down, swirling black eyes meeting hers. The growls subsided, and Maggie thought wildly that it looked almost thoughtful. Her heart wasn’t beating anymore as much as vibrating. Her breaths were so shallow they barely counted, and the night swam around her. 

When Maggie was seven, her grandmother was mugged while they were walking together. In the moment, her grandmother had tossed her purse into the street, and grabbed Maggie’s hand to run when the thief lunged for the bag. When Maggie asked about it later, in that way that kids do, her grandmother had explained to her, “He wasn’t interested in you or me. He was interested in my money. I gave him what he wanted, so he left me alone.”

Now, eye to eye with a beast straight out of her nightmares, Maggie saw her grandmother’s face, heard her sweet voice. I gave him what he wanted, so he left me alone. Tentatively, she held out her wrist, veins up. The beast moved like liquid again, a shifting of darkness, until he was closer to her, her wrist clutched tight in his cool grasp. Then, gently, as if he were a gentleman kissing the back of her hand in greeting, he brought her wrist to his lips and let his fangs pierce the flesh.

Taehyung wakes to a shout; he becomes aware of the pain before anything else. His head throbs, his throat feels like there’s glass in it, his shoulders and back ache like he’s carried marble slabs all night. 

It’s a uniquely human curse to question, and Taehyung isn’t human, but he immediately tries to figure out why he hurts from head to toe. Especially since he hasn’t hurt in several centuries. 

He shoots a quick glance around to see what he can figure out without moving. Right away it’s clear that he is not in bed. He is on the floor, the stone cool beneath his palms. A servant is crouched near him, repeating his name but smart enough not to touch him.

He can tell, as his blurry vision clears bit by bit, that he’s definitely in the palace proper, though not in a wing he frequents. The floor beneath him is just stone - no marble, no thick carpeting - which indicates he’s not in a living-quarters wing. The walls, however, hang with vibrant tapestries and oil portraits, gilded sconces lighting the way every few feet. Most definitely still the palace.

“Why am I here?” he manages to croak.

The servant turns over his shoulder and shouts to someone, “Alert the King!”

This is the first moment that Taehyung feels alarm atop the pain. He struggles to sit up, takes stock of his surroundings. The same servant still hovers near, face pinched with something akin to fear. 

How did I end up on the floor? 

Not only that - he isn’t even entirely sure where in the sprawling palace he is.

When he hears approaching footsteps and recognizes the sharp, staccato clicks and clacks, he almost sags back to the floor in relief. Instead, he pushes himself to standing, a wave of dizziness sweeping over him and then ebbing just in time for him to incline his head and intone, “Mother.”

Despite the centuries that have passed since Taehyung was small, something affectionate and maternal remains in the Queen. She presses cool palms to Taehyung’s cheeks and looks him up and down. She winces at something she sees. “Darling,” she says, the word lilting in the strange accent she has, one that belongs to a language long-dead. “What were you thinking?”

It takes Taehyung a moment to articulate a response. He’s frightened - something quite new to him - and he isn’t sure the correct move to make in this situation. The fear toys with logic, makes the answer slippery, hard to grasp.

He settles on the truth. “I don’t know what happened,” he says. “I mean - I can’t remember. I don’t know how I got here.”

He doesn’t ask, did something happen. It’s obvious that something did. 

He hears his father, Sunjae of Rune, King of Infracticus, long before he enters the room, his authoritative voice barking questions and orders.

“How far has word spread?”

“There was only one witness. She’s in custody.”

“Handle her and send her back,” the King snaps. “As quickly as possible. Where is my son?”

This last question is roared as he finally enters the high-ceilinged corridor where his wife and son stand.

“I’m here,” Taehyung says, needlessly. 

The King sizes him up, eyes narrowed, chest puffed. “What do you have to say for yourself?” he spits finally. 

Taehyung clears his throat and then ventures, “For starters… I’d really like to know what happened.”

The King’s face slides from fury to something befuddled, his hands sinking to his sides like sails in the absence of wind.

–

Taehyung’s father leads them back to their private wing and closes them into a dimly lit room that houses floor to ceiling bookshelves full of tomes so old they’d crumble to dust if you dared to touch them. A fire roars in the hearth for aesthetics only - Taehyung’s kind can’t feel cold. 

He locks the door and turns to face them. Taehyung’s mother has sunk delicately onto a fainting couch, and she watches her son sharply. 

Taehyung feels itchy under her gaze. She’s the smartest of the three of them, and Taehyung knows it even if his father doesn’t.

“You’re telling me,” the King growls, low, “that you don’t remember any of it?”

“I was in my wing,” Taehyung promises. “Sometime near midnight. That’s the last thing I remember, until I woke up on the floor in a random hallway -”

The King and Queen exchange a look, an entire conversation in just a glance. Then, the King heaves a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. 

Then, the Queen ventures, “The Elders should see him.”

The King grumbles something under his breath.

She tries again. “He could be ill. He could be going mad. We need to know!”

“Will someone please tell me what’s happened?” Taehyung bursts out, finally unable to take it - the anxiety, the questions, the conversation about him but not involving him, all of it.

“You went rogue,” the King says dryly, his eyes on the dancing fire instead of his son.

Taehyung feels his stomach drop. “Meaning?”

“Exactly what he said,” the Queen says, something steely in her tone. “You went above, alone, and… hunted.”

Taehyung feels his legs turn to stone. His stomach twists and a wave of nausea rocks him. “I what?” he asks, but it comes out like a gasp. The sides of the room are starting to go black and he breathes slowly, one hand gripping the back of the couch.

Silence expands, filling the room. Taehyung’s stomach lurches, and he closes his eyes.

“Did… did I -?”

“You took two humans and left a third alive. We have teams cleaning up, up there, and we’ve got the spare here -”

Took two humans.

The spare.

Taehyung’s stomach twists again. The black creeping at the edge of his vision draws closer to the center. Taehyung loses sight of his father’s face in the encroaching darkness. 

“Darling, we’ve covered up incidents like this countless times. No one will know. We’ll make sure.” The Queen’s voice is soothing, bringing to Taehyung’s mind all the times when he was a child when she would hurry to calm him.

Taehyung shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m concerned about.”

“You didn’t know you were doing it,” the King muses - his next problem to solve, not a placation to reassure his guilt-stricken son. “We must uncover the cause.”

“The Elders,” the Queen says again, insistently. “At least let them give him a medical once-over.”

The King sighs in defeat. “I suppose we have no choice. Wait in your rooms, Taehyung. I’ll summon the Elders at once. The sooner we find out what came over you, the better.”

—

Taehyung is in his wing when Jimin comes – uncalled, unbidden, simply as if he sensed his best friend’s distress. And perhaps he had – the Infracti have shown stranger powers before.

“I heard you had a bit of an adventure,” he says carelessly, flopping sideways along Taehyung’s favorite leather couch, feet propped on the armrest, as he has millions of times over hundreds of years.

“News travels fast,” Taehyung says bitterly.

Jimin smiles indulgently, used to his moody friend. “Not so. But they called on Seokjin to help wipe the memory of the girl who survived before they sent her back.”

Taehyung blanches. “That’s illegal.”

Jimin gives him a dirty look and a scoff to accompany it. “Please,” he says dismissively. “You can’t be that naïve, not in your position.”

The Queen’s words run back through Taehyung’s mind. We’ve covered up incidents like this countless times.

He sulks. “They shouldn’t be breaking treaty laws over me,” he grumbles.

Jimin lets out a sigh. “If rules can be bent for anyone, shouldn’t they be for you? Besides…” He sits up, looks at Taehyung more seriously. “It’s not like one of us went up there willingly, like… on purpose. If someone decided to just fuck the protection laws and go hunting, I’d obviously object to a cover-up. But that isn’t the case here. Something happened to you. They’re not covering up a crime, they’re recovering from an accident.”

An accident. He’d killed two innocent people. Nearly killed a third.

Taehyung drops onto a chair near Jimin’s feet, covering his face with his hands. “Truly,” he says hollowly, the words muffled by his palms, “I have never in over six hundred years felt this deeply guilty about something. Jimin, I killed people. Me. I did that.”

It’s an understatement. There aren’t words – not in any language, dead or alive – to describe the deep, crawling self-hatred Taehyung feels. There’s no phrase for the twist and ache in his stomach when he pictures the scene above-ground – bodies limp on the ground, the echo of screams from the survivor floating away into the uncaring night, blood thick and metallic on his tongue, a wild flash in his eyes.

Jimin shakes his head, lips protruding in a pronounced pout. “It wasn’t you. We all know that.”

“Those people are dead and the fault is only my own,” Taehyung says firmly.

“You weren’t yourself,” Jimin insists. “What did the Elders say?”

The Elders are terrifying, is Taehyung’s take-away. His own father is thousands of years old, and looks like a child in comparison. Infracti are not immortal; rather, under the right circumstances - and often with the help of the magic they can control - they can live for tens of thousands of years. The oldest Infracti that Taehyung knows - not counting the Elders, as he doesn’t know them - is around thirty thousand years old, and weaker every day. The Elders, whose ages Taehyung doesn’t actually know, seem so fragile they might be made of dust, particles held together by magic and force of will. He’d showered three times after leaving them just to get the icky shudders to stop.

“That I’m not ill and I’m not mad,” Taehyung recites dryly, finally removing his hands from his face.

“Which leaves what possibilities?” Jimin asks with a frown.

Taehyung shrugs. “They’re meeting about it right now. I’ve been told to stay in my own wing.”

Jimin squawks. “For how long?”

“Until they’re sure it won’t happen again, I suppose,” Taehyung guesses with a small shrug. “Or until they’ve come up with an answer.”

“Lovely,” Jimin quips sarcastically, and moves to rise. “Well, I’ll check in on you later this evening. I’m sure you’ll be bored, cooped up in here.”

“I’d rather be bored than -”

“I know.” Something new creeps into Jimin’s voice – some kindness, some understanding. “It wasn’t your fault, Taehyung. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

Taehyung gives him a nod and sees him out, his stomach twisting and roiling. Only one of those things, he knows, is true.

Sunlight and fresh air assault you as you make your way slowly down the city block, the messenger bag around your body laden with thick books and hastily scribbled notes. The ache in your shoulder from carrying it has been part of your existence for so long that you barely notice it anymore.

You pass a bank and glance at the screen displaying today’s date and temperature, followed by the time. It indicates that you’ve somehow ended up here between buses. You’ll have to wait a bit for the next one.

At least it’s nice out, you think, and settle onto a bench just across from your bus stop. It backs up to a park, and you watch as people bustle by, most of them glued to their phone screens or carrying on conversations into their earpods. In the park, a group of kids is playing loudly, shouts and shrieks rising towards the cloudless blue sky.

“Songie’s team, you’re the Runes!” someone shouts, and it grabs your attention. You smile, watching them gather and form groups.

“It’s not Runes,” someone corrects snottily. “It’s Ruins.”

Actually, you think, hiding a little smile, the proper pronunciation of the powerful Infraci family falls somewhere between the two words. 

The ancient language of Infracticus has phonics that most modern people struggle with. As a result, there tends to be two schools of thought regarding pronunciation. Commonly, the families are called the Runes, the Cleaves, and the Scores. At the university that you’d attended, at which you now work, they’d taught you Ruins, Leaves, and Scorns.

But it’s all the same, really.

You watch the game for some time. It’s a lot like freeze tag, and you remember playing it in the schoolyard as a kid. Teams – one Runes and one Scores – try to cross a field past each other without getting tagged and frozen. Teams had elected members called Cleaves, who were the only players who could unfreeze another.

It’s funny, you’ve always thought, how the actual history of the three Infracti families translated into the rules of the children’s game. To be historically accurate, it should have been three teams – Cleaves wouldn’t be members of Runes or Scores but their own faction altogether.

However, you do wonder if their ability to unfreeze players is derived from the Cleaves’ ability to heal, something the other two bloodlines have never possessed.

And is it coincidence that the game became the Runes versus the Scores, when those two families had a particularly ugly blood feud, millennia ago? 

All three families have vied for power at one point or another – most known history of the Infacti includes this never-ending power struggle. But the Runes have managed to hold court since the time the protection laws were passed, the ones that both protect humans from being hunted and bans those same humans from doing the hunting. The ones that decree quarterly blood donations from every adult human to ensure there’s never a shortage that could lead to hunting. The ones that declare the monarchy follows only the Runes’ royal bloodline.

Hunting - both of and by Infracti - still happens, of course. There’s no such thing as utopia. But at least now there are consequences when an Infracti attacks a human, and consequences when humans turn to violence to drive Infracti out of their communities.

Questions like this, constant curiosity about the Infracti culture and history, had carried you through dual degrees studying the history and sociology of the Infracti. Now, after nearly a decade of your adult years spent in academics, you tote multiple degrees, including extensive experience with both curses and counter-curses.

Your family hates it - never understood it. Your mother has called it an obsession time and time again. But neither she nor your father can argue with the career opportunities in academia that you’ve been afforded, now that you’re full-time staff at the university.

And they don’t even know about the other opportunities that keep falling at your feet: more and more curse-breaking cases as the years pass. The more your reputation and success rate grow, the more your name seems to be passed around. You think your mother would faint on the spot if she knew that only two months ago your team had flown into deep Brazilian jungle and helped them to cast the counter-curse that freed an entire village from unending rain. 

When the bus finally pulls in, bringing with it a warm breeze and the smell of gasoline, you rise, hefting your bag higher on your shoulder and searching for a seat. It’s about twenty minutes to campus unless you catch an Express – and you have no such luck today.

Your phone rings in your pocket as you sit, and you shift in your seat until you can slide it free. Your boss’s name floats across the top of the screen and you answer it quickly. 

“Are you on campus yet?” he asks in lieu of hello. Dr. Kim - the department head at the university where you teach - is nearing seventy, but he’s the leading curse-breaker on the eastern coast and you find it unlikely that he’ll slow down anytime soon. He was one of your first professors when you showed up here as a bright-eyed undergrad, years ago.

“Twenty minutes out,” you report. “I’m on the bus.”

“Come directly to my office,” he requests, but you can hear the urgency dancing in his tone. You know what this means: he’s been contacted about a curse. 

“I have a class at ten thirty,” you warn him. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

“It won’t take long,” he promises, and you agree to stop by before ending the call and turning your attention back to the bus window. 

It’s somehow chillier when the bus drops you on campus, cloud cover removing the warmth of the sun as you hustle down one of the paved walkways towards the academic buildings, dodging students standing in groups talking, others riding bicycles and the rare electric scooter. 

You hurry into the building that houses most of the staff offices, bypassing the corridors the students frequent and taking the narrow back staircase that leads to Dr. Kim’s office.

He’s waiting for you, door open, a spread of papers on his desk. 

You greet him with a smile, dropping your heavy bag by his door as you have hundreds of times in your professional history. Dr. Kim was one of your first undergrad professors, years ago, and you’ve worked closely with him in all the years since: first, as a TA for his tougher classes, then co-teaching when the university took you on, and finally joining his team of curse-breakers, rapidly bypassing several team members who had more seniority but less knack. 

“We got a call?” you guess, drawing closer to the papers and peering at them for clues. That’s when you notice the young man already seated in one of the two chairs across from Dr. Kim’s desk. Embarrassed, you hurry to nod hello to him, murmuring an apology. He has dark hair, sculpted cheekbones, razor-sharp eyes, and - you notice when he smiles in greeting - a deep dimple on each side.

The expression on Dr. Kim’s face is a little strange - almost like he’s nervous to give you the news. You can’t imagine what might be giving him pause, considering your last meeting like this had landed you both in a literal rainforest. Could he have gotten a request for the team to go somewhere even more remote than that?

“We did,” he allows with a tight little nod. “It’s… a bit unorthodox, though. I’d like you to consider the situation carefully.”

You feel yourself frown. “What is it?”

He sighs, then nods towards his door. “Will you close that, please?”

You reach behind you and gently press the wooden door shut, feeling flutters of uncertainty for the first time in your career. The stranger shifts in his chair uneasily.

“Perhaps you should sit,” Dr. Kim suggests, holding a hand towards the empty chair opposite his desk. 

This isn’t how these meetings go. You’ve done this a dozen times or more - usually as soon as Dr. Kim can see your face he starts chattering excitedly about the details: who’s been cursed, what the effects are, the specifics of the location, the bits of travel itinerary he’s already worked out. 

You sit hesitantly, hands gripping the arms of the chair nervously. You try hard not to glance sideways at the man you don’t know. 

“Well?” you prompt, when Dr. Kim still doesn’t speak.

“This is Namjoon,” Dr. Kim says, belatedly realizing he hasn’t introduced you. “His degrees all focus on curses. A comparable background to yours, academically.”

“That’s not true,” Namjoon says, holding up a hand. “I didn’t study Infracticus. My magical knowledge is focused solely on curses and curse-breaking.”

Dr. Kim makes a noise like he doesn’t quite agree with this. “Anyway,” he says to you, “I personally asked Namjoon to make the trip and hear the request. I think he’ll be invaluable in picking this one apart.”

“Okay,” you agree easily. You trust Dr. Kim with your life - literally - and if he thinks someone will be an asset to the team, you’d never argue with that. You turn sideways just a bit and murmur an it’s nice to meet you before turning your attention back to your (normally) fearless leader. “So what are we in for?”

He sighs and runs a hand down his face, almost as if he’s unsure if he should tell you or not. “You need to know right from the start how very dangerous this could be,” he says, looking back and forth between the two of you, his voice more grave than you’ve ever heard it. 

“Because of the magic involved?” you ask. Curse-breaking is always dangerous, that’s the very nature of it. You always run the risk of making a fatal mistake; you could turn the curse back on yourself, or strengthen it, or simply end up creating side-effects you hadn’t intended. He’s never given you this warning before.

He shakes his head. “Not necessarily. Not more so than any other. It’s… well, my dear, it will involve a stay in Infracticus.”

You’re shocked into silence. You can’t help but meet Namjoon’s eyes, sideways, and find him looking just as surprised as you. You utter, quietly, “What?” even though you heard and understood him perfectly well. It’s more than you need help processing, facing the reality of the words. “An Infracti has been cursed?”

He shakes his head, though the answer isn’t no. “Not just any Infracti,” he corrects. “The Prince of Ruin.”

Your jaw literally drops. “Someone cursed the crown prince?” you gasp in disbelief. “Who would dare?”

“The Scorns, I imagine,” Namjoon murmurs, almost to himself.

Dr. Kim gives you two a wan smile. “Luckily, we aren’t tasked with solving that. Just finding and casting the counter-curse.”

You sit back in your chair in a daze, blinking slowly, cogs in your mind whirring fast. “Okay,” you say finally. “We’d be protected, though, right? They’re inviting the team, so they’d make sure we were safe?”

Dr. Kim seems to look far-away for a moment, contemplating his answer. You shift nervously, glancing sideways at Namjoon. You would have been reassured by a quick answer - the fact that he needs to formulate a response does nothing to quell your unease. 

“I trust we are being invited there for the reasons they say,” he allows. “And so, I do believe the royal family will want us to be safe, yes. But the fact still remains that we will be humans walking around Infracticus. I’m sure we will be given guards - the question becomes, can we trust those guards completely? I fear I cannot say for sure.”

“It’s like walking into the lions’ den,” Namjoon murmurs beside you.

“Quite,” Dr. Kim agrees, nodding. 

“Except there’s an injured lion and only we can fix it,” you point out. 

“We can’t rely on that to ensure our safety,” Dr. Kim says, frowning more deeply. “It’s a delicate situation. The royal family cannot let it get out that the prince’s well-being has been… compromised.”

Namjoon frowns in confusion. “Why not?”

You think you understand. You venture, “To admit weakness, to admit to having been successfully attacked, to admit that the crown prince is cursed - it would be an open invitation for rebellion.”

“Yes,” Dr. Kim confirms, inclining his head, his white tufts of hair moving breezily. “The Infracti respect the laws that are currently in place, but the crown prince is the last member of the Ruin bloodline. If he were to die, or to be unfit to lead…”

“There’s nothing in the laws about who would rule next,” you finish for him, eyes wide. “It would be…”

“A war for the throne, I imagine.”

You sit in silence for a moment under the weight of this. Then, Namjoon says carefully, “I’m sorry, but can we circle back? The prince’s curse has to be secret, I got that - but how does that affect the safety of our team?”

“We’ll be hosted in the palace as honored guests,” Dr. Kim tells you both. “But no one beyond the royal family will know why. They don’t know that if they slipped up and harmed us, it would harm the prince, too. We can’t assume our purpose will serve as protection. Any Infracti beyond the royal family should be considered a threat.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh, turning to face Namjoon. He looks just as bamboozled as you feel, validating your reaction. 

“This is wild,” you utter, mostly to yourself. “This is absolutely bonkers.”

“This is why I said you need to consider carefully,” Dr. Kim insists. “There is much at stake. You’re in danger every moment you’re down there, even with the promised protection. The curse itself must be complicated, or they’d have solved it themselves. If your reason for being there is uncovered due to a fault of our own, we’ll be facing the wrath of the royal family. And I… I’m afraid I won't be able to join you.”

“What? No - you have to,” you blurt, panicked. “I can’t do it without you - you’ve decades of experience over me - I’ve never led a case before!”

“They don’t want me,” he tries to explain. “They don’t want any possibility that someone will figure out who I am and put the pieces together. A simple inquiry of my name blows the whole thing - the first thing they’d find is curse-breaker. As I said - the secrecy of the prince’s condition is vital.”

You scoff. “So they want me because I’m nobody.”

He looks at you kindly, used to your moods. “They want you because you have a high success rate. Your ability to stay… lowkey, as the kids say -”

Namjoon makes a choked sound like he’s fighting a laugh.

“- you should see it as an asset.”

“I don’t want to go without you,” you say, because it’s true. Because it feels safer to have someone older, wiser, with more experience. Because it feels like less responsibility to not be the person in charge. Because it’s what you’re used to, and you cling to the familiar. 

He shakes his head sadly. “The royal family will not allow it. I’m sorry.”

You lapse into silence again. 

Namjoon speaks slowly, as if a new thought is dawning on him, and he doesn’t like it. “If they suspect the Scorns…” 

Your stomach sinks. 

Dr. Kim nods. “I imagine you may see the beginnings of some political unrest if an accusation is made.”

“Forget the accusation,” Namjoon says hollowly. “If we uncover that it was a Scorn attack… we’ll be walking into Infracti civil war.”

“Will it be that bad?” you ask, frowning, pulse quickening. 

Namjoon shrugs. “The Ruins and the Scorns would each love a reason to point the finger at the other. If we do happen across the cause of the curse as we try to break it… it’s likely there will be political ramifications.”

“God,” you mutter. 

“As I said,” Dr. Kim repeats. “I won’t accept an answer today. I want you both to sleep on it. Discuss with your families.” (You snort at this. As if you ever would.) “Talk to me tomorrow about how you’re feeling.”

He dismisses you then, shepherding you both towards his door, leaving it open now that you’re done discussing the equivalent of vampire state secrets. 

Halfway down the stairs, Namjoon calls your name. Ahead of him, you pause, turn, and let him catch up to you. 

“Can we exchange information?” he asks, digging in his wallet. He finally hands you a business card, and you do the same, hoping you have one tucked behind a credit card or something. 

“I’d like to talk to you about this, later, if you have time,” he says, a bit sheepishly. “I’m… not feeling very sure about it.”

“Okay,” you say easily, glancing at the time - you’ve got seven minutes to get across campus to teach your first class. “Do you want to grab a bite later? Your number’s on here?” You wiggle the business card, and he nods. “I’ll text you,” you promise, and start down the steps again, mind racing.

Next ->

thank you for reading! i hope you liked this first installment! chapter 2 will go up next friday!!! <3

#bts x reader #bts fanfic #bts fic #bts supernatural au #bts royal au #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fic #taehyung x reader #taehyung smut #taehyung angst #taehyung x you #taehyung x y/n #kim taehyung fic #kim taehyung fanfic #kim taehyung smut #kim taehyung angst #supernatural au #royal au #s2l #magic au #fic: of ruin

[wolfythewitch]

Tell us about the AU!!! I'm so curious please tell us

OKAY SO

Idk how to word this it's still very disorganized in my head lmao this'll be a bit long

But essentially the story starts with Techno showing up at Phil's door, and young boy, his brother, hiding behind his knees. He's barely holding it together, fists clenched as if it can keep his magic from bursting, from hurting everyone around him. He begs Phil, the former royal wizard/sorcerer/idk, for help. To teach him. Phil, a tired hermit with a head full of unnaturally white hair and wrappings covering up his wrists to his elbows, says no. But he lets the stay the night, and he helps calm Techno down.

By the end of the week, they never leave, and Phil agrees to help him. He's always been too weak for his own good. ("I can never say no to you", he murmurs, and Techno knows it was not for his ears). So Phil helps guide Techno the best he can, to channel his magic like lightning in a bottle, like dew dripping down a leafstalk. He never uses his own magic. Techno sometimes tries to ask, but Phil only smiles and dodges the question. Tommy is left to wander on these days, and Phil had always told him that his bedroom was off limits, but seven year olds can be bored to the point of disobedience, and Tommy was no different. In his room, he finds an old, broken mirror, and a singular gem embedded into its handle. When he turns the mirror and the sunlight shifts, a face stares back at him, older and sharper, with wispy brown hair and the bluest eyes Tommy has ever seen. (Hello, the mirror murmurs, I'm Wilbur. Tommy almost drops it.)

Because the story really starts a decade prior, when Phil still lived within the palace walls, when he takes in an apprentice with magic too powerful to handle. Be it hubris or denial, Phil promises to help his apprentice, Wilbur, control his magic. In the end, he fails. In the end, his magic grows so strong and unstable, a lit bomb that threatens to level the kingdom, that he begs Phil to seal it away, and stop him. ("I can't say no to you.") But a sorcerer's magic is their soul, and by sealing it away, you seal them to the same fate. So Phil locks Wilbur's magic away into a hand mirror, the closest object available at the time. The strain of the spell puts him in a month-long sleep, takes away his magic, and bleaches his hair a snowy white. When he wakes up, he takes the mirror, and he steals away into the edges of the kingdom, where he lives alone. Lived alone. Because now he has company, he has Techno and Tommy, and he doesn't want to fail them again. But Tommy befriends the strange man in the mirror, (who hides away when Phil comes close) and so he visits more often. He'll take the mirror in his pudgy hands and ask Wilbur about his day, ask about what limbo was like, ask if he ever missed the sun. And Wilbur does, but not enough to want to break free.

One day, the gem in the mirror breaks. It's an accident. Tommy was talking again with his new friend when Phil bursts into his room, eyes wide with anger and fear. And Tommy loses hold of the mirror, and it falls to the ground, a muffled yell sounding from the reflection. And Wilbur is back.

And his magic returns to him like fire to gasoline. It's agony. He's seeing light after being in the dark for so long, and it's searing. For the first time in years, Phil uses his magic to keep himself and Tommy from burning up into ashes. Techno rushes in and finds Phil holding a terrified but unscathed Tommy in his arms, skin blistering with heat as his own magic burns him inside out. Wilbur is a screaming inferno of his own, magic pulsing in and out of him like a storm. Techno tells Phil to take Tommy and run, and he fights Wilbur, keeps him occupied until dusk turns to dawn, until Wilbur's magic dies down enough for the both of them to breathe. When Wilbur can finally speak, he mutters two words. "I'm sorry." And he runs away, a trail of scorched footprints at his heel.

Phil is a little worse for wear, half conscious in the garden with Tommy standing guard beside him, armed with a stick. They treat his burns and coaches the story out of him. No one knows what to do, not really. Techno can't fight him forever. Phil can't even use his magic without killing himself in the long run. It's Tommy who suggests it, to take part of Wilbur's magic and seal it away, or turn it into something.

It isn't that hard to find Wilbur, what with the glowing lights and the hurricane that surrounds him. What's hard was to get him to listen, the young man so very much in pain that it consumed him, his eyes alight with agony that glowed. (Help me, he breathes, please.) Tommy talks to him, calms him, tells him stories about his hometown and about the cow that he loved to ride on. Phil takes both of his hands, staunchly ignoring how his own hands start to burn and blister. He instructs Techno on what to do, tells Tommy to keep on talking, tells Wilbur to look at him, to breathe, to trust him. He uses himself like a channel, because while he can't really use his magic anymore, it doesn't stop him from being able to host another's. With Techno and Wilbur's magic flowing in him, like twin flames, he guides them from his fingers and they pour out like streams of light, like wisps of smoke, and slowly take shape, taking the form of a blue wooled sheep. (The bluest wool Tommy has ever seen.) It blinks awake, eyes sparkling with stardust, and nuzzles Wilbur's hand. And the winds come to a gentle rest, and Wilbur sags against Phil, his body too tired to do anything but fall limp. And Phil isn't really much better, limbs like lead by his waist. Tommy curls up beside him and Techno soon joins them. Wilbur runs a hand through the sheep's wool, soft like a cloud. "His name's Friend," Wilbur decides, eyes slipping shut, "after you lot."

Fambly :D

#wolfy tedtalks #anon #magic au #lightning in a bottle au

[nameissmile]

Official reference sheets!

Additional notes and a transcript under the cut!

Leo „Goblin“ Tamaro

- bog turtle, he/him, 13

- likes fish (special interest)

- loves Magic and wizardry in general! Wants to become a arcane biologist (discovering and studying all sorts of magical creatures, and documenting them)

- year five of wizard school, in beginner courses

- doesn’t like change all too much

- thinks aquariums are the best (they are)

- uses a wand to cast his spells (ninpo) because it’s safer for beginners to channel their magic through a conduit to reduce chance of pain to the user

- Color is a dark blue, similar to a deep ocean color

(Side Note, i don’t have a lot for Leo yet and I feel really bad about it :()

Raph „princess“ Tamaro

- painted turtle, she/her, 16 and younger twin to Donnie

-mean transfer and she thinks gender is stupid

- bisexual

- witch, loud AND proud

- year 11 of magic school, in a spells course and working on getting her certificates to use magical equipment, the only one with a magic broom license and uses it to her advantage

- has and uses a magic broom to get everywhere she can reasonably use it, her Ninpo is related to the summoning of magic fire familiars (I’ll explain at a later date)

- although she can be mean and sarcastic at times, she is a caring older sister to all of her family

- she’s also a gamer, enjoys run and guns and has the best style, bows are her favorite

- hot pink is her color

Donnie „Stinker“ Tamaro

- snake-necked turtle, they/them but won’t bother to correct you, 16 older twin of Raph

- high as Balls all the time

- saw the face of Jod and laughed (refuses to call Jod anything other than Jod)

- potions MASTER, and year 11 of Cantoro Magicks academy (name is subject to change)

- asexual, but is cool with holding hands, only has 2 - 3 good friends

- A U T I S M

- worst taste in clothing by far

- makes their own potion bottles, and has a small bag they made themselves to store said potions

- gender-fluid

Mikey „Gramps“ Tamaro

- Coahulian box turtle, he/him, pan, 17 (tax payer)

- likes reading and wrestling, thinks ninjas are the best

- was never good at magic (ninpo), ended up being super good at magic tech though (ended up becoming the tech guy of the family as a result)

- year 12, in a magic tech course for learning how to handle/make magical equipment

- very serious about his ninja training, and keeps himself in shape by exercising (his fav is swimming around, because he can bask in the lamp right after and it feels SO good) ((also gives him a salt-dried look, and a white shell from the salt))

- likely the fastest or most agile of all of them

#art #my art #smiles doodles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt au #sorta #it’s more of a worldbuilding expansion into the mystic side of things #anyways #the extracurriculars #Mikey tmnt #Donnie tmnt #raph tmnt #Leo tmnt #tmnt au #magic au #kinda #again it’s more of an expansion or extension #rottmnt #long post #art reference #character reference #(s)

[dpfantasyzine]

Here is the link to the Free PDF

Order information is on the last page of the pdf~

#happy april fools day #unreality #danny phantom #fantasy au #magic au #fanfiction #fanart #fandom zine #phandom #dp fantasy zine #danny phantom au #let’s make danny magical